Bandcamp Playlists

Bandcamp is finally adding a feature that I, and other like-minded enjoyers of music have been wanting for some time. The new ability to create playlists feels like in most ways it aligns with the ethics of the service, which is a good thing, but the focus may be a bit too heavy in that area.¹ Bandcamp describes the feature as, “Like digital mixtapes.” There isn't much need to describe how it works, everyone is familiar with the concept of playlists and this feature appears to do exactly what it says on the tin.

Ultimately, I don’t think you’ll see these playlists proliferating. Though I would rather believe otherwise, I have to think that getting widespread adoption of playlists comprised of purchased music will be an uphill battle. The fact that all music comprising these digital mixtapes has to be purchased in contrast to the all-you-can-eat streaming models will limit their reach.

I personally prefer to buy the albums I really like on Bandcamp.² My playlists usually contain tracks from albums that I’m not necessarily going to purchase, though. You can buy individual tracks on Bandcamp, but I’m not in the habit of doing that. Other profiles I visit seem to indicate most have the same patterns of buying. It may be a challenge to get users buying single tracks. We’ll see if this feature makes that method more appealing.

Unless I’ve missed it, there doesn’t seem to be a way to embed these playlists in webpages, which is one of the most useful features of Bandcamp, and one of the best ways to evangelize your favorite tunes. Not to mention that it’s probably one of most effective methods with which to get people to the site to purchase music.

My hope was that when Bandcamp finally got around to adding playlists, they would be creative about the capabilities they could offer. This implementation is about as straightforward and bare bones as it could be. It seems they’ve focused more on protecting the IP to force people to open their wallets than making a compelling feature that will spur usage.

The emphasis is still on ownership and people paying for the music they consume. For instance, users can only listen to a track 3 times, by default, without shelling out some money to own it. ↩︎

Ideally on a physical format, which on Bandcamp gives you access to high-quality digital versions of the purchased tracks. ↩︎