I was a hungry musician myself at one time and I was willing to do whatever it took to get in front of the right ears. I had to hustle, cold contact tons of people and find someone who could get me listened to by the people at the top. It paid off too because I eventually got signed. For me, those times were the 90’s. Musicians had to do that for the first decade of the 2000’s too. But not anymore.

Music Xray guarantees musicians get heard by the professionals they submit music to and they get a response for every submission the moment it is heard.

Yes, it costs them a few bucks. It’s part of what enables Music Xray to get results. However, we have recently had a few industry professionals ask to be removed from the site because some musicians are trying to save some money by directly contacting the labels or the professionals via email, LinkedIn, Facebook… you name it. Other professionals have asked to have their identities masked.

This is damaging for everyone. It makes it more difficult for us to offer a service that enables industry professionals a better set of A&R tools and it could cause things to revert to the way they were before, when you didn’t know who was seeking songs and talent and if you did, you couldn’t directly reach them.

Frankly, musicians who don’t feel confident enough in their music to spend a few bucks submitting it with the guarantee it will be heard, probably have music that doesn’t make the grade anyway. Part of the function of the submission fee is to reduce the load on the professionals. Additionally, the musicians who don’t value the work we’re doing for them (uncovering the opportunities and convincing professionals who used to have a closed door policy to open their doors – not to mention the technology architecture that goes into the site) and instead want to circumvent Music Xray, can’t possibly get upset at the people who think they should not have to pay musicians for their art. It’s sort of the same.

We got in this business to help create a better way for us all.

What will we do with all of the bad guys?

We are thinking about this issue, communicating with the professionals on the site to come up with ways to handle this – such as have them simply forward unsolicited emails and the names of musicians who are causing this issue. Perhaps we will ban them from the site. Perhaps we will create a wall of shame on the site and make some folks famous in ways they probably won’t appreciate. But we will definitely handle this problem.

Please keep in mind, there are many many musicians who use Music Xray in legitimate ways and play by the rules. We work to keep fees very low and we want to help as many musicians as we can. We are in this for the love of music not the love of money and we will do everything we can to prevent the few from ruining it for the many and to protect a system that is working for most. You have our word.

Here’s to great music and to an open, transparent way of getting it to the ears of professionals who have real commercial and exposure opportunities for it!!

Mike McCready

Co-founder & CEO Music Xray