Bandcamp
Bandcamp is an online music platform co-founded by Ethan Diamond, Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt, and Neal Tucker that caters directly towards fans of independent music. Its goal as a company is "to create the best possible service for artists and labels to share and earn money from their music, and for fans to discover and enjoy it" (bandcamp.com). By directly supporting artists, the skepticism of artist compensation when buying their songs is eliminated. There is a myriad of creators and projects to choose from when clicking over to the "discover" page on the website. Not only can one pick out a singular genre to focus on, but one could also distinguish between the format of the project: digital, vinyl record, compact disc, and cassette. As antiquated as the non-digital options are, the physicality creates an intimacy that is sometimes lost when targeting specifically digital music. At the same time, the site is "one of the greatest underground-culture bazaars of our time" (thenewyorktimes.com). An overview of the community on Bandcamp reveals an endless ocean of unlimited creativity. Examples of the peculiar side of the platform are revealed on the YouTube channel "theneedledrop"'s series "IT CAME FROM BANDCAMP!," highlighting strange and interesting projects.
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