MORE METAL RECORD LABELS JUMP ON THE BANDCAMP BANDWAGON

Cosmo at Invisible Oranges has been keeping tabs on which metal record labels are signing up for Bandcamp, a subject that is near and dear to my heart. Man, I am going to miss that guy when he’s gone.

There is no reason for a label not to be on Bandcamp: the entire catalogue is instantly viewable and streamable, a fan can easily buy music in a variety of downloadable formats (even FLAC), and the embeddable widgets make it easy to spread the word. Bands won’t get paid on a per-stream basis like with Spotify, but the income generated from download purchases should exponentially offset that loss.

My theory as to why the bigger metal labels haven’t joined Bandcamp yet: 1) horribly antiquated distro deals that prohibit them from selling downloads on their own, 2) stupidity/ignorance, 3) lack of manpower/resources to make it happen. Relapse Records, by the way, is ahead of the game and is currently the biggest metal label in the Bandcamp sphere; they’ve got 100 or so albums posted.

The latest metal labels to join Bandcamp as reported on CosmoWatch are 20 Buck Spin and Willowtop. Here’s a Bandcamp embed of Ulcerate’s The Destroyers of All, a fantastic album I forgot to include on my Best of the First Half of 2011 list. Via the magic of Bandcamp, stream the entire album below, share it with friends, and buy it if you so choose:

-VN