bandcamp analysis

If you’re a musician like me, who loves to write and record a lot of songs, but doesn’t really have a way to go out and tour a lot, the internet seems to become your best hope for getting noticed.  A lot of artists get noticed through YouTube, and others, like Jonathan Coulton, through sheer word of mouth and good songs.  But everyone, including myself, is looking for the next website or service to distribute our songs.  Anyone who tours or even plays shows in their hometown knows that CDs are the way to go.  Period.  Maybe you can gimmick USB drives or something, but the cost to purchase a lot of those vs. the cost to mass-produce CDs doesn’t even match up.  Selling someone a CD is just easier than saying, “I have a website … joshuabelville.com.  That’s spelled B-E-L-V-I-L-L-E.  Also you can check me out on Bandcamp…” etc etc.  Believe me, I’ve done (and failed) this before.

So that being said, what is the value of digital distribution?  For me, it’s this:

Statistics!  These are stats from my Bandcamp site.  They show how many times my song was played, partial played, or skipped entirely.  Sure, you can gauge how many “fans” you have by the number of CDs that you sell at a show, but this tells me so much more: namely, it tells me what songs people like, and what songs they don’t like.  And that, my friends, is much more important when it comes to creating a CD that you intend to sell to an audience.

So let’s take a look at the chart.  It’s simple enough, but again, it says a lot.
Like for example, it says that my song “Attaquin Beach” was skipped nine times, and only partially played twice.  I now know that nine people didn’t really care for that song, and based on two partial listens, I can accurately gauge that people just don’t like it.  Hey, no skin off my back.  I’m glad to have these statistics.  I know that not every song I write, record or release is going to be great.  But with this info, I can strive towards greatness, which is something I think all artists are working on.

So, songs that do well?  Looks like “Song for Ex-Girlfriends” was listened ten times, and never skipped.  That’s pretty awesome.  That means ten people listened to that song and didn’t think, “Eh, next song” at all during it.  That makes me feel more confident about that song.  Same with “This is All,” “Don’t Want Me Around,” “Susan (is it true?),” and the number one song, “Storage” — these are all songs that people, on the whole, enjoyed.  I don’t know why they enjoyed them, but that doesn’t really matter; chances are, if you asked someone why they like a particular song, they won’t give you a cohesive answer.  This isn’t being mean, it’s just a fact.  People are really good at telling you why they dislike something, but telling you why they like it is another thing entirely.

Now, I can also assume that at least a few of the songs in the top ten have been listened to more than once by the same person.  Why?  Think of it this way: if you had stumbled upon someone’s site full of music, and you didn’t know where to start, what would you do?  You’d probably browse until you find something you like, or you’d listen a couple of times and then leave.  I have a sneaking suspicion that some people found songs that they liked and listened to them more than once.  Call it a hunch.

Well, I had written a lot more to this post but Wordpress became evil and published only half of it.  That makes me angry.  I guess I’ll continue this in a second blog post, but right now I need ice cream.