Creative musician holding a microphone at a Songcards event, promoting music streaming and digital music marketing solutions.

Chris Carvalho of Songcards on Building Fan Value Into Digital Music Releases

Songcards are a new format for digital music and fan exclusives. We sat down with CEO Chris Carvalho to learn more about this new venture and what it means for the future of music releasing and streaming.

Songcards is a brand new format for artist-first digital music releases, that launched in 2023. The initial idea for this new type of platform was to give artists an easy and simple way to share their music and to create a simple checkout for their fans to spend money with them. But Songcards has been gaining momentum nowadays as a digital music marketplace where artists can create unique collectable products out of their music and for fans to build their identity as collectors.

We sat down with Founder and CEO of Songcards, Chris Carvalho, to make sense of it all!

Hypebot: Hey Chris, thanks so much for talking with us! How are you?

Chris: “I’m good thanks! Working hard on some big plans for Songcards in 2026!”

H: Oh yeah? Can you share anything here?

C: “We have some exciting announcements for 2026, including how we might make the format more portable… but I will keep that under my hat for now! Generally though, we are looking to grow our artist base and build a strengthened connection between them and their fans through Songcards. 2025 has been a year of growth for us, and we are super excited to see what next year holds!”

H: Why don’t you introduce Songcards for those who don’t know what this platform is.

C: “Sure! Songcards is a new format for digital music. Think of them as deluxe edition singles.”

H: How did the idea for Songcards come about? (Be honest, does it have anything to do with Pokemon?)

C: “Haha believe it or not Pokémon didn’t come to mind at the beginning, but it totally makes sense. I was certainly a collector when I was at school. I think I was the first to have a shiny Charizard which gave me some short-lived popularity.

In terms of how it came about, when I first started building it I was thinking a lot about link-in-bios and landing pages. Most existing solutions aggregate streaming links for the most part, so I set out to build something that reduces friction in listening to and buying music from that link. From there, I started thinking ‘but what are they buying?’ Then the concept of the Songcard emerged. That’s where the idea of the format started to take shape.”

H: For artists, what’s the main draw of releasing a single as a Songcard?

C: “From feedback I’ve had, the main draw is being able to package bonus media and the song into a single package. There have been some really cool ideas in this, people have added all sorts including BTS content, desktop wallpapers, PDF lyric sheets, liner notes and more. There’s even one with a game inside! It’s so cool to see the ideas artists come up with.”

H: And how does it work on the tech side of things?

C: “It’s all built using very traditional web technologies with a modern frontend. Nothing particularly exotic there. The audio and other media is stored and served with conventional cloud infrastructure, so it’s proven, reliable, and fast.”

*Screenshot of Songcards digital marketplace.*

H: And for fans, what separates this platform from other listening/purchasing platforms?

C: “One of the things I focused on at the beginning is the checkout process. When buying a songcard, fans don’t have to sign up to the platform. They simply checkout using Apple Pay, Google Pay, or in-app purchases. The Songcard gets delivered directly via email or to their Songcards app.

I really want to expand on this and give life to the Songcards beyond the platform. The platform is just the current way to get them, but I would love to open that up to third parties in the future.”

H: What’s broken about the music industry for you? And how do you hope Songcards will help fix it?

C: “My main gripe is that it’s difficult for fans and artists to exchange value directly. Streaming and social media platforms don’t have an interest in this, so it’s hard to do. This is definitely one of the problems I am aiming to solve. One day a given Songcard could act as a portal between the artist and the fan. Artists can update Songcards for collectors to unlock new content after the fact, and perhaps even provide a means to communicate with each other.

Another way to think of this is that individual Songcards could become little drop-boxes where artists can leave little gifts for their collectors.”

H: On a final question about the platform, how does this help touring artists, or perhaps how can it?

C: “Love this question. So one of the things that I envision for the future is where your Songcard collection can be used to unlock real life experiences. Imagine you own a Songcard which unlocks access to a gig, and you turn up with the Songcards app and scan your collector QR code to check-in. The QR code already exists in-app. I have a lot of ideas for that identity piece.”

H: On that topic, turning now to you, what was one of the most truly great live shows you saw recently?

C: “Well, I would have to say Ozzy Osbourne’s final show. I am very lucky to say I was there and it was emotional to say the least.

I went to see a young metal band called Paint Me Crimson (shout out!) at The Cart and Horses. They’re a great band and worth keeping an eye on. Also discovered Wailing Banshee there.”