Thursday, December 28, 2017

Better do things than make one thing perfect!

I get a lot of shit for moving forward with things. People want to wait for the perfect moment and perfect timing to get the most out of it. Sorry, there is not a such a moment. I have seen too many waits for that moment to never find it and lose the momentum.

Here is though a difference if you don't have all your things ready. That is is not what I'm talking about. If you don't have the song recorded don't go out and release it. No, what I'm talking about is when you wait to do gigs until the record is recorded since you are waiting for the recording to be done. Or taking new promo pictures since the clothes are not ready. If you can take two sets of picture move ahead. It's always better to do something than doing nothing and just wait.

If you are in a  position that the things you are working all stands still for different reasons, you just create a new project to make things go forward. Yes, you will get shit like me still you will get things done.


Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Write new stuff, all the time.

This maybe should not come as a surprise that you have to write new stuff all the time. But it seems like a surprise every time I take it up with artists. Most that work with things want to have the next single before they release the one you just did. In reality, you have to be around 3 to 4 singles ahead. When you come to the really big companies where it takes a longer time you have to be an album ahead.

Yes, I know that you want to get your latest masterpiece on your Facebook feed, but think they you have to be three steps ahead. So now when I hope you have some clam time during X-mas sit down and write a couple of tunes that you can present in January to get them out in April/May.

The excuses that I also hear is massive. we don't have time since we are updating the social media and taking new pictures and my grandma has her birthday and you have to open all your x-ms presents. There really are no excuses, that only show you are not focused enough. I guess the new business is not a place for drugs and rock'n'roll. The pressure is higher than ever so be prepared for the surprise to have new songs always and always write new stuff.


Friday, December 22, 2017

Happy X-mas

We are close to x-mas eve. This short notice is just to say Merry Christmas and during the holiday I hope to update with some longer episodes of the V-log and other stuff. We are also in full production of the yearly recap, this year will be over the top of everything.


Thursday, December 21, 2017

Just because you can play a solo make you great!

There is a proverb saying "A man can say horse in nine languages but when he wants to ride he buys a cow". This I use very often in the music industry. You bump into too many people that think music is how fast or good you play an instrument. That is just a small part of the education of making a  successful living as a musician. More people listen actually on Crazy Frog then Steve Vai, and you know what, Crazy Frog is actually more music than Steve Vai.

I sometimes have meetings with many different genres when I'm working with political decisions inside the music industry (i'm on some advisory boards for different kind of government funding and stuff). What always annoys me is that some genres think they are better than others. Jazz is a good example (there are more to like classic, art music and a couple of others). They still think that it is a show seeing someone jamming off on some theme. And many times demands to special treated. To be honest, again, some of the worst shows in my life has been jazz shows. Music has to do with so much more than just a 30 minutes solo, like making a good song which seems very hard for the jazz people. Also doing a  show out of the stuff seems hard to them. No, it's not good seeing some old dude in a suite sprung out from Miami Vice jerking off a guitar. If you think that is a show you never have seen Rammstein.

When people then come into our office and we listen to a crappy song and they in a dream vision tells me that the bass solo is so great I just stop listening. It's like claiming that that raisin in a pile of poo is edible because the raisin actually tastes good. Even if you took the raisin out it will have poo stains on it and eating the whole pile just to get that raisin is even worse.

I just hate when people suggest that you should work with someone because they are good on the instrument. If they can't write a good song, there is no point. You can always learn to be better to play the instrument, but writing songs you need talent. So a talented songwriter can be good on an instrument, but a person good on the instrument is very unlikely to be skilled to train to write good songs.

I guess it's this that also makes these people thinking that they are better than the other since the can do the scale up and down. That is their only defense. I rather take The Ramones before Yngwie Malmsteen at any day.

Here is Rammstein from Madison Square Garden and yes I was the audience on this legendary show.

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Puppies!

Today I was off work looking on some puppies after our office dog Tjabo.




Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Staaph you stupid idiots!

I got a CD in my snail mail. The first reaction was WTF a CD not seen that in a while! The second reaction, WHY?  Open the letter and got even more confused. For fuck sake why do such a lousy job! I hate to really hang out people, but in this case, I will do it. Mainly since I need to show it with pictures and then you can see who it is anyways. Also because this is so stupid that is to the line of funny. So here is what I got.


First, see that the CD is wrapped (in plastic).


So it's wrapped. As you can see there is no EAN code (barcode the thing you scan in shops). This is a classic rookie mistake. If you got the slightest chance to get into some real distribution network, not having a barcode/EAN is sure way that it will never happen.

Then we go to the letter. Right now I really don't know why I get this CD? It's in Swedish so I have to translate.

Gravejuice Entertainment Company is happy and proud to present Craterface new release, Hawaiian Hocus Pocus.

Very protective of their artistic freedom, their integrity, and extreme cheeking needs. Craterface delivers their own evolution of punk music. The result this time is fourteen hard evidence that punk is not dead or fossilized.

For more information about Craterface and Hawaiian Hocus Pocus contact: their email.

That is it. Then they have done like a classic sales note written Artist, Record number, Label and Barcode.

Yes, you read right. The rookies have a barcode. They have put it in the letter. Well, they have put it there in the graphic so small that you can't use it, and also in RGB color not monochrome. That is beyond rookie mistake.



So back to the letter. I wondered what they wanted. And after the letter, I really don't know. Doesn't say a what they want. Do they want me to sign it, distribute it, publishing it? Well, it's already printed which is not good then we can't get our logo on it. But is it released? It doesn't say any date? Well, let's check Spotify.


And in the bottom yes it's released 2017. The confusing part is that they already have new single out. But wait, if you go into the single that is released (and is not on the CD) you can easily see that is released by another company. My professional guess is that there are several bands in the world calling themselves Craterface. Which makes the whole thing Donald Trump stupid. The best part is that none of the bands has claimed the account. Also, one funny thing is that they all have 282 listeners a month and that NONE of the album songs is on the top 10 popular even though most of them have under 1000 listenings.

What is more amazing is that in the letter it clearly says that GEC is the label. Well on Spotify it says 746086 Records DK. A bit uncertain who really is the master owner.

Well, let' go back to the letter again. So they are very protective about their artistry and integrity. Well, their band name doesn't seem so protected. Then the thing around their artistry. Produce the worst sales letter this side of 1998 is not punk. Then give it out on multinational platforms, not so punk. To do a CD is really not punk any longer that is what old people do. Okay, Vinyl is still somehow a bit punk, but a CD hell no especially not with a digital form to it. Punk's not dead It just deserves to die sang Dead Kennedys and with these pinheads that are just shitting on old fine punk traditions, Jello Biafra is totally right.

So let's check the quality of the CD.

Yes, it's burned, there are no markings. So they have spent a great bunch of money to print this Digifile and then burned the product itself. Then you turn around the CD.


Yes, they have written out the copyright act on it. Now you are really pissing on the punk scene you damn bozo. The punks where against all that shit ya know! :)

Okay, all these errors and I have not listened to the music yet. I could guess their thing was that someone would write about it? They managed to do that! I mean all publicity is good publicity. But no! People that say they are punk and think they belong to something that they don't know a shit about, should not be listened to.


The whole thing makes the characters in Dumb and Dumber to be Harvard top students. At least they gave me a nice topic to write about. I don't really know what they want. Still, I won't listen to it. Why you might ask? With all these mistakes on just this release, there is no way to work with it. It would be a minefield of issues.So say hello to the final destination.


 So a lesson learned, you are better off sending us a link and a message what you want us to do for you.

Monday, December 18, 2017

What record labels seeks nowadays.

We just open our demo submissions. Yes, we already got a lot of submissions. The interesting part is that there are more and more record labels that seek out our services. It is the opposite around.  Before it was the manager's job to seek out a record label that could provide for the PR and the development of the act. It was the A&R that had this on the desk to provide the movement of the artist, at least twenty years ago.

The industry has been pretty unclear the past ten years who is doing what in the new digital landscape. Also, it has been quite unclear what the tasks really is in the digital landscape. We have seen many companies jumping into different roles, publishers become distributors, record labels becomes publishers, booking agencies becomes 360 deals, managers become distributors.

What I see as the main thing right now is to have a person that takes the task forward. In many cases whatever the company is they just wait for someone else to bring in things that take the artist forward at the same time, they are trying to hold on to as many rights as possible. Of course, that is impossible since no one is working for free if you don't stand a chance to get your investment back then nothing will happen. No one will do nothing and all comes to a standstill.

It's rather unimportant who is doing the job as long as new opportunities come to the table in a steady stream. That is why a record deal or a publishing deal or even a booking deal is kind of nothing. In reality, it can just be a friend bringing in opportunities from a good network that could be the solution.

These people that I call the Doers are the most important people. And a person that works really good for one artist might suck helping another artist since the focus is in another direction. To become really successful you probably need three to four Doers that are working with 100% focus on your project. That is a tough task to get going I tell you that.

I guess the new Doer is artist development companies. And yes we are one of the first to call ourselves this. Just check in a couple of years and will have a lot of followers. The trick will be though if they can bring the stuff to the table.

Well if you want to work with Musichelp here is the link to send in stuff.
http://musichelp.se/send-music/


Friday, December 15, 2017

Time to fire people.

It happens from time to time in a career when you need to fire people. They have been good, or actually never been good, but it's not working out for the moment. It's part of the process.

It's a necessary evil to do it. Here I can see that you keep the bad parts too long. I will say that I do the same many times. Keep a thing that doesn't work just for sentimental reasons or the thing of being afraid to take the conflict.

I guess there is no easy way to do it. Still, it has to be done to get the project forward.

Now we are soon entering a new year and into the new year it will changes. And it's time to change the teams again.


Thursday, December 14, 2017

Why not choose the best?

It's kind of obvious. If I buy a guitar I will not be a guitarist. I won't after seen some tutorial videos on youtube play like Steve Vai. Not even if I got Steve Vais guitar I will play like him.

Same with golf clubs. No, I won't beat Tiger Wood in a golf match just because I have his clubs and he will have my olf shit of clubs that stands in the garage. And no one would ever think this way. Except..

If someone is buying a system camera suddenly they are a photographer.

The artist spends hours to learn to play the guitar. Hours of writing the song and modify it to be perfect. Spends money to record it. When it comes to the picture on it they just seek some average joe with a system camera. When the picture is not that good, well then we do some artsy fartsy stuff in photoshop and we got a decent picture. Why is that? You would never just take an average person to play the guitar on the recording, would you?

Even worse, when they can't handle the colors and try to escape by doing the picture black and white, and now it soooooo good. No that is like taking the average guitar guy record the first solo that comes out of the guitar and hook on an echo on it and it's soooo good.

Since I been working in both field I really know the difference. With pictures, I really do know more than an average artist. When it comes to the end I'm the one who is gonna work with this picture in media and social media. A bad picture is as bad as a bad guitar solo.

A real photographer works with shadows and lights it has very little with the camera to do if they are good. In fact, the really good ones can use a cellphone and still makes it good. Same with a really good guitarist, it's not so much what guitar instead how you play it.

This is an error many do with their cover pictures and presspictures. And it shows. I know that it's more likely that you get results with a range of pictures that the journalist/blogger can choose from. Yes, you will get more space on the poster of the festival with good color pictures. No, it's not good that you can't see you face as you are too far away in the picture. It's really easy.

And last no you can't fix a song with some reverb, neither you can fix a bad photo in photoshop.




Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Vlog 13 of December



Vlog 13 of December, Peter talks about a new job, new releases with Adée, Northlight, The Magnettes, Elin K and two new projects are revealed.

Kry - Ett Ljus


And her you find the Youtube channel

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/peter.astedt

Twitter: @peterastedt

Instagram: @peterastedt

Musichelp
http://www.musichelp.se

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Are you doing other peoples work?

In many cases, one thing is very good to know who is doing what not just collect titles of people. One of these people was brought up on a meeting I had with a record label this week. The label had been forced to work that usually a booking agency or a manager usually do. Kind of a lot of work was done outside the field of giving out music which was the record label responsibility. They mainly did it since no one else was doing it and it was the only way to get the artist forward.

Suddenly the artist came in with a manager that he had found at a show. This manager was not the best that this record label had in mind. Still sure then it's the manager who should do the things. So they start cutting off things that were the manager's job. Then the artist came around and started to complain that the record label wasn't doing the things they used to do. They explained that he needed to get that with his manager since that was now his job. The artist went back to the manager, and of course, the manager hadn't the experience to do the simple tasks that are demanded of him. In the end, the artist didn't get anything done from any of the parts.

Even worse is the people that think that they have can have two doing the same tasks and thinks they would get 200%.  Like having two labels giving out different projects and try to grow with both.

many also get utterly disappointed when they change labels or management and get less service since the old part was covering up things.

In many cases people do more work then they should, you have to be sure what work you can replace or get more out of. So be aware to check what people do, don't just assume things are getting done.




Monday, December 11, 2017

A advice, don't let anyone tell you what to do.

No, it's not what you think, that I will give you the advice to go your own way. Artists that actually go their own way discarding the advice doesn't go that far.

This is about all the advice that people like me give you online. Most of them actually have an agenda and the advice might not fit what you are about to do how good they seem to be when you read them. Right now I have bumped into several artists that are information junkies. They read all they can come over to make everything right when they should release music or take the "next" step in their career. In the end, they mix a lot of the advices and it's like ending up mixing ice cream with ketchup. Both are good but not mixed together. Also, they are focusing on the small tweaks instead of the big elephant in the room.

Same with lawyers, they are there to give you advice. The problem that they seldom know what their advice could lead to. If you negotiate a contract it will be good for you but uninteresting for the counterpart. Many times this advice can destroy a career rather get it forward. In many situations this contract where a lawyer said this and that and I did what I felt for, I went the right way. Today I got a really big paycheck that many gave me advice not to. Still, I knew what I was doing and as long I didn't write off to many rights or any important rights it was a great deal. And the proof now four years later.

Take also the advice of people that are out there in the industry. I just heard one of the dumbest advice from a lawyer. The advice was built on old stuff that was in the industry years ago, for example, give out a CD and don't release it digitally until six months later. Of course, this lawyer is not out in the reality. He is still thinking that Midem is the meeting point for the industry. Just that says that he is not in the position to give any advice.

The worst advice usually comes from other artists. In these things, it's more like blind leading blind. In so many ways an artist career has been smashed into pieces for a bad advice from another musician. A career is never like another career but the mistakes are usually the same.

So who should I trust? You can't you should what feels right and collect people you like to work with you and go from there.



Friday, December 8, 2017

The 6 tip off how to make a release.

It's Friday so I thought I would give this kind of a tip-off how to release. This is actually things that are really basic but it seems like quite many don't know them.

I will take a real example that I have been following just because they seem to do all errors that you can do.

It started with that a friend of mine tipped the artist off to seek us out to release their new single. It's their first single, but they have been artists for awhile so they're not new to releasing music.

They send me the whole album, asking me what would be the single, even though themselves like a particular song the most. First of all, they just asked for distribution but they opened up with a question like I would be there record label. There is no chance I will sit down and listen to a whole album of an artist that just is on distribution. Sure if I have a deeper relationship with a record deal or a publishing deal I would, but not like that. Of course, this had to wait I can't just drop everything to listen to an unfinished album to pick a single.

Then came next mistake 48 hours later they sent a message asking if I had listened to the songs and maybe we could do a co-operation to release it. I didn't come around to answer that mail. And just the next day they send a third email talking about how they would master the song they thought would be the single. And it would a professional mastering, done abroad in a famous studio, their problem was that if they master this then their other single that was mastered in Sweden wouldn't be really the same and confuse people soundwise. For me, that is really a non-problem, that just made me think they were one of those technical people that can rant around how the recording was done.

Already here they had burned their bridges. I just saw that I would have my whole damn mail filled with questions  if I worked with these people. They took decisions even waiting for the answer to the question they sought out.

Then my friend called me and in the conversation, he asked if I had the chance to listen to them. I explained the situation and just to do my friend a favor I would drop all my stuff and just listen to them over the weekend. He promised me that they where nice people.

I took a look at the thing and saw direct that half the songs were in English half was Swedish. The funny part they were debating that the different masterings would confuse their audience. Well, this is REALLY confusing people. In reality, an English song has a totally different PR strategy than a song in Swedish. No mastering in the world can change that. Then I just listen to the whole album. To tell the truth after three songs I was so damn bored. Sure like my buddy told me they were really good playing their instruments and the singer had a really good voice. Their songwriting skills were like as bad as their where good playing. And for a company like mine, I rather had bad musicians writing good songs. Good musicians are kind of easy to get, good songwriters are the hard part.
I went through their social media while listening, which was really none even though this project has been going on for three years at least. Then I saw one of them just got a baby like two weeks before that. This really means that this project really doesn't have the time to get off. Just got the first child and do a pop career? That takes a really special person to put that off.

I wrote back a mail to them asking some other questions like what was their plans for this release? I got answers back a day later. These answers became the blog post "If you give me this, I will work with you". They wrote back that they wanted a release like three weeks later. No plans whatsoever of how to promote it. They thought that we as distributors or publishers could do the PR. Of course, they wanted to get out and play it's just that they had spent time in the studio to get a perfect recording. But no gigs was set.Then, in the end, they started to chatter again around the mastering if that would confuse the listeners if one was done in a pro studio and the other not.

I just got really tired. Nothing was really right. This was a hobby project trying to be proffessional. So I just told them I was not interested. I still get their facebook posts and since I have been scouting around it I follow them and just see mistake after mistake.

They wanted to release in September. One of the questions I had was why the hurry. Well, they needed to get out before the autumn because.... It was a thing in their head it was no particular reason. Now late December when the Xmas music has taken over and most press are in for nominations for the best songs of the year they released it. I guess it wasn't that important after all.

1. My first tip-off. even if you are delayed, to find a good time there is a good reason to delay the release little bit more. In this case, it's just weeks until next year and already have delayed it for a couple of months. No one is really waiting for you to release something new. Just release it in january.

I wrote in the top how there had been really no social media activity around the artist when they had spent a year in the studio. Why I remember them is because, my friend asked me to like their page. And I really not just take things off so I got their social media in my feed. This is also the reason why Facebooks likes is not countble as one person liking the band.
They went from no social media to nagging about their single release in the whole of November. On top of that they released three posts on the 4 the of November, two posts on 10 of November and so on. In week they released several posts on the smae days. Also, they sponsored a lot these posts.

2 Tip-off. You can't do that in social media. You have to post other stuff otherwise people like me get really tired of you single and won't listen to it. Also, what's the point of knowing that you release it if I can't listen to it so don't sponsor those posts? Use the sponsor posts when I can get in and listen and you can get money for it. Sure the superfans would like to know but they will get it with a normal post. And please don't just tell about the new single add some other stuff in your feed.

Then the mistake comes that really only an amateur is doing. They release the song on a Saturday. The official release day is Friday worldwide. All reviews all the playlists and all media things are built around that you release on a Friday. Release on another day and not having a really good reason is wast of time. Not releasing on a Friday usually shows that there is no real PR behind it.

3. Tip-off. Release on a Friday.

The PR is also another story. This artist does the same mistakes as many artists do just depend on Facebook and sponsor some damn posts. Sorry but facebook don't really work that way and is not in a long way enough efficiant. I just check with our artist on googel what happend around the release and nothing really nothing is written or said around it. I guess the PR was just on Facebook.

But it could have been worse. It could have been that they released their video on the same day as the single release. Spread out your post so doing that is just waisting the video.

4 Tip-off, spread out the releases so you don't have to create more content than needed, and don't kill content with releasing on the same day.

Now they wait a week to release the video on next Friday.

5. So my next Tip-off, don't release a video on a Friday since that is the official day of releasing songs the video will drown since it's already released as a song.

Then they, of course, released their homepage the day before the release day. First thing when you release something. Have your shit together. Yes, you need to have press pictures ready (nope our artist doesn't have high res pictures on their new homepage). Have it also updated with a bio (our artist have written coming soon on the homepage during a release!). Also good if you did a funnel page to pick up traffic from Facebook if you keep paying for posts there.

6. Tip-off having your shit together. Yes, have press picture ready for any PR is done. Update your socials around a months before the release and use the different things a new content. have an updated bio. And try to have some live shows booked. The homepage and its content have been done before you have any PR done. and look so everything works no dead links.

Oh yes, the live shows. Here many bands just fuck up. They are to focus on the release and forget the most important to get out to the audience. And no not just a release gig in your local pub. I mean you spend money on the recording you should spend some time to at least have around three gig in the closest month after the gig.

This is just the damn basics. After this, it's a 100 more things you really have to get going. and if you can't fix this, well don't even think of releasing music. Then you can just release for fun like you do on Soundcloud it will be enough.









Thursday, December 7, 2017

This really makes me cringe!

It's great that artist goes and do charity things and support a  good cause. What makes me cringe is when this good cause is more for the artist PR then it is for the cause.

Like when an artist wants to help refugees from Syria. Great do it! But when they seek out money to make a CD and promote so people get up their eyes around the problem and starts to give money to organizations that help refugees. I guess it would just be easier to give money directly to these organizations by telling people to do it, no take a detour sponsoring the album.

Yes, Band-Aid was a success. Still, they gave something, part of their celebrity and probably record for free, and yes they also gained PR from it and helped people understand. But if you did Band-Aid with a bunch of nobodies from a small town in Sweden that actually wants to get paid to do it I totally cringe at it.

And I see this quite often, a small artist thinking that they help but in reality just want a story and more or less shadow the cause because of their own cause.

One of my old artists made a post the other day, lashing out at Black Friday that people are spending the ridicolous amount of money on the thing they really don't need, and that is destroying the environment. At the same time, he gave out a vinyl of his latest record even though there is no tour and no stores taking it in, just for the cause that he wanted to have his music on vinyl.

I see a lot of the cringy things.


Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Vlog 6 of December, Jeevs gives information. Finnish americana and more.



Peter try to talk Finnish. Jeeves takes to information society to a new level. And when are you drinking? It's the Vlog again.

Jannes new song

And her you find the Youtube channel

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

It's like putting makeup on a pig!

I just saw a video from an artist that my friend is handling. It was an okay video or tell the whole truth, in reality, a very boring video. I know they spent a hell of a lot of money in this video. The problem is that the artist wants to be a lot of indie. They rent hell of a lot of equipment a good director and people around it. In reality, they could have done a good video with really great shots. The artist wanted a dark video like some Susann Osten vibe ( a famous Swedish director that really can't film, more like a 10-year-old with a video camera ).

It's more like the artist really don't want it to be good because if it is good someone could critic the video. Now the artist can face the critic with that that people don't understand the real message because it is artsy fartsy.

In reality, there really is no message. It's just lousy pictures done with a hell of a crew. In reality, it actually could have been shot with a cellphone. No blame on the director she tried but was forced to do this crappy shit because the artist wanted it.

I asked my friend why he let it go through? He wasn't satisfied either. He answered that it was like the artist was afraid of success and kept smashing good things to pieces. Same with songs the artist took the songs that the record label didn't vote for, and used the ones that no one really liked. And of course, the PR team hated the video still it has to be released since they spend so much money on it.

It is like putting makeup on a pig! was his word around how the PR team would try to get this to a decent audience.

I guess success can be scary.


Monday, December 4, 2017

I need the doer not the person looking for the doer.

If you meet different persons in the music industry most of them actually sell the service to find the person that will do the service. For example, most bands look for the manger that can fix most of their things. Most managers are mainly going to others to do the things. Yes, you can't do everything yourself so it is correct in a way.

But now I have found a lot of persons that actually just take money to find other persons. Like I can fix you a record deal! And then they find a record company charge for the find and then their job is done. The problem here is that these deals really don't work. They're a meant to fail.Both because the record label thinks this manger would do some job. The artist thinks the record label will fix everything, which they won't do.

Mainly because what the artists think they are paying for is the person that should fix everything, what they get is just a random company that says yes.

I also bump into many people that say that they can get stuff or do this, but as soon you start working with them you see fast that no they are talking to someone else that is actually operating the things you order.

I really want the doer. The person that gets things done and not push it away to another service. Those you should be careful and take care of. They are a very rare to find.


Friday, December 1, 2017

Doesn't matter with contacts if you don't have the story.

I just got one of these emails from different companies that distributes lists to various things like record labels, bloggers, radio stations and so on. The problem with these lists is that it's just a list. It's handy if you don't want to spend time going around on the internet to find the info there (yes all these lists contain is info that is online).

The reality is that you need the background information around an address to understand how you should approach them. Just take a list and send out a generic mail to everyone will not get you anywhere. I do that sometimes and the results are very slim.

I just help one of my bands secure a video premiere. Sure they have some highlights, but not that many they just started. But with my knowledge, I know that there is around 3 or 4 that actually would premiere the video. So I send in total 8 emails and used a submission service (yes I paid a small amount to get in front of the queue) and got 6 answers back a premier and a blog post for the cost of 6 dollars.

The trick was that I knew what was interesting for these blogs. I have been on their site looking what it looks like and have checked out how they wanted material and what kind of links and info they needed. Did I need a list for that, not really! I know which ones that people count as good and have a reasonable amount of readers. But the big part was that I knew what was making them tick.

Even if you buy the list of 3000 bloggers you have to get through 3000 pages, and if you do that well then you can skip the list you will do the work anyway.

Most of the time also why these list doesn't work is mainly since the material you send in doesn't have a story. Of course, if you put in Imagine Dragons new single to 3000 blogs asking them to write, you will get a lot of answers. Mainly because Imagine Dragons have a great story and many of the readers want to read about new music from them. Still, if you had the premiere of Imagine Dragons you can contact much better sites to have a premiere with.

Most hope that their good music would fix the problem with the story. But it's not, there is too much good music out there so there will be that you look for the story first. So here comes the chicken and the egg. You need a story to get your music out, but you cant get the story since you don't have one and it's here you need to professionals, they have favors and trusts from the first ones to start building. That is hard for a new artist to replace.