Rawckus - The Skinny On Music Promotion
THE SKINNY ON MUSIC PROMOTION
Right now it’s Saturday morning and I’m sitting in my garage smoking a cigar and writing this article about music promotion, a kind of primer, if you will, for bands, duos, solo artists, and ensembles. Mostly, I’m avoiding cleaning the house, which is what I’m supposed to be doing.
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What isn’t mentioned in this article, and shouldn’t have to be, because it’s pretty axiomatic is this: spend as much time as necessary making the best music you can, including mixing and mastering. Frankly, if your music is horrible, no amount of promotion is going to save it from the dumpster.
First thing to know: the sheer volume of new music released every day is staggering. Around 10,000 singles, EPs, and albums are dumped on the marketplace each month. So unless you’re Katy Perry or Taylor Swift, your new single or EP doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting noticed or heard, unless you make people aware of its existence. It may be the greatest song since Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, but if no one knows about it or listens to it, it’s DOA – dead on arrival. This in turn will lead you, the artist, to the Land of Unbelievable Frustration, followed by anger, despair and, eventually, giving up and taking a job at McDonald’s.
Like the commercial on TV says, “Don’t quit. Get even.” Hire a publicist. This is probably the single most efficient approach to promotion. Yeah, you say, but I don’t have that kind of bread; publicists cost a fortune.
Here’s an idea: get a job, or borrow the money from your mom. Just do it, to quote Nike. And then hire a publicist. There are oodles of them, some good, some bad. Some hecka-expensive, some reasonably priced. How do you tell the difference? Well, ask around. Get word-of-mouth recommendations. And while you’re asking around, know this: there are six publicists for every music reviewer, which translates to this: music reviewers are bombarded, carpet-bombed, I mean inundated, with requests for music reviews. So what am I saying? I’m saying be sure your potential publicist is well-connected, i.e. knows and is on good terms with lots of reviewers.
If you’re still unsure, you can contact me and I’ll put you in touch with publicists who do a good job. I don’t know what they cost and I really don’t care. I just know this: they seem to get results, and they aren’t dicks.
Oh yeah, that’s another important thing. Don’t be a dick.
I review music for a number of different outlets, and the thing that really chaps my tuchas is, after the article is published, the publicist contacts me and says, “The band wants a few edits.” If I misspelled someone’s name, no problem. Or if there’s a typo, no problem. Or if I got the name of the EP wrong, no problem. But if they want me to change the way I described their music, or they want the name of the drummer’s girlfriend inserted in the piece, then we have a problem.
And while you’re asking around, know this: there are six publicists for every music reviewer, which translates to this: music reviewers are bombarded, carpet-bombed, I mean inundated, with requests for music reviews.
I repeat: don’t be a dick.
Let’s say you’re a cheap-ass and decide not to get a job to make some money and hire a publicist. You can try to contact the music outlets on your own, but more than likely, unless you were blessed with the sleuthing skills of Sherlock Holmes, you won’t even find a viable email address. For you see, the editors and staff writers of said sites are sick and tired of the tsunami of emails begging for coverage. They have better things to do, like listen to and review music, or schedule reviews, or deal with pissed off contributors like me.
In short, the DIY method is, at best time consuming, inefficient, and foolish.
Another item: boost your social media. In today’s world, social media numbers count. In other words, size does matter. It’s a measuring stick that indicates your influence, your status, and your popularity. If your band has 32 followers on Twitter and 543 followers on Facebook and 801 followers on Instagram, no one is impressed. In fact, some online music outlets won’t touch you with a 30-foot pole simply because of your miniscule social media footprint.
Do stuff like posting videos of your band rehearsing on Instagram. Live stream one of your performances. Post short teasers of soon-to-be-released songs. Get your sister to interview you and post it on YouTube. Make a video of your drummer explaining his kit set-up and what kind of hardware he uses.
Another helpful insider hint: don’t be a snob. Most publicists and their bands (the band’s management) want reviews and premieres on top-rated, big name sites, like Pitchfork, or Uproxx, or Paste. And they should. I mean duh! Those sites get beau coup hits. But don’t discount the second and third tier sites because in some cases you’ll actually get more hits and sell more music on them.
How do I know this? I’ve seen the numbers on the back end, in the content management systems. Sites like Tattoo.com and Rawckus Magazine actually accumulate more hits on their music reviews than many of the top tier sites, which do get volumes of traffic, just not on their music articles. On those sites, readers are reading the articles about diets and celebrities and fashion, not the music reviews.
