"Getting a deal" has long been the goal of many
would-be artists and bands. For mostly naive reasons,
most new talent feel that by securing a recording
contract with a significant major or independent
label, success will be guaranteed. (Talk about
naiveté.) To get this ‘belief system’ up and running,
many musicians figure all they have to do is send off
their music to a label, and a recording contract will
come their way shortly.
The following list of 10 Reasons Why Demo Are Rejected
was gathered together after years of listening to
comments made by Record Label A&R reps at music
industry conferences and workshops, as well as from
personal interviews with reps, and from many
interviews A&R reps have given to the press. In
addition, I can verify that these observations as true
from having personally listened to thousands of demos
over the years.
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The purpose of providing you with this information is
to at least improve the odds that your music will get
listened to when you submit your demos. This list will
look at the most common mistakes musicians make when
either shopping for a record deal, or trying to get
the attention of A&R Reps with their demo recordings.
10 Reasons Why Demos Are Rejected
1. No Contact Information on CDR and/or CDR
container: put your name, address, email, and phone
number on both.
2. Lack of Originality: Just because you can
record, doesn’t mean your music is worth recording.
3. The Music Is Good, But The Artist Doesn’t
Play Live This applies to all genres of music except
electroninca and experimental music.
4. Poorly Recorded Material: So you bought
ProTools … so what!
5. Best songs are not identified or highlighted
on the CDR: Give the folks a break. For demos-send
only 3 or 4 songs and highlight the best ones.
6. Sending Videos In Place Of CDRs: Keep it
simple, in the demo mode. All anyone wants is to check
out your songwriting and musicianship.
7. Sending Unsolicited Recordings: You sent
them, but they never asked for them.
8. Sending The Wrong Music To The Wrong Label:
You didn’t do your research to find out what labels
put out what kind of music.
9. Musicians Can’t Play Their Instruments
Competently: This is so basic, but you would be
astounded at how incompetent most start-up musicians
are.
10. The Music Sucks: This criticism is as old
as music itself. You may think your music is the
greatest thing since frappacinos, but most demo
recordings the industry receives are as bad as the
first round contestants on American Idol.
