By JULIE BOCHAT
STAFF WRITER
What the words “discovered,” “fame,” “passion,” “love,” “goals” have in common is that they can become real for people who participate in a band-hosting site called Bandcamp.
Bandcamp is a website that hosts anyone’s music without adding all the unnecessary advertisements and negative traffic. Instead, it is a private space for artists to provide a service for their fans.
According to the Bandcamp website, it “lets you get back to making great music and building your fan base.”
The website states that Bandcamp artists have made $25,007,665 overall and $2,150,893 in the past month. The signup is free; the company makes money by a 15-percent share on digital and a 10-percent share on merchandise.
The website also does not take away ownership rights. The only rights the website has are the rights to post the music the band or artist uploads, sell any music if the artist pays downloads available and show the lyrics and artwork posted to the site by the artist.
Each time a fan downloads a track for free, the artist has the ability to retrieve the email address, country and postal zip code of the fan. The website gives this information at the discretion of the music owner.
Amanda Palmer, an American performer and lead singer and songwriter of Grand Theft Orchestra, posted her testimonial on the website.
“Bandcamp brings the whole picture together into a lovely package that not only works, but works well,” Palmer said on the testimonials section of bandcamp.com.
Another active user of the website is Danny Baranowsky. He is an electronic music composer and truly believes that the website has improved music.
On each page fans have the ability to download some music tracks for free. If they decide they want a different format such as MP3 or just a better quality track, however, they have the ability to choose their own price for the better quality.
“Being able to set my own prices is great…and getting paid immediately is so much better than waiting months for a check savagely slashed by 30 percent,” Baranowsky said, according to bandcamp.com.
Bandcamp also allows muscians the ability to track the traffic on their site. For example, the site shows the total number of full plays, partial plays and skips for a certain song. This allows the artists to see what songs the fans like and gives the him or her a better way to engage the fans and build a stronger fan base.
The website also gives the artist the ability to share tracks with friends and fans. They can post the track to MySpace, Facebook or by email and instant message.
Soundcloud is another music hosting site that allows the artist or band to advertise and distribute music. Bandcamp differs from Soundcloud, however, because it has a more customizable layout. For example, each page on the website has a space for a cover photo and album image, a side bar with other albums, a spot for downloads and a spot containing lyrics.
The two sites are similar in that they both allow the artist the ability to share music across social media platforms such as Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Pinterest.
Soundcloud allows its users to create a community amongst their fan base. The site has similar features to Facebook, such as the ability to like, follow and repost other music. Users also have the ability to make groups and leave comments.
According to the Soundcloud website, the site can also be used to help journalists. The site does this by allowing recording interviews, reviews or reports to be posted on the site for other viewers to see.
According to Bandcamp.com, “Whether you want to post a simple piece of audio and share it across the web or crowd source audio from your audience, Souncloud can help using our players, record capabilities and some of our new innovative labs products.”
With the continual advancement of information and music distribution technology, bands have been switching to online ways of communicating their music. Don Swanson, a user of Bandcamp, posted a testimonial on the site.
“At last, a website truly for recording artists that works flawlessly, and is beautiful in its layout and presentation,” said Swanson.