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Do you think that you'd make all of those sales, if you had no Spotify access at all? I mean... If you pointed me to your BandCamp store page and told me to bu

Do you think that you'd make all of those sales, if you had no Spotify access at all? I mean... If you pointed me to your BandCamp store page and told me to buy an album, without first hearing it - I wouldn't buy it.

j605 6y ago
You can listen to the songs on bandcamp before buying it.
- JAlexoid 6y ago
  I didn't make it clear. I wouldn't buy "your band's" album, even if I could listen to it right before buying it. I don't have the time to listen to 30 minutes of audio without being hooked onto it first. One unknown song in my Google Music or Soundcloud auto-playlist may get me hooked... But you need to build a desire to buy the album beforehand. I don't think I'm the only person like that, btw.
  - 3131s 6y ago
    Artists can choose what song plays first on an album on Bandcamp.
jakelazaroff 6y ago
Hard to say! Spotify definitely isn’t a magic music marketing machine — you need a decent amount of organic traction before you’ll get any algorithmic promotion, and even more for editorial. It took us years of releasing music, playing shows, networking with other bands, pitching to blogs and buying ads before Spotify became an effective way for us to find fans. It might be that “listen on Spotify before you buy on Bandcamp” is the 2020 version of “download on Bittorrent before you buy the CD”. But it feels like “is this slightly better for musicians than music piracy” is a pretty low bar for a $50 billion company to shoot for.
- JAlexoid 6y ago
  I don't claim that Spotify is end-all-be-all of music marketing. It's one of the tools, that is part of the arsenal. It feels that middle of the spectrum - above "we have a facebook page" and below "corporate label promotion material". >is this slightly better for musicians than music piracy They're a music streaming and recommendation service company, not a "we kill piracy" company. Maybe they should get into more promotional business... but they're not in that business. I would argue that Spotify is "(insert more successful band in the genre here) is looking for a warm up act for their gig in your town". If you're in a very middle of the pack mass appeal genre - you're definitely screwed on Spotify, or anywhere, without a breakout act(corporate contract/viral video)

j605 6y ago

You can listen to the songs on bandcamp before buying it.

JAlexoid 6y ago
I didn't make it clear. I wouldn't buy "your band's" album, even if I could listen to it right before buying it. I don't have the time to listen to 30 minutes of audio without being hooked onto it first. One unknown song in my Google Music or Soundcloud auto-playlist may get me hooked... But you need to build a desire to buy the album beforehand. I don't think I'm the only person like that, btw.
- 3131s 6y ago
  Artists can choose what song plays first on an album on Bandcamp.

jakelazaroff 6y ago

Hard to say! Spotify definitely isn’t a magic music marketing machine — you need a decent amount of organic traction before you’ll get any algorithmic promotion, and even more for editorial. It took us years of releasing music, playing shows, networking with other bands, pitching to blogs and buying ads before Spotify became an effective way for us to find fans. It might be that “listen on Spotify before you buy on Bandcamp” is the 2020 version of “download on Bittorrent before you buy the CD”. But it feels like “is this slightly better for musicians than music piracy” is a pretty low bar for a $50 billion company to shoot for.

JAlexoid 6y ago
I don't claim that Spotify is end-all-be-all of music marketing. It's one of the tools, that is part of the arsenal. It feels that middle of the spectrum - above "we have a facebook page" and below "corporate label promotion material". >is this slightly better for musicians than music piracy They're a music streaming and recommendation service company, not a "we kill piracy" company. Maybe they should get into more promotional business... but they're not in that business. I would argue that Spotify is "(insert more successful band in the genre here) is looking for a warm up act for their gig in your town". If you're in a very middle of the pack mass appeal genre - you're definitely screwed on Spotify, or anywhere, without a breakout act(corporate contract/viral video)