The Beat

Welcome to The Beat, Decential’s weekly breakdown of the music-web3 byway. (With a few unexpected stops along the way – such is life.)

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.

Culture + Storytelling

In The Beat we talk a lot about our culture of individualism, but we’ve not really explored from whence it came.

Storr, citing a group of psychologists, posits that it began 2,500 years ago in Ancient Greece – and it stemmed from the landscape. The terrain was hilly and rocky, unconducive to group work like farming. Instead, success favored the hustler – the forager, the olive oil artisan, the fisherman. 

“The best way of controlling the world, in Ancient Greece, was by being self-reliant,” writes Storr. “Because individual self-reliance was the key to success, the all-powerful individual became a cultural ideal.” 

And because “the all-powerful individual” became a cultural ideal, it also became the archetype of our stories, where lone heroes transit from crisis, through struggle and, eventually, into triumphant resolve.

Storr juxtaposes that culture of individualism with the collective mindset of Ancient China, where the “undulating and fertile landscape” was suitable for large group activities, like farming. “A collective theory of control” led to “a collective ideal of self,” Storr wrote. And that ideal was infused throughout the East. In the Analects, for instance, Confucius is recorded having said “the superior man” valued the “concealment of his virtues.” 

Here, “a field of interconnected forces” gave rise to a different mode of storytelling. There was no autobiography in Ancient China for 2,000 years, and even when it did emerge, “life stories were totally stripped of the subject’s voice.” 

Instead, stories were told through the perspectives of various observers. “There’s no closure. There’s no happily ever after,” Storr writes, citing the psychologist, Professor Uichol Kim. “You’re left with a question that you have to decide for yourself. That’s the story’s pleasure.” 

In a digital, increasingly globalized and overly individualistic world, how do we balance these opposing forces? To reach others today, how should we tell our stories?

Distorted Realities: Ki

Since its inception, Metalabel has been focused on transforming our culture of individualism into collectivism.

For the organization’s first two years, they were focused on “collaborative and scene-driven” releases. Each of their first 10 experiments explored the idea of the ‘metalabel’ – “groups of people working under a common identity for a common purpose with a focus on releases – distinct public works that reflect and manifest their views.”

Back in February, Metalabel started teasing a new release platform. “Metalabel is a new space for releasing, selling, and exhibiting creative work,” the minimalist website read at the time. “A model for a new creative era. Coming 2024.”

It concluded: “As individuals our powers are limited. In groups we become stronger.”

Last week, after testing the incipient platform with a handful of releases, Metalabel opened their doors. Projects will still be subject to a light screening process, but it’s more accessible than it ever has been. And while a collectivist mindset remains part of its ethos, the focus now is less on “collaborative and scene-driven” releases and more simply on “releases.”

Today, Metalabel markets themselves as “the first release platform for creative work.” 

It remains a powerful story, and one that was nearly part of a different tale.

Prior to February, Metalabel aligned themselves with the broader web3 movement. It was built on crypto rails. But they made the decision to migrate off-chain, while continuing to leverage central tenets of the web3 movement – e.g. decentralization, interoperable data, portable identities. 

To help explain the decision, Metalabel founder Yancey Strickler shared an essay called, “when the means justify the ends.” He talked about the tensions between technological determinism and human experience, and about going on a “crypto diet” after experiencing many of the flaws for which crypto is stigmatized.

But is there anything inherently wrong with crypto, or is the issue the story we’re telling?

In a subsequent Beat, I covered some pushback to that “crypto diet” from Dan Fowler and Vaughn McKenzie-Landell, the co-creators of JUICE (as well as potent thinkers who have long been present in music tech, on-chain and off).

I wrote:

It was this “distorted reality” that came to mind when I read Storr’s passage. And in Metalabel 2.0’s weeklong history, I’ve already heard anecdotes from creators whose fans mistook their release for a crypto project; yet, on their way to grab their pitchforks, they were mollified when creators assured them that this was, in fact, not crypto.

What fans were wary of was not the technology, but the association with crypto culture, which has long been defined by scams and “shitcoin-to-the-moon bros.” Once again, it’s the narrative misalignment – the “distorted reality” that Metalabel, too, chose not to be part of.

And it’s curious how crypto was born from an idea of collectivism and decentralization, but has since been doomed by an inaccessible narrative and individualistic greed.

There are still many people building in crypto toward better ends, but those stories often go untold.

If culture arose through something as basic and fundamental as the contours of our land, then surely we can transcend that ‘narrowed lens’ as we develop new digital topography. We’re no longer limited by our physical realities.

Still, our digital platforms mimic the prevailing culture. They spur the mythos of individualism, where vanity metrics represent “value.” And it’s effective storytelling because we’ve learned to admire those Ancient Greek hustlers – the Olympians amongst us. We even valorize the founders of those platforms, those “all-powerful individuals” who have turned their creations into extensions of themselves – even when those platforms are designed to make them rich and us dependent.

It’s why we’re addicted to platforms like TikTok. They reinforce the idea that we’re all the heroes of our own stories, one viral video away from winning the lottery of attention.

The social platform will deny that it’s addictive, but it was just “taken to task (again)” because, according to attorney generals in 14 different US states, it “violated state laws by falsely claiming its platform is safe for young people.” 

Mental health is at the center of various debates amongst major social platforms. And while the manipulative “heating” techniques designed to retain us are certainly to blame, might it also be a gross, foundational flaw in approach? One that perpetuates a culture of individualism that no longer – perhaps never did – make sense? Could it be a testament to the Metalabel direction, which is attempting to lay a more collectivist groundwork for the decades to come?

“We are forming the institutions and the norms and the social structures that might define the next thousand years of human experience,” Strickler told me in Grey Matter’s For the Record podcast, describing the still nascent “post-Internet human experience.” 

“But what we're finding is that to go online is to become re-individualized,” he continued. “What we're going to do is build communal structures and institutions that are meant to provide safety, security, love, economic needs, and just basic needs in a more digital existence.”

Nice try super diddy: Sho

In last week’s Beat, we looked at two opposing forces in the “communal structures and institutions” story: TikTok versus Merlin. And that may not be the King Arthur side quest the name evokes, but it’s a battle nonetheless.

In essence, TikTok is refusing to engage in re-licensing discussions with Merlin, a digital licensing and membership organization that represents independent labels and distributors (some 15 percent of the recorded music market). 

TikTok, instead, is requiring individual Merlin members to negotiate direct deals with its team.

Narrative framing is important here. TikTok is latching on to the popular argument of streaming fraud (which we covered last week). They say they’ve “had operational challenges with Merlin in the past where music that is not quality controlled for copyright is delivered [to TikTok],” a spokesperson told Music Business Worldwide. Direct deals, they allude, will help them ensure they can abide by copyright laws. (Copyright as legal defensibility of our culture of individualism is its own rabbit hole for another day).

Merlin, for their part, wrote that TikTok’s decision is an attempt to “[fragment] the Merlin membership, in order, we believe, to minimize their pay out.”

Since then, Impala, the European independent music body, has called TikTok’s move an “attempt to boycott Merlin.” Similar organizations have also voice their opposition.

But that’s not deterring TikTok. According to Billboard, the platform has now sent non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to some Merlin members to discuss direct deals. But NDA or not, as Music Ally notes:

TikTok’s likely strategy, as I heard one pundit suggest, is to cherry pick a few larger deals before then re-engaging Merlin at less favorable terms. It’s something Universal Music Group recently did to TikTok, using its own platform power to claim that TikTok used its “platform power to hurt vulnerable artists.”

At the center of that narrative manipulation was Lucian Grange, UMG’s head honcho and a regular rogue here in The Beat. Grainge was just named in the most recent Diddy lawsuit (he was also named in March, for “aiding and abetting” the artist in his sexual abuse, but got his name removed “following a series of public legal threats & intimidation.”)

(Diddy also features in a bizarre comments section for an Instagram post from Hyundai, which is “making NFTs relevant again,” giving official SANTA CRUZ NFT holders an opportunity to win a car.)

And two weeks ago, I reported that Atlantic Records (part of Warner Music Group) had laid off 150 people and announced new leadership – notably headed by Grainge’s son, Elliott. The Grainge family now controls nearly 40 percent of the US music market.

These are indications that “the major record-label ecosystem is broken,” as former Island Records president Darcus Beese OBE said recently in the first episode of the podcast, Be Unstoppable. “It’s not future-proof. The direction of travel, especially with majors not breaking, bringing new artists to the marketplace, they’re just becoming big distributors, and they will acquire talent. They won’t develop the talent.”

Beese has a great story of his own. He started as a tea boy and went on to sign luminaries like Amy Winehouse, Dizzee Rascal and Florence + The Machine. In 2021, he left Island Records to launch Darco Artist Partnerships, “an independent company trying to rethink the business model of the majors, while retaining their age-old principles of artist development.”

These are the stories we love. They satisfy our thirst for the lone hero who, against all odds, becomes our unlikely victor. It makes us believe we can do that, too.

And Beese even gives us some collectivist ideals we can feel good about, like confronting the major label machine, whose narrative has devolved into one of exploitation and greed.

But even the “age-old principles of artist development” are spawned from a culture of individualism. Artist development is important work, but to what extent should we develop artists? Until celebrity becomes all-consuming, like with Amy Winehouse? Until they get to Diddy-level power?

These are extremes and edge cases, of course, but it’s a product of the world we’ve built. It’s our brand of “flawed and peculiar people.”

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence: Ten

In 2022, the late Japanese composer Ryuishi Sakamoto released his 595 NFTs project. He isolated each individual note from the melody to “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” the title track from his score of the 1984 film of the same name (which starred Sakamoto and David Bowie).

Sakamoto’s embrace of the blockchain reflects collectivist views he’s been espousing for years. “In the old days people shared music, they didn't care who made it; a song would be owned by a village and anyone could sing it, change the words, whatever,” he said in a 2009 interview with The Guardian. “That is how humans treated music until the late 19th century. Now with the Internet we are going back to having tribal attitudes towards music.”

595 NFTs was largely misunderstood and panned due to environmental concerns and “an uncharacteristic capitulation to capitalism.”

Sakamoto, though, calculated and offset all the carbon costs of minting – and indeed he has a lengthy history of offsetting his own footprint, from deploying solar panels during his tours to using eco-friendly paper packaging for his albums (since 1994!) to converting his own home to 100% reliance on wind energy. He also conducted the on-chain project in the spirit of gathering.

“Similar to how each individual note in a composition comes together to create a greater whole,” Sakamoto wrote in a project retrospective. “I imagined that digitized notes could bring each individual NFT holder together as part of a larger and more harmonious community.”

“To my dismay,” he continued, “the project also attracted considerable attention from investors more interested in money than music. I certainly did not expect that my music would become an object of financial speculation.”

Coda: Ketsu

In Japan, Will Storr notes, there’s a style of storytelling called the Kishōtenketsu, which features four acts: “in act one (‘ki’) we’re introduced to the characters, in act two (‘sho’) the actions follow on, in act three (‘ten’) a twist that’s surprising or even apparently unconnected takes place and in the final act (‘ketsu’) we’re invited, in some open-ended way, to search for harmony between it all.”

So how should we tell the rest of this tale, one in which we’re all characters?

You’ll have to decide for yourself. That is, after all, the story’s pleasure.

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.