Up until recently, when song owners made submissions on Music Xray they would be notified when their song was listened to by the industry professional they submitted to but then would not hear anything further unless the professional wished to pursue the matter. Exceptions were made when musicians submitted to a professional who was explicitly offering feedback or career coaching.

Starting a few days ago however, we launched a feature whereby industry professionals don’t simply click a button to acknowledge they received and listened to the song, rather they now either “Select”, “Place on Hold” or “Not Select” a song for an opportunity, in which case they provide a reason or reasons for their decision not to select a song or artist.

I know this seems like the natural or normal thing to do in the day and age of web 2.0 but let’s not kid ourselves. Many emerging artists are too young to remember the days when labels, publishers and the like would not even accept unsolicited material. In my day, you’d send your demo tape or CD to a label and most likely you’d never know if it even arrived, let alone get any acknowledgement that your music had been listened to.

Getting guaranteed feedback from top A&R executives, program directors, music supervisors and more is a watershed for musicians and song owners and I am proud that Music Xray is again the first to make something like this a reality.