We are in a golden era for buying and selling digital LPs. While I’ll use Bandcamp, sleek alternatives like Ampwall, Subvert, and Mirlo are equally great options. These online markets inherently incentivize artists to avoid filler or risk losing a sale, while the subscription streaming model requires artists to pad their catalog for pay per play. Streaming has revived the worst trope of the old music industry: the album that is just “two hits and a bunch of crap.”
Spotify’s business model demands album filler because the platform pays out royalties based on “stream share” which trigger a payout the second a track hits the 30 second mark, incentivizing artists to maximize volume over value. This has fundamentally warped modern songwriting: albums are aggressively padded with short, two minute tracks and repetitive hooks designed specifically to feed the algorithm and inflate stream counts. On Spotify, a deep, cohesive artistic statement takes a back seat to sheer data output, turning what should be a focused LP into a bloated playlist of algorithmic bait.
Accidental hits happen way more often than you’d think. As it turns out, artists are notoriously bad at predicting their own success. When you buy a digital LP on a platform like Bandcamp, you are investing in a complete and curated piece of art where even the tracks the artist never expected to blow up exist naturally as part of a cohesive story. On subscription services like Spotify, those same happy accidents are treated like lottery tickets while surrounded by cynical, algorithm optimized filler designed just to farm streams. Buying the album ensures you are experiencing those unexpected gems as genuine creative discoveries, rather than digging through algorithmic bloat to find them.
Bandcamp serves the genre; streaming serves the algorithm. When producers target platforms like Spotify, artistic nuances like tempo variations and volume dynamics are sacrificed to strict LUFS loudness standards and predictable, club friendly danceability. This algorithmic pressure strips electronic and club music of its experimental edge, forcing tracks into a uniform, compressed sonic mold just to survive on a playlist. On Bandcamp, however, the music is freed from these rigid streaming constraints, allowing producers to prioritize raw genre authenticity and dynamic storytelling over sanitized, playlist ready optimization. Soundtrack and orchestral music have become major casualties of this shift, as their essential cinematic highs and quiet, emotional lows are flattened into a lifeless wall of sound just to meet streaming’s volume requirements.
Just so we’re clear, I’m not here to sell you my album. Go ahead and enjoy the whole thing ad free on my website. https://thejoyo.com/#more
Spotify (and Pandora before that) served my purposes once upon a time to discover genres and artists I enjoy. But when I did the math, I realized I’d spent quite the pretty penny with nothing to show for it, and none of the artists I listened to were benefitting. And of course, Spotify has been happily selling my data during the interim.
Since deleting my account, I’ve switched to buying albums on Bandcamp, particularly on Bandcamp Fridays. I prefer listening to albums straight through anyway. I like to buy CDs when they’re available, but unfortunately a lot of artists stick to vinyl if they do physical media at all. CDs don’t degrade with listening, I can play them in my car, and they are compact - I simply don’t have the space for vinyl.
I love vinyls, but some of my most listened to artist don’t offer them. And as you say, it’s not doable to listen on the go.
i dont see how this is spotifys problem, did radio and mtv not have the same exact effect?
the first paragraph:
Streaming has revived the worst trope of the old music industry: the album that is just “two hits and a bunch of crap.”
But the moment after showing LPs had this trope, it suggests album purchases – which had this trope.
I bought Finger Eleven, wanting an album of Paralyzed. I bought Mezzanine, wanting 10 tracks of Dissolved Girl.
In each case I got something else which eventually grew on me for the artistry it was, but in the moment I felt hoodwinked.
You can listen to an album on Bandcamp for free. Who’s buying an album before listening to it?
In my experience albums I listen to today are way better all the way through than when people were buying them in store. Maybe that’s just the artists I follow though. Good artists stay true to their music regardless of the payment model. If you’re listening to artists that are in it to maximise their earnings, maybe you could broaden what you listen to.
Bandcamp is a much better experience for listening to a whole album compare to Spotify.
Does bandcamp have lossless high bitrate files ? I’m not 100% convinced it’s always a big difference, but I’d rather always get the highest quality master I can !
They do.
Edit: To be clear, they offer downloads in multiple formats - including a lossless FLAC option, and the ability to stream from your phone/browser. So, it’s a pretty good replacement for Spotify if you want to actually pay the people whose music you listen to.
Bonus points if you make purchases on Bandcamp Fridays: a unique event wherein 100% of proceeds go directly to the artist (bypassing Bandcamp’s usual cut).
And Qobuz does as well.
I upload as FLAC and they convert it to lossy for smaller files and compatibility. https://faircamp.org/ will also do the conversion for my static website.
Most people cannot discern at bitrates higher than 128kbps. Most people don’t own equipment where the difference would even be noticed.
If all you’re doing is listening to music on airpods using AAC, getting all wound up about Losless is silly.
See how well you do: https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality
Yes, in FLAC or ALAC if you want lossless compressed with metadata.
They also have PCM WAV and AIFF.
I abandoned Spotify when they started to push podcasts above music, right in the landing page of the app. How many years is that? anyway I moved on to bandcamp and qobuz
Same but I went with Tidal. Mostly just because I don’t want to deal with organizing a music library. I used to have a huge library from ripped CDs until a family member installed iTunes on my computer and it destroyed it all by reorganizing everything wrong.
I cancelled my subscription the first month they signed Blow Rogan. I’m not supporting any manosphere related company if I can help it.
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lol good post, you got me listening to your album. reminds me of aphex/autechre. and thanks for those other sites, i’m always looking to discover new music as a DJ. currently i just use youtube recs (heavy tracker blocking in a container), soundcloud, and shazam in public. i never had spotify but i had apple music for a couple years after it came out and I just found that it put blinders on music taste. these days I have all my MP3s in a cloud in a MEGA server which I can play on my phone or computer. qobuz does look pretty good though.
It’s a shame though the price of vinyl has gone through the roof, I miss my employee discount from back in the day
thank you for listening; that’s high praise as I absolutely love both aphex twin and autechre. i try to avoid the vinyl toxicity but i have a few CDs and cassettes without a player. most of my collection is on steam with bandcamp growing.
https://bandcamp.com/radio has been my goto for finding new music lately.
I guess you talk about rock and pop music?
Geniune question: What about techno music? Many techno songs are eight minutes long (my personal experience, I’m no expert, I could be wrong) and djs usually select a couple of good songs and mix them together. They prepare a list of songs for a gig and decide based upon the crowd and their own perception what sogn they are going to play.
What’s a good and ethical way of consuming techno music? Sets and individual songs
And there are many very good songs that are ai created. And i could not tell the difference between ai and “human” made music. To me, it doesn’t seem like (techno) music creation has any value in the future.
Mixing and selecting good songs or creating playlists (on the fly) sounds like having value in the future.
fyi there is no such thing as a good AI song. Spotify is fucking artists at every turn, AI music especially.
I listened to a couple of great songs that were ai generated.
You might want to learn how techno is made. Analog kitchen has a class on live techno shows where everything is made at the show. They even go into DMX lighting and how to program it along with clip launching.
Once you know more than the surface level of a genre you can easily spot artificial slop. Like most things AI, it’s good enough to sound convincing yet be fundamentally wrong.
I see. I’ll have a look deeper into it. I don’t think it answers the question though.
Ai gets better every month. Even if you can tell a difference today, you might not tomorrow anymore. Also, you can make music assisted with ai. It doesn’t have to be making music without human help
Good and ethical depends on what you want. You should probably abandon both of those qualifiers though.
There was a good article in one of those counter culture handbills in the 90s equating the peripheral or colonial labor required to get expensive raw materials & the core labor required to turn them into carbide blades or microchips or whatever and production & djing.
It was pretty stupid though because once a dj gets a little success or time they start to make their own songs to play out (often before they start to get some success). So it’s not like one type of labor has less value and is engaged in a race to the bottom or pushed to the colonial areas while another type of labor has more value and exists under different conditions in the core.
Their inverse is also true. Electronic musicians who produce music often get invited to dj at venues. How could someone make a song that fits well in a djs set if they themselves didn’t get some hands on time behind decks? It’s like expecting a person to be able to design a car but never drive one.
They’re the same labor. They’re making the same thing.
It’s maybe worth investigating what you mean when you say “having value”.
Fuck the platforms you listed, we are the fediverse
I’d rather give an artist $14 for an LP than stream it for ten years and gove them 10¢
$14 for a good album + a good beverage makes a good ~45 minutes.
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Don’t artists make like no money off streams with the bulk being from tours and merch?
0.01% of artists are performing artists. even less make a profit touring. i can break that down for you if you want.
Can’t abandon it. Never used it. It’s totally useless.
At least in my case you’re wrong about algoritms on streaming platforms. I listen to the bands I like, not ones from some algorithm. Also streaming money fits better my needs, though I’d really like artists being paid more, specially smaller ones.
PS I left Spotify long ago.
Subscription streaming will never pay an artist the same amount of money per person as an album sale.
Did you read the comment you replied to?
Did they read the OP?
With platforms like bandcamp and qobuz you can purchase albums/tracks and then download them or you can stream your purchased library - so the artists get paid better and you still get to stream your music
