20 Buck Spin, Willowtip get with Bandcamp
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Two more labels have gotten with the Bandcamp program, 20 Buck Spin and Willowtip.
For a discussion of why every label should have a Bandcamp, see here.
The advantages of having a label Bandcamp are obvious. The first is that the label catalogue is immediately visible in a way that few label websites present. It's simply fun to look at album covers.
Looking at 20 Buck Spin's, for example, one sees that the label has quietly curated a formidable catalogue with some of the underground's heaviest hitters, including Vastum, Wolvserpent, Coffins, Stormcrow, Samothrace, Christian Mistress, The Endless Blockade, and more.
But not only can one see a label's catalogue, one can immediately listen to releases - and then buy them.
This immediacy is absent with the social media approach favored by bigger labels these days, which is to make a fan jump through hoops ("like" a Facebook page, join a mailing list) before providing access to streaming audio. As a fan, I hate such hoops and avoid them wherever possible. Just bring me the music - and Bandcamp, with its easily embeddable widgets, allows that.
For example, I'm digging the new Brainoil album from 20 Buck Spin. Let's stream it in its entirety, shall we?
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How about that Ulcerate record from Willowtip earlier this year? I bet lots of bands will copy it going forward. Here it is.
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When I started this blog five years ago, I had to manually rip MP3s from CDs, upload them to a server, hack together some sort of streaming functionality, and manually attach purchase links to the post.
Now Bandcamp takes care of all that in seconds - everyone wins.
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