Click to copy
Dylan Baldi, the frontman of the cult favorite garage-rock band Cloud Nothings, has a new favorite holiday. "I don’t care about Christmas anymore," he jokes over the phone from his home in Philadelphia. "In a way, this feels like 'Music Day.'"
He’s talking about Bandcamp Fridays, when the online music marketplace Bandcamp waives its cut of sales — 15% of digital, 10% of physical — and passes along all revenue to artists and their closest stakeholders (like labels and managers). Originally launched as a single-day effort on March 20, 2020, to help artists at the start of the COVID-19 crisis, the event stuck around as it became clear the pandemic wasn’t going anywhere either. So far, the platform has held 11 Bandcamp Fridays, directing $48.3 million toward artists and labels from over 800,000 customers — and that’s on top of the $148 million it has paid out from normal sales during that time frame.