While NFTs mostly revolve around digital art, musical NFTs are on the rise and legendary rock band Muse will join the NFT space with their ninth studio album.

The album

Muse will release the studio album Will of the People on August 26. This will be the very first release in the UK and Australia.

Will of the People is the band’s latest album, the latest since 2015 to be chart-eligible.

Prior to the conception of the album, the last format accepted by the international charts was the album stream.

Will of the People will be Digital Pressing’s flagship album on the Web3 Serenade Marketplace.

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Serenade

The Web3 market created Digital Pressings to bea new limited edition and collectible music format released as NFTs.

Serenade uses the format to highlight community connectivity and product scarcity.

“Digital Pressings allow the music industry to easily slow NFTs into existing workflows and creative processes without having to fund new projects or design new ways of working,” said Max Shand, founder and CEO of Serenade.

“If you want to innovate in the music industry, innovate around the album cycle, because this is how the industry operates.”

In February, Serenade teamed up with the Brit Awards to showcase their NFT collection, which sold for $12.25 each.

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NFT in music

The partnership between the band and Serenade is not the first to mark NFT’s involvement in the music industry.

NFTs used to be grouped into album releases or other types of music-related campaigns.

Will of the People is set to be the first full album as NFT.

While NFT albums existed as a graphic format before, Muse’s album will be the first to fall under these standards.

The Digital Pressing format offers a new standard in royalty management.

Serenade released an official press release, saying that “living on the blockchain and offering Web3 capabilities such as verifiable ownership and the ability to trade on secondary markets, a Digital Pressing will also accrue accurate, perpetual royalties for artists, copyright holders and content owners.”

Muse

Muse is an English rock band formed in 1994 but later released their debut album in 1999.

The group won the NME Awards for Best British Group in 2007, 2010 and 2011 and also won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album in 2011 and 2016.

Muse first dived into the crypto space in 2020, collaborating with Dapper Lab’s CryptoKitties to create digital collectibles.

A year later, the band released their own NFT collection on Nifty Gateway.

The sentiments

Music industry experts believe the partnership is another step towards the future of music.

“Muse have always had a great appetite for innovation and pushing the boundaries of how they deliver their music to fans,” said Shand. 

“So using this technology to elevate the experience of their new album made a lot of sense.”

“Muse was an obvious choice to be the first artist to offer fans a Digital pressing as they’re innovative and have a die hard audience of completist fans who have always displayed an appetite to collect great merchandise from the band,” he added.

References:

Muse to release next album on Polygon-based NFT platform Serenade

Upcoming Muse NFT album becomes the first new format added to charts in years