Happy Holidays!
This article dives into my second exploratory data analysis (EDA) project outside of school, originally undertaken in 2022. After a long hiatus due to time constraints, I’m excited to share the fruits of this effort. Presenting: Netlabel Insights, a series of dashboards designed to explore download trends for four netlabels—Treetrunk Records, Mahorka, Enough Records, and Entity—on the Internet Archive (IA).
These dashboards offer a detailed view of download patterns across multiple historical periods. They also enable users to craft hypothetical label compilations using stratified sampling, balancing emerging and established artists.
The Netlabel Insights dashboards provide a multi-faceted look at download data, highlighting:
artists with the highest mean download counts during specific periods;
patterns in album downloads across the label's history;
download trends as labels release subsequent albums.
Additionally, the Compilation Maker creates hypothetical label compilations by selecting artists with varying levels of downloads, within three particular ranges. This ensures a lineup of emerging talent and veteran contributors.
Data is sourced exclusively from IA, so these insights don’t account for other platforms like Bandcamp. However, the trends reveal notable stories, or a single story across all the netlabels.
Let’s start with Treetrunk Records, the first netlabel analyzed.
But first, let's clarify the metric used by IA to measure engagement: views or downloads. According to IA, a view is recorded when a user interacts with an item in any of several ways—such as pressing play on an audio or video player, turning pages in a book reader, or downloading files from the item. The view count increases by only one per user per item per day. This means that whether a user plays, views, or downloads content multiple times in a single day, it is only counted as one view for that item. For simplicity, this analysis and the dashboards refer to this metric as "downloads".
Period 1 is characterized by dominance of artists like Seetyca and Autocad, when it comes to mean download counts, in a range between 7500 and 12000 downloads. Autocad’s feature in Spin Magazine and Seetyca’s association with Origami could have bolstered their popularity.
Most releases garnered fewer than 5000 downloads, with occasional outliers reaching much higher numbers. Downloads peaked early but entered a steady decline after 2008. While periodic spikes suggest moments of heightened attention, the overall trajectory has plateaued.
The dominance of individual artists during Period 2 waned as contributors like Mystified and Luciftias maintained mean downloads of 3000–4000. Both were well-established in the netlabel community at the time. Downloads increasingly clustered below 2000, with fewer extreme outliers compared to Period 1. While occasional surges persisted, the trend showed declining downloads and growing variability. In 2017, Treetrunk Records paused operations.
Releases often featured collaborative or seemingly collaborative efforts during Period 3, but downloads dropped significantly. Even leading artists, such as Thomas Park, better known to the netlabel community as Mystified, saw averages dip below 1500. Downloads became increasingly skewed toward lower counts, with most releases receiving fewer than 750 downloads. The time series for this period shows increased instability, punctuated by rare and less pronounced spikes. Overall, the downward trajectory continued.
Download activity on the Internet Archive has been in gradual decline, particularly for Treetrunk Records, which experienced its peak engagement during the early years (2005–2010). This initial period was marked by exceptional highlights, likely driven by the novelty of the netlabel scene and the platform itself. As time progressed, both audience reach and standout download events diminished significantly.
In the early years, downloads were heavily concentrated around a small number of standout artists. Over time, a wider range of contributors gained visibility, but individual download counts fell overall. The collaborative focus in the most recent period, while commendable for fostering community, appears to have had limited impact on the available engagement metric (downloads).
In general, The Internet Archive has lost visibility and relevance to modern alternatives like Bandcamp. This shift is further evidenced by the lack of a discernible uptick in downloads during the pandemic era, a time when digital activities surged globally. This trend points to both the diminished relevance of the netlabel scene on IA and the challenges of sustaining engagement on a platform increasingly overshadowed by more contemporary services.
The mid-2010s saw a dramatic increase in the availability of free music. This saturation of content eroded the novelty that initially drove engagement with netlabels. With niche audiences now fragmented across numerous sources, individual netlabels faced dwindling interaction and participation. Additionally, tightly knit communities from the 2000s became increasingly diffuse as listeners were drawn to newer platforms and broader ecosystems.
Netlabels appear to have relied heavily on their loyal niche audiences without sufficiently innovating in promotion or outreach. As a result, their listener bases naturally shrank over time, as individuals shifted to other platforms or new interests. The core audience—fans of experimental, ambient, or drone music—was often from older demographics when netlabels gained traction in the 2000s. Younger listeners, who could potentially rejuvenate interest, are largely unaware of or uninterested in these legacy platforms.
The Internet Archive's legal troubles—particularly its attempt to operate an "Open Library" lending system, which led to lawsuits from major publishers—may have further eroded trust among users. While music files from netlabels are cleared for free distribution, negative media coverage of IA’s legal challenges might have discouraged casual users from visiting the platform.
As IA's role in the netlabel ecosystem waned, labels increasingly turned to Bandcamp for distribution. While Bandcamp offers greater visibility and monetization options, its status as a for-profit company poses risks. If the platform were to cease operations, the music stored there could be lost. Netlabels now use IA more as a backup or storage option, reflecting this complex dynamic between trust, practicality, and audience outreach.
The answer is a resounding yes.
The data from Mahorka paints a clear picture of a long-term decline in downloads, especially during Period 3. This supports the overarching observation that downloads on the Internet Archive have steadily decreased over time. The use of 2016 as a cutoff for Period 3 reflects broader shifts in consumer behavior, such as the dominance of newer platforms.
Like Treetrunk Records, Mahorka experienced higher levels of audience engagement and standout contributors during its earlier years. The concentration of success around specific artists and compilations underscores the "novelty-driven" nature of the early netlabel ecosystem.
Downloads are less concentrated on major contributors, with more even distribution among a broader set of artists. Histogram and mean downloads show a decline in outliers and reduced individual performance due to the dispersal of the audience across a wider variety of sources.
The stagnation and decline observed in Period 3 are consistent with a broader downturn in the netlabel ecosystem on IA. Mahorka’s downloads remain unaffected by the pandemic-era boom in digital activity, and the overall trend continues steadily downward.
The trends for Enough Records echo the same story.
The label saw its most significant download activity between 2005 and 2010, marked by clear cyclical spikes. While some outliers achieved notable success, the overall trend was one of gradual decline, as the novelty and engagement of the early netlabel scene began to plateau.
By Period 2, engagement became more balanced across contributors, but the intensity of downloads diminished. Most releases clustered below 2500 downloads, with fewer achieving high outlier figures (above 5000). This reflects the dilution of the audience as free music became increasingly available across platforms.
Leading contributors averaged between 2000–3000 downloads during Period 3, significantly below earlier performances. The overall trajectory remained one of steady decline.
It’s worth noting that Enough Records stands out among netlabels in its efforts to expand across multiple platforms beyond IA and Bandcamp. Unlike most netlabels, it actively publishes detailed yearly activity reports, offering data that extends well beyond the Internet Archive.
For Entity, the data tells a similar story in stark clarity, encapsulated within a single graph. Even for a label that inspired the aesthetics and sound of my former CD label, Nova Beat Estate, the trends reflect the broader challenges faced by netlabels:
The central takeaway here is this: if you’re running a netlabel today, it’s essential to return to the innovative spirit that defined the movement’s early days. To thrive, labels must become pioneers once again, creating new blueprints for others to build upon—tailored to this era of evolving platforms, tools, and audience behaviors. Even if individual ideas don’t “launch” as they once did, their mere presence in the cultural conversation is critical. These ideas can serve as seeds for broader cultural shifts. By sharing bold and experimental concepts, netlabels can position themselves as cultural innovators and incubators of ideas, rather than solely as distributors of music. There is still an abundance of unexplored concepts waiting to be turned into experiments that can inspire others.
Netlabels should also shift focus away from downloads as a primary metric of success. While download counts provide a quantitative measure of reach, they often fail to reflect the qualitative impact of a label’s work. A netlabel’s true value lies in its ability to influence culture, inspire creativity, and foster communities of like-minded creators and listeners. Embracing bold experimentation in music production, distribution, and promotion, fostering vibrant communities built on shared artistic values, championing underrepresented voices, and staying at the forefront of innovation by leveraging emerging technologies is the path forward.
Meanwhile, this small project, Netlabel Insights, highlights the power of open data in cultural analytics. The findings not only illuminate the evolution of these netlabels but also provide practical tools for curators and music enthusiasts to explore and understand trends. If you're curious, dive into the dashboards, select a netlabel of your choice, and uncover the insights yourself! The project is fully open-source, built using R Shiny, and the GitHub repository is available for anyone interested in exploring or building upon the code.
LR Friberg
