When Bandcamp Friday approaches every month, I spend a few days prior whittling down my Bandcamp wishlist, deciding which albums to purchase. This past November’s Bandcamp Friday, I became cognizant of how much of the music in my library I haven’t given my full attention. Guilt began to wash over me, slowly spiraling into a mess of existential dread. How will I ever listen to all this music? Is my music discovery overpowering my love for actually listening to music? Is Bandcamp slowly slipping away from me now that it’s sold to Songtradr? Ok, maybe a bit exaggerated.
Though the feeling was quite overwhelming, it was a stark reminder of the boundless amount of music available at our fingertips, and how I’ll always feel like I’m only scratching the service when it comes to discovering new artists.
Back in 2008, one of my favorite underrated bands, The Snake The Cross The Crown, released an independent documentary of their life on the road called ‘On A Carousel of Sound, We Go Round’. The band showcases the struggles of life, touring, and with each other. Early on, lead singer Kevin Jones discusses his frustrations with the music industry; but more specifically, being a band amidst a sea of others.
Jones goes “I truly believe there is a distinct possibility there are more bands than there are people who listen to music.”
This gave me pause the first time I heard it, and I haven’t stopped mulling it over since.
Now, mind you, this was spoken well before the age of streaming. MySpace was, at the time, one of the pinnacle platforms for band homepages (I’m serious though). MySpace was a non-stop shop for information about a band, where they were touring, and the ability to INTERACT directly with the band through comments. Best of all, fans could ‘stream’ a band’s music from the MySpace player. MySpace was the frontier for promoting your music in the 2000s, even if you were just a kid with a Macbook and Garageband. And it was all for free!
MySpace’s reign was short-lived as a social network, as Facebook made haste in the late 2000s with their sleek design and exclusivity to college students. For musicians, though, MySpace was still the best platform for showcasing their music, especially as a simple (and again, free) landing page. This was up until its demise in 2012.
In an attempt to migrate the MySpace servers in 2018, the transfer was botched, losing over 12 years of data - a large part consisting of millions of gigabytes of music uploaded by DIY bands. We not only lost a part of internet history, but of music as well.
(Thankfully, The Internet Archive was able to recover around half a million songs, making them available in a searchable (and playable) database.)
We’ll never know how many more millions of songs were lost. But what I’ve come to understand is the immense scale and shift in music MySpace was able to create in its cycle of birth and death.
MySpace was the genesis seed of accessibility for both music listeners AND artists.
Only in the last 10 years did music discovery, and purchasing, become more readily accessible for the common internet user. Before then, everything was scattered, fragmented, and difficult; you had to want to listen to new music, and it took work.
The music pirating community dominated. DIY music blogs were prolific, often uploading whole albums for everyone to download, spreading awareness of bands to the masses. Torrenting and other peer-to-peer file sharing services, like SoulSeek, reigned, as well. Pirating music helped the music industry overall, even if major record labels and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) would like you to believe this wasn’t true.
If you wanted to purchase, more so ‘own’ the music, iTunes or buying physical products were your major viable options. Vinyl was making a comeback with aficionados who cared about its lush sound, but it hadn’t quite reached the mainstream market. Luckily, vinyl purchases typically included a digital download code, but this practice has faded with time. Vinyl in a way is a exclusive luxury demanding accessories to listen to your music; not everyone owns a record player, or has the space for one.
And then in the mid-2010’s, the momentum behind a Swedish streaming platform/ called Spotify began to expeditiously increase, and the river we consume music from just… changed. Changed, and distorted.
Some for the better, a lot for the worse.
Spotify made music extremely accessible to the masses. (Almost) every band you ever wanted to listen to was there. A user-friendly interface, intuitive algorithm, the ability to create/share playlists, and the viral year end ‘Spotify Wrapped’ made users feel like they were a part of something bigger. Spotify took what MySpace planted, watered it, threw a bunch of modern tech at it, and grew a community.
Similar to MySpace, anyone was able to upload their music, and promote themselves on Spotify as a way to be visible to the world. Small artists could thrive promotionally in this situation, especially if you’re added to a popular playlist or ‘Spotify Essential’ mix.
The bad? The pay was, and still is, fucking abysmal. Unless you’re a massively successful artist with a record label who dominates Spotify’s contracts, your pay is pennies to the dollars; not even pennies. But still Spotify brands itself as exposure for your band, not unlike a band playing for free. “You need us, we don’t need you.”
Soon enough, Spotify integrated into our lives, seemingly overnight. They became a cultural icon and established player in our society amongst the other giant social media giants and streaming services. Ask someone on the street where they listen to music, chances are the answer will be Spotify.
Around the same time of Spotify’s rise in popularity, another music platform was also gaining speed, but who’s ethos was radically different. Instead of a focus on streaming, Bandcamp sought to create a environment based around the simple (though difficult to comprehend for some) concept that musicians deserve to be paid for their music fairly, rather than collecting a few dollars from selling merch.
Though Bandcamp started in 2007, it wasn’t until the introduction of Bandcamp Fridays during the 2020 pandemic did the platform become attractive to ‘mainstream’ indie artists, and those who sought refuge in Bandcamp as a survival tool during uncertain times.
The main page for an artist on Bandcamp operates quite similarly to a MySpace page; and honestly, looks quite similar as well. Other than the Bandcamp homepage, the design hasn’t changed much since it’s original inception. The musician’s page features a music player to stream tracks, but with the option to purchase said music directly from the artist through Bandcamp’s own payment system.
Bandcamp’s overall platform didn’t become more ‘user friendly’ until a little over the last 10 years. Some argue the lack of sleek user-friendly interface and aesthetic of the site, compared to its streaming competitors, are the reasons the music platform has failed to gain mainstream popularity. For other’s, Bandcamp’s almost ‘resistance’ to Web 2.0 sleek design and user experience, or punk mentality as I would have it, have led to its loyal fan base.
Regardless, as the platform’s functionality improved over the year, including the unveiling of best seller charts, better search capabilities, Bandcamp Daily, and recommended artists through other artists, they began to grab hold of a fringe set of idealists who saw Bandcamp as a player in the war against the enemy, Spotify.
Bancamp’s altruistic act of Bandcamp Fridays resulted in a wrecking ball of popularity. As the monthly waving of processing fees continues on through the end of 2023, no news has been released in regards to Bandcamp Fridays in 2024. It’s my opinion the event will cease to exist in the coming new year, given the sale to Songtradr.
Because of Bandcamp’s rise in the pro-artist space and Spotify’s dominant influence on making music ‘accessible’ to listen to, the music scene has exploded like a built up dam. With an easier way for literally anyone to upload their music, the competition not only becomes for your own survival as an artist, but for the ears of listeners. A brutal competition for exposure, amidst a galaxy of musicians.
As an extensive listener, all of this music is almost deafening. Like the internet, news, and other outlets, you’ve become overexposed to music choices, tending to instead stay within the factions of music you already know and love. Overwhelmed with choice, adventuring outside your realm is an afterthought unless you purposely make the choice to do so.
With Spotify possibly changing it’s royalty payment structure, and Bandcamp’s sale to Songtradr, a company hyper-focused on the commercialization of music, there will come a changed with how music will be displayed to you. And they want to keep you there. They want to keep you overwhelmed. Because keeping you overwhelmed means they have control on what you listen to, especially if you’re using their platform.
It’s only going to become worse with time, as late-stage capitalism attempts to profit off every single thing you consume online.
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Be on the lookup for Part II coming this Monday, where I dive deeper into the above, and my own discovery habits. Have a great weekend!
Update: Postponing Part II until Tuesday, 11/21. Thanks!
Cory