Record Label Contacts

The life of a professional musician has all the allure of a million dollars and a one-way ticket to being famous. Is it worth it? Heck, yes! But the only way to becoming a professional musician (and by “musician,” we mean singers and bands, not professional flautists) is to land a record deal. Whether you’re aiming for a mainstream or an indie share of the pie, you need that label to get heard.

Wait, but it’s tough to get signed to a label, right? True. And while there are many changes happening in the music industry right now (especially on the technological side), there is still no better way to make money as a musician than by having an established record label market your music. So how do you sell your soul to the corporate devil? It’s rather tricky, but we’ll walk you through the steps. (And don’t worry, it won’t involve an evening with RIAA President Hilary Rosen, a bottle of tequila, and a Barry White album.)

One more quick note: this article is written under the assumption that you do not have a manager and that you are trying to get signed on your own. If you do have a manager, let the poor guy or gal do his/her job and you just stay out of the way. Otherwise, you need us bad.

1. HAVE THE RIGHT TOOLS FOR THE JOB

A mechanic would never attempt to fix a car’s engine without the right set of tools. Similarly, a band or artist who feels that they are ready to approach a record label in the interest of getting signed better be prepared. With literally thousands of unsigned bands looking for love, the competition is fierce. Here are some requirements:

1.You must have good music. This may seem pretty obvious, but you’d be surprised how many bands never get signed and don’t understand that this is the reason. We’re not talking about “good” as in taste (which is great news for the Backstreet Boys). We mean “good” in the sense of talent and experience.

2.You must look “signable.” No one will want to sign you unless you’re going to make them money. As such, you and your band must be confident, experienced, dedicated, and have it together (in other words, you must look like you will bring in money). Unless you’re the next Beatles, there are a thousand other bands like you – so make yourself stand out from the rest by being professional from the beginning.

3.You must have a professional-looking demo package. In the music industry, image and first impressions are the name of the game; for the unsigned band, your demo package is the first (and usually only) impression a record label will have of you and your music. As a result, it should be as attractive, informative, and to-the-point as possible. For a good tutorial on how to make an effective and attractive demo package (also referred to as a “press kit” when sending it to press or radio accounts) pick yourself up a copy of the book The Billboard Guide to Music Publicity by Jim Pettigrew, Jr.

What? You’re too poor to buy a book? Oh yeah, we forgot – you’re a musician. So while this isn’t a complete explanation, here are the basics to making a good demo package:

◦The package should have a cover letter, demo CD, band biography, band photograph, and press clippings. With all of these things, how do you make it attractive? We have three words for you: KEEP IT SIMPLE. Why? Because your demo package is likely at the bottom of a very large pile and after a few hours of going over them, an A&R rep (we’ll get to them later) wants to spend no more than a few seconds deciding if your package should go in the trash or the “will-review-later” pile. By keeping it simple and elegant, the A&R rep should be able to get a good feeling of what your band is like in a few seconds.

◦For the demo, use a CD instead of a cassette. With the ubiquitous nature of CD players these days – the higher sound quality, the lower price to manufacture versus cassettes, and the fact that sending a nicely packaged CD looks impressive – CDs are the best way to go.

◦Keep the band biography to no more than one page, and if the reader can’t figure out within the first few sentences who you are, what your band is up to, and why he/she should care, then you need to rewrite your biography.

◦The standard band photograph is a black and white 8″x10″. A smaller and/or color picture can be sent, but either way it should demonstrate your band’s visual image. There is no need to spend a ton and a half of money on a professional photographer. As long as it looks good, no one cares. Poor college photography majors are great resources for saving money when looking for someone to take your band picture.

4.You have to understand that most record labels are only interested in your music in so far as whether or not they can sell it. Your band may very well be brilliant, but to the average record label, your CD is just another product. This does not mean that record labels are out to give you the raw end of the deal. More often than not, record executives have an honest and true love for music and passion for working with bands. However, by understanding that selling music is above all else a business, you can put yourself in a much better position to get signed. So we suggest that you read as much as possible about the music industry and how it works. This SYW is a great start.

Read more: SoYouWanna get signed to a record label? | SoYouWanna.com http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/recordlabel/recordlabel.html#ixzz0uRkW7dlf

Read more: SoYouWanna get signed to a record label? | SoYouWanna.com http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/recordlabel/recordlabel.html#ixzz0uRkGs3tT

A&R’s, casting agents, and producers want to hire you, but they are caught up in policy and wait through long days of comparing hundreds of talented people one after the other. It is a breath of fresh air for them if they can skip the long processes, but rarely can get around it. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a vehicle that could bring them to you and show them your full potential?

We want to show you everything you need to know to get the audition and sign the contract!

***Get Started Today

http://tiny.cc/made

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About the Author

A&R’s, casting agents, and producers want to hire you, but they are caught up in policy and wait through long days of comparing hundreds of talented people one after the other. It is a breath of fresh air for them if they can skip the long processes, but rarely can get around it. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a vehicle that could bring them to you and show them your full potential?

We want to show you everything you need to know to get the audition and sign the contract!

***Get Started Today

http://tiny.cc/made

The Beatles VI and more rare albums!

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Abbey Road [Vinyl] $10.98 1969 classic Tracklisting:A1 Come Together (4:21) A2 Something (3:03) A3 Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (3:27) A4 Oh! Darling (3:27) A5 Octopus’s Garden (2:51) A6 I Want You (She’s So Heavy) (7:47) B1 Here Comes The Sun (3:05) B2 Because (2:46) B3 You Never Give Me Your Money (4:02) B4 Sun King (2:27) B5 Mean Mr. Mustard (1:06) B6 Polythene Pam (1:13) B7 She Came In Through The …

A Hard Day’s Night (Remastered) $9.87 BEATLES THE A HARD DAY S NIGHT (EDICION LIMITADA)…

Past Masters (Remastered) $13.69 Although they were probably the band that most transformed rock from a singles medium to an album-oriented form, the Beatles also released many singles and EP tracks that never made it onto albums. In the U.S., Capitol turned the group’s early LPs, through Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, into compilations, more or less, throwing the hit singles onto the vinyl to augment the album tracks. Wh…

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Chronicle of the 20th Century: The Ultimate Record of Our Times $69.95 From School Library Journal Brief newspaper-like articles of social, political, and cultural events surround monthly chronologies and present a concise picture of the events and the way of life at the time. The present edition copies the original through 1987 and moves forward through May 21, 1995. The photographs, usually in color, and maps draw attention to the articles and present additional in…

The Beatles: A Private View $14.55 Bob’s photos were amongst the best ever taken of the Beatles. Paul McCartney…

1961-1990: A Complete Career Anthology $36.98 To most casual listeners, Del Shannon was a one-hit (or, at best, two-hit) wonder. This two-CD anthology goes a long way toward correcting that inaccurate perception, covering virtually every high point in a career that, admittedly with some ups and downs, yielded some great and popular music across nearly 30 years. Every phase of the late singer/composer/guitarist’s career is represented, and though “Runaway is usually the only song associated with Shannon, this collection reveals many other sides to his work and sound, from the romantic Shannon original “Jody” to the defiant Pomus-Shuman song “Ginny in the Mirror.”The really good part about this set is that a lot of the songs appear here in their rare stereo mixes. With most classic rock & roll, that would not necessarily be a virtue, stereo being superfluous as well as harmful to its impact, but in Shannon’s case it is — his records usually featured very busy, complex instrumental parts (an attribute that he shared in common with the Beatles and a lot of other British invasion acts) that can be discerned much more easily in the stereo versions. All of the bases are covered right up through his work in the late ’60s with Andrew “Loog” Oldham and into the 1970s and 1980s obscurities. His version of the Zombies’ hit “Tell Her No” (cut for Island Records in the mid-’70s) and the Dave Edmunds-produced “And the Music Plays On” are represented, along with the results of his collaboration with Tom Petty and his comeback with the early-’80s NBC television series Crime Story (which returned “Runaway,” used as the show’s title theme, to the charts). As is usual with Raven Records, the annotation is extremely thorough and the mastering is impeccable. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Are You Serious? $17.98 Van Duren was part of the small but influential Memphis power pop scene of the ’70s that produced Big Star and the Scruffs, and he was more than just a casual observer — Duren gigged regularly with Chris Bell and auditioned for a guitar slot in Big Star but failed to get the gig. The latter is something of a surprise, as Duren was gifted songwriter, singer, and multi-instrumentalist, and in 1977 he scored a deal with Big Sound Records, a short-lived label run by fellow power pop obsessive Jon Tiven, and headed off to Connecticut to record his debut album, Are You Serious? While Duren has a passionate following among pop devotees, Are You Serious? has never quite gained the same sort of cult acclaim as Big Star and the Scruffs, and frankly that may well be because Duren was never as quirky as either of those acts. The angular melodies of Radio City and the aggressive angst of Wanna Meet the Scruffs? set those albums apart from most power pop acts of their day, but by comparison Duren sounds like a cross between Emitt Rhodes and Badfinger, and while his embrace of pop classicism is impressive, ultimately the more traditional slant of his music and the regular-guy cynicism of his lyrics make for a less interesting album than what his peers in the smart hooky stuff were known for. That’s not so say Are You Serious? isn’t impressive, especially given that Duren plays everything but drums on most tracks, and at a time when Beatles-influenced pop was a rare commodity, this album must have been a breath of fresh air for the few who ran across it. But for all Van Duren’s strength as a songwriter and his very impressive vocal chops, Are You Serious? is an album that, rather than shaking the framework of ’70s pop, selectively embraced it, and for all its tunefulness it doesn’t sound as revelatory 30 years on. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Big Star Story $17.98 The whole story of Big Star from 1979-1994 seems wrapped around the question, “Why weren’t they massive? Their two proper LPs remain the greatest power-pop records ever made, even from that post-Abbey Road era, when power pop had big chops-before the term became associated with new wave groups in suits playing farfisa organs. Somehow, this legendary commercial stuff finally became cult popular when their music finally gained reasonable distribution for the first time in the early 1990s, thanks to the CD boom in retro material. And the reconstituted group has played some fabulous, if only intermittent shows across the country, for a decade, since this first time real interest sparked their reunion (with the two Posies filling in) in 1993. Yet despite their hot “In The Street” becoming the theme song for the hit TV show That 70s Show (if only the producers had used the original recording instead of the two kind of lame new recordings; even Cheap Trick’s version lacks Big Star’s timeless angst), the multitudes of Americans remain clueless about this post-Beatles, unique group. So this crisp best-of should help a little. Even for old fans, it plays out as a buried treasure dug up again. The elegiac hooks of Radio City’s masterpiece “September Gurls” is the perfect opener, setting the magic tone for the bonanza that follows with a grown up Alex Chilton out of The Box Tops, his voice now half as gruff yet somehow twice as deep as when he was singing the mega-hit “The Letter,” his arching, held-vowels wrap around his (and on the #1 Record material) Chris Bell’s chiming, ringing, zinging, taangy guitars perfectly. It’s that sensational marriage of black soul that befits their Memphis base and the adrenalized British while mid-’60s post-R&B radio pop that still is so enthralling. And like their influences, their command remains as impressive as it is rare today. For every mighty power pop nugget, like “Back of a Car” or “Mod Lang” (they use the live version her…

Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years $320.33 New – This is EMI Records’ official diary-format history of every Beatles recording session. Over 350 color black & white photographs and illustrations, including rare photos by Linda McCartney and the first facsimile reproductions of Abbey Road recording sheets, tape boxes, album sleeve roughs, memos, contracts, press releases and much more.

Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years $60 Used – This is EMI Records’ official diary-format history of every Beatles recording session. Over 350 color black & white photographs and illustrations, including rare photos by Linda McCartney and the first facsimile reproductions of Abbey Road recording sheets, tape boxes, album sleeve roughs, memos, contracts, press releases and much more.

Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years $83.52 Used – This is EMI Records’ official diary-format history of every Beatles recording session. Over 350 color black & white photographs and illustrations, including rare photos by Linda McCartney and the first facsimile reproductions of Abbey Road recording sheets, tape boxes, album sleeve roughs, memos, contracts, press releases and much more.

Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years $91 Used – This is EMI Records’ official diary-format history of every Beatles recording session. Over 350 color black & white photographs and illustrations, including rare photos by Linda McCartney and the first facsimile reproductions of Abbey Road recording sheets, tape boxes, album sleeve roughs, memos, contracts, press releases and much more.

Extraordinary Records $13.95 New – This book descibes vinyl-mania. This highly original collection, made in collaboration with “Colors” magazine, brings new meaning to the term ‘album art’ – what’s featured is not record covers but records themselves, in a plethora of colors, shapes, and forms. This book showcases over 400 records owned by Guinness-award-winning collector Alessandro Benedetti. From artists such as Pink Floyd, Queen, the Beatles, Prince, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Bon Jovi, and many others, these rare a

Extraordinary Records $11.95 Used – This book descibes vinyl-mania. This highly original collection, made in collaboration with “Colors” magazine, brings new meaning to the term ‘album art’ – what’s featured is not record covers but records themselves, in a plethora of colors, shapes, and forms. This book showcases over 400 records owned by Guinness-award-winning collector Alessandro Benedetti. From artists such as Pink Floyd, Queen, the Beatles, Prince, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Bon Jovi, and many others, these rare

From Small Things: The Best of Dave Edmunds $7.99 It seems like assembling a compilation on a roots rocker like Dave Edmunds would be an easy task. While his backing bands and production styles have changed, his musical aesthetic has remained essentially the same since he bolted from Love Sculpture and started a solo career in 1971 — no matter what he did, he remained a passionate, devoted fan of old-time rock & roll, rockabilly, country, Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, and Phil Spector. At first, he did this literally on his own, laying down every track himself for his first two records, and he did this to acclaim and success, including the surprise Top Ten hit “I Hear You Knockin’.” By the mid-’70s, he hooked up with Nick Lowe and the two formed the core of Rockpile, a retro-rock new wave outfit that provided support on Dave and Nick’s solo albums and toured as its own entity. During this time, Edmunds was a rare thing — an interpretive rock & roll singer. He had an exceptional ear for songs, whether it was oldies or newer material by such contemporaries as Lowe, Elvis Costello, and Graham Parker; he made the new songs sound like classics from the days before the Beatles, yet he and Rockpile performed them with an energy and vigor that made them fit the new wave. Rockpile had a nasty split after recording their lone album, and Edmunds went through two enjoyably patchwork albums (Twangin’ and D.E. 7th) before hooking up with ELO main man Jeff Lynne for 1983′s Information. Like Edmunds, Lynne is also a lover of old rock & roll — at their core, such early ’80s hits as “Rock & Roll Is King” and “Hold On Tight” are Jerry Lee Lewis tunes — but he had no compunctions about embracing the production of the time, down to the drum machines, phased guitars, and layers of synths. Perhaps since Edmunds was once a studio geek himself, this appealed to him, and he submitted to a makeover that made him sound like ELO and brought him hits, both on MTV and radio, leading to his first American Top 40 hit since “I Hea…