The Beat

Welcome to The Beat, Decential’s weekly breakdown of the music-web3 byway.

Like most things in web3, the music space moves at breakneck speeds, issuing regular bouts of hope, cringe and FOMO. That combination of qualities blur the essence of the movement – the enduring solutions to legacy industry problems and the people building them. Let’s focus on the essence; the rest, as Alex Ross wrote, is noise.

The Importance of Play

The other day I was semi-mindlessly scribbling words that started with the letter ‘c,’ listed beneath a lazily scrawled, oft used dictum: “curation is care.” I had no reason or intent, didn’t even know why I was doing it. But that morning, my wife – who works at Lego – had schooled me on the importance of play. She shared case studies of its benefit, which led me down a rabbit hole and eventually to the Dr. Seuss quote: “Adults are obsolete children." I reckon my list of ‘c’s was my subconscious resisting obsolescence, sending playful whims to an idle mind that works more than it should.

Play is central to Lego’s mandate. It’s the key ingredient to fulfilling their mission "to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow.” Over their 90-year history, the Danish toymaker has gathered robust communities around its tiny little plastic bricks. That’s amazing when you think about it. But the power comes exactly from that simplicity. Legos are the building blocks of the mind’s wild designs. There are, of course, the more prescriptive Millennium Falcons, but at Lego’s foundation sits the limitlessness of potential.  

I wouldn’t be the first to compare bricks to blocks. Much has been said about the worldbuilding capabilities of the blockchain, in which on-chain tokens and events can form the first bricks of a new world. What’s often missing in those comparisons, though, is the element of play.

Certainly it’s more difficult to embrace a sense of play when trying to disrupt and dismantle the hegemony. To navigate the entrenched strictures of our major tech platforms and their underlying systems, play is rarely enough.

Even so, play has been on my mind, especially in concert with Vitalik’s words – featured in last week’s Beat – to “build tools, not empires.” Could it be more effective to challenge those empires by imagining our tools through the wide and curious eyes of play?

Piece by Piece

Earlier this year, the artist Pharrell announced a biopic in partnership with Lego. It’s titled, fittingly, Piece by Piece, and will be Lego’s fifth theatrical film. “Building with Lego bricks encourages us to follow our imagination,” the artist told Variety. “Who would’ve thought that playing with these toys as a kid would evolve into a movie about my life.” According to a press release, Pharrell’s vision “defies genres and expectations to transport audiences into a Lego world where anything is possible.”

Last week, on his 51st birthday, the Virginia native bucked expectations again, dropping a surprise album with little fanfare. The release is presumably called Black Yacht Rock Vol. 1: City of Limitless Access, based on the album artwork, but details are otherwise sparse. The word ‘Virginia’ is sprawled across the top of the record, but it’s unclear whether that’s a new moniker or part of the album title. Because while the music bears Pharrell’s indelible tenor and signature production style, there’s no mention of him anywhere – not even in the metadata of the mp3 track downloads.

Also notably, the album is only available to stream and download (for free) via this unassuming, no frills website. Is the unusual release a tacit dig at the streaming landscape? A harbinger of – or reaction to – the shifting tides in direct-to-fan connection? Or is it just his latest act of play?

Direct-to-fan is indeed the fastest form of music consumption in the US. Especially considering the capricious nature of the algorithm – which can and will adjust to benefit the bottom line of whoever built it – artists would do well to “be the platform” and build worlds where “anything is possible.”

That’s easier said than done, of course. No one’s going to come to your world if they don’t know it’s there. To build a following, artists first need access to the spaces where people already spend their time. Online, that means Instagram and TikTok. It’s no secret that I’m a frequent demonizer of the major socials, but even I have developed a more forgiving attitude toward the former, which has proven to be a useful tool for my emerging music journey. Many fruitful connections and opportunities have arisen that wouldn’t have otherwise emerged.

Don’t label me an apologist just yet, though. For artists beyond the “could really use a lucky break” phase – i.e. those who use tools like Instagram to reach existing fanbases and not just find new fans – be the platform.

Consider the Medallion model, the “home base” for musicians, where interaction occurs on artists’ websites. Or emulate Avenged Sevenfold, which recently launched their own Season Pass Fan Rewards Program. Or direct people to a website of your own design and collect their emails.

Through these avenues, not only will you own your audience and control your narrative, but you’ll be able to play. When not confined to the guardrails of a third-party platform, you can build whatever you want. Take these Lego creators, who took the same bricks that we all grew up with and made worlds of them. Those bricks are out there. Anyone can pick them up and build.

So for anyone who’s been feeling jaded (and I’ll raise my hand here) by the prevailing gauntlets of industry, why not explore the lens of play. "The opposite of play isn't seriousness,” says Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of National Institute for Play, “the opposite of play is depression."

So even if we don’t topple every empire, maybe we’ll at least find more happiness in the act of that pursuit.

Coda

In an act of forced play, I turned my list of ‘c’ words into a poem that I’ll drop in this week’s coda. It’s about trying to topple empires. May it be a catalyst to your own creativity, and a call to caper: 

Now go outside and listen to music – it’s a beautiful day.

My name is MacEagon Voyce. For more music and less noise, consider subscribing to The Beat. And if you already do, consider sharing with a friend. Thanks for being here.