Wu-Tang Clan Offered $5M for New Album Only Available as One Copy
pitchfork.com
pitchfork.com
In reality it's a very smart marketing tactic (they're selling another album with regular distribution btw), and is a piece of performance art in its own right. It raises questions and encourages discussion about the value of art & music in the digital age. This is particularly noteworthy coming from the rap genre which is typically not given enough credit for its role in shaping music trends and pop culture generally. The "art" in question isn't really about the music, it's about framing music as art.
[Edited for grammar/spelling]
In addition to being a great album Wu-Tang Clan's album Forever was the first CD to offer multimedia when inserted into a PC! Not to say "enhanced CDs" are the pinnacle of technology, but it's an example of them being forward looking, so their willingness to try new things doesn't surprise me.
> and is a piece of performance art in its own right
Very much so. Excellent point.
As a die hard rap and Wu fan I would just like to say that very few artists actually fall into that stereotype. There's no "rap culture". Rap is about expression, and it happens to express different things when made by different people.
I love rap, but even I have to admit that a lot of rap lyrics are dumb and offensive, and definitely play into the hands of those who talk about "rap culture" (I think Boondocks does a pretty good job of showing this by the way).
Pretty much everyone in the mainstream falls into exactly that category. Macklemore probably the exception to the rule at the moment.
Compare with the underground artists like Atmosphere, Brother Ali, Immortal Technique, Shad, Jurassic 5, Blackalicious etc.
They are worlds apart! It's such a shame that hip hop has ben positioned as an almost antithesis of intelligent music in the public eye, when it started out as music with a message (much of the underground still has that ethos). It's so bad that I usually have to justify my music choices to people who know no better "why would you listen to that shit? - nothing but bitches and ho's".
Compare Kanye West and Brother Ali to see one example of the difference.
EDIT: Switched to a better example of hip hop. Also, someone downvoted me for making a distinction? Strange.
They should have Dutch auctioned it if there was sufficient interest from the big labels.
[For the downvoters: Read the Forbes article from 6 days ago, below]
# http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2014/03/26/...]
basically my friend told me that they were coerced into making a "last" album (this was before it was formally announced by them fyi), to pay off a group of club-bouncer thugs that follow them to all their events and threaten them for payment--I'll explain below.
When wu-tang was getting popular and played at inner city clubs, the manager would pick out 5-10 of the meanest looking guys in the crowd and tell them to essentially act as bouncers in the venue if things too got out of control. He couldn't pay then, but these guys would do this at every venue and over time, bonded over this newfound relationship with wu-tang clan. They got wu-tang tattoos on their arms and felt proud of the affiliation (almost to the tune of resembling a gang). Once wu-tang started playing gigs at bigger, mainstream venues these bouncer men were no longer needed.
These wu-tang tatoo'd bouncers felt wronged, and attributes wu-tang's success now with the protection they provided at dangerous inner-city clubs. They felt like they were employees in a sense and demanded a percentage of all the revenue the group was now making. They threaten the group and manager frequently and my friend said, wu-tang desperately needed to pay them off because they are all older now and fear for the safety of their families.
This album was then announced publicly and I can't help but put two and two together. Was this album created to get a quick sum of money to pay off the club bouncers once and for all? I can't stop thinking about it now.
I promise I'm not making this up, just wondering if anyone can confirm any of these assertions that are knowledgeable with wu-tang/hip hop.
Wu-Tang are one of the few music acts to really get that it's about entertainment.
From what I've seen over the years, Wu-Tang has a propensity for such self-aggrandizement (and I mean that as a complement). I can certainly see them doing this project without ulterior fear-driven motivation.
Not saying your version isn't true, but applying Occam's Razor from my humble perspective. RZA having an epiphany of "hey, let's do a full blown album and sell one copy!" seems entirely fitting.
Reproducibility has never detracted anything from important pieces of art, and has nothing to do with their artistical value; everyone has painting reproductions in their home, and that doesn't make the painting* less valuable.
For this reason, while there are certainly valuable discussions on generic terms, this remains a pure marketing stunt (or, a banal pseudo-intellectual statement).
*=of course, here there could be a debate about the value of the concept related to the original physical copy and its reproductions.
Live music is amazing, but it is also a rare treat. (For me; I assume that many people here hear live music regularly.) Perhaps they want to force their work to be a rare treat. But I spent an hour last night, after lifting, just sitting on my couch with my iPad, listening to the punk music that was my soundtrack to high school. It was amazing, and made possible because of the ease of recording, distributing and listening to digital music.
Although, something to consider is that they must realize that once they start hosting these listening sessions, bootleg recordings will crop up. Perhaps they are counting on that, and this will be a way to have their cake and eat it too: their lone physical copy will remain special because it is the only real copy, but everyone will hear the music through the bootlegs, which will gain notoriety for being the only way to hear the "unique" recording.
“Music is a commodity these days and we want it treated as art,” said RZA. “The LP record you listened to reverently at home gave way to the portable cassette and CD, and now the copiable and disposable MP3. But the rarer the art, the better. So we’re making the album available as no copies whatsoever. It’s artier that way.”
The album will be unavailable as a double blank CD-R, though the band is considering refusing to offer it on blank LP and blank cassette as well. An MP3 of silence will also be withheld, as will an Apple Lossless download of silence from iTunes. The first video, “ ”, is not up on YouTube and Vimeo in the form of four minutes’ silence and a blank screen.
The album failed to be recorded at home by the band over the past several years. “Art only suffers from excessive physical realisation. In fact, the more physical realisation, the further the art falls from the perfection of the conception. So what we did was stay home in bed and think really hard about what the record should sound like. Frankly, it’s amazing. Well, we think it would be.”
The band hopes to get five meeellion dollarsss for this conceptual work. “We firmly believe that art — art! — should not suffer the petty, tawdry, bourgeois constraints of genre, media gatekeepers, critics, quality or existence. But the absolutely key point — which we’re completely clear on — is that it should be paid for with actual money.”
MODAL LOGIC PROVES THE EXISTENCE OF ONCE UPON A TIME IN SHAOLIN
(I) The existence of a perfect Wu-Tang album does not necessarily entail the existence of gratuitous suffering.
(II) If a perfect Wu-Tang album is possible, then the perfect being necessarily exists (given axiom S5 of modal logic).
(III) The perfect Wu-Tang album is possible. (This is a logical consequence of (I).)
(IV) The perfect Wu-Tang album necessarily exists (modus ponens on (II) and (III).
(V) Therefore, the apparently-nonexistent album does in fact exist, and you should pay real money for it.
http://newstechnica.com/2014/04/02/new-wu-tang-clan-album-av...
The problem that Vulfpeck had was that their music was too easy to copy. Because of the uniquely repetitive nature of most of their songs they matched the MP3 compression algorithm particularly well which made them simple to post in forums. For example, their best known song is available by playing the following characters as an MP3: [1]. Of course any music fan will pick out how derivative Vulfpeck is of John Gage[2], so I guess what goes around comes around.
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/21/vulfpeck-releases-an-album-...
The real service would be promoting a more sophisticated consumption of art that hasn't yet been turned into currency for the super rich.
As for promoting a more sophisticated consumption of art, what do you have in mind, and how could the Wu have contributed?
Also, what if the art is a photograph?
As for art consumption, that's a big topic, but I wish we made an effort to find relevance to our own lives for something we learn or recognize in art. We do this relatively well for music. We recognize metaphors and themes for betrayal, redemption, and shame in songs.
When it comes to visual art or literature, we become suspicious when someone suggests we could interpret someone's hair being dyed as a benediction. We worry about the artist's intent to show symbols, but barely recognize them if the intent is clear. The Syfy TV series "Caprica" had an unclothed woman suggestively holding an apple in its ads, but how many people consciously recognized it as biblical allegory?
It's just that the values in the particular piece don't match up with the above poster's...
I don't believe that turning more artistic mediums into investment vehicles is really a path to respect and acceptance. In fact, I think people believing they deserve music for free comes from the acceptance and respect they already have for music; they consider it vital.
> "The main theme is music being accepted and respected as art and being treated as such."
The point is that music should always be treated as art...
I have a large collection (circa 3,000 lps). For me, listening was seldom just about the music. The packging can set the scene. Take a Lemon Jelly lp - it folds out into 6 sides of beautiful hand craft art, before you get to the music.
So Wu-Tang Clan fans in Kazakhstan or Tanzania (or even every country other than the U.S.) will probably never be able to listen to this album...? I guess these will be the people who don't "understand" what Wu-Tang Clan is doing, while only the privileged ones "understand" the concept.
That's artificial shortage, not art (not talking about the music itself).
Edit/addition: Honestly, I could have much more respect for this project, if Wu-Tang made it only accessible to homeless people, or only to prisoners, but effectively, they make it only accessible to the riches. I really do like the Wu-Tang Clan, but I am really not impressed by this stunt.
69,000 French Francs in 1983.
1. This is freakin' brilliant! Its about time someone stepped up and treated their craft like true art. There is only one Mona Lisa. Yes, we have prints all over the place, but there is only one Mona Lisa. And its valuable!
Now, not all artists can do this. Wu-Tang can. They have been around for a while. They have sold millions. They have a big fan based. So, this is perfect for them. They'll still earn money from shows. Probably more now that each show has something "historic" to offer now that a song from the new album will be performed here and there.
Great job Wu-Tang!
But I know when you buy a CD you don't normally get the reproduction rights as well, no matter how many or few copies were pressed.
But I agree that it would make sense, as I said. But, I also know "it would make sense" is definitely not a reliable predictor of what's actually going on when it comes to the music industry or copyright law.
And if this is what Wu Tang is doing... shouldn't we able to find them saying so in print? So I'm curious if anyone has.
The idea that there can only be one that has to be toured around to be experienced in order for it to be art is just ridiculous. I'm a fan of Wu-Tang but this is just a gimmick on their part.
Oh how fickle HN can be!
But to provide an actual opinion, I think this is extremely cool. We're still waiting to see where the record business is headed next and it's nice to see some outside the box thinking. The only negative in my mind is that this doesn't seem to bring us that much closer to solving the biggest issue in the music business, which is how we can get younger, fresher acts a larger share of the pie.
In any case, I really hope whoever buys it chooses to share the album with the world.
also, terrible website & tired copy. http://scluzay.com/
Hip hop in particular has been the most devalued of all musical genres, and seen as a disposable fad for decades. Wu Tang is doing an experiment here, to put their foot down and say we are artists in the grandest tradition of old. It may be backward-looking, but it's backward-looking with real purpose and conviction, and something that no one else really has the balls to do. So while it may not use the latest technology and scratch that techno-fetigist itch we tend to have around here, it is absolutely one of the most interesting things happening today in the music world, and I wish them all success.
There's no technological fetish here, simply a desire to live today and avoid a historical fetish. I don't live in the Renaissance Era or in the 'Swinging Sixties'. It's 2014 and it's sad that this group of people find actually addressing the problem of relevance and value in our day and age too difficult and instead recycle old, problematic forms.
Of all the arts, digital has probably helped music the most. Send me a link to the 'Art' section on the App store.
Does Wu-Tang really need validation from the institutions (the academy, galleries, museums, etc) that they don't already have from the millions of people who listen to their albums and go to their shows?
Do you honestly think that this showing is going to help those artists who want to earn a 'middle-class paycheck'??? Because it seems to me altogether unlikely that most artists will be able to afford to put on a multi-location, state-of-the-art-security presentation like this. C'mon, be realistic.
'Rarity' is only one component of aesthetic beauty. All of the other ones need to be there to give something value. Increasing the 'rarity' to maximum does not an art object make.
Patronage is nice if you've got enough $$$$$$. Hope you get the chance to see the 'holy grail' in your lifetime. Start saving.
But plenty of people still consider similar vehicles of industry and academia as important and authoritative, and that kind of institutional value and respect is exactly what RZA is seeking. I think this only reinforces the questionable authority and ability for inward facing groups like NARAS and AMPAS to anoint their own works as respectable.
So, you're right objectively, but in the context of the systems the public supports, perhaps not.
I think a lot of the great artists we look back on were more egalitarian than the "high art" of today. Beethoven's late quartets may have been commissioned by a prince for an enormous sum, but he took the time to do the piano arrangement himself so that commoners would hear the correct version. Shakespeare wrote for rich and poor together. Last year I went to an exhibition of Kuniyoshi's works, now regarded as great art - and they were woodblock-printed, stamped out and sold to ordinary folk for the same price as a bowl of noodles.