Our mission as a non-profit artist-run label is, first and foremost, to help the music we publish reach the broadest possible audience. That is why we started publishing in digital formats in 2008, with the compilation Mus*****c, our first release to be published online and distributed for free. That is also why we started distributing to streaming services in 2010, and why we joined Bandcamp in 2012, a platform that has since become our main hub for distribution. Since starting Crónica in 2003, we have continuously been open to experimenting with release and distribution formats, hoping to help fantastic music be created, heard and enjoyed, and hoping to help artists inspire and awe us.
Over the years, we have endured, and we were lucky to have had the support of not only a wonderful group of artists that trusted us to release their music, but also of the many listeners that bought releases, that streamed them, or that supported us in so many different forms. We couldn’t be more thankful to all.
Experimenting, however, also means to assess, analyse, and to be critical about what we do and how we do what we do. Experimenting means to try to keep a balance between our mission to promote and disseminate the music we release and the best interests of artists and listeners alike. That is why, after several years distributing the majority of our catalogue to streaming platforms, we decided to stop doing it.
For a decade and a half we turned a blind eye to the exploitative fees paid by streaming services, to the abusive, capricious, and discriminatory policies they instituted, even to diminishing returns. Perhaps it took us too long, but we have finally came to conclude that streaming, in its current model, is unsustainable, as well as toxic and harmful to most of those involved in it. Streaming is bad to the musicians and to all creators involved in producing music and art, as it sets bad incentives, imposes formats, and directs resources in unfair and biased ways. But streaming is also bad to listeners and to all that are part of the broader cultural communities where music is produced and enjoyed, as it undervalues and trivialises music by hyper-commodifying it.
From spring of 2025 our releases will continue to be distributed to selected stores and made available through our page in Bandcamp. We will sell downloads — most of them “pay what you want” — and allow streams through Bandcamp, but we will not make new releases available through streaming platforms. The releases currently distributed in streaming services will be phased out throughout summer and will be removed by the fall of 2025. Concurrently, we will work towards creating an open archive of our releases so we can make them as accessible as possible to everyone.
Our work is far from done, and we will continue experimenting!
(Last updated: April 25, 2025)