Thread by @noranygardx

in the wake of the bandcamp layoffs, i am very happy to see the anger being directed at epic/songtradr diamond/wiltshire

i also feel like im going insane seeing so many "let's build a new platform!!" takes

feels like a lot of people are missing what's really going on here

"It was at this stage that Paul explored the world of artist development, creating several acts, one of which was a young vocalist named Tali"

then in 2001 he went to LA

this link is down, other than the wayback machine

web.archive.org/web/2007101403…

here's the dreary, wretched song that paul wiltshire

(of songtradr and bandcamp)

produced in 2005 for the backstreet boys

"my beautiful woman"

here's tali (aka natalie dunn) the artist that paul wiltshire "created"

"don't be sorry" was released sept 2001

discogs:
-Producer, Arranged, Mixed by Paul L. Wiltshire
-Written by Paul Wiltshire, Rasmus Bille Bahncke, Rene Tromborg, Shane Monopoli

i think if you're into this type/era of pop music, you'd probably like this. the single youtube comment says: "Pop at its best :]"

just wanted to take this detour to say: paul wiltshire is a pop man. this man loves commercial pop music, and he was okay at it

back 2 songtradr itself. they've had a VERY big and seemingly successful few years

they were founded in 2014 by wiltshire + helge steffen

helge is a german software engineer who has previously worked at several music tech companies. here's his linkedin linkedin.com/in/helgesteffen

here's songtradr's recent business moves

- 2019, acquired the creative licensing agency Big Sync Music

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."

"...crafting a bespoke composition for a global TikTok challenge..."

bigsyncmusic.com/about/

- 2020, songtradr acquired Peter Gabriel's Cuesongs, whose intent was to provide "frictionless music licensing for online broadcast"

(cuesongs received £500k of govt funding)

- 2022, Cuesongs and Big Sync Music were merged
thepeoplesvoice.tv/peter-gabriels…

- 2020, songtradr invested USD ~$1.03m in Jaxsta

"the world's ONLY official music credits database [...] provided directly by more than 365 data partners [...] labels, publishers, distributors and industry associations – none of our data is crowd-sourced"

data is an asset !

just want to say, im going on this long crazy 👁️psycho tirade because

I DONT THINK PEOPLE UNDERSTAND WHAT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IS !!!!!!!!!!!

it is as cold and horrible as every other thing capital has built!

when your poptimism extends to commercialization, IT KILLS YOU

- 2021, songtradr acquired Song Zu, a sound design (sonic branding) company

- 2021, songtradr acquired music streaming platforms Pretzel and Tunefind

- 2021, acquired MassiveMusic, creative music agency (branding/ads)

- 2022, acquired music metadata company Musicube

- 2023, acquired London-headquartered B2B music company 7digital for USD $23.4m

music is just content and assets for these companies

"DMCA-safe music is a must for online creators, and with Pretzel you can quickly find the tracks you need to monetize your streams and VODs. Gone are the days of content ID strikes"

pretzel premium!
pretzel.rocks/which-plan-is-…

sometime in the next year you will open bandcamp and the new songtradr logo will be real

i shouldn't skip over 7digital, which songtradr bought for $23.4m

"7digital provides end-to-end music services for the fitness, social media, DSPs, and gaming industries"



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7digital
7digital.com/about-us/

Between 2019 and 2023, songtradr acquired:

Big Sync Music, Cuesongs, Song Zu, Pretzel, Tunefind, MassiveMusic, Musicube, 7digital, Bandcamp. They also invested about $1.03m in Jaxsta.

these are companies that work in licensing, sync, branding, streaming, metadata

i hate to say this, but within the market logic of capitalism,

songtradr is an incredibly smart and effective company,

and they will continue to squeeze as much profit out of their assets as possible (bandcamp included)

of course, profit is a terrible indicator of social and spiritual value

bandcamp daily was incredibly meaningful and important — and prestigious, esp. for underground or up-and-coming artists

songtradr's decision to gut it was profit-based (including hurting the union)

i've seen a lot of people saying songtradr is going to "strip bandcamp for parts" and i don't think that accurately explains what they're gonna do

songtradr probably sees bc daily as superfluous to the core function of the platform: it's a marketplace

out of all of songtradr's assets, platforms, etc, bandcamp is the most prestigious

they're going to wear it like a badge of honor with their shit eating grins

after all of this shakes out this week, most people who use the platform will still see it as an "artist-first" brand

the people who built that goodwill have been exploited, and many of them fired, but the stink of positive vibes will still emanate from bandcamp for most musicians and fans, as long as songtradr doesn't completely fuck up the core platform in the next year or so

songtradr has no expertise in any kind of editorial endeavor. im sure you've seen the fast food blog post.

so after cutting bc daily, what features will songtradr add in the next phase of bandcamp?

that's right: fortnite radio

songtradr.com/blog/posts/fas…

songtradr's expertise is in licensing, sync, branding, streaming, metadata

these are the companies they're acquiring, and if they add features to bandcamp, it will be in the same vein

this won't benefit artists like you or me.

but some of the mid-tier artists and labels? they'll get easier access to sync and licensing tools, made available via songtradr's other platforms, for a fee or a cut

like: pay a few bucks and we'll consider adding your ambient track to our pretzel playlist for twitch streamers

i'm so sick of this fucking world

by the way, when the platform *doesn't* die

and a few underground ambient artists are being added to the new vaporwave fortnite radio station,

people will be scrambling to get their own tracks included in the playlists

maybe this... will be how... i break through......

i am a transgender woman with Mental Illness. i practice catastrophizing every day. i can catastrophize with the best of em.

but the catastrophic thinking that people are doing about bandcamp is, mostly, unhelpful and dispiriting.

is bandcamp gonna go to shit? yes. but not in the way that you think

and in fact, you might like it. there will be many artists clamoring to be exploited

from the sept 28 press release:

"Songtradr will continue to operate Bandcamp as a marketplace and music community with an artist-first revenue share."

might be true!

worth noting that bc daily is not mentioned in the press release. at all!

songtradr.com/blog/posts/son…

5 million artists. how many fan accounts?

the magic trick that tech companies use to exploit every industry and every aspect of culture:

control a platform, entice people to join, and then get them to do free labor for you

those millions of people are an asset to songtradr

they're telling you exactly what they're gonna do

"Songtradr will also offer Bandcamp artists the ability and choice to have their music licensed to all forms of media"

"artists can opt in to have their music licensed for use in Epic’s ecosystem"

"projects like Fortnite Radio"

i'm reading between the lines and speculating:

epic bought bandcamp last year with the intent to sell it to a company of their choosing with more expertise in the music industry

part of the sale was contingent on songtradr facilitating epic's desire to control in-game music

why would epic want to run a music company long-term? wouldn't it be easier to hand it over to a willing partner?

"Epic is exploring ways to partner with Songtradr to build an inventory of music"

"Epic will continue to collaborate with Bandcamp on projects like Fortnite Radio"

the last thing i want to get into about this today:

we don't need a new fucking platform. we don't need to "decentralize"

losing bandcamp daily means the "underground" is saying goodbye to one of the last prestigious and authoritative "institutions" on the internet

it's easy to self-publish your music on the internet cheaply or for free

the actual process of hosting or transferring files is not a hard problem to solve, whether it's youtube, internet archive, slsk, or self-hosting bill wurtz style

the hard part is the "network"

people are "atomized" or "siloed" or whatever way you want to express isolation. artists barely know each other, fans are disconnected, and part of tech's sickening promise to the world is that social media will make it possible to know everyone. instead, we become more distant

this kind of exploitation digs so deeply into our psyches and spiritual wellbeing that it becomes unnoticeable. the air we breathe. meanwhile, "music" has become indistinguishable from "posting"

i was listening to yasha levine (or was it vincent bevins) in the last week and the phrase "the organ of the party" has been rattling around in my head in relation to newspapers

in the 20th century, newspapers weren't a "political" act but their function as an "organ" was to "organize" the party

as artists, we've neglected building our equivalent to the "party" or "organization" and we're barely held together by independent "newspapers"

we have no "network"
we're not "organized"
we barely know each other

most of our connections take place in tech-owned spaces, and the personal is always overshadowed by capital, which narrows our worldview and squeezes our avenues of communication to its own profitable ends

btw i'm not trying to make an argument for "politicizing" music or art or anything, i think that would be a very dumb mistake, but solving the problems we face will be impossible without considering "politics," "theory," and "material conditions"

we also have to analyze the history of what has worked to create networks of artists. if you're young, crazy, fearless, you could (in the past) tour and create meaningful connections across the entire country: black flag, fugazi. Or consider the impact of someone like dj screw

the music industry has broadly gone to shit. and most people (including music writers) do not care about or understand what "indie" or "diy" or "lo-fi" or anti-corporate punk meant. we've given up. there is no underground: everyone wants to break through and sell out

(im being hyperbolic of course, but it's true: most of us are "working" for tech companies while we pretend we're preserving the underground)

music professionals — the people who get paid, but don't own the companies — are the last structure that holds up anything resembling a broad network of artists. if you don't get paid, you won't have enough time to write emails, make phone calls, listen to a million albums

meeting people, keeping in touch, contemplating and then writing — it all takes so much time, effort, and commitment. and crucially, if you don't have a prestigious website, brand, whatever to publish on... then why would artists trust you? why would they take the time?

we don't need a new tech platform.

how can artists develop meaningful connections?

how can artists find their audience?

how can listeners find new music they love?

how can we support independent music press?

how do we break free from all of this stupid fucking bullshit ?

wrapping this up in a way that might be earnest and sincere to the point of being cringe:

capitalism is destroying everything. i don't recommend getting too obsessed about that fact, but you should know your enemy. and you should know how your enemy thinks

i am typically too hopeless to believe in the possibility of another world, a better world. but it's true that things don't have to be like this

despairing as i may be, i'll continue to dream of that better world, praying that you too will open your mind to new possibilities

jesus christ what a fucking hack soundcloud.com/paul-l-wiltshi…

Even if the platform survives, even if Bandcamp Daily holds on by a thread, we lost the most brilliant, curious, committed team of writers and artist advocates who were covering and helping underground musicians. May the losers and freaks who made it happen never live it down.