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Pay $1 to Hear Wu-Tang Clan’s Secret Album (Eventually)
- johnsutor 2y agoLast weekend, had a listening event at the Angel Orensanz Foundation, where they took the original photos for the 36th Chambers album release. Was a cool experience.
- Graziano_M 2y agoI went too. It was pretty cool.
- ralferoo 2y agoFlagged as the link seems to be some kind of Ethereum leaderboard and nothing to do with the claimed title.
- paweladamczuk 2y agoI think the story behind this page is interesting.
- throwawaycities 2y agoThanks, I emailed Dang to update the url to the “lore” subpage. The linked website is the official site of the Album owner. The homepage simply shows a countdown clock to the release date of the album originally scheduled for 2103, but the release date/clock is being reduced in real-time based on album purchases. This Album is the highest selling album of all-time, it only had 1 physical copy made, and the ownership history is just as interesting. For more info on the Album here is the Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_Shaolin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_Shaolin
- dang 2y agoWe've changed the URL from https://www.thealbum.com/ https://www.thealbum.com/ to the NYT article about it, which has more background and will hopefully be more interesting.
- ralferoo 2y agoThanks! I tried clicking around the various links and nothing seemed to happen apart from popups trying to get me to enter my wallet information, so I assumed it was just some kind of crypto-scam leaderboard. I've now read the other article, and it's fascinating. Somehow I missed the story about the arrest and this album at the time...
- judge2020 2y agoAh yes, an amazing source where you can only read it if you're duped into signing up for a 12 month commitment to them for the pleasure of watching your pocket book sucked dry. Both the /lore page and the wikipedia article provides more information about it for free than the NYT does.
- dang 2y agoIf there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the thread. This is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html and there's more explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=paywalls%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- qaz_plm 2y agoFor the updated NYT URL - https://archive.ph/Sfxon https://archive.ph/Sfxon
- jareklupinski 2y ago79y 28d 14h 09m 03s i think i can hold out wonder what format it's going to be encoded as at that time
- justinator 2y agoGives a new meaning to, "Wu-Tang is for the (grand)children"
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoI almost definitely can't, and would love to hear it, but I'm not giving one red cent to fucking crypto grifters.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y agothe most mysterious and expensive album of all time was announced by the Wu-Tang Clan as a protest against the devaluation of creativity in the age of the internet In regards to a top-earning artist with a secure position, "devaluation" here sounds a lot like "demonetization". So was WTC protesting how the internet negatively impacted gatekeeping and artist anointing - and how the internet allows more small artists to get a foothold?
- throwawaycities 2y agoI posted because the entire thing is so fascinating from distribution, legal rights, to the unimaginable chain of custody/ownership (which included the Department of Justice who auctioned it to the current owner). In addition to what you quoted it is said it was also inspired by musical patronage in the Renaissance. I’m sure there is some truth to all of the above but also just marketing. It originally sold at auction for $2M, and I would imagine/hope they could have made multiples that through a standard release.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago> It originally sold at auction for $2M, and I would imagine/hope they could have made multiples that through a standard release. It is my experience that once folks achieve wealth thru copyright, they fixate on controlling their IP. Both money and control override nuance-based sense and social good but control will commonly trump money. I don't know WTC and am not speaking to their specific motivations - beyond suggesting this copyright profile could be in play.
- Simon_ORourke 2y agoCan I pay not to have to hear it?
- krapp 2y agoYou don't have to, you can just... not listen to it, but I'm sure someone would be happy to take your money.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- pimlottc 2y agoIt would actually be hilarious if you could also pay $1 to delay the release, and then it became a huge tug of war between internet brigades...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wincy 2y agoI’d probably do that for a dollar.
- RhysU 2y agoThis would be interesting as an auction with a reserve price as well as a marketing mechanism. The artist says I need to make at least $x. People can pay $1 to the artist to either increment or decrement $x by $1. Album drops for everyone when $x decrements to zero. If the auction expires without hitting $0 the artist can recut/release the contents in some other form after returning the money to those who committed it to the auction. Swift could make a killing. Anyone who is loved and disliked could novelly monetize the dislike. Also, fun smart contract. The $0 condition drops some decryption key for pre-released-but-encrypted content.
- Teknomancer 2y agoLove this take.
- jcrash 2y agoThe other guy used to play it on his livestreams often. I'm sure it's on soulseek in some form.
- seabird 2y agoHopefully Shkreli nuts up, chances some more jail time, and releases his copy so these crypto freaks get some amount less than they would've had it not been free. I know the article says they're "in talks" with the artists but I don't believe for a second that the people who actually did the work will get what they deserve for having made it, or even close to what these vampires will get for shitting on the original point of the album.
- smfjaw 2y agoI imagine the "talks" amount to one of them (probably ghostface) telling them to go f themselves
- PhasmaFelis 2y ago> I don't believe for a second that the people who actually did the work will get what they deserve for having made it The people who actually made it chose to sell exclusive rights to one person instead of releasing it like a normal album. They've got no room to complain.
- schneems 2y agoNot every desire can be encoded into a legal and transactional text. Laurence Lessig, Creative Commons founder in Code 2.0 (1999) identifies four elements that regulate behavior online: Laws, norms, markets, and technology - *Code/architecture* – the physical or technical constraints on activities (e.g. locks on doors or firewalls on the Internet) - *Market* – economic forces - *Law* – explicit mandates that can be enforced by the government - *Norms* – social conventions that one often feels compelled to follow So even if you sell something, you can still complain about it. Unless of course they explicitly signed a “I won’t complain about this” clause. I think the reason the commenter was pointing out that Wu won’t be getting paid is that the average person might not know that. And the people making money not the situation aren’t exactly incentivized to raise awareness.
- Teknomancer 2y agoLesters gonna Lester.
- djfergus 2y agoIts a fascinating story, Shkreli is a character to say the least. There is a very poor quality recording of Shkreli playing it on stream available on a shady file sharing site near you. Sounds interesting but probably not worth the flight to Tasmania (as per article, there are listening sessions available at MONA) or waiting 79 years for the crypto crew to cash in.
- _sys49152 2y agoconsidering the whole thing is produced by cilvaringz, id bet anything the tracks to be average to sub. dude does have some dope production credits ie raekwon shaolin vs wutang album for example. but overall dude isnt worth millions of dollars of hype. bronze nazareth is a much more accomplished wu-associated producer and much closer to the 'sound' and still probably uses public transit. (school for the blindman album for example) after all is it a real wu-tang album if it isnt produced by RZA?
- 999900000999 2y agoThat's gotta be the weirdest part of this whole story. RZA should of pulled out his old SP1200 and made something that sounded like 36 Chambers. I imagine it's more of a novelty thing at this point. Although I'd love for the industry to have experiments like this. Something like a decade of exclusivity. Anything aside from competing to get Spotify pennies.
- noman-land 2y agoI had no idea RZA didn't produce it. Who even cares then?
- omoikane 2y agoIf the owner were not allowed to make backup copies, would it have been better to release that album as a set of vinyl records instead of 2 CDs? I am just wondering if an analog medium would be more likely to remain useful after ~80 years of physical degradation compared to digital discs.
- al_borland 2y agoA lot can happen in 88 years. With only one copy, there is a reasonable chance that this album will be lost to time. Even if the label has a copy sitting in a vault to release it in 88 years, who’s to say that label will even still be around. So many things could happen. I get they are trying to make a point, but the idea of music being exclusive, just seems wrong. They want to make it like art… I don’t have to go to France to see the Mona Lisa, there are pictures of it online. I only have to go to a museum to see the real thing. It seems like a concert would be the museum of the music world. There shouldn’t be listening parties at museums, Wu-Tang should go on tour. If people want to hear the new songs, they can see them performed live.
- throwawaycities 2y ago> I don’t have to go to France to see the Mona Lisa, there are pictures of it online. True but the Mona Lisa was painted around 1500, so it was about 500 years before the work was digitized and widely available online. There were prints before the internet, but that’s not exactly the master’s work. I think the music/art should be freely available, but I’ve also been talking about this album for 10 years and until yesterday hearing the 5 minute sampler for the first time, I had never heard a second of it.
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- sc077y 2y agoShkreli has actually sent the album to various people. He used to used to send it to any girl who asked for it back in the day. It's not that exclusive. Also according to Martin, now that he has sold the album, the album is mediocre.
- eckelhesten 2y agoShkreli actually tried to upload the album to what.cd. They didn’t accept him as a member.
- al_borland 2y agoThe crypto leaderboard makes me not trust the site to pay $1. It is also a complete unknown if the current owner will remain the owner long enough to make good on this. I’ve found everything about this album frustrating and unpleasant. At this point, I don’t think there will be anyway for it to not be a disappointment.