Hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan sold only one, expensive copy of their album, Once Upon A Time in Shaolin. This exemplifies recent strategies by popular music artists to establish their work as art, with what Walter Benjamin calls ‘aura’, in response to the accessibility and dematerialisation enabled by digital technology as well as longstanding cultural condescension. Critics argue that popular music should not be restricted but shared, with digital technology increasing opportunities for shared consumption. This article considers the fate of music's aura in the age of mechanical reproduction, arguing that it does not disappear but is dispersed and diversified. The digital acceleration of mass reproduction has drawn mixed responses from artists, fans and commentators, and Shaolin and similar projects show how the separation of music from its physical commodity form has brought renewed attention to perennial tensions between the popular, artistic and commercial aspects of popular music.

中文翻译：

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有权杖：数字再现时代的武当派与音乐光环

嘻哈组合 Wu-Tang Clan 只卖出了一张昂贵的专辑副本，少林往事. 这体现了流行音乐艺术家最近将其作品确立为艺术的策略，Walter Benjamin 称之为“光环”，以应对数字技术带来的可访问性和非物质化以及长期的文化屈尊。批评者认为，流行音乐不应受到限制，而应被共享，数字技术增加了共享消费的机会。本文考察了机械复制时代音乐光环的命运，认为它并没有消失，而是分散和多样化。大规模复制的数字化加速引起了艺术家、粉丝和评论员的不同反应，以及少林和类似的项目展示了音乐与其实物商品形式的分离如何重新引起人们对流行音乐的流行、艺术和商业方面之间长期存在的紧张关系的关注。