I've heard of stand-up comedians, playwrights, and musicians testing new material on small audiences to gauge how well it works, but that's arguably closer to a

I've heard of stand-up comedians, playwrights, and musicians testing new material on small audiences to gauge how well it works, but that's arguably closer to a private beta than an MVP. I also know that artists will often do studies of their ideas before doing a full-scale piece, but that's more along the lines of a development spike than an MVP. The closest thing to a true MVP that I've heard of in music would be a band that labors away in obscurity for a few years, has a hit, and then re-releases some of their old material but with better production values. Thinking out loud, I think the difference between the sort of software where an MVP is important and both music and art is that the former is a tool and the latter is entertainment. The entertainment industry is built on novelty, and the sheer amount of material out there is so vast that the media can really only cover what's new, what's especially good, and what has made important innovations in the past. If what you're building has utility above and beyond its entertainment value, you have the freedom and in some sense the responsibility to release early and often.