Monkey mistake

Music makers love to have their songs heard by their fans who buy a lot of their albums.

An exception is the American hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan (WTC).

WTC released in 2015 only one copy of the nine-member group’s seventh album titled “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.” Other than the members of WTC who secretly recorded the 31 tracks of the album over six years, one former member who had passed away, and their producer, only those who bought the album — an individual and a collective — had heard it.

Convicted pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli, who bought the album for $2 million, making it the most expensive ever in the history of commercial music, was bound by the terms of the purchase contract that stipulated the tracks could only be released to the public in the year 2103. Its current owner, digital art collective PleasrDAO, bought it in 2018 for a rumored $4 million.

There were so-called listening parties where invited people got to hear some of the album. The latest such party held recently at the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Tasmania, Australia offered only a 36-minute sampling of the album, curated especially by Wu-Tang Clan producer Cilvaringz, BBC reports.

Jarrad Rawlins, lead curator of Mona, where the album is on exhibit, explained the limit on listeners of “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.”

“The more we know about this album, and the more people out there know, the less magical it becomes,” he said.

Meanwhile, the latest music video of Japanese band Mrs. Green Apple also got limited audience exposure but for a different reason.

Launched last week, the video of their new song, “Columbus,” shows historical figures Christopher Columbus, Napoleon Bonaparte and Ludwig van Beethoven discovering an island and its inhabitants.

Three members of the band play Columbus, Bonaparte and Beethoven while other actors wearing monkey costumes portray natives of America.

A scene showing Columbus teaching apes to look like natives drew the ire of netizens. The video was criticized for being racist, which prompted Mrs. Green Apple to pull it a day after its broadcast.

The band apologized to the public, admitting their controversial video lacked an understanding of historical and cultural backgrounds, according to BBC. WJG @tribunephl_wjg