Rihanna, Snoop Dogg, Tycho, KINGSHIP – Billboard
February was a big month for music and NFT. Spotify connected to Web3 with a token-gated playlist experiment, while Def Jam Records signed a virtual band. Snoop Dogg returned with a fresh NFT drop and Rihanna fans got the chance to own streaming royalty in “Bitch Better Have My Money,” just in time for her Super Bowl halftime show — though the NFT drop wasn’t without controversy.
Overall, crypto prices crept higher in February, with Ethereum now up 46% year-to-date. Based on analysis of sales data from 19 different NFT platforms, independent releases combined with secondary sales volume on OpenSea, here are the top 10 best-selling music NFTs and compilations in February 2023.
1/ Rihanna – “Bitch Better Have My Money”
Monthly trading volume: $532,452
Primary sale (February): $63,000
Secondary volume: 284 ETH ($469,452)
Delivery date: 9 February
While Rihanna was making history at the Super Bowl, her music was making headlines in the NFT space. A portion of the streaming royalties of her track, “Bitch Better Have My Money”, was sold via NFTs on the Web3 platform Anotherblock, generating $63,000 in sales and an additional $469,452 in secondary trading volume. The hype was amplified when Rihanna opened her February 12 hiatus set with the track, sending global streaming numbers up 594% in the week ending February 16.
However, the NFT case was controversial. It was not officially endorsed by Rihanna; instead, the royalties were unlocked through producer DEPUTY’s share of the track, and it is unknown if Rihanna was aware of it. The NFTs also quadrupled in value on the secondary market, and shot far beyond logical expectations for returns based on the flow calculations.
Fundraising was later halted on OpenSea for “promising shared ownership and future profits based on this ownership” – which OpenSea does not allow – proving that NFT projects that position themselves purely as investments are still at risk of regulatory scrutiny.
See the collection at OpenSea.
2/ Violetta Zironi – “Another Life”
Monthly trading volume: 167 ETH ($276,552)
Primary Sale (February): ~110 ETH ($182,160)
Secondary Volume: 57 ETH ($94,392)
Delivery date: 17 February
After a successful origin drop last year, singer-songwriter Violetta Zironi returned in February with a new collection, Another life — an EP comprising five tracks and 5,500 unique profile picture illustrations. Holders get access to virtual shows, live concerts and the opportunity to use the songs for their own projects. To celebrate the drop, Zironi hosted a 14-hour Twitter Spaces marathon with her community.
See the collection at OpenSea.
3/ Kids of the Apocalypse
Monthly trade volume: 10748 SOL ($243,979)
Primary sales (February): 6,666 SOL ($151,318)
Secondary Volume: 4,082 SOL ($92,661)
Delivery date: February.. 9
Several years in the making, Kids of the Apocalypse (KOTA) is an ambitious immersive music NFT project built on the Solana blockchain. It features graphic novel characters, dystopian stories and a dark-pop soundtrack from veteran Swedish producer Stefan Storm, formerly of the pop duo Sound of Arrows. KOTA is now the largest music NFT project on Solana, a blockchain that offers faster speeds and cheaper transaction fees than Ethereum.
See the collection at OpenSea.
4/ MyFi Studio – “Wind Tunnels” + “Circles Are Bad”
Monthly trading volume: 94.48 ETH ($156,458)
Primary Sale (February): 70.33 ETH ($116,466)
Secondary volume: 24.15 ETH ($39,992)
Release dates: January 2023 (“Wind Tunnels”) and February 2023 (“Circles Are Bad”)
“Wind Tunnels” and “Circles are Bad” are innovative NFT instruments that you can play and interact with in real time. They are fully encoded on the Ethereum blockchain itself, which is a significant departure from most music NFTs, where music is usually stored on a remote server while the NFT only contains a link to the music. However, “Wind Tunnels” and the follow-up drum machine project “Circles are Bad” are completely encoded on the chain.
See the “Wind Tunnels” and “Circles Are Bad” compilations on OpenSea.
5/ Shilly: The Access Pass
Monthly trading volume: 82 ETH ($135,792)
Primary Sales (Feb.): N/A
Secondary volume: 82 ETH ($135,792)
Delivery date: 31 January
Shilly – a Bored Ape who makes chaotic pop-punk records – dropped a series of passes in January, allowing the community to get involved in music releases. The most exclusive pass, the Band Pass, gives fans the opportunity to work on music with Shilly and even play on tracks. The project was incubated by Universal Music’s NFT imprint Probably a Label.
See the collection at OpenSea.
6/ KINGSHIP
Monthly trading volume: 76 ETH ($125,856)
Primary Sales (Feb): N/A
Secondary Volume: 76 ETH ($125,856)
Submission date: 11 July 2022
Supergroup Bored Ape were part of a new pilot experiment with Spotify in February, where KINGSHIP Key Card holders can now access an exclusive “token-gated” playlist on the streaming platform. The news sparked another wave of buying activity in the KINGSHIP collection, which captured 76 ETH in volume last month. Spotify has partnered with a total of four projects in the NFT area to test the new function.
See the collection at OpenSea.
7/ Snoop Dogg – XYZ
Monthly trading volume: 45.2 ETH ($74,851)
Primary Sale (February): 44 ETH ($72,864)
Secondary Sale: 1.2 ETH ($1,987)
Delivery date: 3 February
Snoop Dogg returned to Web3 to capitalize on one of the biggest current trends in the space: open publishing. Instead of a fixed supply of NFTs, with open editions – which are usually sold at a lower price to make them more accessible to collectors – fans can create as many editions as they want within a set time frame. Web3 music pioneers RAC and 3LAU both dropped open editions this month, but Snoop Doog blew the doors off. The rapper sold more than 10,000 copies in a 3-day period via Sound.xyz. Snoop Dogg’s “XYZ” sold for 0.0042 ETH (about $7) each, totaling more than $70,000.
See the collection at OpenSea.
8/ Sammy Arriaga – “Metagirl (Remix) featuring Nessy the Rilla”
Monthly trading volume: 30 ETH ($49,680)
Primary Sale (February): 30 ETH ($49,680)
Secondary volume: N/A
Delivery date: 25 February
Following in Snoop’s footsteps, independent country artist Sammy Arriaga also launched an open edition on Sound.xyz in February, aiming to beat Snoop Dogg’s 10,000 sales with a variety of NFT incentives. The biggest collector will receive a special reward, while the rest will be entered into a lottery to win a valuable NFT. At the time of writing, Arriaga has generated 5,000 sales. One collector bought more than 1,000 NFTs, briefly becoming Sound.xyz’s largest NFT collector of all time.
See the collection at OpenSea.
9/ Tycho – “The Science of Patterns”
Monthly trading volume: $19,000
Primary Sales: $19,000
Secondary volume: N/A
Delivery date: 25 February
Electronic producer Tycho re-released his 20-year-old EP, The science of patterns, in February as a digital release for the first time. As a twist, the record is only available as an NFT through Tycho’s Web3 fan club portal. Powered by Web3 technology company Medallion, the multitrack album format is completely new to Web3, allowing fans to stream the entire album within the NFT itself, unlike previous album NFTs that simply unlocked access to music elsewhere.
10/ WVRPSound
Monthly Trade Volume: 11.09 ETH ($18,365)
Primary Sales (Feb): N/A
Secondary Volume: 11.09 ETH ($18,365)
Submission date: 17 January 2022
WVRPSound is the largest music NFT project ever in terms of trading volume. Since launching in January 2022, the collection of AI-generated music and animated characters has earned more than 6,000 ETH in volume (about $7.3 million). The project recently announced plans to release playable versions of the characters in The Sandbox metaverse.
See the collection at OpenSea.
Methodology: The chart was compiled using data from primary music NFT sales across 19 different NFT platforms, independent releases and combined with secondary volume data from OpenSea. Data was captured between February 1 – February 28, 2023. Crypto to US dollar conversion rates were calculated on February 28.
