How do you measure momentum in a number?
Consider this: more than 1,000 record labels have already signed up to Subvert.fm, a new platform aiming at challenging Bandcamp’s role in the music industry ecosystem, despite the fact that it has yet to launch.
A total of 1,390 labels, 7,687 artists and more than 1,000 supporters have signed on to Subvert, according to a release from the site’s founders. The project was launched after Bandcamp was sold to Epic Games, and by Epic to Songtradr in a little over a year’s time.
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“Bandcamp’s trajectory illustrates a depressing reality of the contemporary internet: platforms position themselves as artist-friendly alternatives, only to seemingly abandon their core values and community,” Subvert writes. “It’s time for a new model – one we collectively own and control.”
Subvert was created as a co-op, a different structural model than most industry platforms, in which members can own a part of and participate in guiding the course of the platform. An earlier project created along similar lines, Ampled, was formed as a Patreon alternative — 5 Mag called it the best site you’ve never heard of after learning of its radically open ownership and reporting model after the site’s demise.
Labels can sign up for free to Subvert and become involved immediately. Subvert is currently engaged in a “gradual and thoughtful” path to launching, according to their blog; beta testing with members is underway right now, followed by a soft launch later in 2025 and open access after the new year.
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