[port11]

It’s true I didn’t grow up with that at all. When music blog were popular I’d have been in university exclusively listening to what I already liked.

Bandcamp is indeed really bad at suggesting things you’ll like…

To your last point: it’s weird how Bandsintown or Last.fm didn’t figure this out. Last.fm has so much potential but just isn’t… interested?

One advantage of the offline scene is that I see a lot more local artists, all knowing each other and playing together. There seems to be some camaraderie/support for each other going on.

[dbspin]

Agreed. Last FM is one of the great lost opportunities of web 2.0 (up there with the early location based social networks). The website still exists, and I still use it (despite painfully poor integration into iOS, requiring the third party paid client Marvis to synch). They offer unclear value subscription to access all your data, and at this point, most dedicated music geeks have probably moved to OSS / local solutions integrating musicbrainz datasets.

There is a world in which lastfm is the one of the most popular social networks, tiktok before tiktok (which started as music.ly) if you like. There's another in which it developed into a Tidal like successful boutique streaming platform. Instead it's a half forgotten not really working nonsense.

My favourite lastfm story, is that back when it was somewhat popular (at least indie popular), someone commented on my lastfm profile to say they'd been in Tokyo and been approached by the members of a hyper niche Swedish band (Strip Squad) because one of the members had heard their music being played in a park. The guy playing them had found them because of my lastfm. Lastfm at the time actively suggested connecting with other users who had similar psychographic taste.

I'm all in favour of supporting local music scenes. Just personally I don't enjoy gigs, never have really. Sound is bad, always too loud, vibes are too alcohol based (at least here in Ireland), they're pricey etc. I'd actually love it if there was more of a 'listening cafe' Japanese style venue / scene here. There's a popular bar that poses as one, but it has a terrible, wildly over loud sound system in a box room with a loud open bar next door.

[runarberg]

Does Bandcamp still do their Bandcamp weekly and their regular article? Personally I never signed up for any streaming service (apart from Bandcamp; but I don‘t use their suggestion algorithm) so I can’t judge what is good or bad about it. But I feel like their regular articles and their Bandcamp weekly show was excellent at music discovery. I stopped listening and reading it a while ago, as I get plenty good music discovery on my local radio station (KEXP) as well as the national radio of where I grew up (RÚV in Iceland).

[kylestratis]

They actually do a lot for discovery. Bandcamp weekly, notifications when labels you've bought from release something from another artist, playlists, and they have genre-focused blogs as well.

People just like saying something doesn't exist when they just didn't bother to look at their emails.

[dbspin]

So I've been a bandcamp user since close to the dawn of the service. The issues I commented on above don't relate to their curation emails but the poverty of the interface itself. Bandcamp has been widely and roundly, not to mention accurately criticised for it's technical / UX failures for a long time. It also has no social features whatsoever. Unfortunately a curated email isn't a replacement for proper recommendations based on similar users listening (as lastfm used to to, see above anecdote), content based recommendations, or genuine social recommendations. Not to mention the fact that half the writing staff were fired several years ago, and the quality of their curation fell off a cliff after that point.

The app and site are awful, and even finding stuff you've bought to play or download can be a nightmare if you own a lot of material. To site a specific example - I bought a back catalogue of sound effects records for work reasons. They have many dozens of individual releases - which makes navigating my other purchased records much more difficult.

Bandcamp also only allow you to 'uncover' the download links for tracks or albums one at a time, presumably to save bandwidth costs. I could go on and on.

It's a hypothetically great service that's absolutely crippled by not having been improved for a decade.

[runarberg]

I think me and you use Bandcamp in totally different ways, and this is why you see a problem where I don‘t. I am not judging btw (unlike your parent) just pointing out the differences.

My primary (and now only) use case of Bandcamp is as a marketplace between me and the artist/label. I use it as a super convenient record store. And like a good record store, bandcamp also has the equivalent of music magazine which you can read in the store, and helpful staff willing to point you to new releases. and just like in a record store, the staff won‘t play what they recommended for you, you have to take the sample CD to the listening station, put on the headphones, and hit play your self. I see their streaming feature as basically a super convenient listening station at the record store. I usually stream an album before I decide whether or not to buy it.

After purchasing I never listen to it again in app, but rather download the files and upload to my MP3 player, or wait for the physical media to arrive and listen to it in my living room’s stereo system.

Bandcamp also has the equivalent of a radio station’s music oriented talk show with their podcasts, this is more then your average record store. E.g. I think Easy Street in Seattle nor Lucky Records in Reykjavík have a regular podcast, although I can see it could be amazing if they did.

[dbspin]

That makes sense. Viewed as just a store, it isn't the worst.

However - a store is no longer the competition. In terms of promoting independent music and giving the artists both control over distribution and profit, Bandcamp is almost the only game in town. However the complimentary service is streaming and the typical user is on mobile. It's awful for both mobile streaming and browsing. As well as recommendations in general.

If we were still in 2003 and Napster and it's successors were the alternative, bandcamp would be great. But record stores (outside of a few independent marquee stores like Amoeba in hip, high income cities) are now glorified merch stands and music is gatekept on evil services like spotify.

Just loaded up the bandcamp app for the first time in a while and my goodness is it godawful. Worse than I remember. Arcane icons, unclear features, total lack of centring the music I've already bought or the artists I've bought it from. It's a shop and that's not been enough for a very long time.

Lets bear in mind that most folks don't even have an mp3 player client on their phone. The distribution platform must - to stay useful, also be a listening solution. Bandcamp fails at even that.

Just to be clear - I very much want Bandcamp to succeed. Hell if I could roll back all technology to a point in the mid-late 2000s just before the smartphone I would. But in todays climate it has to improve or eventually become irrelevant.

I applaud bandcamp radio's existence, but their player doesn't even have a jog function. It's shocking.

[runarberg]

Speaking of record stores, my last trip to Easy Street in Seattle my vinyl purchases had 0/3 download codes in the sleeves. Luckily all the albums were for sale as digital albums on Bandcamp and I could buy a second copy there for fairly cheap. In fact It probably saved me money buying the physical copy at a physical store and the digital copy at the digital store, as the records were slightly cheaper in Easy Street and I didn’t have to pay shipping.