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The Camping Chronicles - An Introduction

The independently-ran music streaming/paying site’s logo.

Bandcamp is an independently-run music streaming service and company created in 2008 by Ethan Diamond, Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt, and Neal Tucker in California. Unlike streaming services or at the time the caveman’s way of using ITunes, Bandcamp was created for more flexibility for artists and labels by being able to set their own prices of purchasing their music on their fan’s own accords. You could stream music sure, but the idea behind the site was about creators and fans giving back to one another through their payment; artists or labels could set their own prices on their music and merch, and fans could pay in whatever they had at that moment while still giving bands or artists their money’s worth (getting a roughly 85% cut of that as well). As put in a New York Times article published about the indie streaming site, “always, the artist gets to know who’s buying, without a third party in the way” (Ratliff, 14-15). There are no bigger labels or CEO’s putting their capitalist-loving hands onto the process - like any old school indie record store or label, it’s all the person buying.

Group photo of current Bandcamp employees, 2018.

This concept is why I tend to have an utter fascination with the streaming site so much. While yes, artists will still be getting their cut of the profits on streaming sites like Apple Music or Spotify (though that is a whole other can of hell worms I want to save for something later), Bandcamp takes that idea and doubles it, creating a larger field for artists and their fans to mess around in. You aren’t limited by having to pay any fee to listen or purchase music - whatever works for you is best.

It has been 10 years since Bandcamp was created, and in that time, the site has reached a multitude of milestones. Bandcamp for Labels launching for labels like Sub Pop and Epitaph Records, reaching over $100 million in paying artists, the fact that such an idea hasn’t been shut down like other good ideas for music sites or social media’s (cough cough Cymbal, COUGH). Though it’s hard to tell what can come next for the site, I’ve decided to take the opportunity of at least celebrating how far a little known site that basically took the biggest sin in the music industry and made it a million dollar company.

So, what better way to do that than reviewing albums from said service.

Every other week (or at least when I can remember it), I will be talking about an album that is currently listed on Bandcamp. Some will be exclusive to the site, some won’t be. Like any review on the planet, it does not always have to be positive or negative. With this, I hope to be giving more attention to the artists and bands whose artistry, hearts and souls they record and put on their individual websites for fans to choose how to promote. To do the same thing that Bandcamp was built upon, even in a more critical light.

So, let’s go camping.

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Jumpsuit, Nico and the Niners by Twenty One Pilots - Singles Review

[originally published July 11, 2018, on medium.]

[Lead singer/keyboardist Tyler Joseph plays the character of Clancy in the video for “Jumpsuit”, one of two first singles off their new album TRENCHES, out October 5, 2018. Credit to @faithfulurie​ on tumblr for the screenshot.]

I will start out by saying this — I am a full on slut for concept albums.

I am someone who loves the combination of different kinds of mediums, especially mediums so close yet so distant from one another that you can smell their potential from miles away. Sure, stories can be told through audio plays or storied podcasts that let you imagine the scenes as they are happening, and movies are obviously popular mediums. But the idea that stories can be driven or created by whatever music is being played at that moment, that you can imagine those surroundings, characters, or themes all by the sound of some chords and a rift is — pardon the extremist wording — mesmerizing in its own right.

It was this same feeling that got me into the concept being built by the fanbase of Twenty One Pilots thanks to a sneakily-published website and some letters about dissatisfaction within some far off place named DEMA written by a character named Clancy. From April to now July, the concept had been racked within the fanbase and their social media’s; letters from this Clancy character had been added, as well as pictures, both of which had been saturated to hell and back and turned black and white. Random lettering spelling out certain dates had been added, fellow cryptic websites had been published and then taken down with dma.org, eyes withholding pictures and videos were being published on the previously-silent twitter pages — plus, a bunch of yellow was being used. A whole world created by the two-member band was being built by their fans, paid off only today with the release of two songs, “Jumpsuit” and “Nico and the Niners”, only of which the former got a video for.

From the video alone, it promised a lot of world-building as the websites and the four months of cryptic messaging foretold; figures in red hoods and nets that look similar to what bee harvesters use, the fated yellow coloring, the character Clancy played by Tyler Joseph falling to the figure’s ills before sprinting off after some inspiration. Though the second single has not yet received a video, it took to its lyrics to bring some to light through references of their letter (“East is up”, “DEMA don’t control us”, a self-referencial drop of characters Nico and the Niners) and the feelings of our supposed central character (“What I say when I want to be enough/What a beautiful day for making a break for it”, “We’ll win but not everyone will get out”).

Photograph of Twenty One Pilots, 2018.

However, listening to the songs themselves for a couple of times, that excitement I shared with fans over this new venture for the nine-year old band was thin compared to my overall feelings on the songs. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t bad or even uninteresting. Jumpsuit is a rough and tough fuzz noise mix of HeavyDirtySoul plus the sound of other alternative duos like Royal Blood or Death From Above 1979, while “Nico and the Niners” continues the reggae theme of some exceptional songs from 2016’s Blurryface like Lane Boy and Ride (two songs coincidentally I also wasn’t exactly fond of). The most significant flaw going against them is truly how bloated both songs feel, unable to get an emotion out other than a simple “meh” while I move on with my day. They do not feel worthy of more than a few listens, only if to remember what the actual lyrics themselves are. This would not necessarily be a problem, as some concept albums do have weak songs that feel as if they add only little to the overall product (looking at you, The Final Cut). However, if I am correct in thinking that with as much effort as the band have put into this story, it does serve as a huge concern for how the actual album turns out.

Songs on concept albums are suppose to serve a purpose, help create the narrative in this larger-than-life weight put on the music itself; as any artists will tell you, simply doing one thing over the other — especially on concept albums — will not suffice and will make your project feel stale. It is why many artists do not always do one in their lifetime, due to the trickiness of carrying such a weight on your product. You must be able to backup your concept with at least interesting writing and sound, or otherwise it may seem like the music takes somewhat of a step behind the story, and you are left with fragments of what could have been a whole product. This I unfortunately feel as if happened with “Jumpsuit” and “Nico and the Niners” equally, though I have a certain distaste for the latter for completely different reasons. It cannot be the album as a whole that excites me for its ideas or creative notions, it also has to be the singles as well and how they relate to the overall product. Conspiracy theories and music video contents can not make up for what is essentially two songs of some interest, but overall absolute nothingness. Both sides of the torch must be carried for one to succeed — without it, the concept and efforts people spent months on to create it falls flat on its face. A fate in which I unfortunately see for the band with the release of this future album.

Watch the video for one of two new Twenty One Pilots’ songs, Jumpsuit, below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOUBW8bkjQ4