And as a regular reminder, download the music from Bandcamp (in lossless format preferably) after you bought it, don't just rely on the streaming app. One artist that I bought music from deleted their Bandcamp profile completely, in which case their releases also completely disappeared from my library. This is different from artists delisting releases from their profile, if you bought those you can typically still download them afterwards.

^^ This.

Another situation that can be avoided by this is where a release changes during its lifetime.

One release in my collection is a free download[1] (shamelessly so), but one track was removed after it was released commercially. So there’s a situation where my immediate download on day 1 of release has the original track order, but current downloads of it have the revised running order.

Since it’s Friday, I have no hesitation in recommending either or both releases. Good headphones are recommended.

[1] https://specialrequest187.bandcamp.com/album/zero-fucks

[2] https://www.discogs.com/Special-Request-Spectral-Frequency-E...

>It is by far and away the best way to support artists that I know of, outside of going to their shows.

Ooh! An issue close to my heart.

A lot of artists and labels also have their own websites and will sell their stuff directly from there, often via PayPal. Definitely not all of them, especially the younger artists, but I usually try and see if that option's there before hitting Bandcamp.

But YES. Bandcamp is usually the best way to support your favorite artists/labels. Please use it as much as you can, and even pay a bit extra whenever you think it's worth it. If you find yourself playing an album more than once or twice via Spotify, go throw that artist some dough on Bandcamp.

And please, treat yourself to a copy of it on CD or vinyl. Own the music you love.

I'd rather not support my favourite band than use PayPal. Good fans don't pay bands with PayPal.

I don't like any band enough to give them my credit card details directly, and neither should you.

I don't trust or like PayPal enough to give them my credit card details or money and neither should you ;)

Why? I've never heard of them being any trouble for customers, indeed their reputation is that they're extremely friendly to the end customer (will give you a refund no questions asked, never dispute chargebacks, ...).

Agreed, all the horror stories I’ve heard have been from sellers, not buyers. What am I missing?

Having your account locked out of the blue with no reason given, where paypal seizes your funds and the onus is on you to call them and spend many hours / weeks / months to get back your money.

Even if you never have funds on your account, suddenly getting banned means forgoing the use of paypal ever again with that card / address / name, unless you sort it out.

"Don't buy things using PayPal, otherwise there's a risk that you'll be banned from PayPal and won't be able to buy things using PayPal"

As the poster above points out, that sounds like seller concerns. I use paypal as a way to help anonymize my credit card so as a buyer I never worry about having funds in there. But it does sound like it's bad for sellers.

You're missing that you are fuelling half of the equation and letting the people that your are trying to pay deal with the bad half.

If a band has decided to accept PayPal then they've presumably decided the downsides are worth it to them. So saying that you'd rather not support the band at all than pay them via PayPal seems... paternalistic to say the least.

Random account closures, bad support, legally questionable behavior (e.g. they've had to be sued about illegal parts of their ToS a few times), making it difficult to recover account balance from them, ... And when "extremely friendly to end customers" gets to "regularly fucks over small sellers", that's also something not everybody wants to support.

The rules of the major card networks will protect you against card-not-present fraud, so I don't understand the worry. Some countries might even have laws that strengthen these protections further, though it might only be limited to credit cards.

You get your money back eventually, sure, but it's a lot of hassle to go through.

I never used paypal on bandcamp, and I use to support bands from there. Credit is an option that usually works

Sadly Bandcamp pays out via PayPal, so however you pay the artist can only receive their cut through PayPal.

Why do you dislike PayPal so much?

can't talk for OP, but they got a 10 year boycott from me because of this : https://wikileaks.org/PayPal-freezes-WikiLeaks-donations.htm...

More stories about PayPal: https://web.archive.org/web/20191011190010/https://minifree.....

PayPal has a reputation for shutting long time customers out suddenly and without any explanation.

Paypal has a long history of freezing accounts and leaving funds in limbo.

>And please, treat yourself to a copy of it on CD or vinyl. Own the music you love.

I know the surge of vinyl. But I do hope the later part of owning something make a comeback.

I consider the downloaded FLAC files as equivalent to ownership of a physical item. There's only so much shelf-space available...

Yeah, it lets them keep more of my money and having a flac is good enough for me. Its not like I'll ever actually play anything off a CD itself.

CDs suck. You are much better off buying the lossless digital version or paying more for vinyl. I say this as someone who cultivated a handsome CD collection years ago when Amazon used to sell classics for $5-8 brand new.

-- The jewel cases are flimsy, and just opening one too quickly can cause the hinge to snap.

-- Scratches and skipping. This has been a problem forever, and there's no solution.

-- Liner notes: I miss the times when bands would stuff in thick liner notes full of pictures, notes, trivia and lyrics. A lot of acts don't bother putting anything substantive in the notes. This is unfortunately true of vinyl as well, but at least vinyl artwork is large (12" x 12") and can be used as a decorative element in your home.

CDs are amazing. They sound much better then vinyl, take up much less space, can fit most records on one side (so no standing up mid record to turn it over). They are much more resistant to scratches then vinyl. Usually they are unaffected by them unless the scratches become really bad. And they are cheap, usually you can buy a used CD for $1-5 in your favorite record shop.

For me CDs serves the niche of wanting to quickly and easily listen to a record in superior quality. I guess I could get a digital audio player and add it to my audio setup and then upload the flac files to it, but that is a hassle I have yet to perform, it is much easier to just keep buying CDs.

A lot of songs were only available on iTunes, which is annoying if you're not an Apple user, you're forced to use its clunky app just to purchase song. I hope YouTube Music could offer song and album purchases to download later.

I replaced my Google Music subscription with a monthly purchase of music from bandcamp of equal value to my subscription.

It feels right.

> bandcamp is it's essentially Shopify for musicians

I don't think it is for musicians. It is a marketplace where you can buy and own music. You can pay as much as you want above a minimum price that is set by the musicians. Many albums are free or very cheap. Unlike other music providers the music is available in _lossless_ formats. You can also stream the music you own.

This is a heaven for people who do not like streaming providers. I purchase every single album through them.

They offer merch now -- while they don't do completely custom items like shopify might let you do, it is a little more than buying and owning music.

The albums I usually end up finding are ~$9 and pay what you want above. What bandcamp understands is that a lot of people know how to get the music for free. What makes me pick bandcamp is that I can afford it, I know where the money is going, and they let me download my music (they also have an app) with no fuss.

> This is a heaven for people who do not like streaming providers. I purchase every single album through them.

+1, though sometimes artists aren't on there, which is a shame.

You just described the buyer side of the marketplace while parent was right about the seller side. Many sellers on Bandcamp are smaller bands/musicians/labels selling their music and merch directly to customers.

True that. I guess the difference between the streaming services vs bandcamp is more relevant to the content providers (musicians) than to the users.

They also have Bandcamp Weekly[1] and similar "radio" shows which I like, exposes me to music I'd otherwise likely not stumble over.

[1]: https://bandcamp.com/?show=458

It's also good for finding unsigned artists, kind of like what mp3.com was (I wish there was an archive for mp3.com, it's so sad there isn't!).

A lot of the artists allow you to play their music on the website, and if you like it you can buy it in FLAC :) Some of my favourite music I have purchased from there!