Rawktumblr: Guide For Bands To Getting Written And Blogged About →
Are you a band or musician? Would you like someone, anyone, to write about your music? Here is some advice.
1) Who You Should Send It To:
You should start with blogs and online publications. What kind of music do you play? Look on Hypem.com to see what blogs have posted about bands who…
Some good DIY advice here, but I’m unclear why the following things aren’t listed:
- “send your music to a label”
- “send your music to a respected PR firm”
- “find out who manages _______ and then try hollering at that guy” (no one pays attention to band managers, but they’re so crucial).
- “email ________ and ask if they need an opener for their next tour?”
These are longer, pre-Web 2.0 shots of course, but as someone who’s worked as a critic and who spam-filters hundreds of band emails per week still, I’m much quicker to actually open emails or pay attention to bands aligned with established intermediaries and artists whose tastes and track records I respect. I know a lot of other critics (not mp3 bloggers, mind you) think exactly the same way. There are “blog band” examples aplenty, but why not shoot higher at the same time? I know of just as many if not more bands who’ve done these things as I have bands who’ve gone through the hype-churn.
Also, sort of related to Dave’s #8 but more specific: don’t just “not suck,” but have a well-defined aesthetic that’s also sort of uber-current. This is how things work. It sounds superficial, but if you describe yourself as a “singer-songwriter” and you’re not the one-in-a-million thing that Bon Iver was, sorry pal.
Another idea: make a Spotify or Soundcloud DJ-style mix of your “influences,” do it well and make sure those influences are hip if not obscure, and not like “The Beatles but punk, lol.”
Another idea: don’t name yourself something fucking stupid or “controversy-baiting,” thinking it’ll separate you from the pack. There’s a 99.9% chance you’ll just end up on a publication’s year-end list of horrible band names. Bad attention is lame.
Also, as Mark says, tag your goddamn mp3s. That’s seriously the #1 way to make a critic hate you forever.
Co-sign on all above points, but especially number 2! Seriously, if you’re a band, get a Bandcamp or a Soundcloud page. It’s great if you have a fancy website, but I should not have to click through six pages to figure out how to listen to your music. After all, that is what you’re promoting. Also, MySpace is probably still good to have, but its music player is terrible compared to Bandcamp or Soundcloud. Definitely don’t use the Facebook music player app where I have to like your page to listen to your music because I don’t have a Facebook, and, even if I did, I am not going to like your band. I am going to dislike and ignore it because you made it difficult for me to find out what you sound like.
Also, on the note of not making it difficult for me to find out what you sound like, don’t say that your sound “doesn’t really have a genre” or “defies genre classifications” or is some genre with 14 hyphens in the name. Generally, if you say this, I assume you’re a reggae band or a folk group because every band says this and most bands are reggae bands or folk groups.
