Why Does My Music Always Get Rejected from Blogs?

Why Does My Music Always Get Rejected from Blogs?

Have you been sending music via email to blogs for weeks, months, or maybe years and getting no response? Are you frustrated by the lack of response and when you get one, it’s a “no thanks?” Here are some reasons this might be happening.

1. The blog may be too backed up and cannot find time to reply. Blogs received dozens of tracks per day and often several thousand in a year. This amounts to a ton of work, even to write a rejection email. So when you send a trap or metal track to a folk blog, you may just get an outright email deletion.
2. You may have made it too hard to get to the music. If you built a three-step process to protect your music with passwords and multiple logins, bloggers aren’t going to follow all of that, especially if they have never heard of you. It should be an embedded link or “one click” way to hear the music. Too many hoops to jump through are an easy excuse to click “delete” on the email.
3. The music may not be a fit for the blog. Sometimes an artist submits good music that is just not a natural fit for the blog. This may not be about genre, but could be about the message or feeling of the song. A rejection for style or fit does not mean that your music isn’t good, it just doesn’t fit with the mood and curation of the blog.
4. Here’s the hard truth – sometimes the music is just not good enough. We processed over 6000 submissions last year and accepted right around 9%. That means a lot of people did not receive coverage from us and some were really good artists. But the bold reality is that not everyone is ready to be featured on a blog with an international reach. There are bands that are great for playing local gigs or covering other artists. What many blogs are looking for is the “next big thing.” They want to break incredible artists, so even a good band without the “wow” factor may not be enough to garner coverage.

Do you want to know WHY your music specifically is being rejected? Oftentimes bloggers will not say why, they just send a short message back saying, “no thanks.” Wouldn’t it be nice to know? Well here’s one way that you can find out.

There’s a service called Submithub.com that we use here and it’s helped quite a bit. If you choose a premium submission, you pay a dollar to submit a song to a blog like EarToTheGround. Then, by the rules of the site, we are required to listen to 20 seconds of the song and give you 10 words of feedback. That may not seem like much, but it’s better than an email deletion, right? Oftentimes our feedback includes phrases like, “I like the acoustic guitar, unfortunately the vocal is not quite ready for the big time.” This (I hope) is meaningful for the artist, who can focus on improving vocals. Sometimes we will encourage artists along, explaining we like the sound, but maybe not the lyrics. If an artist gets feedback from 5-10 bloggers, there’s a good chance for meaningful and helpful feedback. Also, some of the sites may say yes and help you get coverage!
Submithub.com does not pay us to write about them, but because they’ve solved such a big problem for us, we’re willing to write about it. Please note that there is a “standard” submission option that is free, but bloggers are not required to provide feedback there, so it’s less relevant to this particular article. That said, we recommend that bands and PR firms who are skeptical about a “pay for consideration” service try the free option and see how intuitive it is.

Are you interested in a more in depth analysis of your music? Email eartothegroundmusicblog@gmail.com to discuss our rates for private critiques of music. We’re willing to discuss singles, EPs, or full albums from a wide variety of genres. When you contact us, please include “Private critique” in the subject line of the email.