Hey there. I’ve been thinking about doing this post for a while, and have finally decided to put pen to paper. Here goes!!
We receive a lot of emails everyday with music asking to be posted. Some make it onto the site but a lot doesn’t. A lot of the ones that do make the grade do so because the artist made that little bit of extra effort to help us out, and so for the good of us and all you budding producers who want to spread your tunes around the blogosphere, here are Noise Porn’s Top Ten Tips on getting your music onto blogs.
- Don’t just submit a link with no description. At least include a Myspace or link to your website. At best, provide a short bio and description of the track.
- Try and include a picture. That way we don’t have to track one down of you DJing at your mates house party or just post a generic one that doesn’t really fit the tune. The best way to submit the pic is with a direct http:// link. Don’t attach files, upload them to a photosharing website first. Both Wordpress and Blogger support linking to pics like this and it’s much easier than us downloading a pic from your email, uploading it to Flickr/Slide/Photobucket ourselves and then linking to it. If you want your tune on a blog, make our life easier!
- If you’re going to submit loads of tunes at once, highlight one or two which you think we should definitely listen to. If we get five tunes and don’t happen to like the first one, we probably won’t download the rest. So pick the best and tell us about it!
- Personally, I prefer not to download zip files or rar’s. They take a while to unpack, can easily be forgotten about, and mess up my directories. If you want to submit a picture, provide a link to it, and if you want a lengthy bio, then just write it in your email.
- When you’re writing your bio, don’t say something like “DJ Noise Porn started DJ’ing at the tender age of thirteen when he bought his first pair of decks for £10.” Nobody cares, and everyone says the same thing. Stick to future projects, or whatever label you’re signed to. If you aren’t signed, tell us which nights you play at. If you’re a bedroom DJ, just say that and provide an email for people to book you.
- If it’s an English blog, write your email in English! Not Spanish, and definitely not Chinese! And for our Japanese hopefuls, a group of people playing musical instruments is called a “band” not a “unit!” (although that is pretty funny so we don’t mind really!)
- Youtube (or Vimeo) videos are AWESOME! They’re quick to post, combine sound with visuals (so no uploading mp3s for us), and the reader can quickly get a flavour of what the artist is about in an engaging way.
- Make sure your tunes are labelled correctly. When we open them up in iTunes, they shouldn’t be called “Song 1 – Final Mix” or have nothing in the Artist column. Take the time to do it. It can also be confusing if we don’t know the tune you’ve remixed and we don’t know who’s the original artist and who’s the remixer. So label them people!
- If you’re sending out tunes to loads of blogs, then put the addresses in the “bcc” bar not the “cc”. This hides how many people you’ve sent it to. Nobody wants to post tunes that they know every blog in the world just received. The worst examples of these are where the artist has clearly sent it to 150 music blogs and said something like “We love reading your blog and think it’s one of the best out there.” Really??!! (And beware because our spam filters tend to be set pretty high so cc’ing loads of people in can flag your email up as spam, never to be seen again!) So where possible submit tracks individually to each blog.
- Be nice to us! Noise Porn lets artists know everytime we post their material. Sometimes we don’t get a thank you, and that pisses us off. Keep ignoring us helping you out and you might find that your credit quickly dries up. So be courteous, and we’ll be nice back!
We really hope that helps. Any questions just comment below. If you’re a blogger and you’ve got any tips yourself, then comment below. If you’ve got a complaint about how blogs deal with artists, then comment below! Thank you, and goodnight.
These words came from , posted on January 8, 2009 at 4:34 pm, filed under News. Read and leave comments here. Follow any comments here with an RSS feed.
Nice one. Hope i’ve been complying with most of that with the KiD COLA stuff, as we both massively appreciate the support you’ve shown so far! Will drop you some new stuff soon!
Best,
James
Good stuff—thx!
it also helps if you’re music is actually worth listening to. if you play the track for a friend and he/she looks bored/looks at their watch/immediately says, “this is great!”, it may not be ready for the blogs. just saying.
Real. Funny & Informative!
-Gods’illa will be sending tracks according to guidelines, so please accept so we may thank you, lol :-)
100% agree with everything! Especially annoying when people send emails with just a couple of links and a myspace, fair enough, but at the end of the day – likeliness is that I’ve never heard of you so what am I gonna write about? I like at least a paragraph of bio/talk/goings-on along with the links.
Great post :)
Thank you for this! A lot of great information! We’ll keep sending you stuff the right way. Keep up the good work and thanks again.
BlaQwest
Chubby Fingers
Sans all of those and supplement with:
Know the right people and be personable.
So true! Its annoying when the producers/djs do some of the stuff mentioned. Especially when you track down all their information with no thank you! Rawr!
yeah but surely blogging is about looking for and finding new talent and not just relying on e-mails from people. have you ever e-mailed an artist or record label to try and get some goodies? it somethimes works. bleh. no offence or anything but you’re obviously a new generation blogger.
i lolled. Now post my shit! :P
6 out of 10 … So I will work harder on the 4 left.
Thanks for this post, always useful to know what media like to receive !
Yea finally!!! I hope every dj+producers follows these guidelines now! :)
Very informative, and some well made points there. Definately a couple of no-nos I’m guilty of, although I’d like tot hink I had most bases covered.
I often find another one is when you get people emailing with music that doesn’t fit the audience for your blog. I have a dubstep blog, and have had metal and rock bands and artists submit things – having possibly just trawled the blogosphere for “music blogs” without thinking.
Al
Good information guys, Iv got some new tunes an mixes almost finished so ill keep in touch. Cheers for the help with the Tenminmix post, You guys helped me win the thing :)
-AnaRkid
just read this
“yeah but surely blogging is about looking for and finding new talent and not just relying on e-mails from people. have you ever e-mailed an artist or record label to try and get some goodies? it somethimes works. bleh. no offence or anything but you’re obviously a new generation blogger.”
this is advice for people sending in tunes. we ask for music quite a lot direct from the artist and it works more than sometimes (like ususally all the time!) i guess we are a “new generation blogger” cos we only started last year but hey ho, we’re trying our best!
this “new generation blogger” shit, what is that? that person obviously doesn’t know what it’s like to have a blog that gets TONS of hits where checking email becomes the task of an intern because you’re getting them in like beyonce! going out and looking for tracks from artists is nice when you have a directed path to walk through but i’m guessing that this blog is too big to have to worry about finding music to post. seriously though, this was a really good post and i think that these are rules that should be put in a “memories” or “rules” box that people must read before they hit submit.
also, i find it extremely helpful when people email me stuff that is in zShare format or is a direct link to their server so that I don’t have to wait for mediafile or yousendit to download the track first and then listen, since i’m on limited bandwidth.
cheers from electronic crack!
Hi there, great post. You didn’t mention anything about people contacting you through blog comments. Which I’m about to do now. So I’m expecting Tip No 11 to be ‘don’t bloody contact us through our blog comments we will ignore you’
Please check out the video for our song ‘Girl You Never Knew’ on YouTube. According to Tip No 7 you like YouTube:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VkNx3_LboDA
Thanks
Julian
Terrific post … and I especially agree with the comment regarding having some respect for the blog’s genre focus (Alex). “Check out our acoustic folk/anthem rock/rockabilly sound” is truly a letdown when paired with “Love your electronica blog” ….
Greaaaaaat… thnx so much for this advices!! hope this will help us all to make it easier for you and maybe have a chance zaaa zaaa zaaaa
Well said, brother. If you want something from someone, make it easy for them to do it!
Brilliant.
i guess i’m a lucky cat :)
Interesting and informative post. As someone who’s run a record label I’ve always been torn between the informal approach or sending through a press release, artwork etc. I’m used to doing that with printed press, but got the impression that bloggers didn’t like being ‘PR’d’ by labels.
Good to know that you appreciate our efforts!
Oh, and to the person who seems to think being sent music from labels is bad way of discovering it – you must be missing out on a hell of a lot of good tunes!
It’s down to the blogger whether they post it or not, nobody is forcing them to!
Thanks for this info Noiseporn, Most bands just don’t know better!!
Bands are usually pretty bad at communicating with the press or bloggers or anyone in radio , Unless they have assistants or people who know more about marketing and promotion than they do helping them.
Making music , writing songs, recording and practicing are what a band is usually doing, not learning how the “right way to approach” media or music writers. For most musicians this stuff is just annoying and one more reason it seems like a drag to get anywhere….it is the side of being in a band that alot of bands find lame and a waste of time yet they still expect and hope to be noticed for their music . Its like it never dawns upon some bands that maybe half the bands getting coverage out there are the ones properly submitting themselves and communicating with the press.
These little rules of how to do this or how to do that just aren’t even realized by most bands.
DIY Bands that have intentions of making a a living need to wake up and get educated on these sorts of things and realize being in a band is not enough if you want to be noticed . It means doing alot of other things that seem to have nothing to do with playing or creating music. And if you aren’t out there doing those things then maybe get a manager or PR person , publicist to do it for you which all costs money . Time is money and it takes time and energy to promote a band, to spread the word, to build relationships on behalf of a band . If these things are not done on the bands own time and energy then it will be done on someones else’s . Eventually fans and media spread the word but until then ….
If no one does it then the band remains unknown inevitably.
Bands try to get themselves noticed but have no idea that their approach is off and that it isn’t their music sometimes but just their approach that is wrong. Alot of bands think that its all about their music , but fail to realize alot of preferential treatment is given to bands who have developed a rapport with certain bloggers or media. Relationships have been built, I’ll scratch if you scratch etc.
sorry for the ramble people! I just know so many bands that fail to realize the importance of not only learning what to do but how to do it when it comes to promoting their music!
I lol’d on #9
point 1-10 load of bullshit, http://www.myspace.com/imthebest
Thanks alot Noise Porn, this is something great to do for all the indie’s trying to make their own path into the world of online Blogging.
Big Love
nice article, thanks
haha @ julien, classic
good stuff.
this helps alot
x
So wait. I don’t get it. Are you saying that you don’t like gay people