We’ve made some changes in what we can cover on the site as of Spring 2021 due to you lot being too prolific. Basically we can never hope to cover every release sent to us, so to be honest, we’re not even going to pretend that we might.

Sorry.

What we do cover in the seven sections on the main page:
News – running a festival, opening a new venue, or just got some juicy gossip about some ex-members of Simple Minds? Send it in.
TV / radio – weekly roundup. If you have a radio or TV show featuring Scottish acts in a live setting (i.e. not just playing the records, everyone does that) then ;et us know!
Gigs of the Week – at time of writing (June 2021) live shows are still on the horizon, so if you have a live show we will try and mention it – even if it’s just a livestream.
New releases – yes… we will be featuring some new releases. That’s all we can promise. During lockdown (and furlough) we were featuring every new release – 500 of them in 12 months – but now, just what we can.
Video of the Week – if your new release has a decent video with it, then let us know and we’ll consider it
A Casual Intro – these are rather ‘occasional’ and to be honest we’ll only feature acts we actually like. Don’t call us, etc…
Downloads – since these are so rare these days we’re more likely to feature a free mp3 download than other new releases. (Either that or we eventually retire the section!)
In the press – are you a journalist who thinks your web-based interview with a Scottish band deserves a wider readership? Well, let us know then for goodness sake!
Forums – we’ll get back to you on that one…
Backstage – this is news for bands rather than about bands… so if you’re, for example, running a workshop for new acts, or looking for acts to play your venue or festival (you’d better be paying them!) we can help you get the word out…
And our Playlist… needs a bit of work. Damn Spotify…

But feel free to read on as we reckon the following is a good guideline for upcoming bands who want to get their music covered anywhere…

For that we would need from you:
• General info – artist name, release title, label
• Where it can be purchased from i.e. Bandcamp page etc
• The ability to embed some music – Bandcamp, Youtube video, public Soundcloud site
• Band website, plus social media links – Facebook, Twitter etc for interested listeners to find out more
• Band picture (as an attachment, or a link will work)
• If also available on streaming sites, your aggregation URL – e.g. Linktree, Linkfire, SmartURL, Feature.FM, or Toneden.

Can’t speak for other websites, but we certainly disapprove of Spotify, and your already limited chances of coverage are next-to-none if that’s your only release medium – all this thanks to Spotify’s recent comments on the future of music and the general payment model which is clearly damaging to artists and in turn the future of music. We’d encourage everyone to put their music on Bandcamp anyway.

(Bandcamp is probably the quickest and easiest way to sell your music DIY. If you have aspirations of joining the machine that is the music business and getting your music online into stores such as Amazon or iTunes and ready for your assault on the charts then a digital provider such as Emubands will do all the hard work for you. Others are available, but we know and trust them, they’re local, and their model is slightly different and we believe better than some others).

And anything sent in will also go onto the is this music? review pile for a one-in-a-million shot of actually getting picked up for review by one of the writers. It will also be considered for airplay on the is this music? radio show. So no need to send more than once.

* Oh, it may be that put your music on Apple Music it also becomes available as an iTunes download. so, technically a download. But with the current volume of new releases, we will have to prioritise what we feature, and Bandcamp or physical releases will always get priority. Sorry (not sorry).