Gala Music’s partnership with music producer Larry Dvoskin and publisher Warner-Chappell Music is the latest collaboration between the music industry and the NFT market.
Musicians and labels have increasingly turned to NFTs as a new way to monetize their music and provide unique experiences for fans.
David Bowie, who is widely thought to be one of the most important musicians of the 20th century, made a huge amount of music during his life. He released 27 studio albums, 11 live albums, 4 soundtracks, and 128 singles. But it looks like the singer-songwriter, who passed in 2016, has one more song to sing.
Larry Dvoskin, the producer of the unreleased version of “Let’s Dance,” characterizes it as a “more dreamy, electronic” version of the hit song.
Dvoskin had long desired the recording’s release and approached Bowie’s estate about releasing it via NFTs. When the original email from Bowie expressing his enthusiasm for the recording was discovered, the estate altered its mind after initially declining.
Bowie’s ureleased ‘Let’s Dance’ to benefit charity via NFTs
The NFTs featuring the unreleased version of “Let’s Dance” will be sold on a pay-what-you-wish basis, with all initial proceeds going to MusiCares, a nonprofit organization that provides health and human services to the music community. The release of the NFTs coincides with the song’s debut 40 years ago.
Gala Games, the parent company of Gala Music, is best known for its Web3 gaming efforts but has expanded into music and film as it explores other entertainment use cases for NFTs and tokens.
The company faced some criticism earlier this year when it announced upcoming film projects with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Mark Wahlberg, but later clarified that the projects were unrelated to their own lives or careers.
Warner Chappell Music, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group, owns Bowie’s entire music catalog and purchased it for over $250 million in early 2022.
The record label announced a partnership with Web3 entertainment incubator Defient in November of that year to “unlock the power of Web3 for songwriters.”
Warner Chappell Music’s agreement with Larry Dvoskin is described as its “first completely native NFT agreement” for a song that had never been released in physical or digital formats.
