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"How To Buy A Record Review"
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Squid Tempest
Squid Tempest
8761 posts

Re: "How To Buy A Record Review"
Nov 10, 2011, 19:10
IanB wrote:
keith a wrote:
Going off at a slight tangent, and I may be being slightly cynical here...

What the situation with magazines and their free cd's?

Apparently the label (or with more self-sufficient acts the artist themselves) have to pay to be featured on the cover cd. Now I'm not saying that this guarantees a great review because I can recall examples where this hasn't been the case, but they do tend to get the almost obligatory complimentary paragraph on the pages where they write all the blurb about the disc.

I can think of one band I like mentioning this situation and considering it too expensive to 'donate' a new track, but I'm pretty sure they have been on one since. I must be naive because I had previously assumed that they let magazines have access to these tracks cheap or free, not that they received payment for their 'promotion'.

PS Ian, Please find attached back-dated invoice for writing complimentary reviews of your music.

; )




Ha! I've already got my invoice into Gentle Giant, Gryphon et al!

I've paid for a few cover-mount things. Have always been fairly brutal. Never less than a % share of the manufacturing and mechanicals. Even if it is described as something else. Can't remember ever getting a free one!

This is from an actual e mail from a well known British music mag

"The way it works is that the track is free in effect, as we pay the
production and publishing costs, and ask you to support that with a 1/4 page ad. The rate for 1/4 page ads is £290.00 and we ask for an extra 20% for 'special position' ie front of mag layout over 3-4 pages."


I'd like to think I wouldn't involve myself in such an obvious scam, but when I think about it, if I had a record company offering to do it for me I probably wouldn't refuse. As it is, I live in the insanely optimistic viewpoint that if I keep producing the music I love and find creatively pouring out, sooner or later people will start buying it for the sheer love of the sounds.
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