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Music|Pay $1 to Hear Wu-Tang Clan's Secret Album (Eventually)
  
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/13/arts/music/
wu-tang-clan-once-upon-a-time-in-shaolin.html

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Pay $1 to Hear Wu-Tang Clan's Secret Album (Eventually)

An online art collective that spent $4 million on "Once Upon a Time
in Shaolin" is telling fans their purchases will accelerate the
one-of-a-kind album's 2103 release date.

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Members of the Wu Tang Clan perform onstage.
The Wu-Tang Clan created "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" as a unique
physical object, available to a single collector. Pleasr, the current
owner, said it had been working with the group to release the
31-track project.Credit...Andrew White for The New York Times
Ben Sisario

By Ben Sisario

June 13, 2024, 2:14 p.m. ET

Ten years ago, the most mysterious and expensive album of all time
was announced by the Wu-Tang Clan as a protest against the
devaluation of creativity in the age of the internet. "Once Upon a
Time in Shaolin," limited to one hyperdeluxe physical copy, was
bought for a reported $2 million by the "pharma bro" Martin Shkreli
and later acquired by an online art collective for $4 million.

Now it can be yours for a dollar. Sort of.

Pleasr, the online collective, began selling access to "Once Upon a
Time in Shaolin" on Thursday, charging fans $1 (plus fees) to be part
of what it called an experiment to test a simple question: "Do people
still value music in a digital era?" As befitting an album that has
been wrapped in legal and public controversy for a decade, however,
the transaction is anything but simple.

For $1, fans will gain access to an encrypted digital version of
"Once Upon a Time in Shaolin." But only a five-minute sampler of the
album will be available now, Pleasr says.

The Wu-Tang Clan's original sale contract with Shkreli in 2015 said
that "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" could not be released to the
public for 88 years -- until Oct. 8, 2103 -- although the agreement
allowed for private viewings and listening sessions.

Image
"Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" was originally bought by Martin
Shkreli, a pharmaceutical executive. When he was convicted of
securities fraud, the federal government seized the album.Credit...
Richard Drew/Associated Press

For each $1 that Pleasr takes in, the group says it will reduce the
waiting period for the full album's release by 88 seconds. By a rough
calculation, it would take about 28 million contributions of $1
apiece to eliminate that delay entirely.

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