September 16, 2011 Comparing Song Pitching Services
This article is about song pitching websites. If you are unfamiliar with what a song pitching site is, please head over to this page for the low-down.
My First Impression
About eight years ago, as I walked out of a rehearsal studio in North London, I noticed a flyer on the notice board that said, “Post your CD to us and we’ll send to 100 record labels”. At the time my naïve enthusiasm got the better of me and I sent off my bands EP, along with a cheque for £35 which at the time was a serious investment for me.
Wake Up Call
A few days later I received a letter from the company (I forget their name) stating that my CD had now been copied and posted to 100 record labels and (crucially) that they “can not guarantee that it will be listened to or that I will receive a reply from any of the labels”.
What do you think happened? You guessed it, I received nothing back! Not one lousy reply from any of the companies that my CD was sent to. My CD probably formed the foundation of a three foot high stack of CDs, carefully constructed on the desk of someone who (perhaps) had good intentions (but no way) of listening to them all.
A Maturing Industry
Thankfully today’s “song pitching companies” have started to get their act together, and in some cases, provide a very good service to musicians. Part of this improvement is due to the fact that record labels, music publishers (and others) are embracing online demo submissions in greater numbers and with more creativity, all of which benefits musicians.
A Comparison Chart is Born!
In an attempt to compare all the song pitching companies out there I created a very simple comparison chart, you can view it here: song pitching website comparison chart.
I Ask One Thing Of You
Please comment under the chart if you have used any of the pitching services so that we can all see which ones are working. I am not affiliated with any song pitching service so I don’t care who goes on there, all I care about is which sites actually work for musicians!
I know a lot of people reading this will be asking why we even need pitching companies at all when we can do most things ourselves using facebook, soundcloud and other social networks. That is a fair point, and one that has been discussed at length on the MTT forums. I have come to the conclusion that the DIY approach is great for building a fan base but not so great at getting discovered. This is because;
a) Almost all DIY routes to getting your music heard are so overcrowded that (proportionately) very few bands find success.
b) Submitting your music must start with first knowing who is seeking music. In order to find those individuals who are currently looking for new music, you need to phone/email such a massive number of companies that it is (in my view) unsustainable.
I honestly have always been a great believer in self promotion, but I feel like I am not much further up the ‘stardom’ ladder than I was three years ago. The likely reason is that I am just plain average at self promotion!
I decided to look into song pitching companies a little deeper because I have several musician friends who signed deals as a result of using a pitching website. Pitching sites clearly work for some and I am concerned with which ones are the best? Please visit the song pitching website comparison chart here and help me keep it up to date and accurate.
Reader Comments (4)
First of all, your site and chart make you look like a sham for Audio Rokit. Secondly, could you have been any shallower with your analysis? Finally, who are you for real? Give us a link to you as a person (please). I would like to see the true human behind the post and the chart.
This post is an example of how Music Think Tank has gone way down hill. I couldn't imagine (when I ran this site) giving credibility to a sham / amateur-hour post like this.
I am all for independent, impartial, in-depth comparisons of anything - but this post and chart not only look like Audio Rokit propaganda, it's unbelievably shallow in it's analysis. Did you somehow overlook the hundreds of free submission opportunities on SonicBids and MusicXray?
Full disclosure: I own a few shares of Music Xray. However these thoughts are entirely my own.
Hey Music Think Tank - are you this seriously starved for something to say each and every day?
I agree with many of your points Bruce, but that's why we call this section of the site - which you helped create - OPEN.
Hi Phillip: Please remove Music Xray from your chart. Music Xray is an A&R platform, not a song pitching site. However, even if it were a song pitching site, you're chart is far too basic and at least regarding Music Xray, is wrong. There are free opportunities on the site that require no membership fee to submit. The average cost per submission is closer to $5 and not 10 Pounds and your chart does not take into consideration the calibre (quality) of submission opportunities on any of the sites nor the features any of the sites have.
I understand that if you had included those things, Audiorokit would have appeared much further down the list and therefor it would have defeated your purpose of promoting Audiorokit. I have to assume that is your agenda because otherwise, you're acting against your own self-interests by not investigating the landscape enough to reach the correct conclusion. If you truly want to discover the best service, you're doing yourself and your readers a terrible disservice by barely doing your homework.
So, if you're going to promote Audiorokit, you must do it openly - identifying yourself as an interested party in Audiorokit and if you're not, you're just damaging your credibility as someone who doesn't do their research before posting flimsy data.
I personally have only had decent success with a company out of California called Crucial Music. Anybody can sign up. You submit your songs and if they approve them, they pitch them. They charge NOTHING! They just placed a song of mine on network television's ABC in America on a show called 'Nashville'. It will air wed night, oct 16th. they also placed another one of my songs on another network show 2 yrs ago. They get half of what the gig pays. All the other services seem to be a scam and you pay pay pay with little or no results. Especially TAXI!!! I would submit songs that were spot-on what they were looking for yet never would they pitch them. Example: the listing would say: Looking for songs that sound like Billy Idol, Modern English, Duran Duran, Missing Persons. They wouldn't pitch because the song didn't sound like Billy Idol yet it sounded like all the other listed bands.