The Music Xray Blog
technology enhanced identification of high potential songs & talent
Blog

How much should you spend submitting your tracks via Music Xray? As little as possible.

Posted by Mike McCready | November 27th, 2011 | 5 Responses

That’s right. I don’t think you should spend any more than it absolutely takes to achieve your goals (land the sort of deals you’re pursing). The shorter we can make the path and the more we can reduce costs, the more invaluable Music Xray will be to our community of musicians. Ultimately, we care most about building the best set of tools we possibly can.

So, I want to be clear about this. You should not spend a penny more than the value Music Xray provides to your career.


As you know, each time one of your tracks has been rated by five industry professionals (which requires that you submit the track at least five times) we show you the average of the ratings. We don’t delay showing you the ratings as part of some strategy to get you to submit each song five times. It’s just that the average of any number of ratings below five is not statistically significant and doesn’t provide reliable information.

We can’t show you each individual rating. If we did, the ratings would be less sincere because the professionals who rate the songs would know that their individual ratings are public. As much as we’d like that fact to not influence the scores, it does.

So, here’s the thing: we’ve been collecting song ratings from industry professionals for years and we reflect those results back to the community of professionals. More on how that works here. We simply decided that it might be useful to you if we showed those ratings to you.
So, we worked out a way that we could do that without singling out any individual professional who rated a song. We don’t charge you anything additional to see the ratings. Consider it a bit of a bonus.

But then we realized that the ratings themselves are predictive in nature. That is, we can observe that most songs that receive high ratings do end up landing the type of deal they’re pursuing sooner or later. Often, it’s just a matter of persistence and having a good submissions strategy – which most often just means not submitting to opportunities that aren’t a good fit for your music. I don’t think anyone should submit solely for the purpose of acquiring a rating (unless you’re submitting specifically to get some career coaching or a song critique – in which case, getting the feedback is the whole purpose of the submission).

Given that the scores are predictive, we realized that one of the best ways to use Music Xray is to actually submit all the music you have to as many opportunities as it takes to accumulate five ratings for each song. In the process, you may get a deal for a few of those songs right away. It happens all the time. But if not, you can use the ratings you get back to decide which songs you want to continue submitting and which songs are probably not worthy of your continued investment.

Either way, you and your team have to decide how much you should invest in getting your career to the next level. At what point is it not worth it? You also music consider the fact that every deal you don’t land, someone else does. Competition is tough and in order to not be out-competed in the new music business, you have to use tools, like those provided by Music Xray, in a way that increases your chances and gives you an edge.

 

New Feature is like a GPS for your Music Career; are you getting closer to success or are you moving further away?

Posted by Mike McCready | November 23rd, 2011 | No responses

We’re very excited that today we have launched a new feature. The feature itself is just a small change to how Music Xray has always worked but it changes the game for musicians and songwriters everywhere because it provides you feedback as you execute your submission strategy.

It’s like a GPS system to tell you if you’re getting closer or further away from getting a deal for your music or your band.

 

It also creates a new, very effective way to use Music Xray to advance your music career.


When musicians submit tracks to industry professionals for their consideration, the professionals are asked to rate them. Many of them do. They give the songs one to five stars on each of the following criteria: composition, production, performance, arrangement, and hit potential.

As of today, Music Xray shows you your track’s average ratings once your track has been rated at least five times. Why is that important?

 

Simply put: high ratings indicate a high probability your song or act will eventually be successful securing the type of deals you’re pursuing. Low scores mean it’s not likely to happen.

By showing you the average of several ratings, we’re not singling out any one of the professionals who rated. Their individual ratings are private. Therefore, they’re sincere. The knowledge you get from seeing these average ratings, previously cost months or even years to acquire.

You should learn the ratings of all your songs so that you know which ones gain traction for you and which ones may be holding you back.

Additionally, your songs that are receiving high ratings will continue to get pushed to the top of the statistics section, which is seen by dozens of industry professionals each day and it’s where they can hear top rated songs that have not been submitted directly to them but that are getting positive ratings from other industry professionals.

This eco-system that provides you feedback while you execute your submission strategy means the best way to use Music Xray is as follows:

1. Submit all your songs to at least 5 industry professionals (here’s a list of a few who ALWAYS rate the songs they receive.

2. Step one may result in your song getting a deal; in which case, misson accomplished. If not, once you have your 5 ratings for each song, you may regard it as a prediction of your eventual success.

3. Continue submitting the tracks that are receiving high ratings. Cease investing in your weaker songs and/or get professional song critiques and/or career coaching. After tweaking your music and/or your submissions strategy, go back to step one.

 

A focus group and a $4 credit for every new artist account

Posted by Mike McCready | November 17th, 2011 | No responses

Invite the musicians you know before someone else does!


You probably already know about Music Xray’s referral program where we pay you when people you refer to Music Xray conduct transactions.

Music Xray is growing quickly. Refer the musicians you know before someone else does.

Sign-up to receive this music industry opportunity email each week

Click here to sign-up

Make sure you’re making money

Posted by Mike McCready | November 11th, 2011 | No responses

 

Musicians should have at least one person on their team responsible for turning their efforts into a business.

 

It’s not just about securing deals and fans. It’s about making sure those actions create an ongoing revenue stream.

 

Being creative, writing music, recording, & playing gigs requires a lot of time and effort. To really boost your career, find a good manager (start here), a good coach (start here), or a good producer who can help you begin to see yourself as a business.

 

Sign-up to receive a music industry opportunity email like this one each week

Click here to sign-up

Coming soon: Success prediction followed by success achievement

Posted by Mike McCready | November 1st, 2011 | 4 Responses

We have something pretty exciting to tell you. It’s kind of a big deal and possibly not everyone will “get it” at first because it’s just a small change to how Music Xray already works. But this really changes everything for so many musicians, songwriters and song owners.

As you know, Music Xray has some clever technology-driven A&R tools – more than anyone else – but the magic ingredient is the collective filtering power of the hundreds of industry professionals who use Music Xray every day to discover new songs and talent.

In a matter of days, Music Xray is going to start telling you how industry professionals are rating your music. It’s going to work like this: if any one of your songs has been submitted to professionals and rated by them at least five times, we’re going to email you to tell you the song’s average ratings.

Look at it like this. After your first few submissions, you will know how your song is being received by the professionals you’re submitting to. Even if your song has not been selected by a professional for an opportunity, it doesn’t mean they haven’t loved your music. So now, you will know.

That means, if your ratings are high – you should continue to submit. It’s probably just a matter of time. Plus, industry professionals can also see high rated songs on the site even if those songs have not been directly submitted to them. In other words, if your song is well considered by industry professionals who have received and heard your song, we’re making it visible to many industry professionals who have not heard it.

If your initial ratings are low, you will know that perhaps continued investment in the track is not warranted. Instead, you may want to consider submitting it to one of hundreds of professionals who are on the site for the sole purpose of giving you honest professional song critiques and career coaching – eventually helping you to make adjustments to your music or your submission strategy so you can go back and get deals.

Music Xray becomes a reliable predictor of commercial success and the primary tool to help musicians achieve that success!

Join us to see a gig by The Commuters in NYC this coming Thursday evening! Come say hello and Music Xray will buy you a beer!

Posted by Mike McCready | October 25th, 2011 | No responses

The Commuters have been tearing it up all over town. Their completely awesome video has been added to MTV-U and they are getting increased radio play across the country.

 

 

Come see why frontman Zeeshan Zaidi put aside his Harvard MBA and his Harvard law degree to try his hand at the much less risky and more stable lifestyle of a rock star!

They go on at 9PM for a short set so don’t be late! Be sure to check out that video. Learn the chorus and we’ll sing along together on Thursday!!

 

Come join Music Xray CEO Mike McCready this Thursday in NYC to hear The Commuters. He'll buy you a beer!

 

 

This Thursday evening at Lilt Lounge (9 PM) 93 2nd Ave., East Village New York, NY 10003

Music Xray band, The Commuters might hail from New York, but their kinetic, personally revealing anthems capture an alt-rock essence that aspires toward worldwide appeal.

Their commercial debut (As I Make My Way – EP) was released at the end of August, and is comprised of 4 songs — “As I Make My Way,” “Bombs Away,” “Fallen From Grace,” and “You’ll Stay Right Here” — all from their upcoming album, Rescue, due out in early 2012.

Their video for “As I Make My Way” was added to mtvU’s rotation in early October and they have received extensive airplay at college radio stations throughout the US.

 

 

 

Does the profession of A&R have a future? Read the position paper or watch the video

Posted by Mike McCready | October 25th, 2011 | No responses


It isn’t news that the past decade has brought tumultuous change to the music industry. Advances have primarily impacted the way music is accessed, distributed and paid for. But, few companies in our sector have harnessed technology to its full extent to optimize their business processes.

While most music companies have incorporated data mining and social trending statistics into their discovery processes, the fundamental way the industry sources new songs and talent has remained unchanged. Isn’t it time we re-think how we conduct A&R?

 

We think of A&R as the process by which we find and help create great musical products. In reality, A&R’s primary business function is to reduce risk by identifying or creating highly compelling product and managing promotion efforts to reduce the likelihood of failure in the marketplace. So, in terms of risk reduction, traditional A&R was only adequate when the business climate afforded companies the luxury of having occasional successes compensate for far more frequent flops. In today’s new music business, narrower margins, smaller budgets and fragmented audiences require a more efficient approach than primary reliance on golden ears and talented gut instincts. Additional and supplemental tools are needed to create success more often than failure, or at the very least, improve success rates to a more manageable level.

Click to see the video

Sign-up to receive a music industry opportunity email like this one each week

Click here to sign-up

 

 

Check out last week’s opportunity email and the latest success stories!

Posted by Mike McCready | October 19th, 2011 | No responses

 


Be sure to check out last week’s opportunity email here. It continues to get a lot of buzz.

Also, see the latest Music Xray artists getting backed with $100,000 budgets!

Read some success stories.

 

 


Sign-up to receive a music industry opportunity email like this one each week

Click here to sign-up

Can You Predict A Hit? The 21st Century A&R Answer

Posted by Mike McCready | October 11th, 2011 | No responses

On Saturday October 1st, Bob Lefsetz asked this question in his post located here.

I have dedicated the past 10 years (of my 20 in this business) to precisely this question – or as I ask it now, “How can we make the A&R process more efficient and more accurate?”

On this subject – the data-driven question of “can you predict a hit” –  I’ve put in my 10,000 hours and then some. Speaking of which, here’s an excerpt from Malcolm Gladwell’s article on my work in this field from The New Yorker (October 2006). Here’s me discussing this type of work with Gladwell at the New Yorker Conference in 2007. Here’s an sinopsis of an episode of the CBS series Numb3rs that used our research and technology as inspiration for their entire story line (if you only check out one of these links, check out that one). Lastly, this is a link to the Harvard Business School case study done on our work in this field.

I could go on. The work has been featured in numerous documentaries from BBC to Discovery to NatGeo and so on…

In 2001, I joined forces with a smart, family-owned software company outside Barcelona, Spain that had come up with a technology (at the time it was cutting-edge) that could analyze the acoustic properties and underlying mathematical patterns in music. Together, we started a company called Polyphonic HMI and began trying to sell a music recommendation system to music retailers. Digital retail did not exist so we were trying to sell it to Best Buy, Tower, Sam Goody etc. Our only true competition was a small start-up called Savage Beast from Silicon Valley. They were using people to classify songs instead of computers, however.

We were both too early to market and we both nearly went bankrupt. Savage Beast went back to the drawing board, changed their name to Pandora and the rest is history. We went back to the drawing board and came up with a service called Hit Song Science. We realized that making a prediction about the music someone would likely enjoy based upon their favorite songs was only slightly different than making a prediction about what music an entire market would enjoy based upon what it had proven to enjoy in the past – i.e. hit songs.

After months of fine-tuning, the technology worked pretty well when used properly. It had its limitations but if you took those into account, you could glean some really good data that really helped choose the single on an album that would likely encounter the least market resistance when promoted on par with all the other singles being promoted contemporaneously.

Mike McCready & Malcolm Gladwell

In short, we determined, within reasonable margins of error, that most hit songs (even in brand new genres) conform to predictablepatterns – concrete combinations of melody, harmony, beat, tempo, rhythm, octave, pitch, chord progression, fullness of sound, cadence, sonic brilliance etc. Songs that sound like hits to the human ear but that do not match one of the common “hit song patterns” face much steeper market resistance than those that do. I recognize there is much additional data that could be observed (as per Lefsetz’ post) but this is where we started.

A few labels embraced the service and tried to use it as we’d intended. We built up a nice little consulting business but it was nothing that was ever going to explode into a mass-scale sort of endeavor. In his book about WMG, Stan Cornyn remarked that in the race to adopt new technology, the music industry finishes just ahead of the Amish.

While that may be an exaggerated truth, I’m sure I had my shortcomings when it came to evangelizing Hit Song Science. So, I lay no blame with the market. But most frustrating was that so many labels, instead of working with us to try to harness the power of the technology to improve their business, would either spend time trying to disprove it worked by “tricking” the technology (not hard to do) or to use our reports to cover their asses – using them in internal meetings when our reports supported what they already believed or hiding them in a drawer when they did not. Rarely were we able to show a significant impact on a label’s bottom line after consistent use of Hit Song Science over time. The technology was rarely used to help make business and promotion decisions.

Yes, we should have just started our own label, yada yada, but we weren’t able to raise that kind of capital at the time and we weren’t that kind of company. All of that is covered in the HBS case study so I won’t re-hash it here.

In late 2005, I left Polyphonic HMI and in 2006 I co-founded Music Xray. Music Xray, while not sold as a technology service is a continuation of my vision for improving the efficiency and accuracy of the A&R process. Music Xray is an online A&R platform – currently the ONLY online platform specialized in A&R.

We called it Music Xray because we wanted to make the point that any kind of skill-enhancing technology is just a tool. Hit SongScience was never trying to replace human ears and ten-thousand-hour-earned gut instinct with a computer. Music Xray, like the medical x-ray, is just a tool that helps professionals make better decisions by adding never-before available data to the process. The medical x-ray doesn’t replace the doctor but few of us would consider visiting a doctor who refuses to use an x-ray machine when appropriate. Not using the best available data in the music business could also be considered malpractice but since lives are not on the line (just livelihoods and careers) there is no external pressure in our industry to adopt these kinds of best-practices. In fact, there is more industry-recognized glory when you can attribute success to elusive golden ears and gut instinct  – much like the mystique surrounding a professional athlete.

Only when not using empirical data creates a competitive disadvantage do we see mass-adoption.

To that end, when we finally built a service and a business model that aligns with the clear self interests of all the parties (musicians and music industry professionals) it works remarkably well and today, Music Xray is becoming widely used – although a bit still under the radar.

We call Music Xray a 21st century A&R platform.  It is free for music industry professionals to use. The small fees we charge musicians to have their music considered for deals achieves results they could not achieve at any price, in most cases, and it saves months of work and thousands of dollars for those few musicians who actually could achieve the results on their own. In fact, in the past 6 months alone, Music Xray has helped musicians place (and the industry find) over 3500 songs and acts to be used in commercial and exposure deals. These include major and indie label signings, songs placed in major motion pictures, network and cable TV series etc. We get daily love letters from both industry professionals and musician users. It’s very rewarding and the company is growing robustly (whew!).

I believe that as long as commercial and exposure opportunities for music exist, there will be human gatekeepers making decisions regarding which songs and acts are chosen. They will use data-driven tools to help make the decisions and Music Xray seeks to provide some of the best decision-making tools that enhance golden ears and gut instinct. To use a NASCAR metaphor, we build the best race car; one that enhances a driver’s natural talent and skill and we make the race car available for free. It’s a no-brainer to take it for a test drive if A&R is part of your business.

As an A&R platform, Music Xray is now used by over 1300 industry professionals and organizations including major labels, MTV, dozens of independent labels, publishers, radio stations, producers and even a few influential music bloggers. Some of our tools include an unique song-to-opportunity matching system and the ability for professionals to harness each others’ ears and expertise: like crowd-sourcing – except the crowd is formed by individuals who make their living with their ears. We continue to roll-out data-driven tools that help professionals find the highest potential songs and acts to fit each unique opportunity (not just finding hit singles).

A by-product of this system is that we observe (and share the data back to our community) each touch-point between the professionals and songs and acts on the platform. Each day we can identify numerous songs and acts that have been evaluated favorably by multiple A&R professionals but that remain available. In short, all the professionals can observe what’s “trending” among their industry peers. That is something that never before has been possible to know. For example, last week, these were some of the trending songs in pop across a wide swath of the industry:

Financially successful artists will never truly be DIY. They will always need someone on the team responsible for turning it all into a business. We build the tools to make that process more efficient and more accurate – increasing the chances of success for everyone.

So, it turns out that it’s not just about hit prediction. Often, it’s just about finding the right song for the right opportunity – a sort of Match.com for the music business.

by Mike McCready, Co-founder & CEO of Music Xray

Special Announcement: Let’s blow Jay’s doors off with great singles!! He’s signing!!

Posted by Mike McCready | October 8th, 2011 | No responses

Jay Frank, former Yahoo Music executive and former MTV executive officially launches today a SINGLES ONLY label. Send him your best singles today exclusively through Music Xray.

With a focus on artist-friendly deals, smart marketing budgets, and deep industry connections, DigSin artists are positioned for greatness with more flexibility than other labels

DigSin is a singles label that uses new, targeted digital marketing techniques to build audiences. Founded by Jay Frank, author of the top digital songwriting book Futurehit.DNA, DigSin finds the best songs by the best new artists that are well suited for a career launch around their very best songs!