If you’re new here, every time there is a Bandcamp Friday, we comb through the service to find an arrange of offerings for you to possible put your financial support behind. Purchasing music in the time of streaming ubiquity may seem like a strange thing but it’s an extremely easy way to let a band know you support them. And, as a bonus, you’ll get notified about new releases, merch deals and all sorts of insights about the band that you’d never get from a streaming service. Win Win!
If you’re an artist and wondering what the big stink is about Bandcamp, it’s worth doing a little research into how royalties are paid from streaming services. Spotify, Apple, YouTube Music and their ilk all have varying rates of payment each time a song is played on their service but they are all incredibly low. Seriously, do a tiny bit of reading and you’ll see that streaming services are a tool for discovery and awareness but not a likely source of reliable income. If you truly want to have income from your art, Bandcamp offers the best deal; giving you 85% of all sales and increasing that to 90% once you reach a sales threshold. It’s certainly a bigger commitment from a fan to pay $6-$10 for an album but the benefit is that you’d receive $8.50 from that $10 sale, a shockingly difficult number to reach purely from streaming.
Regardless, #BandcampFriday is a way for us to spotlight some artists that we think you might like. Keep up with this list or follow our tweeting if you want a bit more detail. We’ll also advise that you find your own Nashville discoveries and show your support!!