Meet The Streaming Music Site That Pays Artists Fairly

Another great video!

I just went to the site and I already found a band that I really like that I would have never discovered otherwise, thank you a lot for this!

Love that there are people out there who are thinking of the little guy (the artist). Really insightful and I agree about shifting the culture of how music is absorbed.

Sooo.... bandcamp?

Edit: finally mentions bandcamp in passing 27 minutes in. This just seems like band camp but with less features, And less musicians.

Since The Van is pretty "rogue" and presumably used by a very small subset of music lovers, do you think it would be a "good strategy" to release songs here before releasing on Spotify (and company)? I ask because I have some singles that are ready to go, but I'm not quite ready to start releasing on a 6 week cadence (I want to get a few more singles and music videos under my belt before making the first drop) - I'm wondering if putting songs on The Van now could be part of a create-underground-buzz strategy, or if it's more important/effective to release everywhere on the same day... thinking emoji

Can't wait to post music onto this new site.

I have to agree with Ignattius here before me: The site seems and is great, I just signed up and posted one release to try things out but good god please for the love of god make the UI just a little more bearable and straightforward. I like the idea, but it's really not a good website purely design wise.

You gotta go into things blind

just opened the website, and have no clue at all about what it is... Obviously website needs lots of improvement. Any website should be self explanatory and informative, so that an idiot like me can understand.

Thank you Jesse. You are actually helping us. This is inspiring man.

Sounds like a cross between BandCamp and Spotify… probably needs to be fleshed out more, but will over time if it survives. I think I would like to be “invited” to get in on the ground floor of this platform. Any chance to get in front of new fans and open a new revenue stream is beneficial.

Intriguing idea, great goals and intentions. Website /UI and business model really needs lots refinement & work. Good luck!

I looked The Van up and it appears that the artists and labels have to be invited by the The Van's admin. Umm, I hope that's only a temporary thing because if not then it is just an exclusive club that won't help 90% of us. Anyone have to elaborate on this. I will log in on the site to explore it.

bandcamp

I think Reddit's kind of guild system would be better as a direct compensation method - it is called gamification and inserting fun into this transaction. End goal is the same - paying artists - but it's super important what method you use to achieve the goal. Just throwing money at artists the Paypal way is just too bland and wouldn't motivate a lot of people to do it, IMHO.

Drive Like Jehu? Deep cut. How long you had that shirt?

sounds rad, love the concept.
just signed up & submitted a song, well see how it goes

Thanks for posting this and sharing this Jesse! I signed up and filled out the artist/label portion with a recent album to test it out. As a lofi hip hop artist, most of these platforms can be tough to make a dent among vocalists and bands, but I love the idea of centering the artist and paypal access. We'll see how it goes!

The website tries its best to be “cool” or “retro” but instead the Ui is pretty unfriendly. Also where do we think the money is coming from with subscription based services that puts millions of songs at your fingertips for the price of one cd a month. We have access to more music then we ever have,if we want Spotify to pay more then we have to expect the listener to pay more for subscriptions,then you have people that don’t pay at all. Sounds like an old head the just wishes things were the way they were “back in my day”. Genre is just a means for us to recognizing things,yes we know music blends now days,we know people listen to all sorts. my algorithm suggestions are spot on because I listen to alota music

I think your stream overwhelmed the site with new people X3

Coexistence! That is a keyword. Thank you

Yay! Gatekeeping is back!

"I said let's take the steering wheel out of the car. Everybody puts steering wheels in when they make a car. Let's just take it out."

Annnnnnnnnnd it looks like the site has shut down. There goes that :\

I want your shirt!! Oh and great video!!