Welcome back/what we do here
Welcome back, fellow music lovers!
As you probably know, we’ve been at this a LONG time. Like…over a decade type of long. In that time we’ve learned a lot about the music industry, GOOD music journalism practices, and a whole mess of things that makes everyone’s lives easier. The most important thing we learned though is to be upfront about what it is we do, don’t do, and the best way to get anyone, not just us, to dig into your music.
So without further adieu, here are our ground rules. And to be clear, we’re pretty flexible people, so there’s nothing “hard and fast” (or furious) about them, but they are our guiding light.
Things that we do
We talk about music.
Discologist is a show. About music. We listen to music and then contextualize it. Sometimes we even talk to people who make music about music.We (occasionally) write about music.
Sometimes a band or music biz issue that we’re passionate about doesn’t quite make it to our airwaves. Sometimes that’s not the right format. So, we write about it instead in our Tracking section.We still love Boston’s Third Stage
A masterpiece like that never goes out of style
Things we don’t do
We don’t cover live music anymore
We spent a decade in the pit and don’t regret a second of it. But it was time to move on, so we did.We don’t do show previews
We’ve got nothing against a good show calendar/events blog. We’re not that though! And TBH we’re terrible at keeping up a calendar, so this is a win/win…for us.We don’t do premiers
What is this 2005?
If you’re attaching exclusivity to your music in any way, you’ve already lost. Give up. The music biz is not for you.
Ground rules for pitches
(Best practices in general, not just for us)
Always send at least a link* to the full album
Singles are great, but context is important! We want to know as much about you before we spend our time pimping your vibe.Read the room
We try to balance our coverage between under-represented artists/art and stuff that we love. When we do it right, the Venn Diagram for this is a circle of excitement! Which is just to say that if you band is described as “indie” and made up of four dudes who really love The National there is less of a chance that we will want to talk about your music than pretty much anywhere else on the internet.No “ironic” covers of classic 80’s songs
Unless it’s “Boys of Summer.” That song f***s.
*Pro-tip: No music journalist worth a sh** listens to music at their desk so make sure a download is at least available. Let people LIVE in your music.
