Published
Wed, Mar 2, 2022, 12:45
- Khotin, Amelia Holt, zaké and others reflect on the unforeseen downsides to the platform's ongoing generosity.
As Bandcamp Friday continues into its third year, some artists and labels are questioning the generous scheme's long-term impact on independent music.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Bandcamp Friday has become an institution in certain music circles. The scheme, which began in March 2020, saw the online retailer waive its fees on the first Friday of every month as a way to support artists directly at the height of worldwide lockdowns.
But when Bandcamp announced the scheme's continuation through May 2022, the response was mixed. Following a proliferation of tweets and think pieces, Resident Advisor reached out to several artists, DJs and label managers, as well as Bandcamp itself, to get their thoughts on the future of Bandcamp Friday.
For independent musicians, the value of Bandcamp Friday has been undeniable. Its success also took the company by surprise.
"[We] didn't expect it to be much bigger than previous fundraisers we’ve held (the largest of which had $1M in sales over 24 hours, that was our ACLU fundraiser)," COO Josh Kim told RA. "That first day, fans ended up buying $4.3M worth of music and merch (15 times our normal Friday sales at the time), and it was incredible to see such an outpouring of support for artists. When it became clear the pandemic wasn't ending anytime soon, we decided to keep it going until the pandemic let up."
For American ambient artist zakè, "Bandcamp Friday was a welcoming, incredible approach and response to our current world's artist struggles. They proactively approached their much-respected decision to waive their revenue shares to help artists and labels alike during a time where touring came to a halt [...] I have incredible respect that Bandcamp [led] the way in helping artists when they didn't have to."
But now, as parts of the world return to some semblance of normality, feelings have changed. "I believed it helped a lot of artists survive during the shutdown year, but now that music spaces are open and everything is feeling a little more 'normal', I feel the impact of Bandcamp Friday has decreased, " DJ and artist liaison Amelia Holt told RA. Dylan Khotin-Foote, AKA Khotin, put it more concisely: "I think the magic has worn off a bit."
More than just a waning of interest, UK artist Dennis Huddleston, who runs 3six Recordings, sees Bandcamp Friday as partially responsible for fostering an unsustainable model for artists.
"I now try to actively avoid releasing anything on Bandcamp Friday because it has a real risk of getting lost in the noise," he said. "It's become a digital flea market, forcing us all to scream for attention [...] I've spoken to many fellow artists and the vast majority of them are tired of the monthly Bandcamp bazaar."
Part of the pushback is the creation of a scarcity model on the first Friday of every month. "Over time, Bandcamp Friday has become sort of a forced competition of getting noticed in the sea of releases and of course it's really easy for smaller artists to get lost in all the noise," said Khotin-Foote.
He added: "It also feels like often artists are scrambling to get a release ready in time for one of the Bandcamp Friday drops, myself included, which can be really frustrating. People should be releasing their work when they feel completely ready to and not have to feel like they're chasing deadlines in fear of missing out on the opportunity to get noticed or generate income."
Huddleston agreed. "It's so dehumanising to have to compete with other artists like this, especially since many of us are friends and ultimately want each other to succeed. Ultimately, not only does the music suffer, but there's actually less money in our pockets too. Sure, there's a spike on Bandcamp Friday, but sales are down noticeably on every other day of the month. It's classic short-term gain for long-term loss."
Part of the problem may be that Bandcamp has created a monopoly on supporting independent music. "Bandcamp solves a very real problem in the industry when it comes to offering convenience for artists and listeners in a singular marketplace," said Khotin-Foote, "but I also feel like it's gotten to a point where the platform now dictates how a large amount of listeners and artists transact and to some degree are controlling 'consumer demand.' It feels a bit risky to be relying so heavily on Bandcamp alone in the long term."
Another unanticipated side effect has been the abundance of emails on the first Friday of every month. This may seem trivial, but zakè said it's made doing PR for an independent label increasingly difficult.
"[Bandcamp Friday] slowly morphed into just another day, but with the massive amounts of notifications still flooding in to the point of annoyance," he said. "And that is what scares me the most. Bandcamp notifications are one of the most valuable tools we use to promote new releases. I fear, even if it’s not a Bandcamp Friday, Bandcamp notifications have lost [their] value."
Huddleston doubled down. "Look at it from a listener's perspective too. Once a month, they're getting bombarded with a ton of new release announcements in their inbox. These are from artists they follow, so presumably they want to support them. But they'll struggle to even find the time to listen to them, let alone buy them all. So fans get overwhelmed, anxious and ultimately just disable the notifications entirely to avoid having to deal with it."
These seem to be the two major prongs of critique: the need for artists to create more content and fans inundated by notifications. Still, Kim contends that measuring the success of Bandcamp Friday requires viewing it in the aggregate.
"We think it's great if an artist wants to use a Bandcamp Friday to release or promote something," he said, "but our goal with Bandcamp Fridays has always been to give fans a chance to rally around and act on the idea of supporting the artists they love, and we see from the volume of sales on Bandcamp Fridays that they continue to accomplish that goal."
Khotin-Foote sees Bandcamp remaining as a key platform, but he'd like to see its payment structure shift. "I would happily swap [Bandcamp Fridays] in exchange for a lowered transaction fee year-round on the platform," he said. But he also understands that it can be precarious to rely solely on a single platform.
"[In] the long run, I believe it's tricky since Bandcamp already has so much momentum and most people are currently defaulting there to seek out new music," he said, "but I've recently been made aware of some tools in development that are making it easier to integrate digital music sales and downloads with Shopify stores. If I continue selling music and merch online, I'm going to consider trying something like this out in order to diversify the way fans connect with my music."