In the run-up to releasing Mandala I spent a lot of time investigating the various channels I could employ to sell the album online. There are myriad ways to get your music onto iTunes, Amazon MP3, and eMusic etc and equally as many routes to selling physical packages online too. But here’s the catch; they all cost you money to set up and you have no control over pricing, availability or branding. Services like Tunecore will put your music onto a variety of digital stores, as well as streaming services like Spotify for an annual fee of $49.99 per album. Reverb Nation now also offers a variety of digital distribution packages ranging between $35-60 per year, per ‘release’ (ie; single, album, EP), but has no options for selling physical CDs and seems mainly aimed at the US market.
Enter Bandcamp!!
Bandcamp is a website that enables a band/artist to easily distribute their music directly to the public, both digitally and physically. It is well worth reading their excellent blog to keep up to date with all the new features they regularly add to the service. It is one of the best new sites to have sprung up over the last few years to embrace the changes in the music industry and the way artists engage with their audience.
Some benefits for artists/bands:
Easy to set up. You can have your album on sale within 30 minutes..
Integrates with existing website via custom urls, custom headers, design etc
Fans can stream the music in it’s entirety, unlike the dreaded 30 second previews of iTunes etc.
Offer high-quality downloads in a variety of formats. Also offers the possibility of including an instant download with physical packages
Excellent sharing options to place widgets and links on other sites
Various pricing options including ‘pay what you want’, set pricing and everything in between. Plus the facility to generate free download codes for promotion etc
Receive payments instantly via PayPal
Bandcamp only takes 15% commission on sales and has no annual fees
and some benefits for fans/listeners:
Listen to full tracks/albums online, so you can try before you buy
Know that you are supporting the artists directly when you buy the music (and not Steve Jobs)
Easy to share your discoveries via Facebook, Twitter, embeddable widgets/music players
Download music in various high-quality formats (MP3, FLAC etc)
I have been a big supporter of Bandcamp since it first started up. I know as a listener I am far more likely to buy an album download from Bandcamp than any other digital store; mainly due to the superior quality of the downloaded files and because I want to directly support the artist when I buy their music. I know of several people that sell their music on iTunes and see a surprisingly small return from sales. Bandcamp is a great resource for independent music.
Over the last few weeks I have noticed more and more artists turning to Bandcamp to sell their music. I have turned several of my friends onto the site this month. Most recently the fantastic pianist Janette Mason has uploaded both her solo albums for download. I also convinced my good friend Steve Alexander to offer his excellent Isometric album on Bandcamp. Artists like Zoe Keating and Steve Lawson have been selling their music through the site for quite some time now, with great success. Both have made use of the ‘pay what you want’ model to some degree, which allows fans to name their own price and pay what they think the music is worth (with or without a lower limit).
This is the pricing model I have opted for with Mandala. At the moment, the digital version is £5 (or more) and the physical CD is priced at £10 (or more). This enables people to pay a little more if they would like to show some extra support for the project and indeed any future projects. I have found that most people do add a little extra than the minimum price, especially for the download. I know that both Steve and Zoe have had fans pay upwards of $100 for albums downloads as a show of support for their music.
Just saying, you know…
Incidentally, Bandcamp have just added Facebook ‘Like’ buttons to their pages, which is by far the easiest and quickest way to share your favourite albums with your friends right now. Please do take a moment to scoot over to my Bandcamp page and click the ‘Like’ button under the album artwork. Even if you’ve already bought it; every little helps in spreading the word! You may have also noticed that I have added my own little ‘Like’ button to this very site recently (it’s at the top of the sidebar on the right), which will magically add you to the small but perfectly formed gang on my Facebook page if you are that way inclined…
So what have you discovered via Bandcamp recently? I’ve downloaded a few corkers recently. Here’s a few recommendations (in no particular order)
Until next time, here’s one of their lovely widgets so you can stream the solo album whilst having a look around. This is the Grande version, in case you were wondering…
Well it’s been a strange couple of weeks for me and my ongoing struggle with the big pile of silly nonsense that MySpace has become…
As many of you may already know it was unofficially Quit MySpace Day on October 24th. I believe this was initiated by Andrew Dubber on the wonderful New Music Strategies site; the basic premise being that MySpace was now nothing more than a spam-riddled, exploitative advertising tool for Rupert Murdoch et al and the time has now come for musicians and bands to simply close down their account en masse. Steve Lawson has also been blogging on the subject today, having been quoted in yesterday’s Observer about the recent MySpace redesign and his experience with the site over the years.
I’ve posted various rants over the years concerning MySpace. When I first started putting my stuff online, MySpace was the place to go first. For many, myself included, it was a virtual shop window to showcase our work as musicians with it’s simple music player, embedded videos and photo galleries. Over the years MySpace really has struggled to keep up with the changing face of social media; mainly due to it’s dreadful corporate shenanigans since the Murdoch takeover in 2005.
Since then, MySpace has become less about us and so much more about them. I’ve already blogged extensively about why I cannot stand MySpace these days. So when Quit MySpace Day came along, I had to think long and hard about whether to delete my account or not…
I didn’t. No folks, I wimped out entirely.
I did however switch over to the new ‘redesigned’ MySpace profile which seems, to be frank, to have proved as good as deleting the account. I spent a lot of time over the years maintaining my old trusty MySpace page; uploading interesting photos, keeping my gig list up to date etc. The new interface couldn’t be worse (just when you thought the old interface couldn’t get any worse!) and the corporate branding has reached new heights of encroachment. My ‘redesigned’ MySpace is now just a collection of Reverb Nation widgets, links to this site and MySpace advertising space. The intention being that nobody could possibly bear to spend more than 30 seconds looking at it before moving on; ideally here.
But here’s the thing: I can’t bear to ditch MySpace entirely. I still see it, however unwisely, as an essential part of my online presence as a musician. I know for a fact that a large number of people still use MySpace as a first port of call when investigating new music and artists. It’s where they go to have a quick listen to a track or two, maybe to see where the act is playing next. MySpace (alongside YouTube of course) is still a huge part of many people’s online discovery process, and as a result I feel the need to be a token part of it. I might hate it, but at least I’m still showing my face and able to point people in a more sensible and worthwhile direction.
So what do you think?
How do you find out about new and emerging artists? And how do you listen to new music online? Are you getting into Soundcloud, Reverb Nation and Bandcamp? Maybe you are still a little bit obsessed with Last.fm, like me?
Let me know. But don’t send me a message on MySpace. I don’t know how to open them anymore…
It’s official, my debut solo album Mandalais now available on CD!!
In fact I’ve just heard that a few lucky folk have already received the copies of the album I sent out yesterday afternoon. The postal system is obviously improving somewhat. I picked up a motherload of CDs from the lovely David at Key Production yesterday lunchtime and am so happy with the finished product.
The CD is exclusively available on my website (click here for a shortcut!). It comes lovingly packaged in an eco-friendly recycled card sleeve designed by my friend Symeon Cosburn with photos by Ary Vidot. The CD version also includes immediate download of the digital version of Mandala in whatever format you prefer (FLAC, 320k MP3 etc).
I keep getting asked about the record; what sort of music is it? Is it really just bass? So here is some of the info I’ve started sending out to give you some background…
Simon Little releases solo album Mandala
Having been experimenting with live-looping technology for the past few years, bassist Simon Little has now released his debut solo album Mandala.
Best known for his work with The Divine Comedy, Clare Teal and Duke Special, Simon has appeared on numerous recordings and this is his first release under his own name.
The entire album was recorded using solely his Warwick Thumb VI, a wide array of effects and a Looperlative LP1. Simon uses live looping to create ambient soundscapes as a basis for improvistion. He explains:
When I was 17 I was listening to the Weather Report live album 8:30 and heard Jaco perform his solo live-looping piece ‘Slang’. It changed the way I thought about playing the bass and so began my obsession with making music using the bass as a solo instrument.
Whilst I was studying at The Guildhall School, a friend introduced me to the fantastic Eberhard Weber album Pendulum. This album really opened my eyes to the possibilities of using live-looping technology to create vast soundscapes and textures as a basis for improvisation.
Mandala is the culmination of my ongoing experimentation with looping technology. Each track is a live improvisation using the Looperlative LP1.
Some lovely people have also been asking how they can help promote the record and spread the word online. As you can imagine this is incredibly important for an independent release and I am a great believer in the power of Social Media. My best suggestions for anyone who likes the music is simply to tell your friends, tell your colleagues and tell your family via whatever method you prefer. I use Twitter and Posterous to share new musical discoveries and recommendations. Some people prefer Facebook or Delicious. Some people even prefer MySpace (!). One great way to let people hear the album is using the embeddable player from the Bandcamp page itself. Just click the Share button to copy and paste the code onto whatever page you’re using. Easy…
Big thanks to everybody that has bought and downloaded the album already. I’ve had some great feedback and hopefully will be getting a bit of press coverage in the near future.
