T Bone Burnett bills his new analog audio format, one-of-a-kind records called Ionic Originals, as “the pinnacle of recorded sound.” The first example of this supposed advancement is Bob Dylan’s re-recording of his iconic early ’60s folk song “Blowin’ In The Wind” performed by Dylan and recorded by Burnett. After listening sessions for prospective buyers in Los Angeles, New York, and London, the record went up for auction at Christie’s in London today. According to a press release, it sold for £1,482,000 / $1,769,508 / €1,733,940. The high bidder was not identified.

Burnett shared this statement about his intentions with the format:

Marshall McLuhan said that a medium surrounds a previous medium and turns the previous medium into an art form, as film did with novels, as television did with film, as the internet has done with television, and as digital has done with analogue. With Bob Dylan’s new version of “Blowin’ In The Wind,” our first Ionic Original archival analogue disc, we have entered and aim to help develop a music space in the fine arts market. I trust and hope it will mean as much to whomever acquired it today at Christie’s Exceptional Sale as it does to all of us who made it, and that they will consider it and care for it as a painting or any other singular work of art.

Congrats to all these rich people, I guess?