First of all, welcome back to the blog. I had the day off yesterday – and I hope you didn’t miss Amateur’s House too much. It’s back to somewhat normal business this morning – although forgive me for doing what much of the press will do today, and giving you quite a lot of content which was prepared last week…

Now, I haven’t written much about non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, on this blog. Truth be told, it’s because I don’t understand them very well and haven’t felt particularly inclined – at least not yet, anyway – to do anything about it. But there are one or two things I do realise very clearly.

The first is that there are a few artists in the house music world – Todd Terry and Scott Diaz are the first two to come to mind – who seem to be very keen on this new technology, and are actively dabbling in it. And Diaz in particular has kept with it, which suggests it’s bringing in results for him.

The second is that, as an outsider whose understanding of this topic is limited, it feels a little bit dot com boom to me. The vibe I get is that this is essentially a fad which is going to make some people quite a bit of money for a while and then fade largely into the background. But I’d sincerely like to proven wrong on that point.

And I very much hope I am. This blog believes strongly that artists should remember their own worth and importance. Without artists, labels would have no music. Without artists, the likes of Spotify wouldn’t be able to exist. NFTs might possibly be a way of ensuring an artist does make money out of their music.

Which is why I was somewhat conflicted after reading comments from Brian Eno – a visionary musician from back in the day. He essentially thinks NFTs are modern day scams which allow artists to be what he charmingly calls “little capitalist arseholes”. And I do wonder whether he’s correct in his assessment.

What I do somewhat object to is his description of “little capitalist arseholes”. I’m very comfortable with an artist making a lot of money out of their work. I’m certainly more comfortable with that than someone making a fortune on the stock market in shares in companies which dabble in making weapons or selling cigarettes, for example.

For some reason, even after reading any explanation of what NFTs are, it doesn’t pique the interest of my brain – and most things do. Nonetheless, I will try and educate myself some more on the subject, and I’ll try to get back to it in the New Year…