We are in a golden era for buying and selling digital LPs. While I’ll use Bandcamp, sleek alternatives like Ampwall, Subvert, and Mirlo are equally great options. These online markets inherently incentivize artists to avoid filler or risk losing a sale, while the subscription streaming model requires artists to pad their catalog for pay per play. Streaming has revived the worst trope of the old music industry: the album that is just “two hits and a bunch of crap.”
Spotify’s business model demands album filler because the platform pays out royalties based on “stream share” which trigger a payout the second a track hits the 30 second mark, incentivizing artists to maximize volume over value. This has fundamentally warped modern songwriting: albums are aggressively padded with short, two minute tracks and repetitive hooks designed specifically to feed the algorithm and inflate stream counts. On Spotify, a deep, cohesive artistic statement takes a back seat to sheer data output, turning what should be a focused LP into a bloated playlist of algorithmic bait.
Accidental hits happen way more often than you’d think. As it turns out, artists are notoriously bad at predicting their own success. When you buy a digital LP on a platform like Bandcamp, you are investing in a complete and curated piece of art where even the tracks the artist never expected to blow up exist naturally as part of a cohesive story. On subscription services like Spotify, those same happy accidents are treated like lottery tickets while surrounded by cynical, algorithm optimized filler designed just to farm streams. Buying the album ensures you are experiencing those unexpected gems as genuine creative discoveries, rather than digging through algorithmic bloat to find them.
Bandcamp serves the genre; streaming serves the algorithm. When producers target platforms like Spotify, artistic nuances like tempo variations and volume dynamics are sacrificed to strict LUFS loudness standards and predictable, club friendly danceability. This algorithmic pressure strips electronic and club music of its experimental edge, forcing tracks into a uniform, compressed sonic mold just to survive on a playlist. On Bandcamp, however, the music is freed from these rigid streaming constraints, allowing producers to prioritize raw genre authenticity and dynamic storytelling over sanitized, playlist ready optimization. Soundtrack and orchestral music have become major casualties of this shift, as their essential cinematic highs and quiet, emotional lows are flattened into a lifeless wall of sound just to meet streaming’s volume requirements.
Just so we’re clear, I’m not here to sell you my album. Go ahead and enjoy the whole thing ad free on my website. https://thejoyo.com/#more
Just call it an album dude. An LP is vinyl. Digital LP, while I get it refers to a specific length… Aaaaa it feels like you’re pedanting where you don’t have to pedant. We get you, you’re among friends and well wishers and Satan’s maggoty cumfart is probably here and probably likes you too
Sorry, I only listen on shellac.
Wax cylinders or nothing dude. The quality can’t be beat
Where is the image from?
Kansas.
How have you not seen the wizard of Oz dude go watch a movie. That’s like the most famous movie.
In my experience albums I listen to today are way better all the way through than when people were buying them in store. Maybe that’s just the artists I follow though. Good artists stay true to their music regardless of the payment model. If you’re listening to artists that are in it to maximise their earnings, maybe you could broaden what you listen to.
Bandcamp is a much better experience for listening to a whole album compare to Spotify.
i dont see how this is spotifys problem, did radio and mtv not have the same exact effect?
the first paragraph:
Streaming has revived the worst trope of the old music industry: the album that is just “two hits and a bunch of crap.”
But the moment after showing LPs had this trope, it suggests album purchases – which had this trope.
I bought Finger Eleven, wanting an album of Paralyzed. I bought Mezzanine, wanting 10 tracks of Dissolved Girl.
In each case I got something else which eventually grew on me for the artistry it was, but in the moment I felt hoodwinked.
You can listen to an album on Bandcamp for free. Who’s buying an album before listening to it?
For anyone considering switching to using mp3s on android I’ve found the Phocid music player best. Plus the app icon is a little weasel which is a plus. You can typically store 150 or so songs per gb depending on the length and quality. I just use syncthing to keep my phone and laptop music library synced up.
I’ve been using musicolet for the last I don’t know and been pretty happy with it. It integrates with the cat audio pretty well
Spotify (and Pandora before that) served my purposes once upon a time to discover genres and artists I enjoy. But when I did the math, I realized I’d spent quite the pretty penny with nothing to show for it, and none of the artists I listened to were benefitting. And of course, Spotify has been happily selling my data during the interim.
Since deleting my account, I’ve switched to buying albums on Bandcamp, particularly on Bandcamp Fridays. I prefer listening to albums straight through anyway. I like to buy CDs when they’re available, but unfortunately a lot of artists stick to vinyl if they do physical media at all. CDs don’t degrade with listening, I can play them in my car, and they are compact - I simply don’t have the space for vinyl.
I love vinyls, but some of my most listened to artist don’t offer them. And as you say, it’s not doable to listen on the go.
Can’t abandon something I never joined in the first place! 🙂
I abandoned Spotify when they started to push podcasts above music, right in the landing page of the app. How many years is that? anyway I moved on to bandcamp and qobuz
Same but I went with Tidal. Mostly just because I don’t want to deal with organizing a music library. I used to have a huge library from ripped CDs until a family member installed iTunes on my computer and it destroyed it all by reorganizing everything wrong.
I guess you talk about rock and pop music?
Geniune question: What about techno music? Many techno songs are eight minutes long (my personal experience, I’m no expert, I could be wrong) and djs usually select a couple of good songs and mix them together. They prepare a list of songs for a gig and decide based upon the crowd and their own perception what sogn they are going to play.
What’s a good and ethical way of consuming techno music? Sets and individual songs
And there are many very good songs that are ai created. And i could not tell the difference between ai and “human” made music. To me, it doesn’t seem like (techno) music creation has any value in the future.
Mixing and selecting good songs or creating playlists (on the fly) sounds like having value in the future.
You might want to learn how techno is made. Analog kitchen has a class on live techno shows where everything is made at the show. They even go into DMX lighting and how to program it along with clip launching.
Once you know more than the surface level of a genre you can easily spot artificial slop. Like most things AI, it’s good enough to sound convincing yet be fundamentally wrong.
I see. I’ll have a look deeper into it. I don’t think it answers the question though.
Ai gets better every month. Even if you can tell a difference today, you might not tomorrow anymore. Also, you can make music assisted with ai. It doesn’t have to be making music without human help
fyi there is no such thing as a good AI song. Spotify is fucking artists at every turn, AI music especially.
I listened to a couple of great songs that were ai generated.
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lol good post, you got me listening to your album. reminds me of aphex/autechre. and thanks for those other sites, i’m always looking to discover new music as a DJ. currently i just use youtube recs (heavy tracker blocking in a container), soundcloud, and shazam in public. i never had spotify but i had apple music for a couple years after it came out and I just found that it put blinders on music taste. these days I have all my MP3s in a cloud in a MEGA server which I can play on my phone or computer. qobuz does look pretty good though.
It’s a shame though the price of vinyl has gone through the roof, I miss my employee discount from back in the day
thank you for listening; that’s high praise as I absolutely love both aphex twin and autechre. i try to avoid the vinyl toxicity but i have a few CDs and cassettes without a player. most of my collection is on steam with bandcamp growing.
https://bandcamp.com/radio has been my goto for finding new music lately.
Left spotify more then a year ago. I always buy vinyl, via bandcamp or directly from artists. Especially on bandcamp fridays. And for streaming i use Qobuz
I recommend waiting for Band camp Fridays so the artists get 100% of the sale too
I left in January. Did some maths and found that just buying everything I listen to was cheaper after a few years of streaming, and gets the artists more in return to boot. Haven’t looked back since.
I’ve been using Qobuz for like a year now, highly recommend
+1! 🎶🚀
