Somewhere between 5 and 50 times a day I get asked this question; “can you put my band/music on your blog? You can! OK, what do you need me to send you?”. The question isn’t always phrased exactly like that, sometimes it’s less specific than that, sometimes it’s an email that leads absolutely nowhere, sometimes it’s an msn chat that I don’t really have time for.

In short; yes, I am almost always willing to consider any music for this blog. It’s my favourite thing to do, find new music and share it with the world/few hundred people that bother to read this blog.

Every week I delete dozens of emails without even looking at the music I’m being directed to, simply because the person sending me the music hasn’t made it easy enough for me to work with. I’ve spoken to several other music bloggers on this and they’ve all experienced the same.
This is why I’m here to give you a hand, with my top tips for contacting music bloggers and a few ideas as how best to get your music featured on a blog.

1) Basic Manners

You would not believe how many emails I get that start “Here’s my band, check it out” or even worse, just a link to a MySpace page. It’s quite rude. A short hello and introduction is all I’m asking for.

2) Don’t Waffle

Yes, I want you to introduce yourself and give a brief description as to what you are. No, I don’t want your life story (unless it’s VERY interesting and worth writing about). If you have a press release, please don’t send it to me. If you have a badly written press release that your mate has written and you send it to me then there is a good chance I’ll use it to ridicule you later on.

3) Basic Information

Following on from the last two points on what not to write, here is what you should write; your artist/band name, members of the band, basic set up of the band, 50 maximum describing the band and most importantly how you see yourself stylistically.

4) Links

As much as I want to hear your music, I don’t want to download loads of mp3s and load them into iTunes etc. Send me a link where I can hear your music, tell me if you’re on spotify. Absolutely don’t ask me to go to iTunes and pay to download your music (so many people do this).
If I select you for review what I want is; a website/MySpace, a place where you can buy the music so I can advertise you and something I can embed in the blog post – soundcloud, youtube, vimeo…

and finally… 5) Make your email easy to read and work with

Here is what I would consider to be the perfect email from an artist;

Hi Luke, I saw your blog and would like it if you could review my band for it. My name is Rupert Piffle and I’m in a band called The Old Piss Farmers.

We are a lo-fi, electro-punk band and have just released our E.P – Piss Farming For First Timers.

You can hear the E.P in full on our MySpace page and on band camp, where you can also download it for £2. I have uploaded a track to SoundCloud for you.

Thanks,

Rupert

Obviously I’ve not included any links because none of those things exist, but hopefully you get the jist…

Anyway, if you want to be reviewed on this blog then please do get in touch, I’ll be more than happy to listen to your music and I hope this post has helped.

Tweet me @monkeyhotel