OPE! Mixtape #19: black beans mixed with salsa and oat flour
A few notes on Bandcamp and the ongoing (never-ending) "Tools vs. Platforms" debate
Well, hello there. How are you?
I missed the initial splash of Bandcamp news when those brutal (e.g. 50%) Bandcamp layoffs were announced. I think it’s important enough to still talk about it.
Bandcamp—the music sharing, upload, and quasi-streaming platform and community with its beloved Bandcamp Daily editorial arm to which I had previously contributed some features—still exists and isn’t dead. But these layoffs, including a lot of engineering folks who help maintain the platform, are a big hit against a music community that wanted to put more money directly into independent artists’ pockets by paying them for music that they could easily upload and sell along with their own merch and giveaways.
I want to make it clear that Bandcamp is still active. I also hate to admit it, but my temptation is already to write about Bandcamp in the past tense.
Bandcamp isn’t perfect. It’s not a charity or nonprofit but a Bay Area-based tech company that needs to make money. It is, however, a viable option that exists in its own lane. That’s becoming an increasingly unique position. According to Pitchfork, Bandcamp was a rare post-Great Recession music industry economic success story. Bandcamp offered something unique and hyper-accessible apart from the most popular streaming models established by the likes of Spotify, which has morphed into only rewarding (in meaningful and practical ways) music as big and established as Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift, and …. maybe those six or seven 20-year-old albums that you still feel nostalgic for. And that’s it. Bandcamp felt like a bright spot in an industry that feels harder to navigate if you aren’t already famous. Artists like Alex G and Mitski are now legitimate money-making stars with clear influences on today’s younger musicians—how do you think those artists were able to start releasing their own music that allowed them to build up and cultivate fanbases from scratch, fans who bought songs, EPs, and LPs (instead of just popping one or two songs onto a playlist) and stood by these musicians as their careers accelerated? Bandcamp!
The devil's advocate in me is aware that Songtradr, the company that bought Bandcamp from Epic Games (the company behind Fortnite), who originally bought Bandcamp last year, were the ones who put into action these 50% layoffs. There’s a bit of evidence in the previous links above to point to Songradr probably just firing everyone who was a part of Bandcamp’s union as a form of union busting because … most of those 50% layoffs made up most of Bandcamp’s union. I need to acknowledge that Songtradr perhaps did understand Bandcamp’s vital importance to independent musicians (why would they buy them in the first place) and just wanted to get rid of all its union people. Songtradr was probably trying to send the typical “Don’t form a union” message we see in different industries, yet the consequences are more far-reaching and will negatively affect people who don’t even support unions. I don’t know the negotiations the Bandcamp union was trying to work on; in general, I tend to side with a lot of unions on most issues, though I won’t ever assume all unions are pure or even well-run. But I actually know people who were a part of the Bandcamp union. I know them to be smart, decent, and self-aware people who likely wanted a little sense of security in such a volatile industry from a company that easily had to means to provide that security. It bums me out.
Anyway, back to what made Bandcamp stand out compared to a company like Spotify. Spotify is an easy and well-worn target for this kind of criticism. I’m an active user of Spotify’s premium plan which, in many ways, is a blessing to help with all the music research I need to do for my features. It’s fair game for criticism still. As Patrick Lyons pointed out in his recent newsletter, 90% of the royalties Spotify pays out go to the top 0.8% of artists. As of this morning, a report just came out that Spotify is planning to pay artists not in the 0.8% even less.
Spotify is not an American company, yet this all pretty much falls in line with most American thinking regarding work and value in our economy: If you want to be successful, just be successful already. If you want to succeed in music’s Web 2.0 era, just be as famous as Taylor Swift was before the dawn of social media; most of these 0.8% artists were already quite famous and beloved before Spotify came over to the United States, including Swift. Or have a parent who has their own Wikipedia page who can provide financial support for you to go truly independent and get by without needing Spotify. I say this as someone who enjoys a lot of great music made by Nepo Babies; this is not lazy criticism against musicians who got lucky with their parents but me bringing up a point that I share with most of my colleagues: I don’t want an entire music industry ecosystem full of those people who are the only ones who can be rewarded for making music, which increasingly seems to only be written and recorded to remind you of the music you grew up on. Or they’re just making “vibes.”
Before I move on from complaining about Spotify specifically, John Herman just published a deep dive into how Spotify is eating the entire music business. John also adds some helpful caveats and context to help distinguish between money decisions made by Spotify vs. money decisions made by music labels. Like most situations, it can get complicated in the weeds of all the details that labels make with streamers that allow music to be put on a streaming service in the first place. It’s good to know the difference between a bad streaming model vs. labels just being greedy. You’re not wrong, however, to see the big picture all of this and still think, “Yikes.”
I don’t mind a world in which Spotify, and streaming platforms in general, exist. I’m not naive to think that if we just get rid of Spotify, we’ll all live happily ever after and get along and all make money from our music equally with some new payment structure that will allow our industry to support each other. Remember my joke about the music industry being 26-year-olds trying to impress 16-year-olds … do you really think a 26-year-old dude who’s thirsty for TikTok teens will do “the right thing” regarding an entire industry? This December also marks the 30th anniversary of Steve Albini’s infamous “The Problem with Music” essay that broke down how much music labels screw over artists financially in ways unlike other art industries … and this was back when middle-class artists actually could make money! These problems are rooted in a mentality that is now decades old and hard to change. By the time whatever new music-listening model comes along after Spotify, we’ll still be fighting this music industry mentality.
I don’t even mind a world in which only two artists (Taylor Swift and Beyonce) drive most industry attention and trends. I feel foolish to criticize these artists who, maybe if I don’t like them personally, connect with a lot of fans and make smart business decisions. I don’t want to suggest that I am upset that someone like Swift continues to thrive but wouldn’t be upset if someone like Oasis (my favorite band) was at No. 1 after all these years. This is still a problem even with music I like.
I don’t mind a world in which streaming exists and encourages the mass exposure and saturation of the 1% of the music industry… as long as there are viable alternatives for everyone else. Bandcamp is (was) one of those viable options. What these new layoffs signal to me and a lot of my colleagues is the disappearance of those viable alternatives. It stinks. This slow decline has been happening for a long time, especially in music (and pretty much all) journalism and media. The music industry—and any art industry really—has always been tricky to navigate even in good times, but there was always a way for new talent from different backgrounds to have a space and chance to break in and prove themselves. No one owes you and me a career in the arts … but until now, there have been viable alternatives for those who need it and who are willing to put up with the risks. Sometimes things get worse before they can get better. Right now, it feels like things are getting worse but with no plan to get better. That’s what I’m most afraid of.
To put this discussion into a bigger picture: This past week following the layoff news, one of my colleagues David Greenwald reshared his 2011 LA Times feature on LinkedIn about the then-new-ish Bandcamp. His accompanying LinkedIn message was so good that I’m resharing it here:
“Back in 2011, one of my favorite L.A. Times contributions was a story about the early days of Bandcamp—a moment of independent artists in search of empowering alternatives. Revisiting it now, one thing that stands out is a comparison to WordPress, open-source software anyone can download, host, and run forever without worrying about corporate intervention. But instead of tools, creators got a decade of platforms, from Bandcamp to Substack to X/Twitter to TikTok, and all of the risk that comes with them.”
If you follow me on LinkedIn (which, hey, let’s connect!), you probably saw my response, but I want to reshare it here too.
Taking a general (but related) step back, "Tools vs. Platforms” feels like a great summary of the last decade of most creative industries that are fighting for relevance in the twilight years of Web 2.0. For this newsletter, I’ll define “tools” as something like WordPress. (I used WordPress to build my first music blog in high school which got me started in this world! My personal website is also built on WordPress.) Tools are easy-to-use software or technology to make your own website or platform that you can make all your own and build your own community. I’ll define “platforms” as any social media or online portal (like Bandcamp) in which you upload work to one shared space where that work can then be shared and promoted within a built-in community. We all love websites that run on WordPress whether you know it or not, but you won’t necessarily hear about WordPress stans that’ll follow any website built upon WordPress. The opposite is true for platforms: We all know stans of platforms like Twitter, Spotify, TikTok, Substack (the platform running the newsletter you’re reading), and, you guessed it, Bandcamp. TikTik Tweens and Substack Bros are now practical marketing demographics where the emphasis is on the platform.
Tools and platforms are great in different ways and ideally can, and should, be used hand-in-hand. Over the past few years, we’ve been seeing the consequences of relying only on platforms to cultivate our digital identities. Those consequences are only getting worse.
Take this Substack newsletter for example. It’s not a perfect platform, yet it’s easy to use, and I’m happy to stay here for OPE! for now. In a perfect world, I would like to see a healthy balance of Substack music newsletters with independent music blogs and publications built using a tool like WordPress. Day by day, it’s hard to find the latter. The former is everywhere, but they’re all dependent on a platform to change hands at any moment. I’m ready for the day that Elon or some other rich doofus with a chip on their shoulder buys Substack and changes everything about the platform within a week. To prepare for that, I’m (very slowly) setting up my WordPress equivalent for OPE!, which I hope to get up and running in the next few months. (I also am aware that Elon could one day want to buy WordPress, but that seems like more of a logistical nightmare than buying a relatively simpler platform like Twitter that has a more identifiable built-in audience.) I’d rather build up something with a helpful tool instead of wrapping up my entire identity on a platform that can disappear in seconds. Just look at all those writers who built their entire careers and brands on “being annoying and loud on Twitter” who are now freaking out by losing their followers and exposure. (Drew Gooden has a related video from a few years ago focusing on what happens when famous YouTubers try to extend their brands to different platforms and their mostly not-great results.)
My definition of writing success in a perfect world: Be a writer who can use different tools, instead of a writer dependent on a platform. I would extend this definition to the music industry as a whole: Thrive by the use of different tools, instead of becoming dependent on one or two platforms.
So yes, I’m bummed but not surprised about the Bandcamp layoffs that shake up an industry more dependent on platforms. I owe Bandcamp a lot—one of my first big writing features was covering the booming Asian emo scene for Bandcamp Daily, a feature that a lot of people still know me best for. I also am sad because … speaking of “Tools vs. Platforms” … Bandcamp also felt like one of the last remaining platforms that was just about music. Most other music-related platforms that our industry relies on—Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, etc—may have been music-focused at one point, but they’ve evolved into multi-entertainment platforms that happen to have music. Spotify is now pretty much a podcast platform that happens to have music. They could pivot to shipping scented toilet paper tomorrow and hey, as long as they make money, who cares? Bandcamp was special because it was, for the most part, just for music.
Not everything can or should be everything to everyone. But for my fellow music fans and colleagues who care, let’s support the tools and platforms (especially tools) that focus on building up our industry.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Now let’s get to the dang thing on this Substack newsletter platform. Here are some links and tunes for the week.
LINKS
I brought up Kentucky Route Zero in last week’s newsletter … if you’ve never heard of that game, I love Skill Up’s initial review of Kentucky Route Zero. (Skill Up is also one of my favorite gaming review channels on YouTube in general.)
Mark Cuban answering business questions from Twitter (the platform). (I’m a big fan of this WIRED series, and though Cuban is still on his crypto beat and I’m not a stan by any means, I actually found a lot of his answers thoughtful and helpful.)
THIS WEEK’S MIXTAPE
Listen to this week’s mix on Spotify (the platform).
(Note: Not every song is available on streaming services.)
Ducks Ltd. - “The Main Thing”
In the last newsletter, I talked about the lovely jingle-jangle of Johnny Marr’s guitar playing and melody writing. Ducks Ltd. is that jangle turned into an entire band. I love all their records—I voted “Under the Rolling Moon” as one of my favorite songs of 2021 for Uproxx’s end-of-year music critics poll, and I think the magic to this band is that the bass and drums are so strong and don’t just play second fiddle to the top-line guitar and vocals. “The Main Thing” is more of the same but in the best way possible. It makes me excited for more of the same!
Wishy - “Donut”
Wishy are a new band featuring Indiana songwriting LORDS Kevin Krauter and Nina Pithkites. I’ve shared a few Krauter songs before in the newsletter, yet Wishy and “Donut” feel more immediately and in-your-face than anything he’s been a part of so far. I also caught their LA show last night and it was excellent. Keep your eyes out on this band.
IDLES - “Dancer” (ft. LCD Soundsystem)
On paper, IDLES teaming up with James Murphy sounds like a slam dunk. “Dancer” feels more like just a dunk, but it’s nice to hear IDLES try out a different guitar pedal for once.
Robbie Robertson - “Osage Oil Boom”
I saw Killers of the Flower Moon over the weekend. I really liked it and felt like I would love it on second viewing. I also thought you could cut an hour and not miss anything. Thinking about the movie more, however, maybe how brutal the movie’s length is adds to the brutality of this story, which easily has one of Scorsese’s most bleak messages. A director like Scorsese can get away with it, but maybe this movie should have had an intermission. Still, the late Robbie Roberston composed the music’s score and it’s a big highlight of the viewing experience.
Slow Pulp - “Slugs”
I’ve enjoyed Slow Pulp for a while, but I don’t think I’ve given them a proper shout-out in this newsletter. Their new album from a few months ago feels like a quasi-breakthrough. If you’re into “Slugs,” all their albums are good to great.
The Rolling Stones - “Get Close”
“Get Close” is my favorite song off the not-bad-not-great new Stones album because it sounds like it could be off Oasis’ Standing on the Shoulder of Giants …
Oasis - “Go Let It Out”
… Like, seriously. I’m not kidding. Listen to both of these drum intros. I now have this fantasy of Mick Jagger in 2023 wanting to rip off 2000 Oasis, a band that wanted to rip off 1971 Stones. I love my out-of-touch rock stars!
Keiji Haino, Merzbow, Balázs Pándi - “Why is the Courtesy of the Prey Always Confused with the Courtesy of the Hunters…”
The new Rolling Stone “Greatest Guitarists of All Time” list is insane. That Lucy Dacus (a great songwriting and interesting rhythm guitar player having a moment right now) is on the list but not Billy Corgan (an asshole with one of the most influential and recognizable guitar tones of all time and was on every previous version of this RS list) tells you everything you need to know about the list. I will give it credit for including a lot more new guitarists who were new to me. Keiji Haino is one of those new (to me) names. This suite was the recommended track to check out, and I love getting lost in this world right now.
Dwight Twilley - “I’m On Fire”
Rest in peace to Dwight Twilley, a ‘70s power-pop icon whom I wasn’t too familiar with before digging into his discography this past week. Unsurprisingly, his songs are killer. Is power-pop one of the few genres that sound good in any decade?
Bruce Springsteen - “Fade Away”
My favorite U2-turn-REM podcast is back now to cover Bruce Springsteen. So far so great. The most recent episode I listened to covers The River, which right now is my favorite Springsteen album. I go between Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River as my favorite Springsteen albums, but as I’ve gotten older, my love for the messiness and vulnerability of The River (that somehow never feels bloated) only grows. Maybe it’s also because I’m now closer to the age Springsteen was when he wrote The River. I recently turned 31 and Springsteen, I believe, was about to turn 30, so we’re around that age of entering a new decade of life, which freaked out Springsteen so much and made him take a long hard look at himself and the man he was becoming vs. the stories that other people were telling about him (hey, just like me). Darkness, as brilliant as it is, can sometimes come across as an insecure young man trying to play the tough guy anti-hero. Born to Run … again, a classic that deserves to be a classic … is only music written by an insecure young man trying to play the James Dean type. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve even appreciated Born in the U.S.A. more, specifically its lyrics, which I could never appreciate under all that pop songwriting that turned him into a megastar. But none of those albums have a song as good as “Fade Away.” So for me, The River wins.
And that’s it!
Until a future Wednesday, as always.
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OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. words and cartoons by yours truly. stock photos by Substack unless credited. animations made using FlipaClip and EZGIF. all typos are intentional.