In recent years, the music streaming landscape has continued to change dramatically. With the proliferation of Web3 music bringing new interest to the potential of blockchain technology, Web3 services and platforms have felt the need to evolve – and fast. Yet no one seems to have gone as far as Sound to convey the promise of tokenized music to artists and fans alike.
Since its launch in 2022, Sound (often referred to as Sound.xyz) has existed primarily as a closed, curated platform (generating $5.5 million in revenue for a select group of creators) and is now transforming to make Web3 music more interactive and accessible to make. On July 12, the platform announced that it will open to the public, with its unique selection of tools that allow artists to sell their music directly to fans that are now available to everyone.
Sound for everyone
This latest move fully showcases Sound’s fundamental premise of realigning the power dynamics within the music industry and bringing hand control back to artists. Reportedly inspired by the success of the gaming industry, Sound’s desire to emulate a user-centric model, allowing musicians to set their prices and maximize revenue per fan, comes in service of the platform’s mission to helping artists bypass traditional revenue models dictated by platforms and labels.
“Sound is built for artists and we designed every part of the platform to reflect that,” Sound co-founder and CEO David Groenstein said in an interview with nft now. “Releasing to sound is a complementary distribution strategy and many artists have also uploaded to other DSPs. Artists can easily upload and on-chain their music, and their fans can provide support without a Web3 experience using just their email and credit card.”
Thanks in particular to Sound’s unique NFT-focused approach, its artists have already generated revenue equivalent to 1.6 billion streams – a feat fewer than 100 songs have ever achieved on Spotify and an achievement that never achieved on Apple Music. Yet the company’s mission goes beyond making money from music; the platform aspires to become the Internet’s destination for music discovery.
To make this happen, Sound has raised $20 million in a Series A round led by a16z crypto, with the participation of a host of high-profile contributors such as Snoop Dogg, Ryan Tedder, and Tay Keith.
With the traditional streaming economy conspicuously failing most artists, Sound promises a system where artists receive 100 percent of revenue and retain 100 percent of master and publishing rights. Earnings are directly and transparently deposited directly into an artist’s wallet, marking a marked departure from the traditional music industry, where it can often take years for royalties to hit an artist’s account.
Champions of the platform to date include Daniel Allan, San Holo and Reo Cragun, which managed to generate over $300,000 within a year and build a community of over 500 dedicated collectors. As the Sound platform enters an era of enhanced democratization, its tools — once limited to a small number of artists — are available to everyone, with the promise of a simple and code-free process to release music NFTs.
“Sound was always meant to be accessible to all artists, but we launched with a curated approach so we could individually onboard each artist and experiment quickly within a controlled environment,” said Greenstein. “Now every artist can participate and release their music on Sound. Music fans will have access to a larger catalog and take a much more active role in music discovery.”
In the age of crypto and blockchain technology, Sound’s approach represents a future for the music industry that is most equitable for artists. By giving artists the agency to monetize their art, understand their fanbase, and maintain control over their creative output, Sound continues to take major strides toward taking Web3 music mainstream.
Editor’s Note: This article was written by an nft now contributor in collaboration with OpenAI’s GPT-4.