Musicians and independent record labels: As a music reviewer and internet radio station operator, I have a heartfelt plea. Please, please stop sending links in your press kits to your Myspace page. As a reviewer, I often receive dozens of submissions every day. That means I have a lot of artists to choose from, since I only publish a few reviews every week. With all that selection, do you really think I am going to try to listen to your music on a website where I am constantly bombarded with music players that don’t play, assaulted with pop up ads, and tortured with pages that take forever to load? Quite honestly, I am going to simply skip over the press kit with the Myspace link, and review somebody that provides links to one of the numerous quality websites designed especially for musicians, such as ReverbNation, Bandcamp, or Soundcloud. Myspace seems to be run by 5 year olds, and greedy, incompetent five year olds at that. To any musician that wants to convey a sense of professionalism, I would recommend that the only thing one should post on their Myspace page is a link to an actual functioning website where fans and reviewers can have an enjoyable and simple listening experience.
Matt Hundley is a musician and creative director of www.IndieReviewer.com