This one time (on Bandcamp)

One of my favorite Web tools for musicians hit the big time this week as Sufjan Stevens used it to launch his new EP and make his back catalog generally available for free online streaming and cheap downloading options. If there’s any justice, this will further propel Bandcamp into becoming the new Myspace. No, I don’t mean that it will be an inferior social network and spam enabler. Instead, it should become the default tool for musicians to share their work on the Web. It offers ridiculous value and a stellar set of features that make it the best way to post and share and sell your songs online. 

I am using Bandcamp to do just that with our new record. And here’s why:

• It’s the best way to stream your music online. You can stream everything you’ve ever recorded for free. No song limits. No streaming limits. High quality streams with great bandwidth (but it’s only 128k; sry Ghost).
• It’s the cheapest way to sell your stuff online. Bandcamp only recently started taking a cut from sales, and it’s still a modest 15%. Which is a better deal than anyone else offers. That rate drops to 10% once you sell more than $5,000 worth of music. We won’t reach that sales figure, but it’s still a very low barrier for a working musician to reach. Bandcamp isn’t like Tunecore or CD Baby. They don’t ship your music to iTunes or eMusic. They’re kinda the opposite of those sites. You control the price, and all the revenue (minus the 15%) goes to your PayPal account.
• It lets everyone try the Radiohead model. That is to say, you can allow your listeners to set the price. Even if that price is free. That’s how we’re going to sell our downloads. It’s free if you want them. Or pay more. If you want the vinyl, it’s $10. No exceptions.
• People can download music in any format they like. Not just MP3, but FLAC and freaking Ogg Vorbis. All for the same price.
• You can sell physical goods through Bandcamp, too. And you can use it to track your shipments. You can even do pre-orders.
• If you like, you can also print download cards that each come with their own unique code. These are great, whether you want to sell them, give them away, or insert them into your LP sleeves. The codes and album art are added automatically. Just print them on whatever card/poster stock you like. Other sites offer similar functionality, but you pay more, and you have to upload your music again.
• The sites look great. There’s some modest customization available, but it avoids the hideous excesses of Myspace.
• Lots of stats about downloading and streaming activity through your sites. With pretty graphs.
• You can use your own domain name (or subdomain). We do. And this option is free.
• You can embed single songs or entire albums. Anywhere. Like so:

I have to admit one of the reasons I like Bandcamp is that they align perfectly with how I feel about digital music and how music should be sold online. CDs are useless. But outlets like iTunes and eMusic charge too much when they sell your digital files. And they don’t give you options about how to present your music or how much to charge (if you charge anything at all). Bandcamp has figured this out and made it easy. So that any punk band or weekend duffers could figure it out. But Sufjan Stevens made it into the Billboard top 50 on his Bandcamp sales alone. So it’s not just a toy for ‘shitty local bands.’ It’s a flexible tool that presents your music pro-style, without a bunch of crappy ads or clutter.

One “drawback” is that Bandcamp forces you to stream your work for free. Don’t like it? Tough. Their interview with Sufjan’s label, Asthmatic Kitty, addressed this perfectly:

All of the tracks from this EP can be streamed in their entirety on Bandcamp – no 30 second snippets. Do you think you lost sales because of that?
No way. I think it really helped that people could stream the whole album. My personal theory is that people can stream anything in its entirety anyway; YouTube is essentially a giant on-demand playback setup ala Spotify these days. Type in a song and artist and bam – you’re streaming right away. The question for record labels and musicians is how far the buy button is from that stream.

That is indeed the question. Frankly, I think it might be crazy to try to sell streams or downloads at all. Everything is free now. And I’m tired of ending up with boxes full of unsold CDs. This time, you either get one of 250 vinyl copies or you get it online. I don’t know that it’s perfect, but it seems close enough.

Want more info about Bandcamp? Check out their FAQ. Or watch this video.