With Spotify Wrapped hype dying down, I’ve had an opportunity to consider my music consumption habits during the last 12 months – I listened to greater than 48,000 minutes of music this 12 months on Spotify alone, accounting for about 14% of my waking hours.
That’s numerous time, and numerous streams, however as we’ve all come to know that doesn’t essentially imply some huge cash making it to artists’ pockets. How might it? I pay the equal of $14 every month for my Spotify premium membership, and at a going charge of about 800 streams per 30 days, there’s solely area for a penny or two per play on the very most.
In keeping with Ditto Music, Spotify pays out a most of $0.005 per stream. I’m not the primary individual to seek out this a contact unfair – we’ve seen requires boycotts from the likes of Neil Younger and Joni Mitchell, whereas others just like the late Prince have had their discographies pulled (although this was later restored.)
Nevertheless, as lopsided as I discover Spotify’s payout mechanism, I can’t keep mad at customers for taking a great deal. Spotify is affordable, simple to make use of, and probably the most extensively supported apps in trendy tech historical past, discovered on smartphones, tablets, browsers, TVs, sensible audio system, automobiles, and even fridges.
An album bought for $10 might be value greater than weeks and even months of streams
Fortunately, there’s another: Bandcamp.
For these not acquainted, Bandcamp is a web based music storefront with some streaming options that primarily serves as a approach for artists to distribute their music at a fairer worth. The location is owned by Songtradr, a large music licensing firm, so it’s not absolutely ‘unbiased’, however however presents artists a 85/15 income break up within the artist’s favor for digital music. This implies an album bought for $10 might be value greater than weeks and even months of a person listener’s streams.
I began utilizing Bandcamp years in the past as a technique to search out unbiased artists and accumulate larger high quality variations of a few of my favorite underground albums, and have since switched to utilizing it to supply tracks for DJing. However in 2025 I’ll be making an effort to make use of Bandcamp extra for informal listening and style deep-dives, in addition to a supply of recent materials.
Prime suggestions for beginning out on Bandcamp
1. Make a free account
Bandcamp permits customers to make free fan and artists accounts to buy and add music. You can too hyperlink totally different accounts beneath one electronic mail handle, that means you possibly can maintain your collections separate by style or period for those who like.
2. Scroll all the way down to the digging space
Scrolling down by means of the homepage reveals a cluster of style tags. Clicking one will take you to the search space, the place you possibly can look by means of finest sellers and new releases alike. You’ll be able to preview every launch’s standout monitor, or click on on them to go to the artist’s web page.
3. Begin your assortment
As soon as you have discovered some releases you are grooving to, head to the checkout so as to add them to your assortment. You may get on the spot entry to limitless streaming, the flexibility to obtain in varied codecs (together with lossless WAV and FLAC), and the data that your cash has (largely) gone straight to the artists who made the music.
We’ve come to some extent the place digital media has a really low financial worth, which impacts its perceived worth too. Listening to 800 songs a month prices $14, taking part in 800 hours of a reduced online game prices $10, and watching 800 hours of video on YouTube prices nothing in any respect. That is typically linked to a scarcity of tangibility, of physicality. But talking from expertise, even having a digital copy of an album or tune in your bought assortment presents a way of funding that’s merely lacking from streaming. It makes you need to join with the music, to seek out the worth in your buy.
For reference, Bandcamp’s residence web page proudly shows that followers have paid artists $1.42 billion because the website’s launch in 2007.
There are different advantages to purchasing on Bandcamp too – the positioning solely permits artists to add lossless recordsdata, so you understand you’re getting a high-quality model of whichever tune you’re downloading. I’m no audiophile – I beforehand wrote about my affinity for listening by means of cellphone audio system – however for those who do need to get a pleasant set of audio system or headphones out, an album downloaded from Bandcamp will smoke something on Spotify by way of high quality.
And, as my use of Bandcamp tracks for DJing implies, you possibly can truly do what you want with the music: put it on any machine, remix it with music software program, stick it on a USB and play it by means of some decks. Spotify and apps prefer it relegate the listening expertise to at least one place, however Bandcamp actively encourages you to suppose greater.
For those who do need to get a pleasant set of audio system or headphones out, an album downloaded from Bandcamp will smoke something on Spotify by way of high quality
There’s one thing to be stated additionally about escaping the algorithm apocalypse. Spotify’s suggestion algorithms are so correct and so highly effective that even after I go searching for new music, I typically really feel like I discover refined variations of what I already know. Bandcamp’s search function has three primary tabs – best-selling, new releases, and shock me, the latter seemingly combining the primary two.
I’ve discovered some actually weird and actually glorious music with this combo of decisions – particularly as there are many smaller and extra mysterious artists on Bandcamp that you just’ll discover nowhere else. My newest obsession is the German techno auteur Skee Masks, who pulled his discography from Spotify years in the past for political causes.
If I’d by no means stepped onto Bandcamp there’s an opportunity I’d by no means have heard Skee’s uniquely ethereal tackle dance music, or adopted him to a reside present in London final month. It actually looks like a way more natural development than clicking a sponsored playlist on Spotify’s touchdown web page.
That each one stated, I in all probability received’t be ditching Spotify any time quickly. Bandcamp continues to be lacking numerous mainstream heavy hitters, artists like Beyonce or Kendrick Lamar who make sufficient from commonplace distribution. Spotify stays essentially the most cost-effective technique to construct each day playlists and share music with associates – constructing a Bandcamp assortment can rapidly turn into an costly endeavour, and there’s no reselling a digital assortment like you possibly can with CDs or vinyl.
Regardless, I see Bandcamp as a champion of music’s worth in an period of digital overload, and I am joyful to make it the middle of my 2025 tech decision. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is value greater than $7 billion; he’s richer than any musician in historical past. Let me say that once more: no musician has ever made as a lot cash because the CEO of Spotify. I’m not calling for a wholesale boycott, as the buyer can’t be blamed for taking a great deal, however I do really feel that as a lover of music there’s some delight to be taken in shifting cash away from the pockets of billionaires and in direction of the artists themselves.