I have worked with a couple of musicians on another site to create a country genre song. The vocalist has suggested that we should try to see if there would be interest from a record label or radio stations.
My understanding however is that the days of unsigned artists just being able to send a song to record labels, radio stations, etc, and having it listened to (never mind accepted) are long over.
But i thought I'd check if anyone here has an alternative take on the music biz?
I have had my music played on lots of radio programs. Most of these were online programs with limited reach. A few were actually broadcast radio stations but again with limited reach.
If your goal is to hear your song announced and played that is fairly easy to accomplish. If you are hoping to be discovered, get new fans or even sell your music that is MUCH harder (a lottery ticket may be a better investment!)
Sync licensing is one alternative, and can be a decent source of income. I'm fairly new to it, and haven't gotten anything picked up yet, but I use Taxi, Broadjam, and Songtradr, where you can submit to opportunities fairly inexpensively. Both Broadjam and Songtradr have free accounts, but if you pay for membership you get lower submission fees.
When you submit to Taxi, they prescreen your songs, then send them to record labels, music supervisors for film/TV, and music libraries. The cool thing about them is they give you feedback whether or not they forward your song. They also have forums where you can get feedback on your songs and the business. You can also submit to music libraries independently.
@Steven Wesley Guiles and @Amanda West are good people to ask about this.
my suggestion is to book a national tour in venues such as house concerts, college concerts, and small clubs, them set up radio interviews on the college and indie radio statioms in those cities for the afternoon on thr day of the concert. then leave a cd with the host of the program as well as the music director of the station.
Thanks for those suggestions. For my part, I'm just happy to hear my lyrics turned into songs. Not in it for expectations of grandeur. But at the same time, the guy I'm collaborating with is very enthusiastic about the song, so I want to at least have explored one or two avenues.
@BillWhite51's suggestion is actually very similar to what an old school friend of mine advised. He has made a career in the music industry, mainly creating soundtracks for TV, but in his youth toured briefly with a band that had some hits in the UK. He also said that people would be surprised how reliant even fairly established acts can be on the revenue they get from touring
Yeah, I thought @billwhite51's advice was good too.
Until the pandemic hit, [@ustaknow], it was super easy to get a gig almost anywhere in my town.
We always had out-of-town bands on cross-country tours cycling through, playing, and building a fanbase a little at a time.
charlotte NC was the only town i lived in where it was hard to get a gig. i finally got a spot at borders. and it wasnt only me. i went tp the double door , the citys top blues club, wtth world renown blues guitarist james blood ulmer, trying to set up a gig for him, and they kicked us out, wouldnt even talk to us.
I like the thoughtful threads like these that come post-5090. We've created all the songs, and now it's time to sit back and figure out what to do with them.
(It's also good to see who's posting in these threads, so I know who will see song comments I'm giving.)
As @johnstaples and [@ustaknow] noted, I think it's fairly easy to get small-scale radio/internet radio plays that go to a very, very small audience. Our local university public radio station showcases local talent - I've been asked, but I never followed through.
Like @Robyn Mackenzie, I've done the Taxi/Broadjam route. I spent a lot of money on Taxi at a time when I wasn't quite ready in terms of production or writing chops to do so. For a while many years ago, Broadjam served me well.
And I've done the touring/booking gigs route, although only regionally. For a while, I thought of trying to make a go of being a kid/family folkie - but all I really wanted to do was make the music, and the business side just didn't interest me.
Now I mainly write my songs for self-therapy, but in the very, very back of my mind I still think there might be an audience for some of them. I'm content to let that opportunity find me.