SoundCloud and Bandcamp as Alternative Music Platforms

Abstract

We examine two “producer-oriented” audio distribution platforms, SoundCloud and Bandcamp, which have been important repositories for the hopes of musicians, commentators, and audiences that digital technologies and cultural platforms might promote democratization of the cultural industries, and we compare their achievements and limitations in this respect. We show that the emancipatory elements enshrined in SoundCloud’s bottom-up abundance are compromised by two elements that underpin the platform: the problematic “culture of connectivity” of the social media systems to which it must remain integrally linked and the systems of intellectual property that the firm has been increasingly compelled to enforce. By contrast, it seems that Bandcamp has been relatively stable in financial terms while being at odds with some key aspects of “platformization,” and we explore the possibility that some of the platform’s apparent success may derive from how its key features makes it attractive to indie musicians and fans drawn to an independent ethos. Nevertheless, we argue that even while in some respects Bandcamp acts more effectively as a cultural alternative than does SoundCloud, Bandcamp is also congruent economically and discursively with how platforms capitalize on the activity of self-managing, self-auditing, specialist, worker-users.

Can Music Make You Sick? Measuring the Price of Musical Ambition

“…This is one of the things which differentiates music from other forms of art or literature. Today, the story goes, there are a myriad of alternative routes to musical training, and apps that can help from Garageband and YouTube or Soundcloud or Bandcamp (Hesmondhalgh et al, 2019) or the BBC Introducing uploader -a service that allows musicians to upload their music and have it sent to DJs and producers to listen to and hopefully play on air. Today, once you have a finished song, it can be given to a digital distributor to send to Spotify and pitch to a playlist which you might get a place on 'if you're good enough'; the internal locus of success attribution fusing perfectly with the belief-based ideology of the music industries.…”

Untitled

“…В исследованиях музыкального производства внутри музыкальных индустрий значительное внимание уделяется процессам реализации продукта культурного производства. В частности, одно из исследований Д. Хезмондалша во многом выполнено в направлении, развиваемом ранее Д. Мэттьюсом, и он рассматривает стриминг-платформы SoundCloud и Bandcamp как объекты исследования именно в качестве вариаций коллаборативной сети [Hesmondhalgh et. al.…”

“…успешным, всё ещё не воспринимается всерьёз управленцами крупных «мейджоров». Схожие методы исследования проблематики, поставленной в работе, ранее использовались Д. Хезмондалшем [Hesmondhalgh 1997], а затем и К. Либ [Lieb 2018]. Можем заключить, что превалирующими в социологической и культурологической традициях являются следующие направления исследований музыкальных индустрий:…”

Studying Platforms and Cultural Production: Methods, Institutions, and Practices

“…Music platforms, particularly those that offered the possibility of live-streaming concerts, emerged as potential fallback options. Bandcamp, described by Hesmondhalgh et al (2019) as a “producer-oriented” music platform popular among smaller, independent bands, waived its fees on sales for a day. Spotify, meanwhile, promised to match donations up to US$10 million from listeners to national organizations supporting musicians impacted by the crisis.…”