Thoughts on Band Camp (bandcamp)

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. 

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.

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.

RyanElliott wrote: ultimately the choice is there for what one may want to do.

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