[JoshK]

source article = http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/arts/music/bandcamp-shopping-for-music.html?_r=0

I just thought this was an interesting article (only skimmed thus far).   I am a big fan of bandcamp. 

#1 the artist gets a good portion of the proceeds and skips the middle men in the distribution.   
#2 you can download in FLAC! 
#3 you can download multiple times in multiple formats, say in mp3 for your phone/ipod. 
#4 you can stream anywhere you go using their ap of your whole collection (I use this at work a lot). 
#5 and here is both the benefit and the rub, it tends to offer slightly less huge acts in its catalog. 

In regards to #5, for me it is a godsend as I am really getting into a lot of European metal (they made some of the best and more my style).  A lot of these bands were on small labels or even obscure labels.  As a result, buying copies, particularly if they are years old is very expensive states/Canada side and few stores online or otherwise carry them.  However, I have found a huge portion of these bands offer the album for download at a decent discount to buying the CD.  Since my entire album collection is on my NAS anyway it saves me the trouble of ripping and since it is tied to your account and you can download as many times as you want, it is a huge cloud backup of all the albums you bought.   Therefore, these days, it is my go-to for bands I've been checking out and getting into. 

I've seen a rise in the use of bandcamp distribution within metal for the latest releases from the big bands as well (Gojira, Be'lakor, Amon Amarth, etc).  A lot of the Australian prog rock bands (they have been dominating the space IMO) use bandcamp as well, which is also a lot cheaper and easier (check out Arcane, Caligula's Horse, Children of Nova, etc). 

Then there is the rising community aspect of bandcamp.   Everyone has their own page with their collection and people can follow you and vise versa.  You will find people with very similar tastes and you can browse their collections for things you might not have heard of and go from there.  You can also pre-listen to all the music online before you purchase to see if it is your cup of tea.    I really hope bandcamp keeps its momentum!

[JoshK]

P.S.  if you are into extreme metal (growly/harsh vocals) you can check out what I've been collecting.  I am not only into this style, but it has been the way I acquired music since really getting into this style, so it is a bit dominate of my collection.  There is some really good prog though in there too, most of which is clean vocals and not super hard (Bjorn Riis is like a younger David Gilmour). 

https://bandcamp.com/joshuaknechtel

[JoshK]

hmm. thought there would be more music interested folks. 

[richidoo]

Thanks for the tip Josh, I was not aware of Bandcamp. I'll check it out see what kind of jazz stuff is on there.

[JoshK]

lmk.  I am not into jazz, so I have no clue how they are on that end of things. 

[JoshK]

btw, if you want to see one of my recent hi-rotation bands check the Track: The smoke of many fires from

https://belakor.bandcamp.com/album/vessels

[jpm]

Thanks or sharing - this might be just the little shove I need to investigate a bit more!

[poseidonsvoice]

Known about band camp for a few years now. Thanks for the heads up!

Best,
Anand.

[lcrim]

While I've been aware of Bandcamp since its inception, I have no clue as to whether these groups are any good or not.   
Since Tidal came along, I've been using it a lot mostly because I know the artists or I can check them out on Amazon.  To me, while $20.00 seemed high at first, now I use it so often that I've nearly ceased using my ripped music on my NAS.  Ditto, for my vinyl front end.  The sound quality from Tidal is so good that w/ the players and DACs I use that I rarely use my other sources.

Larry

[Kenneth Patchen]

The sound quality from Tidal is so good that w/ the players and DACs I use that I rarely use my other sources.

Larry, what players and dacs a re you using?
Cheers,
KP

[richidoo]

I listened to a bunch of links on bandcamp. So far not found anything I'd be willing to pay for, but sound quality is surprisingly good  and the acts seem very eclectic and unique overall. And the site is really well done, easy to hang out for a while and explore.

[JoshK]

It probably boils down to some genres have a lot of good stuff on BC, while others don't.   Like the article said there is a ton of punk on BC, and I've found a ton of metal and progressive rock I listen to on it (my collection is around 145 so far).  I think it has a lot of underground rap and indie too, but I haven't explored that much.    For me, I usually come across a band I like from some other source, like browsing youtube, or reddit sub forums, and then I look if they are on BC and a lot of them surprisingly are, but again for what I've been exploring lately.

[lcrim]

Larry, what players and dacs a re you using?
Cheers,
KP

please check my signature for systems

Larry