Some Thoughts About Music PR

I get a lot of emails from music PR companies looking for coverage and music premieres. Most of the time, unless the email is about a show that I want to attend, I ignore the emails and just keep doing my thing. Especially when it has to do with a new music release, which is what inspired this post today.

Sometimes, I will get an email about an artist I like, or a song that interests me, and I will agree to cover it. In these cases, without fail, I spend a lot of time researching the artist, sending them Q&A questions, and preparing the post, and it comes out really good.

And then the artist doesn’t even acknowledge the article, unless I pester the PR company about it. And since it is outside of my normal scope of coverage, the regular Extra Chill audience doesn’t give a shit about it, and nobody reads it or cares.

So what is the point of doing a premiere via a PR company in that case? There is no point. It’s just a waste of time, and ultimately, a waste of the artist’s money to hire the PR company in the first place.

On the other hand, when I collaborate directly with an artist from my network, the process is similar, just without the PR company. And in those cases, the artist will shout it from the mountaintops and send all their fans to Extra Chill, and it becomes a win-win.

Running a publication and trying to make it sustainable is an incredibly difficult endeavor. For some reason, artists with PR companies are too cool to support independent journalism. Even if they are independent, DIY artists, who should understand how the game is played, and want to support a company like Extra Chill. Yet, they don’t care. I don’t understand it at all.

This is all to say that with every passing day, and every PR-sourced music premiere that gets 10 views, I become less likely to bother working with a PR company on a music release. I would rather just focus on what I’m doing, because when I use my own connections to make content, it always ends up being more successful, and helps to grow Extra Chill.

So, if you’re a PR person or an artist with a PR manager reading this, maybe it’s a good idea to start supporting DIY publications who support you. Or, fire your useless PR company and stop working with the media at all. Not every blog can be Stereogum, and nobody will ever come up to de-throne Stereogum if artists continue to not care about smaller publications about their music.

Collaboration makes the world go ’round. You’re not helping anybody by ignoring a writer’s hard work in regards to your music. You’re just making people more likely to put less effort in, and even use AI to save time writing.

What is my time worth to these people? Probably not much.

Does anybody have experience with this stuff? Whether from the writer’s perspective, the artist perspective, or the PR perspective? Why are so many artists too cool for a writer who enjoys their music?