Bandcamp 12+

In an age of ubiquitous, always accessible, algorithmically-selected music platforms, the Bandcamp app is a breath of fresh air. Their writing, curation and design are second to none. I would usually be grumpy about an app that could just be a website, bit this use different. Opening this Appia always a joy, and it gives me new and unexpected music. A breath of fresh air, and a good taste in my mouth to know I'm supporting artists to keep making great music.

Downloaded the app so I could listen to a friend’s song I love (and fully intended to rebuy, again) without keeping the web browser open. After listening to it a few times it locked me out of the song with a “time to open up your heart and wallet”. So I press send purchase link, and it doesn’t show. Meanwhile the web browser continues to work fine. Sent it to another account and 15 mins later the link shows. After I purchase it, it tells me it can’t even be downloaded to the phone. I go back to the app to stream it (I’m in the North Pole, I did this to specifically avoid streaming), and I find the purchase link I ordered from my account, has in no way connected the music to my account; it’s just given me files I can’t download, so now I’m two different types of locked out of the one song I did all of this nonsense for in the first place. And there’s no way to link the purchase, so if I want to unblock it, I need to get on a computer I don’t have and buy it AGAIN from there!

Naturally I go back to the web browser, and it works fine with zero restrictions, for free. Literally the definition of a waste of time, money and space. The only positive thing I can say is Bandcamp let me pay a friend more money twice without actually providing or doing anything themselves.

Can you please fix the streaming limit on tracks you haven’t purchased already? You’re automatically locked out of tracks you’ve played over three times if they’re not in your collection, even if the artist allows infinite streaming on their page - not only is this really annoying, but it also leads to situations where songs are legitimately impossible to play via the app if they can’t be added to a collection, such is the case for free downloads and other unpurchasable albums. Free downloads are completely broken on here too, since the app will not show albums that aren’t either paid or name your price in search results or on artist pages, making them extremely annoying and time-consuming to find. There have been some really solid additions to the app like playlists and offline streaming which I appreciate, but the app still has serious quality-of-life issues that need to be addressed.