Ignoring expenses, actual profit margins and other money-related numbers that musicians are often complaining about, if you want to make $5 million from an album that sells for $10 per copy, you would have to sell 500,000 copies of that album. That’s a big feat that’s not achieved every day.
Legendary rap group Wu-Tang Clan plans to manufacture only one copy of their upcoming record, “The Wu — Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.” That sounds like commercial suicide, considering all the money that goes into the recording and production of an album, but there’s more to it than that. Once it is up for sale, it is expected to sell for at least $5 million.
Again, there’s more to it than that.
Music is commonly referred to as art, and the goal of this project is to see it treated as such. Art is special because it is one of a kind. There’s only one authentic Mona Lisa, and it is worth a lot of money. The same will be true of “The Wu.” There will be only one copy, and it will sell for a large sum since it will be the only one.
The 31-track album was recorded over six years in complete secrecy with the original Wu-Tang Clan members. Before it is sold, likely to the highest bidder in an auction, it is expected to tour museums worldwide for exclusive listening parties. There will be no MP3 downloads and no CDs or vinyl at the record store.
Wu-Tang Clan member RZA told Billboard that he has heard offers ranging from $2 million to $5 million for the album.
“[It] gives us an idea that what we’re doing is being understood by some,” he told Billboard.
There are two ways to look at this bizarre release method — or lack thereof:
1. You can be upset about it.
Why would they do this? Don’t they want people to hear their music? They worked on it for six years and nobody’s going to know what it sounds like? At most, a few thousand people, a number that could be completely off, will hear it and that’s all. For a band whose cultural immediacy has dwindled since the ’90s, releasing a record that nobody knows anything about is a dangerous move.
2. You can be excited by it.
Is it pretentious that they’re treating the album this way? Sure, absolutely. It’s being treated like it’s a gift to mankind from The Creator himself. Here’s the thing: it could be. Most of us will never know. Very few people will ever get to experience this thing. It’s exclusive. The exclusivity creates mystique. People will debate what they think it might sound like. Your friend will know somebody who knows a guy who knows a guy who heard about somebody who got to hear it, and they said it was the greatest collection of sound in the history of hip-hop. Wow, imagine what it would be like to hear that?
Replications of Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” can be seen online, while the actual thing is only in one place. “The Wu” can only be seen in one place and for an extremely limited time. It’s the Haley’s Comet of music releases. It only comes around so often and the conditions have to be just right to be able to experience it. Without the ability to repeatedly listen, your memory of it, if you were fortunate enough to have heard it and formed one at all, will be tainted by nostalgia, which will make it even more mythic. It’s a big deal, a one-night-only ordeal that will never be replicated.
As much as many people want to hear this thing, its exclusivity is both a bold statement and great promotional tool, but then again, there’s no point in promoting something that isn’t distributed. Even if the album ends up being no good, the release method itself is art, a thoughtful and deep idea that stirs up reactions. Also, the album might be the greatest thing we’ll never hear.