
Anti-algorithmic music: How Bandcamp is helping artists beat the odds - vemv
https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/3703
======
grmnygrmny2
Hey, we're on HN! As mentioned elsewhere we're waiting revenue share tomorrow.
We've got a handy timezone-aware site for tomorrow and other future
fundraisers: [https://isitbandcampfriday.com](https://isitbandcampfriday.com)

A few records were announced this week that I'm pretty excited for, if you
need some inspiration:

[http://music.sufjan.com/album/the-
ascension](http://music.sufjan.com/album/the-ascension)

[https://videoage.bandcamp.com/album/pleasure-
line](https://videoage.bandcamp.com/album/pleasure-line)

[https://washedout.bandcamp.com/album/purple-
noon](https://washedout.bandcamp.com/album/purple-noon)

~~~
LockAndLol
If you're affiliated with bandcamp, I have a question: is there something like
bandcamp radio coming out sometime? I don't know about others but I have
trouble actually discovering stuff on bandcamp. Every artists page seems to be
cut off from other artists and I haven't found a way to just let random or
similar artists be played.

Jamendo has radios, "best of" and "trending" lists per genre, artist, tag and
across their whole music selection which makes discovery really easy. For
bandcamp, knowledge of who's who seems to be necessary and I don't have the
time to be that into music. That's why jamendo has been getting my money
lately.

~~~
rendaw
I plugged elsewhere here, but I put together
[https://bandhiking.isandrew.com/](https://bandhiking.isandrew.com/) because I
had the same problem. It's basically a Bandcamp radio thing. (I've found a few
dozen things over the last month or so using to it!)

~~~
LockAndLol
Niiiice! Thanks a lot! That's very much more what I was looking for. And
opensource too!

Good job :)

------
EamonnMR
I can't say enough good stuff about Bandcamp. All of the underground IDM is on
there, the app is great (it caches stuff locally) and they let you download
the music you buy in high quality. Setting up and customizing a store is also
very easy. I even got a sale on there once, which is more than I can say for
any other music selling/streaming platform.

~~~
6AA4FD
Any underground IDM recommendations?

~~~
Minor49er
Trackermatte. I'd check out the album Ná. He also has an album on his Bandcamp
page called "Growth" by "The Florists" that has a gorgeous closing track.

Not sure he's underground (and more acid than IDM), but Ceephax Acid Crew is
always excellent. I especially recommend the releases Acid Quakers 1000, Exidy
Tours, World Dissolver, and Cro Magnox (but really, look up any of his music
videos on YouTube. They're insanely fun)

For more downtempo or glitchy type stuff, check out:

Lanark Artefax - Whities 011 (Touch Absence is a track that shouldn't be
missed. The music video is good too)

Proem - Socially Inept

Lusine - Condensed (the track Rushhour is superb)

Grischa Lichtenberger - Graviton - cx (rigid transmission)

Oneohtrix Point Never - Garden of Delete

Albums not on Bandcamp worth checking out:

Access to Arasaka - void();

Richard Devine - Asect:Dsect

You probably know these, bit worth mentioning:

Venetian Snares - "Hospitality" and "Rossz Csillag Alatt Született"

Autechre - Oversteps

Alva Noto - "Xerrox" series

~~~
Minor49er
I almost forgot. For fans of Aphex Twin and Squarepusher (particularly
Squarepusher's album Go Plastic), check out the album Red Extensions of Me by
The Flashbulb. It's a little sharply mixed, but it's excellent music

~~~
EamonnMR
Also Flexing Habitual

------
discordance
Bandcamp is proof that you don't have to be a predator to your clients or your
users to run an online business. I love your service and I hope you all keep
it up!

------
hanklazard
Bandcamp is the best. Reasonable prices on drm-free, lossless downloads plus
an app that lets you easily stream your purchases on the go. I happily spend
my money there on a weekly basis.

On a related note, if there were a similar site for drm-free movie purchases,
I’d be all over it.

~~~
bhauer
> _On a related note, if there were a similar site for drm-free movie
> purchases, I’d be all over it._

No joke. Call me old fashioned, but I love self-hosting my music collection
and BandCamp is a key in facilitating that. I would do the same with movies if
it were an option.

------
herewulf
I love that Bandcamp provides FLAC downloads. I have racks of CDs and I'm not
keen on buying more physical items which I just rip and listen to digitally. A
FLAC download completely replaces a CD for me.

And for my convenience they also provide Ogg Vorbis downloads which I prefer
for putting on mobile devices due to reduced storage requirements.

With most any other site you can only get MP3s.

When I first discovered Bandcamp ~5 years ago it was pretty hard to find
(metal) bands of interest. By now the site has really caught on and tons of
established bands that I have been listening to for years are releasing their
music there.

It's still also really good for obscure stuff too. There was a band from my
city (in the USA) whose album could only be bought in Germany. Only after they
made a Bandcamp release was I finally able to obtain it!

~~~
sk0g
I've been waiting Caladan Brood to put their music on streaming services for
ages, but they've been on BandCamp forever! You're not from Salt Lake City,
are you?!

~~~
herewulf
I am, in fact! Good guess! I was actually referring to the related project
Gallowbraid. Caladan Brood is great too. Ironically, I heard about both of
these bands from a friend in Germany.

[https://gallowbraid-northernsilence.bandcamp.com](https://gallowbraid-
northernsilence.bandcamp.com)

~~~
chupasaurus
Waited for your confirmation, although there aren't many bands from US on
Northern Silence IIRC.

Brood's album was on Spotify for a brief time until it was retracted (by label
or guys no one knows). Since there was some movement on GB's site there might
be some hope, as that request is literally under each video with songs from
either project.

Cheers from Urals!

------
dhosek
Worth noting. Tomorrow (3 July), Bandcamp is waiving their revenue share on
all sales. More info here: [https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/bandcamp-
covid-19-fundra...](https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/bandcamp-
covid-19-fundraiser)

~~~
Melting_Harps
Exactly. I was just about to post that, I'm going to be buying a few
discographies tomm. Specifically, Carpenter Brut's stuff who released a really
crazy film based [1] on its music video for Turbo Killer [2]. It's worth
checking out if you're into rock-sounding synthwave with 80's themed
psychedelic visuals.

I'm also buying like 3 more to support artists.

ABout 7 years go now, Soundcloud enabled Bitcoin donations, and about a team
of 5 guys includin me went on a tipping frenzy and tried to get adoption going
that way. It was funny, because reddit allowed for direct Bitcoin donations
there via a bot and you could name it whatever you wanted. So we did the same
on Soundcloud, it's funny because I log into my old soundcloud account at the
History of them is still there.

Anyhow, I tipped like 20-30 guys on SC and even got some runway from an early
adopter ($100?) to take it further and met a few EDM guys coming into
Hollywood/LA area for a few sets and tried to explain it to them as none of
them picked up there funds. Apparently, Soundcould didn't do a good job of
notifying them that they had money waiting for them so ultimately it failed.

I ended up giving the Bits I had left into people who set up full nodes on the
network. But I always thought, especially as a DJ myself, that supporting
artists with micropayments would be a good solution. Youtube now allows for
tipping in their chatbox as I saw a few in house performances/sets be tipped
by followers and fans, but it was always over $1+, which is awesome, but
entirely impractical if you want people to send what little they may have on
hand to listen a song/remix/dj set/podcast for most people unless you have a
very dedicated and quite frankly affluent followers. I'd rather have a
100k-million fans tip 10-50 cents then the four or five die-hards give $10 so
I can continue to make content. Paetreon, Gofundme, Kickstarter and such are
just needless middlemen at this point and hosting content is super cheap with
even multimedia with a $5/month vimeo account.

Anyhow, happy hunting tomorrow, I'm all digital now so I can buy and support a
lot more music/artists I otherwise had to ignore because of format.

1: [http://bloodmachines.com/](http://bloodmachines.com/)

2:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er416Ad3R1g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er416Ad3R1g)

------
Sektor
Frankly I've stopped using any kind of 'less legal' method of getting MP3s and
just buy FLACs from Bandcamp daily now. It's a great site and pretty much
everything I've ever wanted is there.

~~~
dijksterhuis
This. Absolutely this.

I used to be terrible for "less legal" downloads until I discovered beatport,
Juno and bandcamp.

I'm pretty sure bandcamp is one of the reasons for my vinyl habit now.
Complete 180.

~~~
te_chris
Me too. Though I went spotify -> vinyl -> bandcamp. Spotify is still useful,
but much better to own.

------
sickcodebruh
Bandcamp has been of the best things to ever happen to DIY music. It’s given a
tremendous amount of power to artists, power that used to be held almost
exclusively by labels. We’re finally at a point where many bands can make
decent money without having to worry about “getting signed” to a label and
losing so much control in the process.

~~~
hnhg
While this is true, it should also be noted that distributors have already
updated their business model to take a cut of Bandcamp sales. e.g. label X
uses distributor Y to manage the process of their tracks in as many online
stores and streaming platforms as possible, and to collect revenue.
Distributor Y then takes the credentials for Bandcamp and operates that in the
same way as it does everywhere else, taking a certain sizable. It's still
better than the old model but it doesn't mean all money goes to the artists.

~~~
sickcodebruh
I’m not aware of any digital distribution platforms that automate the Bandcamp
process and take a cut of that revenue, though I wouldn’t be surprised if that
was happening somewhere. Which distributors are doing this?

It should also be said that plenty of labels are operating Bandcamp pages,
where they can take a cut of digital sales and then pay (or not pay...)
artists. It can make sense for artists who are trying leverage the resources
of a larger organization. IMO it’s something bands should negotiate
aggressively since Bandcamp might be their best (possibly their only!) shot at
recouping their expenses or selling merch.

------
tomduncalf
I built a tool a few years ago to search for your top Spotify artists on
Bandcamp. It’s just a simple front end on a Spotify API query, unfortunately
there’s no Bandcamp API so all it can do is link to a search for that artist,
but it could still provide a useful jumping off point for discovery:
[https://tomduncalf.github.io/supportify/](https://tomduncalf.github.io/supportify/)

It all happens client side, no tracking or data collection or anything - you
can view the source to check :)

~~~
bambax
Excellent! The code looks clean too.

I'm looking for a tool to export Spotify playlists to text/csv and can only
find weird commercial solutions; maybe the way to go is to use `spotify-web-
api-js` and build it on the client side.

~~~
tomduncalf
Ah I used to use [https://www.playlist-converter.net/](https://www.playlist-
converter.net/) but seems it has recently stopped working :(. Yeah you could
do something with the API fairly easily I think, the Spotify API is actually
awesome, has some really cool stuff like audio analysis and recommendations
for tracks in there.

------
rendaw
Self plug because it's super relevant (I think)! I made Bandhiking
[https://bandhiking.isandrew.com/](https://bandhiking.isandrew.com/) to help
find new music on Bandcamp.

It's basically a randomized top list player, but it lets you just put some
music on in the background and mark the stuff you liked.

------
woudsma
As a DJ I use Bandcamp a lot. There's so much stuff on there that you just
cannot find on other platforms such as Beatport. It also feels great to pay
the artist or label directly. Often they let you set your own price for an EP
or album (with some low minimum, like 5eu for the whole EP).

Truly an amazing platform.

------
shmerl
Bandcamp should implement support for Media Session API, to be able to use
desktop integrated player controls when their playlists are opened in the
browser. Youtube supports it and it works pretty well with Firefox and KDE
plasma browser integration. But Bandcamp palylists don't.

~~~
grmnygrmny2
This is cool.. I was trying to figure out how to get macOS next/prev controls
to trigger events in Safari but haven't had any luck. This seems like a cool
API for doing that sort of thing (though, sadly, no Safari support)

~~~
shmerl
Yeah, it's pretty cool. I discovered it after noticing that Youtube playlist
in Firefox started reacting on the player controls in KDE notification area.

~~~
ognarb
And with KDE Connect, the Youtube videos automatically pause then you get a
call and resume immediately after the call ended.

------
l72
I love Bandcamp. It is my primary place for exploring and purchasing new
music. Their generous policies around previewing, the ability to browse
through niche labels to find similar music, and flac support make it hard to
beat.

I am also really happy that Paysage d'Hiver got a call out in the article.
Such an amazing, one person, lo-fi, atmospheric black metal. It's great to
program to as it just drowns out any distractions.

> Someone grabs an LP from Paysage d'Hiver, the Swiss black metal band.

~~~
herewulf
Nice..
[https://paysagedhiver.bandcamp.com](https://paysagedhiver.bandcamp.com)

The one (20 minute) track that I listened to had sort of a atmospheric Bathory
feel.

------
dharma1
Love bandcamp.

Being able to buy the whole catalogue from an artist with one click is great.
Maybe patreon style subscription for artists you like could also be
interesting - reliable subscription revenue would make a world of difference
to many artists.

And please add playlists!

------
PaulDavisThe1st
I love bandcamp. Just the other day I read some reviews of the new Jessie Ware
album. She's a fairly mainstream, moderately successful pop artist from the
UK. I thought ... no way she's on Bandcamp. But ... there it was, her brand
new album, available in FLAC, ogg, whatever. Bandcamp is the union of
everything that was good about the original mp3.com and cdbaby.

ps. if you like 80s sophisticated disco, that Jessie Ware album "What's Your
Pleasure" is totally awesome.

------
meta_boy
Very nice to see Bandcamp here. As it so reminds me, I have some ambient
tracks on Soundcloud that I made during a really crazy trip over here in the
pandemics. If any fellow hackers would like to listen, here. Would these be
interesting in bandcamp?
[https://soundcloud.com/nidnogg](https://soundcloud.com/nidnogg)

------
e12e
Love to see Bandcamp get some love on hn. I'd like to give a shout out to
their Bandcamp weekly podcast, which I think to a great job of showcasing
releases and artists:

Current episode:

[https://bandcamp.com/?show=378](https://bandcamp.com/?show=378)

------
whywhywhywhy
Love the UI and feel of Bandcamp, it's like a glass of iced water in algorithm
driven hell.

------
comprev
I've probably spent thousands of Euros over the years on music via Bandcamp,
mostly in the form of vinyl.

Big thank-you to the team behind Bandcamp and their fairer payout model to
artists (compared to other outlets)

------
greenie_beans
This might the most positive comment thread in the history of Hacker News?

------
comprev
Can we please have playlist functionality?

I have to download then manage via iTunes and upload to my phone, which seems
crazy as I have 100s of tracks available on BC itself...

~~~
tweetle_beetle
I actually find it refreshingly anti-commercial that Bandcamp has a fairly
basic app and a low key approach to curation. I think having a very basic
player in the app fits well with a kind of anti-DRM "it's your's now, we don't
care what you do with it/BYO[everything else]" mentality.

Focusing on an app often seems to lead to a slippery slope of metric driven
development, feature creep, engagement analytics, notifications, etc. First
it's personal playlists, then it's publishing playlists, then it's liking
other people's playlists, then it's artist endorsed playlists, then it's
sharing playlists to other social media platforms, then it's being notified
that a playlist you like has been updated, etc. etc.

(My one gripe with the app is the slightly childish decision to hide the
download links for music you already own.)

------
brooklyn_ashey
I can say that Bandcamp made this release possible... it just got released
this week! and this is a record that waited years to come out and is a big
band featuring some of the best/most interesting jazz musicians in NYC - the
compositions are incredible— [https://andrew-
dangelo.bandcamp.com/](https://andrew-dangelo.bandcamp.com/)

------
wintorez
Even-though I have an Spotify subscription, I buy music from Bandcamp to
support lesser known bands and artists, such as The Midnight and FM-84.

------
1MachineElf
For discovering artists, I primarily use YouTube. When I want to listen more
to said artists, it's usually Bandcamp where I can find the rest of their
discography. Probably my preference for the general Vaporwave genre and their
prevalence on that platform has a lot to do with this.

------
geden
Bandcamp experience for an artist is good but the backend could sure do with a
spruce, particularly the reporting and the API for merch fulfilment.

That said anything pushing against the chilling affect of Spotify is a win.

------
hootbootscoot
Bandcamp is great! (speaking as an artist & a fan/listener both)

------
thdrdt
The "Selling Right Now" feature on the homepage shows it's success. Some years
ago you could read what was being sold. Today it's scrolling too fast :)

------
jcun4128
I do find it interesting how you pay your own price(I don't know what to
choose). Also RIP Her's, their albums are on there.

------
greenie_beans
I love Bandcamp!

