Image by Kieran Webber

We Chat To Founder Of Music PR Platform Musosoup

Recently we discussed how the music PR landscape was changing as well as how music press is changing. The rise go blogs and fall of print music journalism has created a vacuum and allowed for new methods of promotion to flourish. Possibly for the first time ever artists can have complete control of their promotion and have the skills and tools needed to do so. One said tool is Musosoup, the music PR platform that creates a self-fulling circle of payment between bloggers and artists. For an emerging or underground act Musosoup is an incredible tool that connects the artist to thousands of bloggers around the world, ensuring quality content (paid and free). 

We caught up with owner and founder Chris Sharpe to chat about the platform, how it works and why he decided to create Musosoup. 

When did you come up for the idea of MUSOSOUP and what was the main driving factor? 

Chris: The seed for this started to happen while I was struggling to keep writers on my blog Lost in the Manor, you literally build up a team, and then you lose everyone just purely for financial reasons. 

I also run bespoke PR and I can see that forking out £500-2k every-time an artist releases music is just not realistic for the majority of artists. It should be more about the talent than who has a larger bank balance. Our team has now found a way to balance the scales for both artists and curators to move forward sustainably. 

Why do you feel tools such as MUSOSOUP are useful to emerging musicians? 

Chris: It’s cost-effective, less time consuming and allows curators to work hassle-free, which means that they’re a lot more likely to listen to the acts music.

How do you feel the music PR landscape is changing and why is it platforms like MUSOSOUP are being used by artists?

Chris: PR has not changed for years in the way it’s been traditionally done but the music industry is constantly changing and PR is only just starting to catch up. These new style platforms are making connecting easier than ever. Like all new products and ideas, they have their flaws but forever growing and improving quickly. We are constantly listening to feedback and ideas from those both on and off our platform and we will continue to do so and look for ways that we can develop and provide solutions to both the musician and the curator.

What are the advantages to an artist when using your platform? 

Chris: We’ve made our platform super simple for the musician. They make one submission and we make sure that they get in front of the right people. They don’t have spend time researching each publication and they don’t have to pick and choose who to submit to based on their budget.

Learn more about Musosoup here:

Do artists have to sit in a certain genre to be considered for MUSOSOUP? 

Chris: No we accept all genres and we have curators that support all genres too. Some, naturally, are a bit more popular than others, but that’s to be expected. Guitar bands will have plenty of potential matches, whereas something a little more niche like ambient drone music for example won’t.

For us, it’s all about quality, if we feel the music hits our quality standards on the submission but we feel not many connections will happen we let the artist use the platform for free so it becomes a risk-free process. 

Is MUSOSOUP open to a global audience? 

Chris: Yes 100% we have submissions and curators from all over the globe. 

What are some success stories of artists that have used MUSOSOUP? 

Chris: With some artists having been previously stung from paying out x amount to a PR company, it’s been great to hear that we have made them more coverage for a tiny % of the cost.

What advice would you give an artist who is looking to promote their release? 

Chris: Just take things slowly if you are starting out. You don’t need hundreds of articles if you are trying to generate your first few pieces of press. It’s better to have a select amount and spread them out around your release and market them to a targeted audience with ads. It would be fantastic to get on the Guardian newspaper of course but these things can happen as you mature as an artist. 

What sort of content can an artist expect to receive from the curators on MUSOSOUP? 

Chris: We have a huge range happening from playlisting, reviews, interviews, radio spot plays, podcast spots, youtube channels and social shares.

Is there a form of quality control on curators to ensure that artists are receiving quality content? 

Chris: First and foremost is the curator needs to have great taste in music and want to support artists. If the curators are not great at writing but have amazing taste then they can still work with us, but we will make an agreement on how. Every curator works in a totally different way and we work very closely with them on how they use our platform. It’s all about us having a chat, finding what the curators are looking to achieve with their goals and seeing if we can find a way to partner up. We don’t judge them on the size of their publication or how many followers their playlist may have. Rome was not built in a day as they say.

Lastly, what are the plans for the future with MUSOSOUP? 

Chris: We are in the process of building up our curators which is the key to really making the platform super effective for artists. As a rule we work with our curators as a team to build new features so it becomes built around them and their needs. Lots of crazy ideas in the pipeline but I can’t mention all those just yet..