Bandcamp Letting Performers Control Individual Subscriptions to Better Move Releases to Devoted Fans; Like U2 "Except...Music You Actually Want"

Bandcamp is getting ready to launch a new service that will help bands reach out better to their most hardcore fans, while setting the service apart from others in the musical e-commerce field: personalized subscription services.

At the moment, Bandcamp offers performers a way to hawk their wares the old fashioned way, via downloads. The new option, according to Billboard.biz, is to allow every act to control its own personal subscription services as a method for rewarding their most loyal fans. Those who pay into a subscription service for an act will get access to exclusive content, much in the same way that bands like Pearl Jam package original music for members of its fan club. Subscribers will also get access to an act's regular releases as well of course. Bandcamp CEO Ethan Diamond told The Guardian that the idea stemmed from the realization that reaching one's fans has gotten tougher as social media has gotten more intense.

"As an artist, serving that type of fan can be really challenging: You can talk about a new release, but you're competing with somebody's social media firehose-with sponsored posts and their 1,000 closest Facebook friends," he said. "So how do you even get the information to them that there's a new release?"

Fans will buy into a subscription and automatically receive new content, as well as e-mail updates alerting them of its existence. Diamond described it as similar to U2's recent Songs of Innocence stunt "except that it's music you actually want." Bands will control what the cost of a subscription is.

The idea's not a bad one to boost revenue at Bandcamp either. The service will continue to reap 15 percent of revenue up until an act earns $5,000, at which point it begins collecting 10 percent.