Bandcamp is shrinking. Old music keeps eating new music’s lunch. Maybe I should bring back the hair!

At the time of this re-upload, Bandcamp's ticker says, "Fans have paid artists $1.43 billion using Bandcamp, and $194 million in the last year." That's versus $0.881 billion / $209 million in my screenshot from the video. That's fascinating! Bandcamp is shrinking, and the share of its all-time sales that have happened in the past year is more than 50% smaller. Did the pig in the python of 2020/21 pass through with no chance of return?
I talk about Ted Gioia’s viral article in The Honest Broker, his Substack, at the time regarding the share of listening to ‘catalog’ vs. ‘new’ recordings.
This is back in January 2022 from an old channel, when my hair was almost at its peak length. Gioia's article hadn't been republished in more places like the Atlantic yet, and Bandcamp was still an independent private company, having not yet sold to Epic. Looks like Bandcamp's founders sold at a peak!
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[@brodyandthegrodies]

We still follow underground YT channels like Tremendo Garaje, Junkie Business, and Felojunk where most of the videos posted are for releases that were put out on bandcamp and cassette - it's a thriving underground

[@williamchernoff]

Totally, the amount of music that gets listened to here on UA-cam sometimes in non-obvious ways is underrated

[@James-if3kc]

New music is the whole point of bandcamp, isn't it? I've always used it for that. I listen to older stuff on youtube, etc.

[@williamchernoff]

You got it

[@JeredtheShy]

I think I'd be more worried about Bandcamp suddenly getting flooded with AI-generated slush just in time for the platform to start taking off properly. i think the unsung story of Spotify has been those old funk acts from the 70s whose music was the sampled backbone for several generations of hiphop and rap - who never got mainstream radio play in their time - finally getting some love all to themselves from a mainstream white modern audience. If the music business can't bear that, it can die.

[@williamchernoff]

@@JeredtheShy yeah, ai on streaming is a big topic right now but you’re right it’s platform agnostic

[@SHWANtheMAN]

Well said!

[@williamchernoff]

Appreciate it 👍

[@joshleslie02]

Fantastic take

[@williamchernoff]

Thank you