The internet revolutionised music, placing every song you’ve ever
wanted to hear at your fingertips, just a click, stream or illegal
download away.
But not every artist has embraced the new world. Just in the past year we’ve had Beck releasing sheet music, Thom Yorke lambasting Spotify, but now iconic rap band the Wu-Tang Clan have taken things one step further: by only planning to make and release one copy of their new album.
[Once Upon A Time In Shaolin will come in a hand-crafted container]
As planned, the Staten Island crew will release A Better Tomorrow the usual way in July to mark their 20th anniversary, but they’ll follow that up with a double album called Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, of which only one copy will be pressed.
The only existing copy of the 31-track, 128 minute album will be encased inside an engraved silver-and-nickel box designed by British-Moroccan artist Yahya, then taken on a tour around museums, art galleries, and festivals.
Tickets are likely to cost between “$30-$ 50″.
Visitors will have the chance to listen on headphones – but only after they’ve gone through a rigorous security check to make sure no-one records it and leaks it online as soon as they get home.
Once the tour has finished, the album will be sold to a single buyer, for a sum estimated to be “in the millions”.
Speaking to Forbes, Wu-Tang’s Robert “RZA” Diggs explained their unbelievably precious strategy:
But not every artist has embraced the new world. Just in the past year we’ve had Beck releasing sheet music, Thom Yorke lambasting Spotify, but now iconic rap band the Wu-Tang Clan have taken things one step further: by only planning to make and release one copy of their new album.
[Once Upon A Time In Shaolin will come in a hand-crafted container]
As planned, the Staten Island crew will release A Better Tomorrow the usual way in July to mark their 20th anniversary, but they’ll follow that up with a double album called Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, of which only one copy will be pressed.
The only existing copy of the 31-track, 128 minute album will be encased inside an engraved silver-and-nickel box designed by British-Moroccan artist Yahya, then taken on a tour around museums, art galleries, and festivals.
Tickets are likely to cost between “$30-$ 50″.
Visitors will have the chance to listen on headphones – but only after they’ve gone through a rigorous security check to make sure no-one records it and leaks it online as soon as they get home.
Once the tour has finished, the album will be sold to a single buyer, for a sum estimated to be “in the millions”.
Speaking to Forbes, Wu-Tang’s Robert “RZA” Diggs explained their unbelievably precious strategy:
“We’re about to sell an album like nobody else sold it before. We’re about to put out a piece of art like nobody else has done in the history of [modern] music. We’re making a single-sale collector’s item. This is like somebody having the scepter [sic] of an Egyptian king.”
