is musosoup worth it?
music PR for independent musicians and songwriters
I do like Musosoup. Ever since they first showed up in 2020 I took to their design layout and vibe.
I have used them sporadically over the last 5 years and decided I have had enough experience with them to give my view on them as a platform.
Before we move on, let me explain what Musosoup is, as I am constantly meeting songwriters and artists who don’t know.
what’s musosoup?
Musosoup was founded in 2020 by Chris Sharpe with an aim to helping independent artists connect with curators for playlisting, blog coverage, and PR.
You pay an upfront fee of £36 to activate a campaign. Here you upload your single and press release and any artwork. You create your pitch.
Then once it has been accepted, you can start expecting to see ‘offers’ come in. These are pitches from various music blogs, offering to write a review on your music for various fees. These individual fees range from as little as £3 to £25 and more.
Every offer that comes in must also give you a completely free option which is often in the form of two weeks on a playlist or an instagram shout out.
Why get reviewed?
If you’re a brand new artist you may have seen other indie artist you follow have their music reviewed on platforms such as Louder than War or God is in the TV.
These days getting that sort of coverage, unless it’s in platforms like NME is less about readership and audience growth and more about clout and credibility. If you get your music covered in Pitchfork the industry might take notice.
When you’re just starting to release music and you don’t have a manager or a label or a team, it’s pretty difficult to get any platform to review you.
Artists send countless emails to music blogs and never hear a word back. Musosoup is attempting to offer a way for any artist to at least be heard.
The Reviews
The successfulness of the reviews really depends on what your purpose for those reviews is.
Is it a vanity metric? (Nothing wrong with that in my opinion)
Is it for SEO? To have your name attached to your music come up in more online searches? This has always been my approach. Is it for clout?
If it is for credibility and clout I think there is a limit to what Musosoup can offer you but I also think it’s great for anyone just starting out who’s never had a review in their life.
My experience is I have had a range of reviews from ones that have put absolutely no thought or heart into it, simply copy pasting my own press release to others that made me feel so seen I had to grab a towel!
One of my favourite reviews that came out of a recent campaign doesn’t even come up first in Google search but I will treasure it forever: https://laurelanne.media/jay-moussa-manns-amy-is-childhood-obsession-through-adult-eyes
Miranda Chase understood my song in a way few do when they hear it, and that meant a lot to me. It meant I had achieved what I set out to do and there was an audience out there who would understand the song on another level.
I would say you get out what you put into these campaigns. I went into my latest ones knowing what I would like to have written out there about the song and I wrote my press releases accordingly. Signalling to the writers what you are excited about in your song will help them too.
The Cost
I think £36 per campaign is very reasonable in the grand scheme of things.
You need to be careful about the offers though. Lots of £8 offers eventually stack up and before you know it you may have spent £100 on one song on one campaign! And I don’t think the results are worth that much. My advice would be accept one or two suitable offers of between £8-10.
I see this type of work as a small part of a large campaign around your music and it doesn’t equal listenership. You’d be better off putting £50-100 into Meta ads that send listeners to Spotify and actually convert to fans over time.
conclusion
Overall I think Musosoup is an excellent option for any independent artists looking to get their music and name out there more or beginners who have never had any coverage. As I mentioned I think over time you will hit a ceiling with what you can get out of it at the moment.
Musosoup’s model and artist agency
Now this is where I feel Musosoup really falls down and disappoints.
Over the 5 years I’ve been using it, I have seen the same blogs on almost every single campaign. Never a new one. Maybe one. Once. I get around 70 offers each campaign and they are all familiar faces.
And what I really want is for an opportunity to pitch my song to bigger, more well known platforms.
At the moment Musosoup users don’t have much agency. It uses a tier 1 model. Curators find the artist.
But what if there was another model - Tier 2? Aimed at allowing artists to actually pitch to platforms as big as Atwood Magazine.
How would that even work?
Well, it might go something like this:
Platform releases a brief of what they want to be covering in the next edition, this could range from themes to genres to overall vibe.
Artists who have somehow proven they are trustworthy based on something other than numbers (such as a writing sample, clarity of project description or consistency of aesthetic) then pitch their music based on the brief to selected platforms
Platform and Editors review the pitches and over time unlock access to build a working relationship with the artist leading eventually to real reviews.
But what would attract the music platforms to this model in the first place?
Great stories around music and incredible writing?
There are many flaws to my suggestion but I suppose the greater question might be:
Do the industry gatekeepers actually want to fling open their doors and clink cups with the artists they write about?
I’m not so sure you know. I’m not so sure…