I am writing a brand new blog about submitting music because of an email I got. Here is what the email said "Hi, I know your busy, but please try to find time for four minutes to listen to one of the tracks." It included a Soundcloud link and when i clicked that link there were 27 songs. Before I talk about this email lets lay out how simple it is to submit music to KB Radio.

1. Please attach 1 or 2 songs either by sending the files directly or using drop box, google drive, we transfer..etc.. I am open to all means of attaching. They can be mp3 or wav or ? again your choice. (Do Not send YOUTUBE link, do not send Soundcloud, through Twitter or Facebook.  Email only. 

2. Please make sure the attached file is labelled. I say this because I get an email from John Smith and the file is labelled song #2 with no band name. Is John Smith the name of the artist?

3. Twitter made life difficult a couple years ago, so please give us permission to use your twitter handle and provide said Handle here. Twitter has stopped us from posting live tweets as each song plays.  Its a terrible loss promotional wise and hopefully we can resolve or find another solution.

4. Include a little something. Bio's are great, i love to keep a file on everyone I can, and I can tell you if you don't include one that's fine, but at lease say something in the email. Emails with a song attached and zero text, no words written will be given as much attention as was given to the writing of that email.  If there is any question as to what I mean, you typed nothing I will listen to nothing in that email.

5. The only other thing to consider is if you are sending a file through a drop box link that is time sensitive be aware that due to the volume of email I get, and since I work alone I am always about 7 days or more getting to your email. so if there is a 7 day limit on the email, it will be dead by the time I open it.

There really aren't many rules submitting to my station. It takes approximately 7 minutes to process one email. That is open and read it, open the song or download, listen to part of it, reply and than process that song if need be so its ready to go to air on my station. When I say listen to part of it many are surprised to learn I listen to maybe 15 to 30 seconds of a song. That is all the time you have for me to decide. Don't think this is me being a jerk in some way, its the way it is when you get so much music in. Its the way I was taught in 1988 and its worked for a lot of years.  Do the math in your head if you want. If someone only got say 30 songs in a week. 4 minutes average, start to finish listening will take your 4 hours to hear them all. That is nothing else, like setting them up for broadcast, the emails etc.  Setting up for broadcast meaning the proper title and artist name are on the file.  No extras like "New Master" or the likes.

So If I am lucky I can do 9 emails an hour. I ask for one or two songs, because if you send one and the song doesn't work for whatever reason I have another choice right there without waiting for another email. 

This is were we go back to the email at the beginning. I am not a music promoter. As I point out to people I have an Adult Contemporary Station in which we program some Indie Music. So I am looking for your Indie song that you are promoting, and in case there is an issue a second as a back up option to consider. 99% of the artists don't have a problem, and I have no issue explaining how I operate. The difference between my stations and Indie Stations, is they play all Indie, and I get 1000 emails a month and play less than 1 in 10 of the songs that are submitted to me. So if your email includes a link with 27 songs, what am I supposed to do? Just randomly go through them?  If you send a YouTube link I wont even listen.  It truly is time wasted. 

It is the same for sending the same email multiple times because I haven't replied. I know many artists say they don't hear from stations. You know what, give them shit! This is part of the process, replying and if they question why I take so long its because i reply to almost everyone.

Lets face it, I run a radio station. I am not promoting music, I am promoting my stations. I do so by programming music that I think my listeners will like. If artists want to work together with some form of promotions, I will do what I can, we have charts that can help further promote individual songs, and there are other things we can do as well. Its not my job to pick your next great song.

The final thought is I don't critique music. I am looking for songs that will fit with the flow on my stations and appeal to my listeners. I don't send back shitty emails if I am not using a song I just say we are unable to use it. It could be any number of reasons, from genre, to sound quality, to vocals to the fact that the opening is 90 seconds long and is the same 6 notes repeated 40 times over and over. Its your music, your pride and joy and not for me to criticize. But if it isn't going to work on my station please don't send back a follow up email saying how I am obviously missing the boat by not selecting your music.  Everyone has different musical tastes, and thats why I don't generally critique.  I often use the Yoko Ono example.  She has sold more than 5 million albums.  For me thats 5 million people who seriously need a hearing exam.  But if you like it, what difference should it make to me.

Lets work together. Maybe that song doesn't work but the next one will. But you send a shitty response back all future emails are going to the junk mail, and you will never know if it could have been played.

The email to submit music kbradiomusic@outlook.com