The Importance Of Downloads (Again)!

Hi Folks,

We’re going to post this again and probably again and again, as there is a lot of “sponsored” ie. “paid for” noise on social media about how absolutely wonderful streaming services are for artists and what a great job they’re doing providing them with a platform for success!

And also the numpty (Scottish word for pillock) CEO of Spotify publicly said recently that music costs almost nothing to make these days and inferred that artists should be grateful for whatever meagre returns they give them.

So…

The Importance Of Downloads!

Welcome to all our new followers and mailing list subscribers who have joined us in the last few weeks through our free/pay what you want Anthology download album. Hope you’re enjoying our music and hopefully we’ll see you at a gig sometime too.

A lot of people have asked why we have made our collection available for free/pay what you want so….

As everyone knows the folk world is a wonderful community of people committed to music and we are constantly amazed by the number of emails we get or comments on social media we see about how much they love to support artists by actually buying their music on CD’s and vinyl.

However one area that we find many people think is redundant now are downloads.

Artists often hear that fans who only have physical copies of their music and no means to get it onto their mobile devices feel that the only way to listen to it on the move is to stream it via Spotify/Apple etc. and also fans who no longer have CD players or record decks feel that they have no other listening choice at all.

Well the purpose of this post is to say that this isn’t the case and that downloads still have a very important part to play for music lovers who want to support their favourite artists.

Firstly, a wee calculation of what a £10 download album means to artists financially compared to streaming…..

* 291 listens to a ten song album from start to finish on Spotify using their standard streaming royalty rate will earn an artist £10.

* If you listen to the whole album once a day starting on the 1st of January then it would take until the 17th of October for the artist to earn that £10.

* If you listen to the album once a week starting on the 1st of January 2025 then it would take until the 1st of June 2030 for the artist to earn that £10.

* If you buy a download then they get the £10 right now.

Secondly, and this is the one that not everyone knows about, but once you have music downloaded onto one of your devices you can integrate it into all your Spotify/Apple etc. playlists and can listen to it as you normally do on those platforms. Just search how to integrate downloads into Spotify/Apple etc. online and you’ll find out.

And finally for those of you new to downloads the game-changing resource for all artists who use it is the wonderful site Bandcamp.

If you’re a music lover and you’re not aware of it then check it out as it’s a treasure trove of downloadable music from thousands of established and new artists many of whom will offer content exclusive to the site.

Bandcamp has it’s own excellent free app player for phones/iPads where if you don’t want to integrate your music to streaming playlists or you just plain hate Spotify etc. then you can organise and listen to all your downloads in your car or wherever you go via that.

Bandcamp also offer playback quality far above Spotify and Apple so you’re also getting a much better listening experience.

So there you go, there’s the importance of downloads.

Finally, many of you have paid for our music already so we’ve offered the chance for you to get it on download to listen on the move without paying for it again. Or if you’re just discovering us but wary of spending any money then you can listen to it before you buy and then pay something or nothing if you want to and hopefully become a fan.

You can hear and get our Anthology download album at the link below and do check out our Martin, Nancy and Findlay’s pages there too plus all the other amazing artists.

The Magpie Arc – 22 Song Free/Pay What You Wish Anthology Download Compilation Album

Thanks for reading (again)!

TMA xx