Juno Download goes dark after 20 years, no warning

Juno Download, one of the longest-running digital stores in electronic music, shut down in the first days of June with no countdown, no closing-down sale and no warning. Visitors found the catalogue stripped out and replaced by a short farewell message. The store had run since 2006 as the digital arm of Juno, and for two decades it was one of the few serious alternatives to Beatport and Traxsource for DJs chasing techno, house, drum & bass, jungle and harder underground material.

The only on-record explanation came from COO Lucas Garcia, who framed the closure as a symptom of where music-buying has gone rather than a business that simply failed. Streaming is now the dominant way people consume tracks, he argued, and labels increasingly reach listeners straight through social media and direct-to-fan platforms. In his words, "the role of the music webstore is becoming less significant" (MusicTech).

The numbers behind that read are hard to argue with. The RIAA's 2025 figures put US digital download revenue down another 1 per cent year on year, while vinyl climbed 9.3 per cent past the billion-dollar mark for a 19th straight year of growth. The download-as-a-file business has been shrinking for a decade, and Juno Download is the highest-profile casualty yet.

There is real loss here beyond nostalgia. Deep back-catalogue that lived on Juno Download, particularly rare UK hardcore, hard trance, jungle and dancehall, has simply disappeared from legal digital availability, because nobody guaranteed those files a home elsewhere. Juno Records, the separate vinyl retailer at juno.co.uk, parted ways with the download arm in the early 2010s and remains open and unaffected.

For DJs and independent artists, the takeaway is uncomfortable but clarifying: relying on a third-party storefront that can be switched off overnight, taking your catalogue and your discography with it, is a fragile way to sell. The stores that survive are the ones through which artists own the buyer relationship. Selling direct, keeping your own files and your own mailing list, is no longer just better economics than a 50 per cent Beatport split; it is insurance against waking up to a farewell message where your music used to be.

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Sources: Resident Advisor · DJ Mag · MusicTech · DJ TechTools