Back in April, T Bone Burnett unveiled what, in his words, is "the pinnacle of recorded sound," a.k.a. the Ionic Original, a new analog audio format that allegedly leaves vinyl, CDs and streaming in the dust.
The Ionic Original format has yet to change the face of music forever, but it sounds like rich people are having a good time with it — an Ionic Original re-recording of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" has sold for £1,482,000 / $2,295,290 CAD / €1,733,940 after going for auction at Christie's in London earlier today.
Who bought the pricey piece of music is unknown, but it was purchased after a series of listening sessions for prospective buyers in Los Angeles, New York and London. Go, rich people! They really know how to live, huh.
In a statement about the Ionic Original format, Burnett said:
Marshall McLuhan said that a medium surrounds a previous medium and turns the previous medium into an art form, as film did with novels, as television did with film, as the internet has done with television, and as digital has done with analogue. With Bob Dylan's new version of "Blowin' in the Wind," our first Ionic Original archival analogue disc, we have entered and aim to help develop a music space in the fine arts market. I trust and hope it will mean as much to whomever acquired it today at Christie's Exceptional Sale as it does to all of us who made it, and that they will consider it and care for it as a painting or any other singular work of art.
Judging by that statement, Ionic Originals aren't meant to be for everyone and will likely never infiltrate the music industry at large. Paying seven figures for a piece of music that already exists for free (or for much less than that) seems, in a word, dumb, but how would I know.
The Ionic Original format has yet to change the face of music forever, but it sounds like rich people are having a good time with it — an Ionic Original re-recording of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" has sold for £1,482,000 / $2,295,290 CAD / €1,733,940 after going for auction at Christie's in London earlier today.
Who bought the pricey piece of music is unknown, but it was purchased after a series of listening sessions for prospective buyers in Los Angeles, New York and London. Go, rich people! They really know how to live, huh.
In a statement about the Ionic Original format, Burnett said:
Marshall McLuhan said that a medium surrounds a previous medium and turns the previous medium into an art form, as film did with novels, as television did with film, as the internet has done with television, and as digital has done with analogue. With Bob Dylan's new version of "Blowin' in the Wind," our first Ionic Original archival analogue disc, we have entered and aim to help develop a music space in the fine arts market. I trust and hope it will mean as much to whomever acquired it today at Christie's Exceptional Sale as it does to all of us who made it, and that they will consider it and care for it as a painting or any other singular work of art.
Judging by that statement, Ionic Originals aren't meant to be for everyone and will likely never infiltrate the music industry at large. Paying seven figures for a piece of music that already exists for free (or for much less than that) seems, in a word, dumb, but how would I know.
