If you’ve been contemplating the idea of buying Beyoncé’s $1,000 empty wooden box, don’t worry, you’re not alone: other BeyHive fans have also started saving up to buy the umpteenth piece of luxury merch from their favorite billionaire artist. Although I can think of better things you could do with that money, the idea has its point, no matter how absurd it may seem.
It is a luxury pine box, with a green velvet interior, a faux crocodile leather strap and an engraved bee, designed to store Beyoncé’s vinyl. It costs 837.95 euros in Spain, while in the United States it is sold for 948.01 dollars, a figure that reproduces Beyoncé’s date of birth (September 4, 1981). The box is linked to the reissue of ‘B’Day’, which turns 20, and, of course, the vinyls are separate.
We will not be the ones to defend that Beyoncé believes in her fans the need to spend such a fortune for a box with air inside, but the reality is that artists like to sell cool things and fans like to buy them. Even Lorde’s controversial Music Box made some sense: designed to reinvent the physical format, it contained everything except a CD or vinyl, although it did contain a download to download ‘Solar Power’ and bonus tracks, as well as handwritten letters and other moves.
With the decline of physical formats, artists have had no choice but to manage to maximize sales by selling crazy things. Playing with the concept of ‘Tension’, Kylie Minogue put some hangers on sale as merchandising, despite having confessed that she has a phobia of them. Not to mention Travis Scott’s giant chicken nugget-shaped cushion, linked to his collaboration with McDonald’s: he was asking $750 for the nonsense, so we hope his fans managed to fall asleep after spending the equivalent of a rent on it.
@baderalsafar Travis Scott McDonald’s Chicken Nugget 🍗 #foryoupage #foryou #fyp #sneakerhead #hypebeast #baderalsafar #travisscott #mcdonalds #chickennuggets ♬ original sound – Bader Al Safar
Some products have been more useful than others, as artists have often sold clothing, such as Lady Gaga’s ‘Chromatica’ jockstrap, or even furniture, such as Bon Jovi’s folding chair. Although none have gone as far as the KISS coffin, which took the merchandising logic to the end: not only are you a KISS fan, you can literally have KISS accompany you to the grave. The irony is that whoever buys it will be the only one who doesn’t enjoy it.
Others, like Björk, are among the artists who have turned their physical products into artistic or conceptual objects, not simply merchandising. Of course, it is not lost on anyone that the ‘Biophilia’ box set, with tuning forks tuned specifically for each song on the album, or the ‘Utopia’ box set, which included 14 calls for birds, were quite expensive. These products then finance their balloon dresses, but fixed, because they also sell out or are close to doing so.
Merch is the artist-fan agreement that goes beyond buying the CD, vinyl or concert ticket. It shows loyalty and devotion and, for artists, it allows the fan’s pocket to be squeezed: once someone has already bought the album, the t-shirt, the ticket or the vinyl, there are still many other things to sell them. The problem is that the exorbitant prices of many of these products are directly an armed robbery, perpetrated by artists who have enough money to support three or four generations.
It is true that these products have an emotional meaning. They strengthen the bond with the public, since the more you invest in an artist’s universe, the more you bond with them. They also create community, because these objects function as recognizable symbols among fans. Having that box, that necklace – like that one from Lana Del Rey that seemed designed to snort coke – or that limited object means belonging to something.
@baking.by.ben Here’s what’s in the Solar Power music box! Rip the foot poster 😔 #lorde #solarpower #foryoupage #fypシ #music #unboxing ♬ Solar Power – Blink 3 Times – Lorde
But capitalist logic also consists of creating demand before product. It is capitalism first: the product appears first and then the desire to possess it is born. There was no prior demand for an empty Beyoncé box. No one had woken up thinking “what I really need right now is a giant nugget-shaped pillow,” until Travis Scott decided that could exist.
Current merchandising seeks to convert consumption into collecting and, in the process, return value to the physical edition. If streaming has turned music into something intangible, artists can turn their releases into luxury objects, design pieces or collectibles. You no longer just buy a record, but you buy something that you can show, keep and put on a shelf.
Seen this way, even Beyoncé’s empty box has a certain advantage over some of the experiences that are selling lately: at least you have the box left. Because paying for an “audio-only” ticket like the ones Bruno Mars has offered, represents an even more absurd expense. What do you have left then? An “audio only” memory? If nothing else, Queen B’s super box is sure to be made to last many, many, many years. You better.
