* contemporaryfusionreviews get music reviews * Hi, I’m Dick Metcalf, editor and publisher of Improvijazzation Nation and Contemporary Fusion Reviews magazines. I’m in a far better position to tell you how to actually GET your music reviewed than many! I know, you’re sitting there saying “How can he say that?” Well, for one thing, I was an active player for about 20 years… I submitted my music to various and sundry review magazines and blogs on an almost daily basis, and even though I’ve lost track of how many were sent out for review, I still stumble across reviews I didn’t know had been done – to give you an idea of the kind of music that was getting reviewed, here are two YouTube videos for pieces that received reviews:
…from BLUER THAN BLUE, with Ernesto Diaz-Infante:
…from Sirius Intrigues, with Ernesto Diaz-Infante:
What’s clear to me after nearly thirty years of writing music reviews (& various other articles about music, of course) is that genre is insignificant… what truly matters if you want to get reviews (or airplay, for that matter) is that you submit only your highest energy pieces… I often get requests for review from bands or players who haven’t thought about that, and the result is that they never make it into my REVIEW QUEUE; sending out every song/album you ever made it never a good idea… only send out what you consider to be your very best work!
It’s also important that you find the right magazines for your music… one of the best ways you can do that is to get your own personal copy of The Indie Bible… I first started using this invaluable resource many years ago (around 1995 or so), and it gets real results; you can Google all day, but the folks at The Indie Bible have already done all that research for you – so don’t waste your valuable time – just get it!
If you haven’t seen it already, you should consider reading my article on Getting Your CD Ready for Release… in today’s digital world, you really need to take the steps recommended there to get your music noticed… try it, you’ll love it.
One final note that’s really important, too… once you get your first review, or airing, be sure and use social media to let your fans know about it… if you publish a blog, you will probably also want to publish notification of it there as well! If you have any questions, or points you’d like to make, please scroll ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST and use the COMMENTS section to let me know about it (EVERY comment gets a return from me)… above all, have FUN with it!
