DistroKid’s unfortunate evolution, Part 3
In the first episode of this series, we put together a timeline of the recent evolution of the popular DIY music distribution platform DistroKid. Then, we talked about how generating your own ISRC codes can give you maximum flexibility in your music distribution options, both now and in the future, if you want to move off of DistroKid.
Today, we’re seeing if Bandcamp might be a viable option for independent music distribution, and examining the music distribution choices of artists Grouper and Radiohead as a case study.
Is Bandcamp a viable distribution alternative to DistroKid?
Not really, in my opinion. That’s because Bandcamp (while generally a very artist-friendly service and highly recommended) is a music platform, not a music distributor.
A music distributor connects you as the artist to a variety of different music streaming platforms. A music streaming platform hosts the music that artists release, and deliver it to consumers.
Bandcamp operates as an all-in-one artist platform that sells, hosts, and streams your music, as well as providing email list management and merchandise fulfillment services. But, it doesn’t help distribute your music to any other music platforms outside of itself.
So, comparing Bandcamp to DistroKid is an apples-to-oranges comparison; they’re not the same thing. Particularly because Bandcamp is a rather niche platform.
You’ll generally find more passionate music fans on Bandcamp, and those fans are usually of higher quality and are willing to support you directly with their wallets. But, there’s also many less of them.
Splitting the difference
For most artists, this is a both/and, not an either/or.
It probably makes sense to have your music available on Bandcamp, and perhaps even a majority of your music available exclusively on Bandcamp. But, it also makes sense to have at least some portion of your creative output available on more mainstream platform that have a larger reach.
Music that exists solely on Bandcamp often dies on Bandcamp, forever unheard by most people.
These types of distribution decisions are completely down to individual artistic preference. There are many examples of very small, niche artists who only have their music available on Bandcamp exclusively. Or, who use Bandcamp as their primary music distribution platform, while keeping maybe an album or two available on the more mass-market streaming platforms like Spotify, Tidal, or Apple Music.
How to balance the distribution of your creative work, and deciding where it should live in the world, is completely up to you. And, it’s OK for your distribution plans to flex and change over time. Here’s two examples of different distribution strategies to consider.
Grouper’s music distribution
The indie musician/multimedia artist Grouper comes to mind when discussing a more niche, Bandcamp-forward music distribution strategy. You won't find them on social media much, and they tend to reserve their most recent music releases exclusively for their Bandcamp audience, while also keeping a large portion of their older discography on mainstream platforms like Spotify. Grouper communicates with fans through the Bandcamp platform, and uses Bandcamp as a primary distributor of physical media and other merchandise.
Note that if Bandcamp goes belly-up, Grouper will still have access to the email addresses of all of their Bandcamp fans, allowing direct contact with them outside of the Bandcamp platform. If their primary music distributor was Spotify, that wouldn’t be the case.
One of Bandcamp’s most artist-friendly features is the ability to own your customer list and retain direct access to your own fans, without being locked into a platform to access your audience.
Radiohead’s music distribution
Sometimes, order of operations is important when thinking about how best to distribute your music at various points during your artistic career.
For a more mainstream music distribution case study, let’s use Radiohead’s career as an example. Here’s a partial timeline of Radiohead’s music distribution decisions:
December, 1991: Radiohead is signed to EMI, one of the largest major music labels of the time.
1993: Using the international marketing support provided by EMI, Radiohead tours worldwide.
2007: After developing a worldwide fanbase, they leave the label once the last album of their contract has been delivered, and after management changeups at EMI.
October 2007: Radiohead uses their album In Rainbows as an early experiment in marketing their own music direct to consumer. This album was initially available as a digital download hosted and sold on Radiohead’s own website, for a pay-what-you-wish price. This was a highly innovative approach at the time. It’s notable that today, the Bandcamp platform also features pay-what-you-wish pricing (with a lower limit set by the artist).
October 2007: Following the release of In Rainbows direct to consumer, Radiohead has taken a “both/and” approach to distribution on their later albums. The first example of this was also for the album In Rainbows, where they signed with XL Recordings for distribution help in addition to self-distributing.
2007-present: Radiohead doesn’t exclusively self-distribute their work: they’re currently still working with XL Recordings, who has also now purchased the rights to their back catalog. But, they also don’t exclusively label-distribute. Radiohead maintains their own website and email list, where they announce upcoming projects and music releases directly to their fans. They also maintain a free public library, as a searchable and free master archive of their entire creative output.
Was EMI’s major label contract with Radiohead a bad deal, and would self-distribution have worked better?
My opinion: no, not in this case.
While EMI’s deal with Radiohead was typical of many predatory major label deals of the time, it was also a deal that was time-limited. And, Radiohead was able to parley their initial major-label contract into greater success working independently after it ended. In this particular case, nobody was signing over their entire lifetime career over to a large corporation.
There’s a strong argument to be made that without EMI’s significant investment in international promotional support on their initial albums, Radiohead would never have developed the large fanbase that eventually provided them the leverage to move into self-distribution. Or, the leverage to be able to negotiate favorable exclusive distribution terms later on in their career.
While Radiohead certainly deserves the credit for the largest majority of their own success, that success also didn’t happen inside of a vacuum. There’s no doubt that at least some portion of the credit for Radiohead’s success is shared with the leadership of EMI when they first signed, for taking a quite risky and expensive chance on them early in their career.
The balancing act of licensing and distribution
It’s always encouraged to strongly protect your ownership rights as an independent artist around here, but you also don’t have to be black and white or dogmatic about it.
If your music is not getting in front of enough people consistently, it’s difficult to build up any kind of sustainable fanbase. And, if that’s the case, you shouldn’t then also expect widespread creative recognition or large amounts of money to come your way.
The clichéd story of the talented artist who really does deserve creative success also shooting themselves in the foot because of dogmatic notions surrounding “selling out” really is a thing. Don’t be that person.
I think this is a line that’s possible to straddle, and the very best artists find a way to balance these things. Hey, even John Malkovich still does commercials sometimes.
Let’s try to take a more balanced approach. Maybe it’s OK to license the use of just one or two songs from your catalog at slightly unfavorable terms, if that deal will also provide you the visibility and momentum needed to allow a move to self-distribution on your next contract, once you’ve become more established as an artist.
