Corey Mwamba

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Entries for 20th Apr 2018

Today I will actually make it into my space to record. Feels like ages...

Yesterday.

"This looks great. Did you use Spotify data for the artists?"

"No... people entered the data themselves."

"Oh. But maybe we could link up the artists to a Spotify query..."

"I reckon more of them would be on Bandcamp."

"Does BC have an API?"

"Not any more," I said.

The original API allowed you to search for artists, embed players of other people, &c. But now the artist is a commerce point: the API focuses on one person and what they sell.

I should clarify what I've previously said. If I had a developer account, I could look at the bands I have under my account, my sales report, and my merchandise orders. That's it.

And that focus is sadly very inward-looking.

This is not a new conversation. I asked BC about the decision to remove the API in 2015(? maybe earlier), and had a pleasant but ultimately fruitless exchange (by e-mail): the API was going, and it wasn't coming back.

Yet here it is: http://bandcamp.com/developer

And it is in no way an improvement on version 1.

There are several things I could say about music companies and the characterisation of users as either vendors or consumers, but I am not wanting a "whatabout xyz" battle today.

I just want Bandcamp to have a decent and useful API again.

I was reminded of this yesterday!