It’s always a pleasure to find good music in our inbox. Every member in our crew is a true (digital) digger and we all love to search for new artists and music we don’t know about yet.

That’s why we encourage artists to send us their music. We can’t promise to check out every single e-mail we get, because we get overflooded with music and requests for a feature. But we do our best. We, and I am sure other blogs and websites as well, need to select what we check out. It’s very important for an upcoming artist to know how to approach websites, blogs and possible promoters.

Selection
Some websites might read all e-mails, but let me be honest: most of the time we are too busy to read all e-mails and listen to all music. That’s why we select, just like you scan everything you receive in your inbox and on social networks as well. Very common. Personally, I see it like this: if an artist asks us for a feature, then that’s an effort for us. We need to listen to the music, do research, write an interview/review, edit it and post it. Then why do a lot of artists don’t take the effort to write one simple mail? No offence to anyone, but here are some examples of messages we most most definitely don’t take into consideration:

- The Instant Delete
If you reach out to a website or blog, I advice you to at least write a semi-proper message. Sometimes we got messages as “yo I wanna be feat in the mag”, “aight check dat new music on my profile” or just a simple “let’s connect”. Imagine us trying to reach out to advertisers with a Myspace message saying “yo wanna advertise in our mag? 50 dollar”. Exactly.

- The Mass E-Mail
Sometimes we receive an e-mail directed to a zillion people. And trust me, in cases like this “a zillion” really is a number. When one mail is directed to basically every blog and magazine out there, from Thug World Music to Pitchfork Media, then why would an artist expect us to read it?

- The Irrelevant E-mail
It happens quite often that we receive, so it seems, random sent e-mails. It’s no secret that we are very eclectic, but it’s also known that there are some artists we don’t publish about. Matter of musical taste, preferences and style. Still we get some requests for features that are completely the opposite of our musical taste and style. Even a request from the PR responsible for the label of Rick Ross, Flo Rida and similar artists. So if we get a request like that, the sender expects us to check out their releases, without him/her knowing one single thing about our musical preferences?

Communication
Again, we have absolutely no problem with receiving music or requests in our inbox. But why should we check out e-mails like examples above? Personal e-mails directed to us, proper messages with all info we need (Bio, MP3’s, etc.), (group) e-mails from labels/artists/contacts we already know, mails sent to a select few of people: all examples of things we definitely read. My point is that communication is crucial, don’t underestimate it. From the perspective of the recipient, we advice all people out there to at least take the most minor effort, instead of examples above.

Promotion
Internet is without a doubt a positive factor for artists and promotion, but in my opinion you need to remember one thing: you can’t expect to sit in your chair, send out a mass e-mail, sit back and wait for the beginning of your career. You can’t build a career in between the four walls of your rooms. It’s plain and simple as that.  As a magazine we can’t send out a few e-mails and then wait for the day we get printed. A designer can’t send out a few of his illustrations and wait for the day he gets picked up by a company. Same for artists: you can’t build a career while sitting behind your laptop and sending your music to a zillion of people. Of course, it helps, but don’t expect anything in return when you don’t take effort for your own digital promotion.

Agree or disagree? Leave a comment!Words by: Danny
Related: Promoting yourself as a young artist