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Exploring Name-Your-Price on Bandcamp

Written by

Robert Nagle

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See also my rateyourmusic profile and the chart of my Music Album reviews.

This page contains an annotated list of Bandcamp (BC) albums. I find them and tag them on Bluesky using #nyp-bandcamp and #nameyourprice tags. Here’s my BC listener profile/collection. Also: see Getmusic.fm which allows artists to show FREE coupon codes for albums and singles. (You can also browse by labels and by genre.). Here are more thoughts about finding cool BC stuff.

Some Notable Bands and Albums

(All are — or were — Name Your Price. I am putting the most recent finds at the top. These are the ones most likely to still be name-your-price. )

  • We Stay Ugly ‘Til the Pretty Decays by Mara Calder. slow, dainty, spooky, moody. Just love this woman’s voice! Terrific & totally unique debut song collection that belongs in a night club or dark musical. Calder’s voice whispers & croons & soars. She brings drama, sadness and beauty to every song. The lyrics are fun & clever & cynical (SAINTS DON’T TIP, LOST PROPERTY OFFICE). Although most songs are slow and deliberate (with subtle piano arrangements), Calder surprises you with upbeat fast-paced numbers (DOORS OPEN, NO QUESTIONS) & angry bombast (IF THIS GOES WRONG, LET IT). A delightful BC gem.
  • Two by The Nothing: Junk Space and Dekard’s Tale (I really liked Junk Space, which sampled lots of speech and melodies).
  • Ricco Label of contemporary classical/ambient music. (Artist catalogue). There’s a lot of cool stuff there (I returned the next day to buy several more things). Alas, I am only scratching the surface.
  • Cheer Up You’re Almost Dead by Valhalla Superdrive. Boston-based psychedelic electronic experimental music.
  • Monk Turner. I actually have written a lot (here and here) about this song-writer/producer known for making wacky concept albums. I would start with Emergency Songs (sung mostly by Fascinoma) and God Complex. His 25th Album compilation consists of very early stuff, but is still awesome!
  • Mutual Aid Fundraiser by FCK Ice. Protest album about ICE. Several songs are great, especially that first one.
  • Society of Rockets had a NYP day. 10+ albums. They are a San Francisco based indie rocker band. Tough Trip Through Paradise, Our Paths Related, Plutonian Blues.
  • DJ in VRChat: Upper Groove (Asian electro-mixes ).
  • Bloodthief Original Soundtrack. by Occams Laser. He does a lot of fast-based epic electronic soundtracks for videogames

NYP Friendly Labels

(These labels have been known to have NYP specials. Sometimes it’s only for a week, but often it’s longer. I would recommend subscribing to their mailing list/newsletter to stay informed of the latest NYPs.

  • Project Records has a lot of high quality ambient musicians. They cycle though their NYP albums, and luckily they arrange their discography page so that NYP albums are at the top.

How I find cool music on Bandcamp

Bandcamp Fridays are usually the best time to find deals; during those designated days, the artist gets an extra percent of payments (BC charges no fees). But musicians are always discounting their albums.

As I mentioned above, I usually search for Name Your Price on my preferred social media (Bluesky) and hope for the best. But that is very hit-and-miss. I pay special attention to artists who are permanently NYP /Creative Commons. About a decade ago I wrote a series of articles (start here!)about creative commons musicians which I found on Jamendo or Archive.org (all are incredible!) Jamendo still has a lot of great stuff — especially on the European side. In the last 5 years I have focused more on Bandcamp, especially after hearing about Name Your Price.

Usually you can put zero in the Name-Your-Price amount on Bandcamp and still download it. The downside is that you have to wait for an email with the download link and that doesn’t get added to your permanent streaming collection. I usually put $1 or its equivalent in the price amount.

But compilations are a different matter. Sometimes these compilations are just ways to promote other artists on the same label or genre. For this reason I have stopped adding an amount for promotional compilations. (Otherwise, I would blow a lot of money on promotions and never have money left over for individual albums). In other cases, when labels are unearthing rare recordings never found elsewhere, I continue my usual habit of contributing $1 for each NYP albums.

Get Music Musical Finds

Get Music is a brand new service where artists voluntarily share coupon codes so that consumers can “purchase” the album without having to pay any money. Obviously, they do this for promotional reasons and hope to receive reviews or newsletter signups or additional purchases. Perhaps this is a pipe dream, but this is a great way for listeners to get exposed to lots of

Getmusic is also a great way to learn about and obtain compilations of all sorts. Here are some getmusic finds:

Two albums by Lunar Isles (from Scotland)

Pondering the Compensation Problem

I have lots of deep thoughts about this matter (and it’s relevant that I am an indie ebook author and publisher who is barely scraping by).

Over the decades we have learned how labels are screwing musicians, how Ticketmaster is screwing musicians and venues and how distribution companies are screwing everybody and how Spotify is screwing distribution companies. At the same time, a lot more music has become available, and personal incomes haven’t exactly been growing exponentially.

So what you do? Just pirate the stuff? Send donations directly to the artist? Buy their goods at concerts? Support only indie musicians? Make sure to write reviews or share your purchases on social media? Check out stuff through the library?

Bandcamp seems to be the best solution for everybody, but that exposes another problem — the unrealistic sense of what the market value of an album is. Sure artists are talented and probably put a lot of effort into producing albums — recording studios and equipment are not cheap. But I recoil at albums that cost $10 or more. It’s very rare that I can afford to drop that much cash for an album. Maybe if I made a lot more money, I might feel differently. Spending $5 for an album is probably my upper limit for most artists I am learning about for the first time.

But a lot of Bandcamp albums are priced well beyond that high price point. It is frustrating. Maybe I just enjoy scraping the bottom of the barrel, but I like to think that my penurious approach to album purchasing allows me to diversify my tastes and find music that most people would otherwise overlook.

If I could make any wish, it’s for all music albums under the sun to be priced at $5 or below. $5 is just the cost of a dozen eggs or a big carton of yogurt or a big tube of toothpaste. So we are used to spending that much money on mundane things.

But music albums (like ebooks) are discretionary purchases and kind of risky too. How do we know that we are going to like this digital thing that much? And how many other musicians and artists and authors are competing for that same slice of your discretionary spending?

In hard economic times, it is tempting to cut down on discretionary spending. On the other hand, it is comforting to know that you are giving your money to a larger group of artists than you would be able to do if album prices were higher.

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