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Anyone else finds it seriously annoying that they only sell the physical copy on the Bandcamp page? Nothing to listen to, not even samples. Seriously, what a strange thing to do in 2026. Also kind of ironic, since the album was "released" on Bandcamp Friday yesterday. Of course every artist is entitled to decide how to market and sell their music, but I cannot think of any upside here ... everybody loses. | |
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Update: It is now available as a download on one of its Bandcamp pages, but still no way to listen to any track before purchasing. | |
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They are a "bigger" band who are in the music business to make money. Honestly, it makes no sense to me that so many artists allow all of their music to be streamed for free. "Why buy the cow if she is giving you her milk for free?" I think that the better model is to either allow 30 second samples or to allow the "single" to be streamed for free to account for what used to be radio play to bring the band/song/album to the consumer's attention. I think that Cuneiform has the right music model. | |
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Agreed, a single is the old-school way to promote the release. But even most Cuneiform releases can be streamed on Bandcamp. | |
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I don't think most Cuneiform albums can be streamed on BandCamp. Most of them I see might allow for 2 or 3 songs to be streamed but not the entire album. | |
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Most of the ones I’ve seen at least, and I’ve linked hundreds of them. But of course it might have changed since then … | |
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Also, I don't know what the shelf life is on selling albums these days but if I was a musician in the business of selling my music, I would probably do something like only selling physical product until that shelf life has in theory ended (Say 6 months or a year). After that time I might allow the entire album to be streamed. Or the other option would be to allow them to purchase the digital songs for 99 cents or $1.29, which seems to be the new going rate. If they want to sample the entire songs, then I would go with the old "jukebox" method by allowing someone to stream each song for an amount like a quarter a listen. If they decide to buy the song, then the purchase price could be reduced by the 25 cents. | |
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Maybe since they are a US company, they only let US listeners to stream a few songs? I'm not sure. I also know that the only place these albums seem to be available for streaming is on Bandcamp. I usually can't find them on many of the other streaming services. | |
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^ yes, no Cuneiform on Spotify. | |
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Cuneiform's reluctance to release more than a track or two off albums has irked me as I wish to easily share it even when I own the albums. While touring, live concerts and related merch is quite a common lifeblood for professional musicians/bands, I remember that Andy Tillison had health issues (heart problems if I recall right) and so that revenue stream may not be open to him -- not tours anyway. I like to hear albums, and would want to usually listen before buying except for some limited release vinyls/collector items, but I don't feel entitled to be provided with their music for free. I would think a song at least and some samples would make sense. I think it's a great strategy commonly to release an advance single to help with publicity. | |
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As listeners/fans we are certainly not entitled to free samples, but that doesn't mean we can't complain about things. 25 years ago most bands/labels were not providing any free samples at all, that was completely normal. I'm just saying that nowadays it's the reverse, and it hurts sales to just not publish anything. There's many options, for instance they could do a shorter "edit" version of a long track and put it on YouTube as a visualiser. Something to listen to and, more importantly, to spread and talk about. | |
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Sure, we can complain about whatever we like, although that can have negative consequences, like for us depending on what we are complaining about or how we go about it. To me it matters how one complains. While I would not call it a "a dick move" as you do in the first post, I am in agreement with your latest post. | |
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^ You have a point there, I changed the wording. It was also inaccurate - it hurts themselves more than anybody else, so rather than an act of unfriendliness, it just isn't very smart. Unless there is an angle I'm not seeing. | |
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Swans is one where I have wanted to buy various material blind, or deaf if one prefers. I am a collector and he did live releases for crowdfunding big studio album releases. Just copying this list below (and the artwork in tier one was personalised but not like it was all original to your copy):
I think that's a clever way to do things, but it's the "originality" and that's all limited edition that made them especially worthwhile. I missed out various times because they sold out fast. The last Swans live album was put up legally for free, not a fundraiser I don't think,and they are all available on bandcamp, youtube... My fave Swans live is 1998's Swans Are Dead, one of my very fave live albums, which was not put out as a limited release fund-raiser but a major release. I still think it's good to have some samples but I am willing to pay for in various cases, say, signed copies, something unique, blind. I like The Tangent best live and I don't know what models they have tried. Releasing singles before release is so common. It helps to build anticipation, as well as pre-release and/or release day events, working with the independent record stores... I do think offering nothing is just bad marketing, but I understand that some hate the models we have, but one has to adapt or try something innovative. |