Hitting the right notes: Music enters the metaverse

We’ve experienced a new global digital reality in the past few years—exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, which brought about broken supply chains, travel bans, and accelerated remote working as well as home-based learning. Digital platforms and services are now the centrestage of our lives—if they weren’t already. Add the rise of the crypto economy—crypto winters included, social gaming going mainstream, and we get an almost dystopian hybrid virtual-meets-physical reality. Enter the age of the metaverse, bringing with it a massive opportunity to explore and to innovate—and this has been exactly that for brands like Spotify with the world of music.

Before you think we’re referring to watching bands perform a la 3D avatars virtually, there is just something about live concerts that cannot be replaced. But what if artists and fans were able to connect from anywhere in the world in a completely reimagined way?

Today, this has become a reality with Spotify Island and its K-Park on Roblox. According to the audio streaming platform’s global group creative director Marie Rönn, such experiences now blur the lines between listener and creator, where an artist-fan interaction can result in a much more personal experience.

On Spotify Island, artists can now create new ways of engaging fans, telling their own stories using immersive audio and video through the experience, opening up a myriad of possibilities for launches, fan drops and creative online live events. Artists have access to yet another platform to monetise, be it through in-game virtual merchandise co-created with Spotify, or other opportunities which the audio streaming platform is looking to offer artists to generate additional revenue. 

‘Hear’ lies the opportunity with youths

Beyond music, the role of audio content has shifted dramatically, providing creators the chance to also connect with their fans and listeners, and brands the opportunity to create a connection to today’s consumer. 

The youths of today, or Gen Zs, have seen a change in how audio plays a role in their lives. According to the Spotify's most recent Culture Next report, 80% of Gen Z respondents said that audio allows them to explore different sides of their personality. They are also more likely to follow an artist on social media after listening to them than any generation before them.

With the metaverse, the sensory experiences we are so used to do not necessarily have to follow the laws of physical reality. We can dream of experiences where you can “hear to smell”, “touch to see”, “taste to hear” and so much more. Whether it is pure music or the spoken word, artists and content creators have a whole new canvas with the ability to provide followers with new visual and auditory experiences. Anything is now possible, with more ways for fans and followers to experience their art and music in ways we have not yet even imagined today. With this new way of interacting, fans can not only be entertained, but use the experience to find joy, learn something new, or even find inspiration to cultivate habits that could lead to better living overall.

Will you help build the metaverse?

While the metaverse may be new and intimidating, it promises a whole new immersive world to whoever enters it. But it cannot become a rich experience on its own. 

We believe that with some imagination and the right vision, brands play an important part in setting the stage. The more open we are to embracing the metaverse, the more we will collectively build for the most interesting experiences to enable creators and communities to bridge a divide—and make the virtual world a place where we can all be a little more human.

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Anthony Baker is head of technology strategy, APAC at RGA.