Buy from Bandcamp March 20 to help the Musicians during Covid-19 lockdown

Bandcamp informed us that they would be supporting artists during the Covid-19 pandemic. In an effort to raise awareness around the impact on musicians, they are waiving their revenue share on Friday, March 20. 

Jazz Journalists are supportive of the Bandcamp platform for a number of reasons. Firstly because it gives musicians control, and they can choose a pricing range for their albums. Of equal importance are the revenue returns where the artists share easily outstrips the other models. Bandcamp takes only a 15% share of revenue on albums and 10% on merchandise. Compare this to Spotify, Pandora or other platforms that can pay less than a cent per stream. The Bandcamp share drops even further once the album sales exceed $5,000. Buyers can also pay more than the artists recommended price and surprisingly over 50% do pay more. This feels more like a community than a business enterprise. It can also accommodate self-released material as well as cater to independent labels.

The Bandcamp site is beautifully designed and user friendly, unlike Spotify which is clunky by comparison. You can listen to a track once for free and it’s yours to keep for unlimited streaming (or download) once purchased. Remember iTunes downloads which had an expiry date? The app is free to download and once done you can set up your identity and share your playlists if you choose.

For Jazz lovers, there are other considerations and in particular sound quality. Lately, I have been downloading albums from Bandcamp in a whopping 32bit/48kHz format. That is audiophile quality and there are gizmos that enable you to stream this directly into your Hi-Fi system. 

Another benefit is that liner notes, artwork and full credits are back. When the big streamers stopped providing artists details it was insulting. I listen to high quality streamed music while reading the liner information on my iPad. Old school, new school rolled into one

The above paragraphs illustrate the divergence in philosophy between Spotify, other streamers and Bandcamp. Bandcamp is a grassroots platform and on the app, you can interact directly with the musician via a message box or post a recommendation. Spotify works a different way and it is aimed at the less engaged listener. An artist can do really well on Spotify if an album is streamed millions of times, but that is another world entirely from ours.  

https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/bandcamp-covid-19-fundraiser

https://news.jazzjournalists.org/category/jazz-on-lockdown/

My Bandcamp playlist recommendations for this month are: Rattle Records at rattle-records.bandcamp.com catalogue plus Chris Cody ‘Astrolabe’ chriscody.bandcamp.com and ‘This World’ Nock/Wilson/Stuart/Zwartz on lionsharerecords.bandcamp.com

I am moving the Jazz on Lockdown posts to this main page, but check out the blog page titled Jazz on Lockdown for cancellations and smaller notifications.

JazzLocal32.com was rated as one of the 50 best Jazz blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association