Bandcamp - 5.1 surround music releases

[Blackwood]

I’m going to try not to take this as a bad sign (emphasis mine)...

Asked whether artist revenue shares, user experience, or the editorial platform Bandcamp Daily will be affected by the acquisition, Songtradr declined to comment.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

perhaps this has something to do with it ?
IDK

This year, members of Bandcamp’s editorial, design, support, and engineering staffs unionized. Bandcamp United shared a brief statement on social media on Friday, writing:

It's actually because Epic is having some money issues right now IIRC.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

I’m going to try not to take this as a bad sign (emphasis mine)...

At least Epic was transparent and stated what that they won't change a thing...

 

[humprof]

This is the only take I've read so far that's been even moderately enlightening:
https://www.gearnews.com/bandcamp-sold-to-songtradr-what-does-it-mean-for-musicians/

 

[humprof]

Just a reminder: October 6th is Bandcamp Friday! (Songtradr hasn't done away with it. Yet.)

Soft Machine said, in giving away an Atmos track yesterday, that "The band prefers you to buy the physical copy as that way the artists get paid!"--but added that "[t]he album [would] soon be available on Bandcamp also." It's there now, and the artists get paid that way, too--a little more on Bandcamp Friday than on other days:

 

[M-K]

Just a reminder: October 4th is Bandcamp Friday! (Songtradr hasn't done away with it. Yet.)

October 4th? 2019? Just kidding. October 6th - today is meant, isn't it?

 

[humprof]

October 4th? 2019? Just kidding. October 6th - today is meant, isn't it?

D'oh! Yep. Friday, October 6th. All day.

 

[mkt]

Ugh
https://www.vulture.com/article/epic-games-bandcamp-sale-layoffs.html

 

[Blackwood]

Ugh
https://www.vulture.com/article/epic-games-bandcamp-sale-layoffs.html

And another...

https://www.loudersound.com/news/half-bandcamp-staff-laid-off

 

[Marplot]

That is a shame, it took less time than expected to gut it.

 

[humprof]

And another...

https://www.loudersound.com/news/half-bandcamp-staff-laid-off

"50 percent of Bandcamp employees have accepted offers to join Songtradr." Uh-huh. At what percentage of their former salary, one wonders? And Songtradr still hasn't recognized the employee union.

 

[barfle]

Sadly, I know how that feels.

An old joke about working in the 90s - you’ve had five jobs in the last four years, but you’re at the same desk.

 

[Blackwood]

A personal take by the guy who runs the Innerviews site:

 

[humprof]

A personal take by the guy who runs the Innerviews site:

"Just another bunch of tech bros out for a buck." (Sigh.) I feel especially bad for the employees. As for artists: I guess we'll see how artist-friendly the site remains under the new Songradr overlords. (Currently, artists/labels net roughly 80-85% of purchase price, with payouts made daily.)

On the consumer side: my purchases are already downloaded and backed up, as per the advice of "Innerviews"; now I need to see if it's possible to export my wishlist, so that I have a record of all the artists and albums I've had my eye on over the past few years.

 

[Blackwood]

"Just another bunch of tech bros out for a buck." (Sigh.) I feel especially bad for the employees. As for artists: I guess we'll see how artist-friendly the site remains under the new Songradr overlords. (Currently, artists/labels net roughly 80-85% of purchase price, with payouts made daily.)

On the consumer side: my purchases are already downloaded and backed up, as per the advice of "Innerviews"; now I need to see if it's possible to export my wishlist, so that I have a record of all the artists and albums I've had my eye on over the past few years.

I was struck most by his strong suggestion to rebuild your own platform as an artist.

In other words, your website, which so many of you have forsaken. No-one can take your website away from you. They can't pull that rug from under your feet. So, go back and rebuild your own web presence.

That’s both wise advice, but also a big challenge to properly maintain (and pay for) and then find ways to draw people to you in the endless sea of voices that are trying to do the same thing.

That’s what I enjoyed about Bandcamp... it felt like it honored and helped the artist and the customer.

But I guess we’ll see where it goes from here.

 

[humprof]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/27/epic-games-bandcamp-acquired-sondtradr
Also: if this piece's reporting is accurate, then the layoffs happened with the full collusion of Epic Games. (Songtradr only acquired parts of Bandcamp. Epic laid off 100% of Bandcamp's employees, including its union bargaining team, first, and then about half of the employees accepted "offers" to get their old jobs back under Songtradr.)
https://www.404media.co/bandcamp-editorial-director-fuuuuuck-bandcamp-united/

 

[Blackwood]

Jonas Hellborg on a variety of topics related to music sales, and Bandcamp:

https://www.innerviews.org/inner/hellborg-3

Bandcamp was once considered an honorable digital distributor. But it has now changed hands twice and is currently owned by Songtradr, which just fired half its staff. Its future is unclear. I understand you and Michael Shrieve have an idea for a more artist-driven concept for digital music distribution.

Our consensus is “If we don’t do it, who the hell will?” It’s all about how you manage the forces that drive this somewhere it can be realized. Objectively, it is not bloody rocket science what Bandcamp does. It’s pretty simple to do. In fact, for a little more than two decades, I’ve run my own web shop, and although there have been some ups and downs, it has been worthwhile.

The most problematic aspect of creating a platform today is defending yourself against hackers and criminal organizations who want to destroy it. Other than that, having a server that hosts a bunch of music and has a payment system is straightforward.

Another issue is when people put these systems together, they often believe “We have to be the biggest platform in the world. We have to reach 100 million people.” No. You just need somewhere you can put up some music and where people who are interested can come and get it.

I admit, I dislike the idea of “supporting” musicians. It’s not fucking begging. It’s not a case of, “Oh, I’m a musician and you must support me, otherwise I will go under.” No. The statement should be, “Music fulfils a function in the listener’s life and therefore there is a transaction that happens in which there is a mutual benefit.”

When I went to buy a record as a kid, I didn’t think about needing to support somebody. I thought “I want this music. I want to put it on my turntable, listen to it, and have it make me happy.” That’s all it is. Do you want to hear my music? If so, are you willing to pay the cost to have it? If their answer is yes, good.

 

[humprof]

Just discovered a couple of 2022 Atmos releases available via Bandcamp. They both involve Jonathan Kawchuk and Justin Gray, who together created the Atmos mix of Anna B Savage's in|FLUX, one of the more notable mixes of 2023, IMO. New Horizons I'd call Indo-Jazz fusion; Everywhen is more ambient, mixing voice, nature sounds, and electronics.


(The backstory of the latter album is pretty fascinating.)

Here's an Apple Music playlist--separate version for Tidal--sampling Gray's mixing work (note that it includes Kawchuk's Everywhen but not Gray's own New Horizons):

And here's Gray website, and an hourlong video outlining his approach to Atmos:

 

[JulesRules]

I was struck most by his strong suggestion to rebuild your own platform as an artist.



That’s both wise advice, but also a big challenge to properly maintain (and pay for) and then find ways to draw people to you in the endless sea of voices that are trying to do the same thing.

That’s what I enjoyed about Bandcamp... it felt like it honored and helped the artist and the customer.

But I guess we’ll see where it goes from here.

That's where a platform like Funkwhale could possibly step into the breach - although I'm not familiar with how they exactly work, but it seems like you'd be less dependent on the infrastructure owned by others while still being able to make use of it (due to its federated nature, á la Mastodon, Pixelfed and so on). I guess the main problem is that it's quite niche - I had to do some googling to even remember how it was called.

Reading through this discussion, I also see mention of Faircamp, Ampled (which is apparently already shutting down...), Minm, and a few others.

 

[Blackwood]

That's where a platform like Funkwhale could possibly step into the breach - although I'm not familiar with how they exactly work, but it seems like you'd be less dependent on the infrastructure owned by others while still being able to make use of it (due to its federated nature, á la Mastodon, Pixelfed and so on). I guess the main problem is that it's quite niche - I had to do some googling to even remember how it was called.

Reading through this discussion, I also see mention of Faircamp, Ampled (which is apparently already shutting down...), Minm, and a few others.

This situation with Bandcamp and even some of the alternatives mentioned remind me of The Athletic. It’s a sports news site who purpose from the founders was to cause traditional newspapers to bleed red ink ... in other words, to fail as a method for serving up traditional sports reporting.

They hired some of the best sports writers in the U.S. and Canada and set up reporters in major cities to cover all the top sports. For a while, it was glorious. And then recently the owners sold... to the New York Times, one of the organizations they were trying to kill off.

My concern for any setup for musicians that was started for the love of music and the artists that make it is that eventually, if you’re really successful, there comes a decision to sell it to someone with deep pockets who doesn’t have the same passion, but is looking for another asset that serves a different purpose and strips away what made the site great.