Thoughts on Band Camp (bandcamp) |
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RyanElliott
Forum Senior Member Joined: November 14 2011 Location: Cardiff Status: Offline Points: 111 |
Posted: November 19 2013 at 20:01 | |
Three years ago I wrote a whole blog-page on this subject that sadly few people understood: (http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=64725) - that blog was written before the rise in popularity of Bandcamp but everything I wrote there still applies. I've read the first couple of posts on that forum. There are some really interesting questions you bring into place. The level of professionalism that one may set themselves to will of course separate them from the mediocrity that supposedly would run amok. By professionalism, I mean that in every aspect. Being in terms of the quality of the product, the presentation, the attitude of the artists, the level of the engagement they can offer to the people that would be interested in hearing what they do. Beyond the Internets, the one thing I will always stand by is the power of the word of mouth. The artists that have the ability to touch people and tell their story that will allow their art to naturally resonate. There have been some serious innovators out there, Imogen Heap being perhaps a pinnacle example and a huge inspiration for me in terms of the sheer level of ambition to create a stunning album whilst giving her all to her followers. I can't say I could do what she does myself, but I can certainly take the ideas on board. BandCamp is another format to where your music is like water to people, it's available, albeit an opportunity for a better deal than most income wise. it gets the music out there! What makes the difference for those who are successful is their understanding of the 100 to 100,000 or whatever amount of people they are engaging with. I struggle to articulate this, but as a young aspiring artist, I have took on board a lot of what Seth Godin has said, he's a quite the marketing futurist, and his point of view I see as a very fresh outlook that embraces a lot of what artists face today. This 2 part video may be of interest to some. Edited by RyanElliott - November 19 2013 at 20:05 |
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jayem
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 21 2006 Location: Switzerland Status: Offline Points: 981 |
Posted: November 22 2013 at 08:24 | |
It may show the best possible way, as far as money's part of the equation. But music isn't only about money nor reaching people either. You can make music just like you decorate/develop your own world, and may even want to keep it for yourself unless you trust someone else's ears and way of reacting to it. It doesn't mean you should choose that way, of course, but it does change the dynamics of it all. You may even feel well about the disappearing of anything you discovered and created without anybody having learnt about or paying notice, just because you trust that any good ideas will be made well known sooner or later, either through your own discoveries or someone else's. |
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Guldbamsen
Special Collaborator Retired Admin Joined: January 22 2009 Location: Magic Theatre Status: Offline Points: 23098 |
Posted: November 22 2013 at 08:33 | |
^Sort of a semi Buddhist's way of approaching the music market
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“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
- Douglas Adams |
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jayem
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 21 2006 Location: Switzerland Status: Offline Points: 981 |
Posted: November 22 2013 at 14:13 | |
Your comment is welcome...
Indeed the lone carefree retirement there would call buddhism to mind, except that a die hard buddhist would dismiss music, social sharing and money all the same, and a semi-buddhist would simply accommodate with it "on surface" like transitory things. But of course I meant to emphasize the significance of money (linked to the importance of reaching enough people) in the creation process.
Edited by jayem - November 22 2013 at 14:19 |
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tamijo
Forum Senior Member Joined: January 06 2009 Location: Denmark Status: Offline Points: 4287 |
Posted: November 22 2013 at 15:23 | |
I like you are saying, we tend to forget the pleasure involved with the creation of music, the joy of being part of a jam, even if it would be a pain on record, the joy of putting some cords or tones together just because it's nice. Too much effort is put on the marked, the money, and all that. Music is a free ride (your own, that is). it may be a potential product too, but first of all its a way to express something. A wonderful way indeed.
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Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours
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jayem
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 21 2006 Location: Switzerland Status: Offline Points: 981 |
Posted: November 22 2013 at 17:34 | |
...Your comment is welcome !
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer Joined: September 03 2006 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 9869 |
Posted: November 23 2013 at 08:05 | |
Dean, I have actually read through your thread on Self-Releasing before and I do agree on many of the points made there. When it comes to art, people feel obliged to behave like socialists or egalitarians perhaps...nevermind that in the same breath, they might trash or sneer down on pop music as a commercial product for the supposedly bereft-of-intellect-sheep. Which is probably why some reacted rather than responded to your point.
Anyway...I agree that the abundance of choice is a mixed blessing at best. At one level, it probably makes me lazy and content to listen to a few samples and leave it at that. I am not one who craves to listen to 300/400 new albums every year. If I get to taste a handful of masterpieces or even just excellent works, I will be more than satisfied because I'd much rather listen to those handful of albums over and over and enjoy them to the hilt than sift through hundreds without much reward. In that sense, the internet in general - and resources like PA - help me a lot more than bandcamp. And you are right about how the more resourceful artists probably use these resources to spread word about them to push the ultimate transaction on bandcamp. A good example from my experience is Renaissance's Grandine Il Vento. They did use bandcamp to make the digital download available. The promotion meanwhile was done mainly through their facebook page, which is already visited by thousands of their loyal fans, and some other online media. For the record, I am happy I could get the download through bandcamp because I'd have reckoned it a 'bit' of a waste if I had had to order the CD and add another $10 for the shipping on top of that; to me it wasn't THAT good an album . But one of the reasons why there is so much appreciation of bandcamp's model may be that perhaps the labels didn't necessarily do their job. What kind of quality control lets Britney Spears seep through? I like a good, well made commercial product which makes great musicianship accessible and infectious, not music that is just catchy for the sake of it and, well, nothing much else and has nothing of great value to say to me. I understand that BS (ermmm ) would have had a target audience too but what happens to music in the midst of targeting all these demographics? How much filtering do I need to do to find some pop that I might like? Commercial or bandcamp, either which way I, as many others in my generation are often accused of, don't have a particularly large attention span. The industry lost the plot in the noughties. They already hadn't left too much scope for further lowest-common-denominatorization of music by the self-release crowd; there wasn't much further to sink to. I appreciate the benefits of a studio set up and a team of professionals working to make the product better. But I question whether this was really happening. In an alternative universe where it was, perhaps nobody would have been interested in self released products. Industry zoomed in on the low hanging fruit and gave a wide berth to people who were a little more deeply interested in music because they are harder to please and therefore a riskier audience to target. These were, I believe, the people who have now flocked to bandcamp and the like. If the industry did give them what they liked, they would buy it, no matter how much they professed to hate the industry. What all this reflects is a thirst for music that delivers an authentic experience and is not overly conscious of ticking all the commercial must-have boxes. I presume the industry does a lot of market research but much of it seems to have been a failure at the end of the day.
Edited by rogerthat - November 23 2013 at 08:50 |
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RyanElliott
Forum Senior Member Joined: November 14 2011 Location: Cardiff Status: Offline Points: 111 |
Posted: December 01 2013 at 13:51 | |
Jayem,
I agree and glad you've made the point also of people doing it for joy. It's a match of the both worlds and ultimately the choice is there for what one may want to do. |
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jayem
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 21 2006 Location: Switzerland Status: Offline Points: 981 |
Posted: December 03 2013 at 12:35 | |
All right !
The choice is there. I know several talented musicians who went to a psy, were diagnosed an obscure "mental disorder" and became happy disability annuitants ! Their real "crippling" being only of the social kind ( avoiding others, losing even their coolest and well-paid jobs, "childish" reluctance to develop poor social skills ).
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mawgojzeta
Forum Groupie Joined: April 26 2011 Status: Offline Points: 60 |
Posted: December 04 2013 at 20:54 | |
I just discovered this today when preordering a cd from a band I like. I was surprised because the last time (granted, a while back) I ordered music from Bandcamp, it was digital only. |
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Svetonio
Forum Senior Member Joined: September 20 2010 Location: Serbia Status: Offline Points: 10213 |
Posted: December 05 2013 at 01:36 | |
In fact, the constantly increasing number of the contemporary prog bands selling their self-produced CDs & vinyl LPs (along with 'name your price' digital versions) at Bandcamp. Btw, that's often seen by the music industry dictatorship's apologists as subversive activity Edited by Svetonio - December 05 2013 at 02:13 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: December 05 2013 at 02:11 | |
Except that it isn't subversive and doesn't affect the music industry one bit. If these bands had any commercial impact they would be signed to those industry dictators; for many years the music industry supported poor selling artists, now the artists have to fund themselves. I don't see that anyone loses on this, the low-volume artists get to sell a few albums and maybe recover costs, the industry dictators can concentrate on artists that earn them money and does not need to put any money into specialist subgenres that have very few followers. You can't make people buy Prog Rock by putting loads of marketing money into selling it so berating "music industry dictators" for the way they do business in the mainstream is just plain stupid.
I don't know how many times I have to repeat this before it sinks in to people's heads: stop comparing prog rock with mainstream pop.
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What?
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