"Metaversal is the first album imagined as a programatic blockchain experience. It encompasses beautiful audio reactive art, music that adapts to time, and collection of physical fine art sculptures from the audio waveforms of the songs themselves. The Metaversal engine has Web 3.0 connectivity that allows fans to solve a cryptographic treasure hunt and win 1/1 NFT’s."


Yeah, but, like... is the music any good?

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Everyone has an opinion. Mine just happens to be a little more informed than most.
Electronic Music Critic: Near-Daily Ruminations Of Music I Own, In Alphabetical Order!
(~)

I'm sure one day all this blockchain, NFT, metaverse stuff will be a completely normal part of life, but right now it feels like technology in search of a use, which is why you end up with gimmicky shit like this. Expect this to catch on about as well as 5.1 music did.

As for the actual album... I lasted about five seconds after the first drop. The only BT records in the last 20 years that haven't felt like jamming a fork in your ear have been the ambient or vaguely classical ones.

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Mixes:
> Back To Deep [Deep Trippy House]
> Terra Nova [Modern Progressive Trance]
> Rough & Ready [Modern Trance]
>A Different Energy [Good Modern Trance]
> The Edale Mix [Panoramic Beats]

Most of BT's work have gained my attention but checking previews at BP was a confirmation that I don't need to get involved with this album. I understand artists change their perspectives/musical styles but BT has some much potential to be better artist than this album sounds.

And yes, preview is enough for me. I get the overall taste what it is all about.

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mattiollikainen.blogspot.com

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I'm sure one day all this blockchain, NFT, metaverse stuff will be a completely normal part of life, but right now it feels like technology in search of a use, which is why you end up with gimmicky shit like this.

Accurate.

Also, BT has been in the NFT rooms almost nightly on Clubhouse for the past year

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"In a world of illusion you only see what you feel"

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I'm sure one day all this blockchain, NFT, metaverse stuff will be a completely normal part of life, but right now it feels like technology in search of a use, which is why you end up with gimmicky shit like this. Expect this to catch on about as well as 5.1 music did. As for the actual album... I lasted about five seconds after the first drop. The only BT records in the last 20 years that haven't felt like jamming a fork in your ear have been the ambient or vaguely classical ones.

This album is hardly more worthy of a discussion than Armin's latest guest performance at a basketball game, but yes, put well. I regret to say the futuristic babble made me assume this would be another ambienty BT album. Oops.

I think the correct order of things would be to make truly groundbreaking music first, then package it in gimmicky crypto "web 3.0" poseur cack, if you really feel the need to. He's perfectly capable of doing hq groundbreaking music, so he is.

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What is the real aesthetic?

quote:

Originally posted by Sykonee collection of physical fine art sculptures from the audio waveforms of the songs themselves.

Can you keep it simple and send me a mold your cock? If you're well-endowed, I could use it as a stand for my headphones.

quote:

Originally posted by Midlothian This album is hardly more worthy of a discussion than Armin's latest guest performance at a basketball game, but yes, put well. I regret to say the futuristic babble made me assume this would be another ambienty BT album. Oops. I think the correct order of things would be to make truly groundbreaking music first, then package it in gimmicky crypto "web 3.0" poseur cack, if you really feel the need to. He's perfectly capable of doing hq groundbreaking music, so he is.

The trouble with BT is you never know if his newest record is going to be worthy of discussion until you press play and allow him to fuck your ear canal raw with some horrendously over-compressed parody of synth wave, as he does here.

It makes me wonder if there's a more schizophrenic artist in electronic music. Stupid titles aside, Everything You're Searching For Is On The Other Side Of Fear and Between Here And You are perfectly credible ambient/neo classical records. And then you get shit like this. The mind boggles.

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Mixes:
> Back To Deep [Deep Trippy House]
> Terra Nova [Modern Progressive Trance]
> Rough & Ready [Modern Trance]
>A Different Energy [Good Modern Trance]
> The Edale Mix [Panoramic Beats]

Is there an artist everyone loves and hates equally like BT? Sheesh....

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J As for the actual album... I lasted about five seconds after the first drop. The only BT records in the last 20 years that haven't felt like jamming a fork in your ear have been the ambient or vaguely classical ones.

I recently did a mini-binge on a bunch of his albums from this past decade. I rather liked one of the ambient ones (the green one, I think?), and heard a few interesting moments in '_' (is it titled 'underscore'?). Not much else to write home about though, but I'm sure all his newfound fans from These Hopeful Machines enjoyed them.

Seeing quite the backlash against this latest project tho'.

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Everyone has an opinion. Mine just happens to be a little more informed than most.
Electronic Music Critic: Near-Daily Ruminations Of Music I Own, In Alphabetical Order!
(~)

We demand links to the backlash!

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Mixes:
> Back To Deep [Deep Trippy House]
> Terra Nova [Modern Progressive Trance]
> Rough & Ready [Modern Trance]
>A Different Energy [Good Modern Trance]
> The Edale Mix [Panoramic Beats]

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J We demand links to the backlash!

From the comments:

quote:

Okay so - the album is meh. It's not bad, but not good either. After I was done listening to the album I queued up Ω and the difference in quality and craftsmanship was night and day (and having re-listened to my favourite album of all time, THM, just before listening to this one didn't help matters either). I was super pissed off when it initially seemed like BT made an album that only 11 people could listen to for an ungodly price, but when it came out I just thought: "BT did a synthwave. The End". Your observation about the art being subservient to the concept is painfully obvious. What does "200,000 lines of evolving code" even mean in this context? Confuktion was an unexpected earworm tho. With regard to NFTs themselves: having just watched Benn Jordan's vids on the topic, I have to admit that I'm not totally dedicated to hating them. It seems like there's 10 percent of a promise hidden under 90 percent of the bullshit (proof of stake vs. proof of work). It's definitely another incursion of capitalism requiring artificial scarcity, sure, but there's only so many ways for artists to make a living doing art. And even under some socialist paradise where people don't need to work to make a living, I'd wager that many people would still want some sort of at-least-semi-tangible reward for what they do. Maybe a form of NFTs could be that. Unlikely, I know, but rn I'm viewing this tech like I view GMO foods - gene editing is not bad per se and is an extension of selective breeding, but its promise under this system is massively overhyped. But here's the real big thing to come out of this for me: my opinion of BT himself. The somewhat idolized, parasocial relationship I had with his image and person for the better part of the last decade after how formative his music was to me can't excuse the reality of who he is: a diva with a hugely inflated sense of his own importance even in spite of how amazing his music is. It's like he can't let his music do the talking anymore even though (most of) it's more than capable of speaking for itself. Why does he need to say his albums are longer than they are, or that trance music itself was named after him? Why did he need to promise unbelievably huge rewards for a Kickstarter that he should have known he couldn't fulfill (since he said he was burnt out by the experience), and then blamed everyone he worked with? I'm far more inspired by people like Patricia Taxxon nowadays - BT's a rich egotistical synth hoarder, but Patty's got the type of music and work ethic I actually could see myself obtaining. In any case, I'm now having massive second thoughts about the custom poster of BT (with a quote he said to me personally on Reddit) that's on my studio wall. I don't know if I can justify him as that kind of an inspiration anymore.

___________________
Everyone has an opinion. Mine just happens to be a little more informed than most.
Electronic Music Critic: Near-Daily Ruminations Of Music I Own, In Alphabetical Order!
(~)