Bandcamp has curated an 11-track playlist for Fortnite. Photo Credit: Vlad Gorshkov
Nearly one year after Epic Games acquired Bandcamp, the indie music platform is officially curating tracks for Fortnite’s “Radio Underground” station.
Epic-owned Fortnite, where acts like Silk Sonic and the Wu-Tang Clan have appeared, just recently announced Bandcamp’s 11-song Radio Underground lineup. As part of the arrangement, Bandcamp has added a “handcrafted playlist” to the multiplayer title, and the featured works will remain available via Radio Underground “for the rest of Battle Royale Chapter 4 Season 1,” according to higher-ups.
In its brief release about Bandcamp’s seemingly temporary Radio Underground takeover, Fortnite – which is reportedly expected to return to the iPhone later this year – listed and linked to the tracks that players can enjoy under the promotion.
Predictably, the genre-diverse (but universally high-energy) works include several recent releases from emerging acts, Philadelphia-based Gladie (“Nothing”) and Florida-based Pool Kids (“That’s Physics, Baby”) among them.
But veteran producer Ronnie Martin likewise contributed a track (“Sing Among the Branches”) to Bandcamp’s Fortnite playlist, as did Starflyer 59 (“New Guitar”), which arrived on the scene in 1993. Meanwhile, Jungle Rat USA’s “Love One Another” has found a spot in Fortnite despite first becoming available to fans way back in 1971.
Rounding out Fortnite’s Bandcamp-selected songs are “Great No One” by The Beths, New York-based Pow Wow!’s “Don’t Stop to Look,” P.E.’s “Contradiction of Wants,” De Lux’s “On and On (Till the End of Us),” Pale Blue Eyes’ “TV Flicker,” and Ginger Root’s “Loretta.”
For artists, the clear-cut advantages (and the absence of any real drawbacks) of adding music to games or the metaverse go without saying. And given Fortnite’s extensive reach as well as the availability of downloads and physical releases alike on Bandcamp, the above-mentioned acts are presumably poised to benefit in more ways than one from the Radio Underground placements.
More broadly, it was only last week that Lickd, Kobalt, and Empire unveiled a partnership to bring the latter two companies’ catalogs to users in Decentraland, touted by its developers as an expansive “virtual world that will grow beyond any centralized control.”
And before that, Warner Music Group closed out January by announcing the debut of “Rhythm City” in Roblox, which suffered a nearly $1 billion net loss during 2022. Described by the major label as “a first-of-its-kind music-themed social roleplay experience,” the digital space hosted Saweetie’s “Super Bowl Concert” (in partnership with the NFL) prior to the big game.