What the immortality of the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” theme means for music NFTs

by James · July 16, 2022

Larry David, when asked in a 2009 interview to describe the opening theme of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, did not cut the words: “It introduces the idea that you are in on something quite idiotic”.

Despite the HBO comedy’s six-year hiatus from 2011 to 2017, the happy tuba, piano and mandolin waltz was called “Frolic”, written by the Italian conductor and composer Luciano Michelinicontinued to grow in popularity on the internet as the star of countless memes, from Bernie Sanders to Steve Harvey to Chris Christie to Donald Trump.

Now, perhaps inevitably, it has been immortalized as a 1-of-1 NFT (along with the original six pages of sheet music) on the Bitcoin-supported platform Counterparty – the home of equally potent Web3 culture icons as Rare Pepes. The token was minted in April with an auction scheduled at a future date (TBD).

Table of Contents

How it started

Starting his career in the early 1970s, mainly composing for Italian and foreign films, Luciano originally wrote “Frolic” for a comic character called Il Barone Rosso (The Red Baron), played by Nino Tofflo in the melodrama from 1974 “La Bellissima Estate” (“The beautiful summer”).

However, David did not discover the melody until several years later – in a bank advertisement. “I love it, where do they get it from?” he thought when he first heard it. “The commercial went on for a week, and I never saw it again. Then I had my assistant examine it – it was all this ordeal to get the name of the bank and the music, and in the end she tracked it down. So I just put it away. while I would need it. “

At the series launch in 2000, Larry remembered “Frolic” but did not contact Luciano directly. According to Luciano, son of Franco Micalizzi (an Italian composer from RCA) called and said that an American record company had bought the rights to “La Bellissima Estate”, whose soundtrack included “Frolic”.

More specifically, a series editor of “Curb”, Steve Rasch, found it on Universal Production Music (then known as Killer Tracks), which had included it in their catalog of Italian film music from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. The company’s vice president, Carl Peel, later gave access to “Frolic” along with various other related tracks with a similar comic vibe. But given the song’s malleable and recognizable harmonic arrangement (with a lot of seventh chords), “Frolic” quickly found a place as one of the series’ most recognizable and culturally relevant pieces.

How are you

Confirming historical artifacts such as art, wine and paintings has been an existential problem that has plagued auction houses and markets for centuries. However, it was until early concepts that Bitcoin-colored coins (2012) and Rare Pepes (2016) exploited the immutability of Bitcoin blockchain to reflect the origins of digital objects, along with a transparent ownership overview.

Although there are several ways to tokenize physical assets, collectibles, for example Chyna Pepe and Pepechain by developer Joe Looney, provide clear examples where the hash of the original file is encrypted and linked to the token. Furthermore, since the asset descriptions are publicly visible through a block explorer, anyone with an internet connection and smartphone can authenticate and cross-reference the details to confirm an original piece.

With that in mind, given its cultural and digital impact, on April 25 the original notes of “Frolic” were merged (embossed) and digitally preserved at Counterparty.

It is important to note that although each transaction on Motpart works in the same way as Bitcoin, not every Bitcoin transaction reflects the dynamics of Motpart. Undoubtedly, transactions through the counterparty are simpler as they are used OP_RETURN field of Bitcoin to permanently store every transaction or action (including arbitrary data) related to the asset. While some consider using the OP-RETURN field (and storing data outside of financial transactions) as irrelevant and “inflated blockchain”, the use case is appropriate for anything that requires proof of ownership.

Furthermore, when an asset is recovered on the counterparty, it is only available to the person (s) who have the private keys to the wallet address where it is stored. Unlike smart contracts or third-party marketplaces Ethereum which can be exploited or hacked through phishing scams or ridiculously simple attacks, counterparty resources exploit the robust security model of Bitcoin addresses that gives full autonomy to the owner. That said, even though Bitcoin wallets are mostly not foolproof, it mostly means that a hacker or scammer has to acquire his private keys. Therefore, it is relatively safer than a smart contract that can give permission for a hacker or bot to withdraw money through marketplaces such as OpenSea without full awareness or that the owner understands what they have clicked on.

See also AI Art Hackathon at NFT Lisbon

With that in mind, the decision to imprint Frolic on the Counterparty, according to the creators, was the only logical long-term solution to preserve the work’s authenticity from a technical and practical point of view. In addition, although the 2021 NFT bubble helped drive CryptoArt and Ethereum-based collections like CryptoPunks into the spirit of the times, a majority of “innovative” collections launched during the hype cycle are arguably less secure and less authentic compared to predecessors made in 2016 and 2017 which still exist today.

For example, although marketplaces like OpenSea have made it easier for the average person to click and buy, the vague nature of smart contracts and IP rights makes it extremely difficult to conduct some thorough and timely audits. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a cacophony of carpet covers and scams that has left collectors with nothing more than inherently worthless images. Yes, for some of these non-counterparty projects, “right-click, save as” meme was unfortunately true.

Although protocols such as Solana and Ethereum seek to provide value to artists and creators through royalties, there are still gaping design flaws, risks and issues, especially when analyzed from a long-term perspective. An example is that if artwork is not stored in the chain, it is still heavily dependent on marketplaces paying fees to store data and can result in lost images they should lay down, as seen Rare pieces in 2020.

In contrast, the layered creative and inherent value of “Frolic” goes beyond status-driven profile pictures or just rarity measurements that affect the perception of most collections published on Ethereum. Included in 1-of-1 are:

High-resolution scans of the original notes.
High-resolution scans of documents confirming authenticity, signed by the original composer Luciano Michelini and the Italian government.
The original, physical six pages of sheet music (which the buyer will receive).

The scans were then linked to a JSON file and uploaded to the immutable and decentralized storage solution Arweave. It also comes with one PDF front page which outlines the details of the “Frolic” project, and shares the links to each file.

In addition, the “Frolic” package also includes:

A complete copy of the bitcoin blockchain on an external hard drive.
All high-resolution scans on multiple removable USB devices.
The Bitcoin kernel and Counterparty node software on removable USB devices.
A 1-on-1 recording by Luciano playing “Frolic” on piano.
A tour of Rome for a live and private performance of “Frolic” by the composer himself.

Given the open nature of the other party, and unlike significant works of art such as a Warhol or Mona Lisa (which not only require admirers to travel to museums or galleries, but are often locked in secure storage facilities), anyone with a smartphone or computer can see the assets knowingly that it is not only the verified original, but the first historical note “artifact” that is digitally preserved via this open source method.

How it could go

Ultimately, look through the unique integrations and mixes of artists that dead beef and Scrillamusic creates an ever-expanding and expansive presence in Web3.

But as with the diversity of mixed tunes, not all music-centric NFTs will end up on the same note. Some will always transcend their creative foundation, while others will be lost and linger among the other long-forgotten fragments of the web.

Although value is subjective, it can be argued that given its innate memetic and comic power, the cultural awareness of “Curb”, the omniscient influence of music, the basis of the counterpart and the unique qualities of the real world, “Frolic” transcends the superficial perceptions of a 1-of-1 value. In all fairness, it’s in line with the gold standard for everything that is really digitally scarce.

Along with preserving an important cultural icon for posterity, the creators behind the “Frolic” project hope its structure can be used and replicated as a template to embrace what has become one of the most important technical innovations for tracing ancestry since pen and – paper accounting system. And more importantly, do it in a way that introduces a new set of possibilities and features to the art world that until now was simply not possible.