Err, Nobody Has Bought That $5 Million Wu-Tang Clan Album Yet

According to the online auctioneers responsible for the sale, the Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album, the opulent $5 million objet d’art, of which there is only one copy, has failed to find itself a buyer.

In a world where ruthless 12 year old Taiwanese kids are punching holes through art left, right, and center, one would think that a fairly un-punchable cultural artifact made from solid hand-carved nickel-silver would be of interest to big shot collectors with their cloaks made of pug and ermine, but no, this Wu-Tang album remains an orphan.

It’s been a bit of a mess since the auction started in March, causing controversy among the members themselves, with Method Man criticizing it in an interview with XXL, and whenever Ghostface Killah was prompted for comment he basically shrugged at its existence. Fans were also incensed at the idea of a band they’d worshipped their entire lives creating an album that could only be afforded by a one percenter with a Charles Hollander chess set and a hillside villa in St Lucia. It's failure to sell is now just another piece of old furniture on the anti-climactic bonfire of disappointment.

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So what’s next for the most expensive album in the history of humanity? Well, according to Flavorwire, the auctioneer, Paddle8, “continues to work with the seller to vet a number of offers from serious potential collectors.” Which, when Google translated from highfalutin auctioneer-speak, reads as: “Yeah this doesn’t usually happen. Not even with that really fucking awful Banksy one we had where he’d put a Ziggy Stardust stripe over the Queen’s face. And fuck me, that was terrible. Did you see it? Ghastly. Someone actually bought that! You should have seen the guy though, he was wearing a pug and ermine cloak. Anyway, shit, I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what’s next for this album thing. Maybe this was a bad idea?”

A number of ambitious crowd funding projects led by plucky and underemployed superfans to raise the cash have failed, as has a kickstarter with the aim of buying and destroying the album. Maybe if all those kickstarters came together to form a fan led conglomerate who would rip it, put it online like those fans did with Aphex Twin’s Caustic Window, and then sacrificially burn the object at a rudimentary temple constructed in the streets to discourage future musicians from making such albums, then this tragic story will finally have its conclusion.

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