BONUS TRACKS: Brutal News From Bandcamp, The Birth of a Folk Standard, and More

In a music business landscape where independent artists are getting punched from just about every direction, Bandcamp has long offered a more loving embrace. It truly seemed aimed at connecting artists and fans, and allowing artists to be fairly compensated for the music and merch they sold on the platform. Epic Games (makers of Fortnite) bought Bandcamp from its founders in 2022, pledging to keep it on its “artists-first” path. And for the most part, it did — until times got hard and Epic Games needed to make some trims. Last month, Epic laid off a large chunk of its workforce and sold Bandcamp to music licensing service Songtradr. Songtradr made the familiar vows to stay the course, but now just a few weeks later has announced deep cuts to Bandcamp’s staff. In response to a query from Pitchfork, Songtradr said it’s “committed to keeping the existing Bandcamp services that fans and artists love,” including Bandcamp Fridays and the indie music coverage on Bandcamp Daily. Time will tell, but there is plenty of worry among music makers and music lovers about the platform’s future, and what its loss or diminishment would mean for independent artists. Read an in-depth analysis of Bandcamp’s significance, and what the recent moves might mean for the future, in this piece from Pitchfork titled “Is Bandcamp As We Know It Over?”

Often when a song enters the folk canon, it’s a slow process. One person sings it, and maybe a decade or so later, someone else discovers it and decides to make it their own. But every now and then, it happens faster, and that’s been the case with a song called “Nothing Else Matters,” written in 2019 by Phoebe Hunt and Maya de Vitry. After the song simmered for a couple years, Hunt decided to play it live and asked her friend and fellow singer-songwriter Lindsay Lou to join her. Lou fell in love with the song, and now she, Hunt, and de Vitry have recorded versions of it for their own solo projects. It’s the title track of Hunt’s latest album (ND review), it kicks off Lou’s new Queen of Time album (ND review), and it’s slated for de Vitry’s next full-length album, coming next year. Other roots artists have covered the song too, enough that it might already be a bona fide folk standard. Read more about the song’s remarkable path — and hear Hunt, Lou, and de Vitry’s versions of it — in this piece from WMOT.

New Jersey’s Monmouth University has announced it is constructing a new building to house what surely must be one of its most exciting holdings: the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music. “Having a building with your name on it is a tricky thing … ,” Springsteen quipped at a ceremony this week. “I mean, I could get arrested for shooting tequilas in a public park!” But, he said, “I will try to do my best to do nothing for the rest of my life to embarrass a building.” Springsteen didn’t attend Monmouth, but he played there at age 19, and he told people assembled for the ceremony that that early milestone still holds deep meaning to him. Read more in this coverage from Rolling Stone.

WHAT WE’RE LISTENING TO

Here’s a sampling of the songs, albums, bands, and sounds No Depression staffers have been into this week:

Adeem the Artist feat. Andrea Kukuly Uriarte – “Dirt Bike”
Humbird – “Cornfields and Roadkill”
Mitski – “My Love Mine All Mine”
Sarah Buxton – “Loving Means Letting You Go”
Willi Carlisle – “Critterland,” the title track from his new album, coming in January

Lizzy McAlpine – “A Little Bit of Everything”
Rhiannon Giddens – “Another Wasted Life” on The Daily Show (plus her chat with guest host Michael Kosta)
Lizz Wright – “Sweet Feeling” (by Candi Staton), from her new album, Shadow, coming in April
The Shindellas – “Last Night Was Good for My Soul”
Sierra Ferrell – “Fox Hunt”