With the new Chainsmokers album So Far So Good dropping next week, the duo are ramping up promo in a most unusual way: by giving a portion of album royalties away to their fans, for free.
This giveaway will happen via the blockchain on music NFT marketplace Royal, where The Chainsmokers — Drew Taggart and Alex Pall — are minting 5,000 limited digital assets (or LDAs, Royal’s term for NFTs) representing 1% of the album’s master streaming royalties. Fans who snag these NFTs will also gain access to The Chainsmokers private Discord channel featuring exclusive content and other benefits.
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“A number of artists have done this in the past, but not for free,” the duo say in a statement. “It was important for us to do it this way because this isn’t about profiting off some new tech for us, it’s about connecting more deeply with you and harnessing a new disruptive technology in an effective way that truly shows what is possible as we head towards a Web3 world.”
The drop happens via Royal on Tuesday, May 17, with the album dropping Friday, May 13. In the phase one drop, 4,000 tokens will be available for The Chainsmokers VIP list starting at 6 pm EST. At 8:00 pm EST, an additional 700 tokens will be available in a phase two drop for The Chainsmokers VIP list along with general access fans. No cryptocurrency is required for fans to claim one of the NFTs, and all associated fees will be covered by Royal.
Fans who claim the NFTs will be free to sell them on the secondary market, should they so desire. The Chainsmokers will not be taking a cut of these secondary sales, with the 7.5% secondary fee instead being distributed equally between the 14 songwriters who wrote songs on So Far So Good.
“Because of antiquated laws and old judgments, we believe songwriters are underpaid,” said Pall and Taggart in a statement. “We couldn’t have written these songs without this core group of amazing writers and we wanted to find a way to give them something extra for being a part of our journey.”
Pall and Taggart are well-versed in the Web3 world via investments in startups including Royal, Magic Eden, Axie Infinity, Mythical games, Superplastic, Metaplex and RTFKT.
Created by electronic producer 3LAU, Royal has recently hosted royalty drops from artists including Nas and Diplo. In March, a total of 20% of the royalties from Diplo’s recent Miguel collaboration “Don’t Forget My Love” were sold in the form of 2,110 tokens for a profit of $293,000, according to data shared by Royal.