Bandcamp: you’re very nearly the perfect music companion.

Here’s why and what I’d love to see next.

I’m a big advocate of Bandcamp. It’s carving out a niche for the independents, the audiophiles. It’s ridding the need of a middle-man and the soulless promoter. It’s even building a community — it’s not *just* a platform. And it’s synonymous with the type of music genres I listen to. Bonus.

My inspiration for this post came after seeing the recent ‘Beats Music’ platform launch, and it looks promising. I like the fact it focuses on curators and playlists and not just data, automated suggestions and trends. But it’s still not the one for me.

Pandora and Spotify… Despite expanding catalogues and HQ streaming, these services still conjure half-hearted love from true audiophiles, hoarders and most importantly, the artists themselves. I still can’t bring myself to use them — yet I know why many people do.

Soundcloud still remains a big choice, but they don’t seem to to be interested in monetizing catalogues of music just yet. It’s a different ball-game for them — caught in-between the rest and coping with explosive growth.

What else is there for artists… Last.fm? What happened? iTunes? Don’t. 8Tracks? That’s more like it… but there’s still something missing.

Bandcamp has vastly improved in the past year. The launch of user ‘Collections’ and ‘Feeds’ was a massive step in the right direction. The fact you can now play your collection via the Bandcamp mobile app, just confirmed I’ll be purchasing as much as I can through the platform.

These improvements just helped change Bandcamp from a simple commerce platform, into a music streaming service, and ultimately a thriving music community. With this type of functionality in their expanding armoury, I can see this small bunch of anonymous coders becoming a firm favourite of mine.

Here’s why I think Bandcamp could stand the test of time over existing music services and why I’ll continue to invest in the platform:

The artist benefits. The money listeners invest in the platform is going direct to the people who make the music.

For the listener, it’s not $10 a month to avoid adverts, and they aren’t subsequently paying to fund extraordinary sponsorships, TV ads and content. With Bandcamp, it’s going in the hard-working artist’s pocket. I for one, feel great about that.

The artist isn’t getting paid £8 for 90,000 plays either. Yes, Bandcamp take a cut on artist sales, but it’s on the artists end, and it’s very transparent and reasonable given the promotional tools available. The artist is getting paid!

Why is this important? Well, if the artist is happy, then it normally means they support and continue to use the platform. And if that happens, Bandcamp needn’t struggle to make money through ads or user subscriptions. Everyone stays happy.

It’s got the human touch.

I’m a big fan of last.fm & Pandora — using data to make intelligent music recommendations. But I can also see why playlists on Spotify are so popular. I can also see why Beats Music will do well, by putting the onus on curators. And ultimately, it’s why I still run and follow music blogs. I like the human touch.

The fact Bandcamp sends an email telling me what the people I follow purchased, versus telling me “what’s hot” or “what’s trending” is why I click on those emails.

The fact I can follow someone’s collection, knowing they’ve parted with hard-earned cash to buy music, means I have more trust in what’s going on and I’m more likely to also purchase that music. It isn’t a list of shallow ‘last played’ tracks which could’ve been skipped at 10 seconds, or put in a playlist to come across as the most forward-thinking DJ on the planet.

The fact my name appears next to a release I supported — I feel great. And it echoes throughout everything else — including getting recognition directly from the artists.

It’s a tangible expression.

Bare with me on this one.

Be it digital (MP3's) or physical (Vinyl, tape, CD), your Bandcamp collection is a real expression of yourself — something that Social Media has been helping us do for years now. But this one’s for real — the proof is in the $ the listeners invest.

Music lovers are proud of their collections. And in a world that revolves around time-stamped moments, feeds, 140 characters, low quality streams and (what you could say are) cheap connections; tangible collections like this are going to be the only thing we treasure in years to come.

Maybe I’m on my own with this point, but my record collection is one of my most valuable assets, and you can tell Bandcamp is built by likeminded people. Just having the ability to put a sentence as to why you love each purchase on your Bandcamp collection page is evidence for this point and a small, undervalued function which I hope moves on to something bigger.

It’s not a bunch of ‘last played’, ‘hot right now’, ‘this week’s jams’ or ‘Ryan is now playing that super cool track’. This is the stuff I love, and am willing to part money for. This is the music I’ll still be enjoying next week, next month and probably next year.

And if all goes to plan, the artists will still be making music because I supported them when they needed it most.

Here’s a few things i’d like to see Bandcamp do in the future that are aligned with these three points.

1. Let me enjoy the music more. Now you can stream music you have purchased through the mobile app, Bandcamp needs to take a lesson from other radio-focused platforms that do this well and extend it onto desktop too. Let me hit random, let me make a playlist, let me enjoy the music I bought, let me listen to someone else’s collection, let me listen to my ‘wishlist’ — I want to buy more music!
2. Focus on human curation. Bandcamp is amazing at presenting more music to listen to via its Discovery tab. But given the types of people using Bandcamp at the moment (plenty of ‘music-heads’) there should be more focus on curation. Sure, you can follow someone’s collection, but this needs to be a bigger aspect of the platform. The fact an artist can recommend music post-purchase is a big deal. What if you took this to another level and started recommending music to certain types of people? As a label owner, I know you supported the last release by a certain artist, so why can’t I recommend something more relevant to you instead of a blanket email to everyone? As a blogger, I know people would appreciate my top five ambient tracks of the last month? As an artist, surely you want to know what’s inspiring me? As a listener, just show me the good stuff!! Enable the listeners to promote the artists they love. Just don’t automate it- we all know what happens then.
3. Help me build my collection. Firstly, I need to get it off my chest. Can Bandcamp please marry Discogs? Thanks. The geek in us all needs these worlds to collide. Then, can you help me dive into never-ending worlds of collections. It’s why people spend hours on Youtube — they see one they like, they click another that’s related. If curation is embraced, it’ll become pretty easy for Bandcamp to swallow-up swathes of music lovers as they spend hours and hours exploring artists, curators, labels and recommendations. My collection page shouldn’t be a dead-end. It should be a starting place to explore more music, not just a catalogue of artists and labels.

These are just a few of the things I would enjoy seeing on Bandcamp in the near future. What else would you like to see? Let me know — @asip.

Here’s my Bandcamp collection page should you need a soundtrack for the post-read reflection: http://bandcamp.com/astrangelyisolatedplace