The Wu-Tang Clan and The World's Most Exclusive Album
Geege Schuman stashed this in Music
Stashed in: Marketing!, @bhorowitz, Hip Hop, Awesome, Music, Selling!, @sethrogen, @wutangclan, Price Is Right!, Freakonomics, slums@shaolin
The Wu-Tang Clan’s latest album, Once Upon A Time in Shaolin, is ambitious. It’s not the music that stands out -- at least as far as anyone knows -- but the business model.
The album will not be available in stores or on iTunes, and the group has no intention of performing any songs from the album during live performances. The group has produced exactly one physical copy of the new album, which is stored in “a hand carved nickel-silver box designed by the British Moroccan artist Yahya.” The Wu-Tang Clan intends for the album to go on tour, like a famous artwork, so museum patrons can pay $30-$50 to listen to the album on headphones. After that, the album will be sold to a single customer.
Why even bother to write songs? Why not just jam in the studio and call it a day?
This is a "business model"?
Why Wu-Tang Will Release Just One Copy Of Its Secret Album
Like the work of a master Impressionist, it will truly be one-of-a-kind—in lieu of a traditional major label or independent launch, the iconic hip-hop collective will make and sell just one copy of the album. And similar to a Monet or a Degas, the price tag will be a multimillion-dollar figure.
“We’re about to sell an album like nobody else sold it before,” says Robert “RZA” Diggs, the first Wu-Tang member to speak on record about Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, in an exclusive interview with FORBES. “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 of an Egyptian king.”
Zuck should buy it for his wife. Then it would be Dr. Chan's Wu-Tang Clan's album.
Ben Horowitz wants it:
http://pandawhale.com/post/40006/wu-tang-clan-will-sell-only-a-single-copy-of-their-new-album
But I read somewhere (I forget where) that he might have to fight Seth Rogen for it.
The simile works right up to the part about being like the "scepter of an Egyptian king"... uh, don't think so. More likely a Swiffer mop that Sam Walton used to clean the first Walmart with...
12:05 PM Jun 27 2014