The cast of ‘Six’ playing their closing number in London. Image by Tim Sandle
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, have so far been associated foremost with digital art. However, there are other areas to which the NFT concept is being extended and one example is with music provision.
In particular, NFTs have the potential to help to encourage people to stream new music to scale. While some artists have experimented with NFTs, these have not been widely received or acknowledged by the general public. This is perhaps because the models seen to date do not compare well with established services like Spotify and Apple Music.
Changes are afoot. For example, Snoop Dogg has announced that his Death Row Records will become the first NFT label. It is possible, Pitchfork speculates, that NFTs will become a normalized way of releasing music, perhaps no different from uploading your songs to Spotify or selling a record on Bandcamp.
In terms of a change of approach, YellowHeart’s NFT music streaming player is designed to eliminate one of the biggest barriers to entry in Web3 music. The approach represents a further evolution of the digital music space.
By releasing an NFT music streaming player, YellowHeart is levelling up the playing field. Through this, for the first time music fans can stream all of their NFT music in a single player, rather than opening separate songs within an app.
In addition, YellowHeart’s marketplace enables artists to share regular updates with fans about upcoming tour dates, new music releases, giveaway opportunities, and much more. All of these benefits can be coupled with NFT music and delivered to fans with a single click.
In addition, artists will also be able to continue to hook fans up with all of the other benefits programmed into NFT music that are not available on direct streaming players (such as concert tickets, vinyl records, merch).
YellowHeart released the first-ever NFT album and tickets with Kings of Leon in early 2021. Since then, the company has worked with Maroon 5, Julian Lennon, ZHU, Jerry Garcia, Tao Group Hospitality (Kaskade, Nicky Romero, among other shows); plus events like The Surf Lodge (where Bob Moses and Elderbrook content is available.)
One of the biggest drivers of NFT music for both artists and fans has been the fact that it puts the majority of revenue back in the hands of artists. This is in contrast to established streaming platforms that only give artists an average of .003 – .005 cents per stream. The YellowHeart NFT model makes it possible for artists to continue to earn a fair profit for their work.
This approach provides the steppingstone for making NFT content easily digestible for fans using a Web3-friendly streaming player.
In tune with other digital startups, YellowHeart accepts both crypto and credit card payments, powered by distributed ledger technology.