Vault Music, the digital music format for limited-edition music, is proud to announce Cassette Culture 3.0, a web3 revival of the tradition of “cassette culture” on the company’s blockchain-based music format.
Traditionally, “cassette culture” refers to an international music scene that emerged in the postpunk period of the late 1970s through the 1990s. It involved amateur musicians, often recording at home on cassette tapes, creating non-mainstream or alternative music. These recordings were then duplicated on cassette in limited quantities and distributed freely or sold at low cost within the scene, differentiating this concept from the use of cassettes for illegal copies, mix tapes, bootlegs, or other common uses.
While cassette culture was culturally significant among musicians and music fans alike, most notably via the taping sections at Grateful Dead shows, it lacked the ability to create meaningful income for artists—until now.
By bringing cassette on-chain via the company’s blockchain-based music format, Vault Music is proud to launch Cassette Culture 3.0, a hybrid of cassette culture and web3 music.
With its unalterable and fully tradable digital format, Vault Music is the first company to create on-chain archives of live performances that reflect the current music culture in New York City. This fusion of old and new reinvents the way music enthusiasts consume and share music, providing a new way for the underground music scene to thrive.
“What we’ve built at Vault Music takes the taping movement and makes it above board and on chain,” said Nigel Eccles, CEO and co-founder of Vault Music. “I’ve always loved collecting music and the tradition of taping culture, but we wanted to bring it back to life with modern technology. By doing so, we’re not only preserving these performances in a non-degrading format, but we’re also giving independent musicians a new way to earn a viable living from their music.”
To date, Vault Music has captured 50 live concert performances from New York City’s iconic and underground venues, including Bowery Electric, The Bitter End, Baby’s All Right, Mercury Lounge, and many more. Each will be released as limited-edition live albums on the company’s blockchain-based music platform and mobile app, which is available on iOS and Android.
Vault Music’s platform and digital format empower artists to control the price and scarcity of their music. Unreleased music and live performances can be released as digital albums that can be bought and resold by fans.
More importantly, by preserving these performances as live albums on chain, artists can quickly and easily share live performance experiences with a larger fanbase, a major advantage for independent artists who are unable to tour extensively. And unlike vinyl and other physical formats, artists earn royalties every time an album is sold or resold on Vault Music, creating long-tail earning potential.
Built on the Solana blockchain, Vault Music uses its proprietary Vault Protocol, an open and fully decentralized standard for purchasing, playing, and sharing limited-edition music releases, to store and encrypt audio and visual media for each drop.
Each live performance can be purchased and played in high-quality audio along with rich-media extras such as concert videos, voice memos, backstage photos, and more. Each live album drop can be purchased via credit card, PayPal, Phantom wallet, or in-app purchase via Vault Music’s mobile app.
To date, Vault Music has recorded live performances from AKTHESAVIOR, Juniper, Middle Part, Anna Shoemaker and more, including live drops from artists such as Kids That Fly, Telescreens, SUM SUN, Charlotte Rose Benjamin, and D’Lourdes. In total, Vault Music has recorded over 50 live concerts in New York City, which will drop weekly.
Vault Music is not stopping with New York City, however. In the months ahead, the company will expand its Cassette Culture 3.0 initiative to Los Angeles, Nashville, Austin, Amsterdam, and London by the end of 2023, with a focus on spotlighting the top independent and underground musicians in each scene.
“Our objective is to create the definitive archive of the best live music experiences around the world,” says Eccles. “By making each album strictly limited edition, our inventory will truly serve as the ultimate inventory of collectible time capsules from the most vibrant underground music scenes.”
To learn more about Cassette Culture 3.0 and to collect the latest drops, visit drop.vault.fan/nyc