Discoverability and usability in general is godawful on bandcamp. Always has been, and shows no signs of improving. Never heard of Qobuz. What made the mp3 blog era so unique was exactly the network effect referenced above. The curators had audiences, they were aggregated from larger platforms and both deeply specific and hyper erudite. There was a whole culture around this online, and waves of excitement around certain artists, which would spill into 'in the know' circles offline.
Googling who's playing at local festivals or using some random app isn't and can't remotely be the same thing. I could see a music based social network taking off in the future. Currently there's nothing with the buy in, and the existing platforms are way too financially invested in pushing major labels, AI etc to become real recommendation and sharing engines.
Myself I have gone through phases in my adult life where I tried hard to expand my musical interests. Like around the time my son was born I was really into obscure psychedelia, both vintage and contemporary and also prog rock and other rock B-sides from the 1970s. Then later I got into the british 1980s music I missed. Then it was Ingsoc and then the Super Furry Animals, lately Tyler the Creator. One thing that's driven it is that I make these cards
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/115939341268444811
and don't want them to show my age!
Thank you for the inspiration for a weekend project!
Bandcamp is indeed really bad at suggesting things you’ll like…
To your last point: it’s weird how Bandsintown or Last.fm didn’t figure this out. Last.fm has so much potential but just isn’t… interested?
One advantage of the offline scene is that I see a lot more local artists, all knowing each other and playing together. There seems to be some camaraderie/support for each other going on.
There is a world in which lastfm is the one of the most popular social networks, tiktok before tiktok (which started as music.ly) if you like. There's another in which it developed into a Tidal like successful boutique streaming platform. Instead it's a half forgotten not really working nonsense.
My favourite lastfm story, is that back when it was somewhat popular (at least indie popular), someone commented on my lastfm profile to say they'd been in Tokyo and been approached by the members of a hyper niche Swedish band (Strip Squad) because one of the members had heard their music being played in a park. The guy playing them had found them because of my lastfm. Lastfm at the time actively suggested connecting with other users who had similar psychographic taste.
I'm all in favour of supporting local music scenes. Just personally I don't enjoy gigs, never have really. Sound is bad, always too loud, vibes are too alcohol based (at least here in Ireland), they're pricey etc. I'd actually love it if there was more of a 'listening cafe' Japanese style venue / scene here. There's a popular bar that poses as one, but it has a terrible, wildly over loud sound system in a box room with a loud open bar next door.
People just like saying something doesn't exist when they just didn't bother to look at their emails.
Before Apple Music, when it was just the iTunes Store, Apple introduced iTunes Genius and it was scary good at recommending music; it worked so well I shudder to think what I spent in total buying $1 songs off of it.
But apple's music "play similar songs" just seems to take the same artists and pump their other album filler songs.