Bandcamp alternative Subvert is set to launch guided by the intriguing premise, “What if Independent Artists and Labels owned Bandcamp?”
Bandcamp had become an essential tool for independent artists and labels before being sold to Epic Games and 18 months later to Solatter shift was particularly concerning, as half of the key staffers were laid off.
To use a term coined by tech pundit Cory Doctorow, the “enshittification” of Bandcamp was in full swing.
Bandcamp under Songtradr seems to have stopped the bleeding. But to paraphrase (in the only sentence that will ever include both these artists) Camille Cabello and Christopher Cross, things will “Never Be The Same.”
“To many, Bandcamp had been the last bastion of independence in a recorded music landscape that had long ago left underground and emerging musicians behind,” writes Subvert founder Austin Robey. “Now it had become another corporate asset, tied to the streaming giants it once marketed itself as against.”
Robey applied a similar ethos to music crowdfunding platform Ampled, which he launched in the wake of the spectacular 2019 flameout of fan funding platform PledgeMusic that left hundreds of artists unpaid.
When music crowdfunding fell out of favor and Robey shut down Ampled in 2023, he made the code open-source.
Now, a little more than a month before the launch of Subvert, he is setting his sites higher.
“Our current moment requires us to dream bigger,” says Robey. “Systemic problems require systemic solutions.”
As a Bandcamp alternative Subvert is being designed to ber “collectively owned, stewarded, and controlled by its community, with 100% of its founding ownership reserved for its artists, community, and workers.”
Robey’s full essay and a link to get updates, is at subvert.fm.
Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, President of the Skyline Artists Agency, and a Berklee College Of Music professor.
