Starter Packs
Starter Packs: Digital music curation
March 20 2023

If the music industry is an orchestra, curation is like its conductor — arranging and guiding otherwise disparate artists, scenes, and styles into a dynamic, narrative whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts.

Web3
Web3 and music rights: Our community weighs in
January 15 2023

2022 closed with a dynamic debate in the #web3 channel of the Water & Music Discord server about the role of aggregation and traditional IP law in the music NFT landscape.

Marketing
Request for support: The unexpected labyrinth of music marketing ROI
January 05 2023

Outlining the challenges we’ve faced in attempting to build a public database of music marketing ROI benchmarks, and what they reveal about the way the music industry measures growth and success.

Web3
Sidechain: Music NFT streaming apps under fire, FTX fallout impact, and songwriter challenges in Web3
December 11 2022

Capturing the W&M community’s unique, early-adopter, critical pulse on the music/Web3 landscape, backed by ongoing reporting from our Web3 research team that you won’t find elsewhere.

Web3
Wavelengths 001: The state of music curation and discovery in Web3
November 07 2022

In late September, we hosted our first Wavelengths in Brooklyn, where industry leaders discussed Music Curation & Discovery in Web3.

Web3
A needs-driven approach to music NFT metadata
October 12 2022

A proposal for a more minimalist, needs-driven approach to ironing out a music NFT metadata schema, grounded in emerging contextual use cases around the artist/fan journey in Web3.

Web3
Splitting the difference: Music and Web3’s multiplayer problem
September 07 2022

Continuing Water & Music’s exploration of the legal maze around music and Web3, this article takes a closer look at nascent smart-contract developments around collaborative splits for Web3-native music releases.

Web3
Music NFT aggregators challenge the streaming status quo
August 05 2022

There is a new generation of alternative streaming and curation services being built on top of music NFTs, providing a crucial contextual and social layer on top of the wider music/Web3 ecosystem as it scales.

Metaverse
9 design principles for a musical metaverse
July 06 2022

A set of nine artist- and fan-centric design principles for building the next generation of musical metaverse experiences.

$STREAM
Music DAO Deep Dives, Pt. 2: Sone’s vision for public music goods
January 25 2022

Sone is a music DAO spun off from the longstanding indie record label Topshelf Records. The ultimate vision for Sone is not necessarily to build a “Web3 label,” but rather to produce public goods for music.

Streaming
What music/tech companies won’t tell you about spatial audio
October 22 2021
Livestreaming
How much are artists really making on Twitch?
October 18 2021