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Fun with Stats from Bandcamp

If you search for new music online, you’ve no doubt used Bandcamp, a great site for bands of all sort to offer their wares to fans. The site has just released a list of fun facts based on 2017. Here’s what we learn:

People Need to Be More Imaginative When Coming Up with Band Names

Please don’t name your band “Apollo” or some derivation thereof. That was the most common name from a first-time poster. Here’s the Top 10.

1. Apollo (13 different new bands with that name in 2017)

2. Grim (10)

3. Bloom (9)

4. Indigo (9)

5. Nova (9)

6. King (8)

7. Void (8)

8. Milk (7)

9. David (6)

10. Smith (5)

 

And Please Thinks a Little More Outside-the-Box When It Comes to Album Titles

1. Home (130 albums released with that title in 2017)

2. Lost (71)

3. Memories (71)

4. Void (71)

5. Waves (71)

6. Reflections (70)

7. Blue (64)

8. Dreams (62)

9. Bloom (58)

10. Love (54)

 

Bandcamp Bands Love Cassettes for Some Reason 

A total of 17,872 tapes were released through Bandcamp in 2017. That’s about 50 a day or one every 29 minutes. Keep in mind, though, that just because those tapes were released but not necessarily sold. The number of cassettes sold for money can only be measured in the thousands, so don’t get too excited.

 

Still with Cassettes…

Those 17,872 tapes are equivalent to 17,076 km or 22.6 years of cassette-based audio.

 

And the Most Successful Bandcamp Bands Were…

About 500 bands set up a Bandcamp page every day, so competition for attention is fierce. These outfits reached the top of the hill.

  1. Aromanticism by Moses Sumney
  2. Our First 100 Days (compilation)
  3. Antisocialites by Alvvays
  4. The Iceberg by Oddisee
  5. Telefone by Noname
  6. World Sprituality Classics 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda by Alice Coltrane
  7. Locket by Crumb
  8. Being You Is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often by Quelle Chris
  9. Stretch Music LP by Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah
  10. This Old Dog by Mac DeMarco

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 38011 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

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