Music Xray's Blog - 2015 November

I get at least 100 emails each day from musicians like this one I received a few moments ago:

2.1 Million plays
Listen to I KNOW – R*ELL*****6 by R*ELL****6 #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/****l**6/i-know-r*****re***6

So, about once per week I click the link in one of the emails and I listen to the song. But it’s ALWAYS the same. A mediocre song (at best) with spoofed data. I only had to listen to 10 seconds to know there is no way that song legitimately got 2.1m plays. Note: I masked this artist’s identity because it’s not fair for me to call out a young musician who is just trying to make his way and who doesn’t know any better. But you get the point.

Most true artists would never do this. They would never spoof the data to make it look like the song or act has more traction than it really does because that’s the recipe for a bad reputation. It’s not professional.

But, there are many aspiring artists out there ‘hustling’ like that… to the point I can’t take any promo email seriously. I almost never click. And no one else in the industry takes them seriously either. And it’s the guys like this artist who ruin it for the deserving musicians like you probably are. Not only does he rip me off (my time) by lying to me about his song’s play-count just to get me to click, he rips off all the other aspiring talent who has music very deserving of attention because no one will click.

This happens in a lot of industries and people say a lot of things to get others to click. Everyone is desensitized. All those legitimate Nigerian princes can’t get a click because the fake ones are trying to take my money! 😉

So, to bring this around to how it relates to Music Xray, one can think of Music Xray’s submission fees as one would a freeway toll. It doesn’t only help pay for the upkeep of the road, it enables you to drive on one that isn’t congested with time-wasting traffic.

The tolls are just costly enough that guys like R***Y****6 will find it too expensive to stay on the road. He’ll be put in a position of either continuing to pay for rejection or to hit the exit ramps. While those who are getting great feedback from the industry and fans, are getting great Selection Prediction Scores, and are genuinely gaining traction, will find it very rewarding, will get heard, will get a shot with the knowledge that the professionals are listening.

Music Xray creates a similar environment for professionals, creating a competition among them for the top songs and talent while uncovering those ‘professionals’ who aren’t genuinely there to do real business and to truly find talent they want to work with. We remove those ‘professionals’ from the site if they happen to make it through our verification process in the first place, and we refund any artist who submitted to them.

Transparency and site integrity are our core values.

Music Xray is a clean, transparent platform where our primary mission is to create the filtering mechanisms designed to identify commercially viable, high potential songs and talent for the industry.

Our mission is not to maximize the amount of money generated from artists who pay to submit music. In fact, our system is designed to create as much of a competition among industry professionals for the top songs and talent as there is a competition among musicians to land the best deals. It’s en efficient system that operates transparently and reputably, backed by legitimate music tech investors. And we’ve been able to achieve the adoption of so much of the industry based on this dedication to running a clean site.

Recently, there have been a slew of website cropping up with questionable reputations whose mission appears to be to maximize submission fee revenue from musicians without providing transparency for the artists, or any objective measures of an artist’s chances of getting a deal. Additionally, these sites pitch themselves to industry professionals as a way to make extra cash. And while Music Xray shares submission fees with the industry professionals who host the opportunities, our primary purpose is to help those professionals find the best music. If, as a professional, your goal on Music Xray is to make extra cash, you probably shouldn’t be on Music Xray.

The poor reputation of these other sites effects Music Xray and it makes the name brand companies reticent to have their brands listed on our site.

So effective immediately, we will be removing the profiles of industry professionals who also have profiles on certain other sites. It’s just too damaging to our reputation. We will of course offer a grace period to these professionals and we will contact them privately to notify them of this policy. But no further payouts will be made to those professionals for as long as their profile remains on the other sites – unless of course they provide evidence that their profile is on the offending sites against their will.

Additionally, there are legacy sites in this space, that have been around for years, but again those primary mission does not align with the transparent, efficient filtering system Music Xray is building. One of our challenges in the market has been to show musicians that Music Xray is different, and that our interests are aligned with the professionals and the musicians alike. There truly has not been anything like Music Xray.

We have invested much time, energy, money, and focus on insuring that Music Xray is not confused with these legacy sites and while we would not remove an industry professional from Music Xray for having their profiles on some of these other sites that we know to be legitimate, having those profiles there still creates confusion in the market, causing Music Xray to need to spend more resources to differentiate ourselves in the eyes of the musician community.

So also effective immediately, we will reduce by 30% the compensation offered to industry professionals on Music Xray who choose to not remain exclusive.

It’s important that I make the point that this is not an attempt by us to limit industry professionals in any way. It is simply the policy that makes most sense for our company to both preserve the top brands and most reputable players in the business who are genuinely interested in finding top songs and talent. Those are really the only type of professionals for whom Music Xray is meant.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if we can clarify this policy for you or if you’d like to discuss any aspect I may not have covered here.

As always, Music Xray is committed to being the very best at what we do and to maintaining the highest levels of trust and transparency in the ecosystem.