Asking for promos....

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Why does it feel so dirty?

I am legitimate!

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 16:47 (nineteen years ago)

PR Companies or Labels ?

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 16:51 (nineteen years ago)

i hate asking for them, but do it anyway. it's a disorder

― rizzx (Rizz), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 16:57 (nineteen years ago)

labels, mostly.

I work in a store, I play at a full club every week and am now doing a radio show on a licensed radio station, and yet still, feel like some kind of leech asking for promos from labels that I have promoted for free for the last few years! not that anyone asked me to...

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 16:58 (nineteen years ago)

i have the other side. i would like to slow the flow down. too much stuff that i would never want, drops through the letterbox.

used to love the clank of the metal as thew posties pushed the jiffybags through, now i almost look forward to monday when i know nothing will be delivered.

― mark e (mark e), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:00 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, be careful what you wish for.
I was on a mailing list for a really cool distro company and then their publicist moved to a lame company and now I get BUCKETLOADS of Sum 41 DVDs.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:01 (nineteen years ago)

when i first started dj'ing dance music i used to be a fiend for writing to labels asking for promos. at one point i was on about 50 mailing lists. i don't think i've asked for a promo in ten years but once your name is in the databases, it seems you get sent records forever. saying that, about 95% of what i get sent is shit and i'm so not a fan of the new trend of sending cd-rs and mp3s, most of which i never even listen to.

― stirmonster (stirmonster), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:05 (nineteen years ago)

yeah I just mailed about 20 labels today, figured if I'm gonna do it best to just go all out. with some of them I think they should be delighted that random dudes in Ireland want their tunes, with others it's more like "ah, a fly has landed on my arm".

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:10 (nineteen years ago)

Universal has put a lot of their "Greatest Hits" albums on an online listening service, and I know some other labels and companies are doing this. I'll bet within a year or two, most of the good albums by artists you've heard of will be handed out online (unless you beg 'n plead), while all the stuff that comes to your mailbox will look like this:

http://www.savetherobot.com/images/StoleyCover.jpg

― save the robot (save the robot), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:11 (nineteen years ago)

save the robot lays it down. this is exactly what i fear and know. i just wanna have a few cool hiphop mitapes to check out every week, instead i have to put up with constant demands to review fucking kt tunstall wannabees.

― mark e (mark e), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:15 (nineteen years ago)

I think it is fairly reasonable to get on mailing lists to keep ahead of what's being released.

As most will be aware that only causes problems with PRs or label in house staff moving jobs and taking their databases with them. Suddenly you're getting italian house music and bog standard indie from a label or PR you've never heard of.

You can't hope to listen to everything, and you quickly learn whose masthead (label/PR) is worth spending time with their CDs and whose masthead you just put in the box for sale when you open up the variety of jiffy bags that arrive daily.

Also you soon see how much labels and PRs care for the stuff they send out as you never hear from some for opinions or responses.

― sonicred (sonicred), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

I can count the publicist whose name I enjoy seeing in my inbox on one hand.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:50 (nineteen years ago)

exactly

it's a pretty soul less process around what some would like to believe is still an emotive product

― sonicred (sonicred), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 18:14 (nineteen years ago)

I've never tried to get on promo lists, what's the protocol for doing so and what's the usual criteria? I don't have a radio show and I don't tour at all, but I DJ three nights a week at good clubs.

― jeffery (jeffery), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 18:59 (nineteen years ago)

I just emailed all the labels, or the first 10 I could think of that I really like. So far 3 have replied, two positives for mp3/cd-rs and one semi negative for the same, but they said they have a meeting about these things. The two positives were very friendly and in one case this consisted of a reply 5 minutes later from one of the main producers on the label. I guess more replies tomorrow!

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 22:02 (nineteen years ago)

do most labels watermark mp3's that they send out as promos?

― grady (grady), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 22:16 (nineteen years ago)

when i was djing at a radio station, every record label i loved was overseas. the only guys who sent me anything decent were vhf and the other 99 percent were shitty blues cds with like a overweight 50 year old surrounded by lightning bolts (since the genre i was head of was called "jazz/experimental"). its not worth the effort.

― emma cleveland (emma cleveland), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 22:27 (nineteen years ago)

"you never hear from some for opinions or responses" you say that like it's a bad thing. follow-up calls are the WORST.

― Renard (Renard), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 22:27 (nineteen years ago)

It's my job to ask when I have an assignment. The nice thing about working in a record store is that I don't need an assignment to say "we'll play it in the store." It is also interesting seeing what releases are pumped at my store that are not pumped through the press department and vice versa.

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 22:41 (nineteen years ago)

""you never hear from some for opinions or responses" you say that like it's a bad thing. follow-up calls are the WORST."

I only say that to point out that by getting on a mailing list is in the end quite a trivial matter to most people managing them.

You're right follow up calls are the worst, but some, admit it, are actually good and know when and how to do it without being too much. Against those that ring or email you about everything.

― sonicred (sonicred), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 09:04 (nineteen years ago)

Well, at least they're not 12" singles/lps. Get enough of those on a daily basis, you're gonna need a truck to get rid of them all. And a big parking space outside the "Record and Tape Exchange" of your choice.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 09:38 (nineteen years ago)

PLS SEND STOLEY P.T. PROMO

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 10:30 (nineteen years ago)

what's your storing policy here? do you keep them with your regular obtained albums or not?

― rizzx, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 10:39 (nineteen years ago)

All albums are created equally. When I look an a CD with a punch-out or a little ink on the barcode, I don't see a CD that is any less a musical product than his store-bought brothers and sisters. Can't they all get along?

That said, I do keep my cardboard sleeve promos separate, 99.8675309% of which are promos. The people who accumulate these generally are on a lot of metal mailing lists, I've found.

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 10:53 (nineteen years ago)

yeah but I mean the promo's that are not really up to standard with the rest of your collection

― rizzx, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 11:01 (nineteen years ago)

I sell those.

Wait, are there label reps here? I'm kidding!

They gone? Okay, good.
No really, I sell those.

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 11:07 (nineteen years ago)

i once sold some, about 30, i got one new cd for that (about 18 euros). i felt ripped off

― rizzx, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 11:09 (nineteen years ago)

Back in the day, a single with an A label was thrown out when the 'proper' release came out.

Then, the A labels became the desirable item.

Now, the CDr is the discarded item.

Wall my life's a cirle....

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 11:12 (nineteen years ago)

I hardly get sent any promos these days. Can't say I particularly miss them either.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 11:16 (nineteen years ago)

"i once sold some, about 30, i got one new cd for that (about 18 euros). i felt ripped off"

How can you be ripped off? You get CDs in the post, you sell them, it's a profit without any capital investment

― sonicred (sonicred), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:48 (nineteen years ago)

90% of the promos I got sent in the post were unsellable, even if only on the basis that it was less hassle to chuck them in the bin than to drag them down to the second-hand shop and get a fiver in return.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:51 (nineteen years ago)

You wanna sort out a buyer who comes to you

― sonicred (sonicred), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 18:23 (nineteen years ago)

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