Why U No Bandcamp?
Originally posted on December 2011--
I recently put together my list of favourite non-HI54LOFI RECORDS albums of 2011 over on Tumblr, and a part of putting together that list involved finding links to where the albums were available online—which led to the following observation:
How come so many bands of the mid-to-high-level of ‘made it or making it’ range are not currently using Bandcamp?
On my list of 30 albums, only 9 of the bands were on Bandcamp, and a good handful of those bands were not ‘properly’ on Bandcamp (i.e. they only had a few tracks available to stream, or none, or their Bandcamp page was just used as a link to where you could buy elsewhere — like on iTunes). And this trend is not just unique to the albums on my list.
Established bands are not using Bandcamp. Why is that?
It surely can't be because they are unaware of Bandcamp. And if you know about Bandcamp, then you know that they give a much better cut to the artist — unless bands/labels of a certain stature receive a better rate from iTunes than independents going the route of a Tunecore or CD Baby — so, I’m thinking it must have something to do with:
a) A lot artists/labels of a certain stature have their digital distribution handled by companies that take a percentage of all their sales in return for making their music available on the gauntlet of online services. Since Bandcamp does not have a cost of entry to have your music available or require you go through a middle man (like iTunes or Spotify do), Bandcamp is sort of a slap in the face of companies whose sole existence is based on the fact that bands need to go through them to sell their music. Perhaps not putting their music on Bandcamp is an attempt to slap back?
b) Bands do not make any money off of people streaming their songs on a Bandcamp player (not that they make too much from Spotify or the like), so maybe some guy in a suit has come up with a metric that shows a pie chart about how this is a bad thing.
c) Probably a bit of both a and b.
Whatever the case, this is a bad thing for fans & artists.
Bandcamp empowers the little guy and makes it possible for them to get their music out on their own. But as long as the middle-to-big sized artists and labels keep their music off of Bandcamp, Bandcamp will never become as trusted of a buying option as an iTunes or an Amazon. Anyone who has released music knows just how many of their friends and family are not comfortable with or aware of Bandcamp enough to purchase their album on there (or even download something for free). Yet almost everybody has given their credit card number to iTunes or received an Amazon gift card for a bday or xmas gift.
Meaning: everybody and their mother is out here promoting trust in the big guys, so if Bandcamp’s much more open and fair music platform is ever going to catch on with the masses, it really needs to fall on these bigger name artists & labels to help spread the word about the glory that be Bandcamp. Because a win for Bandcamp is a win for artists — but first we need to get more artists using the site.
On a related note, I really hope Bandcamp is working on creating some sort of 'store front' setup to make it easier for music lovers to find new stuff and explore the wealth of great music on the site (their current home page is a great start, but hopefully it keeps developing). And I’m sure they will — Bandcamp is constantly pushing out great new features, but a lot of those are geared toward the artists (which, of course, trickles down to the buyers), but it seems like only the more internet savvy of music fans currently shop at Bandcamp.
If they want to take a bit out of Apple / Amazon, Bandcamp needs to starting getting more of the non-savvy music fans through their doors. And if artists/labels want to start getting more people directly supporting their work, they need to start using / promoting sites like Bandcamp.
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(PS - if you're an artist releasing music on Bandcamp, you might also want to check out this post: Why 'Name Your Price, No Minimum' Is Better Than A 'Free Download')