Unreleased David Bowie Recording to debut as Music NFT

In his lifetime, David Bowie – considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century – produced an amazing catalog of 27 studio albums, 11 live albums, 4 soundtracks and 128 singles. But it seems the singer-songwriter, who passed away in 2016, still has one song left to sing.

On Thursday, Gala Music, an offshoot of Web3 startup Gala Games, announced a partnership with music producer Larry Dvoskin and publisher Warner-Chappell Music to release a never-before-heard version of Bowie’s 1983 hit “Let’s Dance” via a limited run of NFT -is.

On April 14, 40 years to the day after “Let’s Dance” originally debuted, Gala Music will release 3,003 NFTs, each featuring a piece of Bowie-inspired artwork, which will lock the holder access to the unheard version of “Let’s Dance” which Dvoskin produced with Bowie in 2002.

The NFTs will be sold on a pay-what-you-want model; all initial proceeds from sales will go to MusiCares, a charity that provides health and human services to the music community.

Dvoskin described the track in a statement as a “more dreamy, electronic” version of the smash song, which remains one of Bowie’s most popular tracks ever released. The music producer and songwriter has long wanted the song’s renewal to see the light of day.

As the 40th anniversary of the release of “Let’s Dance” approached, Dvoskin approached Bowie’s estate to try to convince it to release the song via NFTs.

“When I first spoke with the executor of the Bowie Estate, he told me that he initially planned to listen to my pitch to issue this as an NFT and then politely send to,” Dvoskin said ina statement. “But when he retrieved the original email from 2002 in which Bowie expressed his enthusiasm for making the recording, it changed his mind. This was a creative endeavor David never got to see released in his lifetime. We are fulfilling his wish by releasing it now.”

However, next week’s release will not mark Bowie Estate’s first foray into the blockchain.

In September, Bowie’s estate launched a series of NFTs in partnership with marketplace OpenSea titled “Bowie on the Blockchain.” That collection, which was also sold to raise money for charity, got significant setback from Bowie fans who derided the blockchain experiment as inconsistent with the late artist’s ethos and values.

Bowie’s entire music catalog is currently owned by Warner Chappell Music, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group, which bought the collection early last year for over approx. 250 million dollars. In November 2022, the music company announced a deal with Web3 entertainment incubator Defient to “unlock the power of Web3 for songwriters”.

Dvoskin’s deal with the label is described as Warner Chappell Music’s “first all-native NFT deal” for a song that had never been released through physical or digital formats.

Last week, amid a large-scale layoff, Warner Music Group said it planned to spare employees involved in its growing list of Web3 and AI initiatives, cites “new technological initiatives as central to the company’s future.”

Gala Games is best known for its titular Web3 gaming effort, but has also made inroads into music and film as it explores other entertainment uses for NFTs and tokens.

The startup met someone examination earlier this year when it tweeted about upcoming film projects with actors Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Mark Wahlberg — an announcement that appears to have boosted its original token GALA by 115% — only to later delete the tweet and call it a little overzealous . Gala clarified that both actors’ respective production companies are co-producing documentary film projects unrelated to their own lives or careers.