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Comment by lumost | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that most artists do not own the distribution rights to their own music, these are owned by various record labels. Many top tier artists create their own record labels and shoulder the cost of advertising/promotion while also dramatically increasing their cuts.

The fact that individuals aren't able to break out via self-publishing music is an oddity in the internet age. Why aren't there more avenues to hear "random new artist that matches my tastes"? or is it self-perpetuating that labels sign all successful artists who can go mainstream?

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>Why aren't there more avenues to hear "random new artist that matches my tastes"?

Because Bandcamp is perfect at this and nobody can beat them.

I say that with tongue in cheek, but they have been the platform for average musicians to self-publish on for a while. They've even totally foregone their cut periodically during the pandemic to help artists. And unlike Spotify, artists are able to apply their own branding to their pages. I've never met a musician with a bad thing to say about them or their platform.

> Why aren't there more avenues to hear "random new artist that matches my tastes"?

One reason is due to flat rate bundled compulsory licensing. If you run a coffee shop with live music you either restrict all performers to only play original works and still probably get threatened with lawsuits, or you pay up the ASCAP/BMI/SESAC protection money and can play whatever.

So in many contexts weirdo obscure independent artists can't compete on price (e.g. give their music away just to get it heard) because the customer has already paid for a bundled rate for popular music.

I like to listen to jango.com which tries to "push" new artists while you listen to some "station"... I've found a few good "completely unknowns" there, but most stuff they push is really low quality. I think that a platform where you could discover new artists easily using a system similar to this (play mainstream artists, mostly, but throw in a few songs from unknown artists that play similar genres), but then had an option to "upgrade" to get stuff like offline access to artists you like, could become very successful.

> play mainstream artists, mostly, but throw in a few songs from unknown artists that play similar genres

Isn't that just "radio"?

This is Pandora, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_(streaming_service)

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