Because Bandcamp is the best music platform for supporting artists directly with something more than the penny dust they get to sweep up after the streaming services have divvied up everybody else’s share, I’m always trying to use what little sway this blog has to redirect people over to the awesomeness that is Bandcamp + remind folks that it’s still possible to buy music.

So, besides continuing to Fandcamp and #BandcampBooyakasha on on the regular, this year I got back into making Bandcamp playlists over on Playmoss for all the Bandcamp embeds that were shared on HI54.BLOG each month (Playmoss links each track to the artists/labels Bandcamp page, so it’s the closest thing to being able to make a ‘Bandcamp playlist’).

But since I do most of my music listening these days over on Spotify (I know… boo! hiss! — but dammit if Spotify isn’t way better than the FM radio options I grew up with pre-internet, especially when you can use Spotify to create your own DIY radio station) when it came time to put together my ridiculous end-of-year playlist ‘20X19 = 380 TUNES FROM 2019’, it obviously made the most sense to make that 380 track playlist over on Spotify (where I am able to easily keep track of everything my ears liked throughout the year).

But we all know the shitty payouts artists are getting from streaming. Which is why we all need little things that remind us to make sure that we show some appreciation to the people making the stuff that gets us through each year. At least something more than just being a bunch of streams that usually add up to less than a dollar.

So I put together a version of my 20X19 playlist on Playmoss with all the releases that are also available on Bandcamp…

…so if/when something catches you ear, just click the Bandcamp link and think about showing them some support (heck, some of these albums are even ‘name your price’) + you get to spruce up your own Bandcamp collection all at the same time.

Now, I couldn’t get all 380 tracks—some artists/labels/releases are not on Bandcamp + some tracks that had custom Bandcamp URLs wouldn’t work with Playmoss for some reason (sorry Mama)—but I was able to get 295 of them into this really sweet Playmoss mix.

And of course, just my luck, the day AFTER I hand-googled all 380 releases to see if they were on Bandcamp, Hype Machine releases this really cool tool for automatically finding all the Bandcamp albums from a Spotify playlist link. Smh.

So, the next time your day is in need of a nice soundtrack, give THE HI54 BANDCAMP SHUFFLE | 20X19 a listen. And then come back and throw it on shuffle a few more times. Because there’s A LOT of great music on there and EVERYBODY wins if you end up finding something you love enough to want to go directly support that artist on Bandcamp, all the while getting to stuff your own musical stocking with something nice.

Or maybe buy someone you know a Bandcamp gift card and then send them this playlist to help them find something to buy?

Or… maybe… do both?