Info: This is a post I've been thinking about for some time, and have been (very) semi-reluctant to do, lest it come across as patronising, holier-than-thou, or obnoxious! But, as we are all scrambling with new platforms, and an extremely competitive environment (good news), I wanted to share my opinion on the above topic, with the ultimate goal of maximising your music reaching music websites and blogs for review or feature. And also, dispelling some myths about how bands and artists might feel like they are being over-looked by Irish music websites and blogs.
A few years ago Nialler9 provided a detailed list of Do's and Don'ts which you can read here, some of which will be contradicted here based on my own personal experience. It's worth bearing in mind at this point that there is no 100% fool-proof way of submitting music, every blog or website will ultimately have different preferences, different ways of operating, different schedules etc. but getting to grips with some of the basics should be beneficial.
Here are my tips for submitting your music to blogs;
1) Social Media:
(a) Say your band name is Irish Catholics (™ REMY), all of your social media extensions should be uniform (where possible), Twitter, Facebook, SoundCloud should all have the extension in their URL /IrishCatholics, having a SoundCloud account that is /user-1544435 is a bad look, and will also affect your band's search results in engines. Once a blog has finished reviewing your music they will want to share on social media platforms, so it's a good idea to (i) have all links in your submission email, and (ii) have them in the About section of your Facebook page.
Whilst it is good to have a website (and recommended if possible - even a webpage on the likes of BreakingTunes), of all of the social media platforms, like it or not, Facebook is the most important in my opinion. It is essentially the 'homepage' to your band and music, more important than a website itself. To put it in context, over the last 5 years, 50% of the traffic to this blog has come via Facebook, 5% from Google search, and 4% from Twitter.
2) Review Submissions: (i) We need (in order) your press photo with a photographer credit (we wouldn't post your original song without naming your band) *It's a pain in the ass searching a band's Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for a photograph accreditation* this should be in your initial email (ii) a brief bio (iii) all of your social media links - broken social media links are bad, keep them up to date! (iv) preference would be .mp3 over .WAV files.
Also for album reviews, an .mp3 download is very useful, sending an advance private stream on Bandcamp or SoundCloud is not much use. I listen to most of my music in transit, and therefore I'd be reliant on decent 4G phone signal to stream on the go, whereas with an .mp3 download I can listen to it at any time, anywhere. Don't worry about blogs 'leaking' your album, if they did it once, they would effectively be destroying their reputation. To quote the above Nialler9 article, don't follow up asking "Did you get that email?", "Did you listen to that track yet?" One last thing that some people don't seem to be aware of is that using the Contact Form on a website or blog goes straight to their email, so no need to ask "What's the best email address to get you at?".
3) Time-frames: Bear in mind the volume of emails the small number of Irish blogs receive. For some reason the number of domestic based music websites and blogs has not only remained static in contrast with the massive number of Irish artists over the last few years, but gone into reverse. A recent notable casualty being State.ie., this topic is well articulated (and more succinct than this piece!) by Irish music blogger DervSwerve here, an article that resonated with me very much by the way.
My own average is roughly around 150 emails per week from Irish and International acts. I do read every email I get, and 90% of the time will listen to the music (the remainder will be obvious generic email marketing that looks spammy). As a personal rule of thumb, and in a parochial sense, I listen to all of the music sent to me by Irish bands without exception. Replying to all emails unfortunately is something that is just not possible, but should never be wholly taken as a lack of interest, or rudeness. Time is the enemy of us all, I would estimate that on an average week I spend 30 hours working on the blog, between listening to music, writing reviews, attending gigs, editing photos, social media, third-party posts etc., this is on top of a full-time day job, and spending time with family and friends (both of which suffer as a result of my passion!).
Like musicians, I would love nothing more than getting paid for my favourite past-time on a full-time basis, but the reality is that I have made next to no money from this endeavour over the past 5 years, my outgoings have been substantial, but I am content with this situation, and extremely grateful. (Incidentally nothing aggravates me more than people working (full-time paid) in the Irish music scene who whinge constantly about how busy they are, have the temerity to moan about people who don't make a living from it, and act like they are Jesus on the road to Calvary, martyrs for the rest of us who should be grateful - MEOW!).
It is very important to bear in mind the schedule of a blogger, we will have mapped out at the very least, a month in advance our reviews, playlists, EP's, albums, press releases, gig guides, live reviews / photos, interviews etc.. The more advance notice we get the better. If you contact a website or blog 2 days before your release, it is highly unlikely it will be posted on that date, realistically it will be a week later at the earliest. As a rule of thumb I post in the order I receive submissions, so in general, most posts on the blog have been received a month in advance. It's also slightly unlikely that a release you had out a couple of months ago will be reviewed, not always, but most of the time.
4) Facebook Messenger: The quickest route to NOT getting your music reviewed is very simple. Adding someone as a friend on Facebook and immediately asking them to review your music. People's Facebook profiles are private, and if you use this route you can be sure that your music will not be reviewed. Blogs and music websites have Pages you can message, and contacting people privately, comes across as very lazy. The exception to the rule is bands that the blogger has a relationship with, i.e. has met face to face previously, and I must emphasise I always enjoy and appreciate this type of interaction. In addition, tagging people's personal profile for self-promotion to get in their timeline can be annoying, but like Messenger, if you are acquainted it's mostly fine.
5) Photography: Don't post a photo from one of your gigs without crediting the photographer. Don't crop it or amend it, it's the equivalent of someone chopping up one of your tracks and sharing it online, or worse, not even mentioning who the band is, it's extremely disrespectful, in most cases they took their time to attend your show and got paid nothing, so the least you can do is credit their photo (it takes between 2-3 hours after a gig to edit photos btw - this is why photographers will sometimes leave your show early, do not take offence!).
6) Gig invites: Always, always very welcome, and one of my favourite aspects of what I do, attending live music is a bit of a drug for me. Again, due to the massive amount of quality Irish acts currently operating there is a ridiculous choice, I can't stress how lucky I feel on this count. The downside is missing out, at least once a month there are 3 gigs I want to attend on in a single night (this happened on Thursday just gone in fact). Don't take it the wrong way if someone can't attend. I would generally prioritise going to see bands I haven't seen live before, I get particularly excited about an entire line-up that I have never seen previously, and if an artist is playing who hasn't released music yet, even better. When I first started going to gigs as a teenager (a long time ago!) support acts were almost consistently underwhelming, the pool was very small to be fair, nowadays though I often enjoy the support more than the headliner.
7) Streaming: This is an article in itself, and something I want to do in the near future, so will keep it brief. My own personal ranking of platforms;
1. Spotify: Some people complain about it, particularly the fact that the revenue for artists is essentially non-existent, which is unfortunate. But whatever way you look at it, anyone who likes music is using it, it is also inadvertently the best way to reach a wider audience. Examples would be artists such as Ailbhe Reddy and Dermot Kennedy (who is essentially a classic case study of the benefits of Spotify for independent artists). It's very user-friendly, the iPhone of streaming. Curated playlists are a big thing, great article on it here and how it works; "Ever wondered where exactly those Spotify playlists come from?" - https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/ever-wondered-where-exactly-those-spotify-playlists-come-from-1.2906357
It also has an excellent algorithm for suggested music. If you're not on Spotify, you're leaving yourself behind the pack, as with all technology though, someone else is always lurking around the corner to take over.
2. Bandcamp: God I love Bandcamp, if it ever disappears I'll mourn its loss deeply. It is very basic, but practical (always nice when artists post their lyrics by the way!), and the best platform in terms of putting money in the pockets of artists. I've bought most of my music on it over the years, more than any other platform.
3. SoundCloud: Rapidly becoming my first teenage love, nostalgia, I still have a lot of time for the platform, it is, like Bandcamp, quite basic, but I like the simplicity of its design and how user-friendly it is, the private stream function is very important for artists too. It also has a brilliant algorithm for suggested music, and another great feature is how you can Like and 'Retweet' tracks if you will, it's very easy to share the music you like with others via your profile. I do get a sense that it is falling behind lately however in the sense that there is no purchase function as far as I'm aware, and also it is probably not the most popular method of sharing music, a little bit niche, which kind of adds to its charm.
4. Deezer: Never use it, but can't ignore its prominence, nice interface also.
5. iTunes: What a pain in the ass! I really don't miss the laborious chore of putting new music on my iPhone since switching to a Samsung for the first time ever last year. Manually having to add album art, spending hours on the laptop updating my catalogue, it actually put me off adding new music to my phone because it took so long. The platform tells me nothing about the artist, and for good or bad, with Spotify in the market, people outside of your family and friends aren't going to pay when they can get it free elsewhere, the cold cruelty of free-market capitalism.
Another issue is the iTunes 'charts', due to the extremely low volume of purchases, artists can get to the Number 1 spot within their genre courtesy of a mere 10-15 purchases of their single, or in other terms, for less than €15.00. It is also not suitable for play-listing on sites or general promotion of your music. Without a massive revamp it safe to say that the once titan of music streaming is at the beginning of the end of the road.
Note: Although it's a mixed bag, it is worth noting that music aggregator Hypem.com can help in promoting your music overseas, but that the website currently only features streams posted on music blogs and websites from Bandcamp, SoundCloud and YouTube. It does not feature Spotify tracks at present.
8) The bigger picture: Look outwards. Why limit yourself to the domestic market? Contacting music blogs from the U.K., mainland Europe, North America and Australia is a great way to broaden your fanbase, a hundred new fans in Ireland is potentially a few thousand elsewhere. Also, something I've noticed for some time and can't explain is what is on our doorstep, a place called Northern Ireland! Northern Irish acts are excellent at promoting themselves in the South, be it gigs, contacting blogs for reviews, submitting their music for airplay to radio, the whole hog. But for some reason, bands from the rest of the island don't do the opposite, some do obviously, but most bands don't book gigs in Belfast or Derry for example, don't submit their music to the brilliant websites they have in Ulster such as The Thin Air and Chordblossom and, to the best of my knowledge, look for airplay on the likes of BBC Ulster. Something to ponder.
Hopefully the above is of some use, and I'm at pains to emphasise that it is merely me relaying my personal experiences from the last 5 years, other music bloggers may completely disagree with some or all of it. And in case I forget, make sure you make time to write some music and shit!
