Bandcamp is supporting musicians during the Covid-19 pandemic, raising awareness around the virus’ impact on artists by waiving their revenue share on Friday, March 20.
Below are three points from my JazzLocal32 blog post, highlighting Bandcamp’s advantages specifically use for jazz journalists (besides that it pays musicians higher rate of return than platforms such as Spotify and Pandora).
1 — 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.
2 — 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.
3 – 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.
John Fenton, in Auckland, New Zealand, lives a day ahead of North Americans, so the Bandcamp promotion may be over for him, but you’ve still got time.
