I use Bandcamp a lot. Tbh, if I had acquired Bandcamp, in efforts for streamlining, I probably would have laid the editors off too. I've never read a single bandcamp article. Did anyone actually read them, especially enough to justify their cost?
Their niche genre articles were actually pretty good, I would read them every now and then to find new bands to listen to. They hit a nice sweet spot of highlighting five or so releases per article so that you weren't overwhelmed with picks but had options, and the writing surrounding them was usually pretty good, you could tell the authors really cared about the music.
i definitely read them. bandcamp had a very skilled editorial team that would reliably surface both new and interesting scenes and archival labels that wouldn't have found much reach otherwise, and ive definitely bought albums and found stuff i wouldn't have heard otherwise based on their recommendations
not everything, but their work definitely brought me to music i wouldn't have found otherwise
if I had acquired Bandcamp, in efforts for streamlining, I probably would have laid the editors off too
that's not what happened. they're not streaminlining for the sake of streamlining.
SongTradr is in the business of B2B sync licensing. Bandcamp's in the business of selling music to fans.
SongTradr's probably throwing out the articles not because they didn't move sales to fans, but because SongTradr doesn't care about selling music to fans.
they're probably more interested in converting Bandcamp creators to a sync licensing business model.
I've never read a single bandcamp article. Did anyone actually read them, especially enough to justify their cost?
yes. your experience is your experience. it is not universal. Bandcamp was making money with those articles, both for itself and its creators, for many many years.
Same here. I wasn't even aware Bandcamp had articles! But I basically just navigate to specific labels/artists/albums, buy what I need and resync my local backup of my collection.
I'm not a bandcamp user, so maybe this is an obvious question, but if bandcamp were to shutter operations, would the files in your local backup still be usable by you?
Yes, the Bandcamp files are fully DRM-free. You can download the music in just about any DRM-free format, I always go with FLAC. The FLAC files are exactly the same as any other FLAC file, just losslessly compressed samples.
Yeah, it's actually freakin' awesome sometimes. I got the entire discography of one of my favorite artists for like.. $10 or something? I think I bumped up the price because I felt bad and felt they deserved more haha
I've purchased thousands of dollars of music through Bandcamp, and every purchase is a FLAC file I download. Bandcamp has no control of or connection to the music I've purchaed after the download is complete.
Their articles are fantastic and they curate and promote such diverse and unique musicians. I don't know any other publication that goes so in depth with such niche music. I hate thinking about this in terms of profits. Those articles celebrated and expanded on music culture so much.
> I've never read a single bandcamp article. Did anyone actually read them
I didn’t read all of them, but occasionally when they touched on a subject of interest, I really appreciated them, and they helped me find new music by both known and unknown artist.
They were clearly written by someone knowledgable and who cared. That’s getting increasingly rare these days and that’s a shame.
Nope, the only time I discovered music on Bandcamp was when some indie label was selling their whole catalog for a low price and I got the whole bundle. 99% of the time, I knew what I was looking for and came there for the lossless digital releases and/or to support the artist.
