the times | Wednesday August 5 2020 1GT 9
arts
built to empower artists, compensate
them fairly,” he says. “Our business
model deliberately aligns ourselves
directly with artists as we only
make money when artists make
a lot more money.”
Diamond has certainly hooked
many of the Spotify naysayers.
Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet, who has
remixed tracks by artists including
Radiohead, Ellie Goulding, Lana Del
Rey and Manic Street Preachers, has
publicly voiced his support of the
platform. “Great to see Bandcamp
supporting musicians in a solid way
right now,” he tweeted recently.
“Thanks loads to everyone that
has been buying my music. I’m
going to take the money coming in
and use it on Bandcamp to support
musicians as well.”
Alex Greenwood of Sports Team,
who charted at No 2 last month with
their debut album Deep Down Happy,
tells me that she is equally grateful.
“Bandcamp has allowed us to digitally
share music with fans for free, and
with complete autonomy,” she says.
“It was particularly powerful in the
early days, enabling us to build a
dedicated following, which had a
direct impact on the live
performances we played.”
Other big-name musicians such
as Björk have jumped on the
Bandcamp-wagon too, making their
back catalogues available on the site
to raise money for Black Lives Matter.
As the company’s profile has risen,
there have been several takeover
bids, but none has swayed the chief
executive, and the business is
still independent.
Bandcamp insists that it is all about
interaction, “to encourage a deep
connection between artists and their
fans”. Users are invited to leave
reviews and share their collections —well-stocked bookcase, which includes
Philip Roth’s epic Zuckerman Bound
trilogy, in his family home in San
Francisco, which he shares with
his wife, Liz, and their three children,
aged 9, 12 and 14.
Before Bandcamp, Diamond
co-founded the webmail service
Oddpost, later bought by Yahoo. There
are no immediate signs of nominative
determinism; he exudes warmth more
than wealth with his floppy fringe,
thick-rimmed maroon glasses and
apparent openness — he describes
his oldest child as being “mostly just
annoyed by my existence”. He rarely
agrees to interviews and is wary
of answering personal questions.
He’s cagier still when I ask for user
figures, revealing only that there are
“hundreds of thousands” of artists who
use the service and “millions of fans”
who buy music and merchandise.
“Over the past few months it’s been
especially inspiring to see the fan
community come together and use
Bandcamp to support artists who
have been hit especially hard by the
pandemic,” Diamond says. “I’ve always
felt grateful to work on a service that
supports the music community in a
fair and equitable way.” He explains
that the diamond logo of Bandcamp
is actually a rhombus or a tent, the
“camp” in “Bandcamp”.
He begins by criticising his own
patch. “I think of streaming services
as radio: they provide a convenient,
passive listening experience, but it’s
impersonal and commoditised. There’s
no easy way to dig deeper and really
connect with the artist after you’ve
listened, or support the artist directly.
“Also, like radio, streaming services
are only financially meaningful for a
small handful of artists — for the vast
majority they generate spare change.
On the other hand, Bandcamp is
the recommended lists are
curated by artists and
contributors, not churned out by
algorithms — while messages
between artists and their
listeners are encouraged.
“It’s a place for engaged,
serious music lovers,” Diamond
says. “If you’re a fan and you
end up with an emotional
connection to the music
you’re listening to — which
I think is what most serious
fans are looking for — you
want to learn about the artist,
read about them, buy their
music and merchandise, read
liner notes, and streaming
services just aren’t designed
for that.”
Reading the liner notes
on vinyl records is, he says,
one of his favourite hobbies.
“More than half our business is
outside of the US, and there’s not any
dominant genre or type of music,”
Diamond says. “Each day the top
sellers change from metal to jazz to
hip-hop to electronic to lesser-known
genres, like synthwave or video game
music.” It’s true; the deeper into
the database you go, the more
adventurous the genre-hopping
becomes — expect anything from
seapunk and pirate metal to
eco-grime and vaporwave.
This week its rival Spotify has been
criticised by a number of musicians
after comments made by its chief
executive, Daniel Ek, who said it’s
“not enough” for an artist or band to
release albums “every three to four
years”. Mike Mills from REM
responded on Twitter: “ ‘Music =
product and must be churned out
regularly,’ says billionaire Daniel Ek.
Go f*** yourself.”
The British jazz singer Nadine
Shah, Amy Winehouse’s old pal,
added: “I’m tired of having to kiss
the arses of these companies that
exploit me and other music makers.
We need the whole music community
— including fans — to come together
and demand change.”
On that note, is Bandcamp’s boss
a secret spotifier? His business may
allow artists to personalise their
presence, but Spotify has some
fantastic soul, jazz and funk playlists
and I know that Diamond, a former
saxophonist, is a funk fan — Call Me
by the Brooklyn-based funk group
Skyy was the first single he bought,
in 1981 aged ten.
Nnamdi Ogbonnaya and Sen
Morimoto, the American multi-
instrumentalists, both from Chicago,
are his present picks. “I occasionally
test various streaming services for
the sake of competitive research,
but I don’t subscribe to any myself —
I have enough trouble keeping up with
just the music that’s on Bandcamp,”
he says with the diplomacy of a
UN chief.
However good a streaming platform
may be, it can never replace the real
deal, and Diamond agrees. “Live shows
are irreplaceable, and I wouldn’t
suggest that Bandcamp or any other
online experience could substitute for
the magic that happens when a group
of people come together to share a live
musical moment.”
I won’t be singing around a campfire
this summer, but I’ve felt the warmth
of community spirit — it gives me the
courage to keep writing and waiting
for better days.
Bandcamp Fridays continue on
August 7, bandcamp.comFrom top: Mike Mills
and Michael Stipe of
REM; Sports Team.
Left: BjörkWe only
make
money
when
artists
make a
lot more
money
MEMORY POTIFA; CHRIS MCKAY/WIREIMAGE/GETTY IMAGES; DAVID TITLOW; SIPA/REX; RICHARD MORGENSTEINd
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