Anybody heard of taxi.com? Is it for real?

It is for real, but you really need to be writing the type of music that they tend to place. If you do metal, you will waste your money.
 
Thank you for your replies! Yes, I figured heavy metal wouldn`t be too successful there. I consider joining. I mostly compose cheesy songs haha. Romantic songs, hate songs. So I will give it a try as soon as I record my new songs.
I wonder if any of the members on this site signed a deal with these guys...
 
Yes, if you really want to push your songs (even if they are in the Taxi style) it will cost you. Even if you do manage to get one of your songs pushed through to a publisher there is no garantee of riches - in fact, Taxi do make a point of advising their members not to hold unrealistic expectations about how much money they might earn from a successful song. (Well, they do this once you join, they don't really make a point of this in their advertising).

Although Taxi is genuine, and people do benefit from their service, I couldn't help feeling as though their real focus was creating a cash stream for themselves. Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge them treating it like a business, but the constant emails, press releases, interviews...keep submitting (at $5 a pop), you never know, the next song could be the one... it all has a kind of "Amway" feel about it.
 
I know someone who is having some small success through Taxi. She started about 6 years ago and only recently got some placements, mostly tv stuff. It wasn't that finally someone recognized her material as being adequate, it was that after several years of incorporating the critiques into her songwriting, she started writing stuff that met the producers' requirements.

Taxi offers a one year money back guarantee. If you're not happy after the first year, they'll refund you the $300 sign up fee.
 
I`m really curious, how much would a songwriter get for a successful song. If it`s not over 1000 bucks, there`s no point joining, really. And they take your song and probably don`t change anything, because they always ask for top notch quality or very good home studio quality! That`s the impression I got.
I`m very tempted to give it a try. I feel very isolated here in Japan... And I could use some criticism... Maybe it`s worth paying the money. I wonder what the mean by universal lyrics.... lyrics in English? lyrics everybody can understand?
 
Chili said:
I know someone who is having some small success through Taxi. She started about 6 years ago and only recently got some placements, mostly tv stuff. It wasn't that finally someone recognized her material as being adequate, it was that after several years of incorporating the critiques into her songwriting, she started writing stuff that met the producers' requirements.

Taxi offers a one year money back guarantee. If you're not happy after the first year, they'll refund you the $300 sign up fee.
Click to expand...

How small is her success:)?
500 bucks for a song?
 
We've had a couple of songs placed through Taxi. As indicated - they look for very specific, very "commercial" material. I don't consider "commercial" to be a bad thing - but for Taxi to pass a song through to publishers, etc ...... they have to be good songs, well written and following a fairly well defined song structure - with strong musical or lyrical hooks.

More important than the amount of money ...... through Taxi we got in with a legit publisher that works a lot with the film and TV industry ........ we likely would not have been able to access this publisher without Taxi

We have one song that has generate about $4,000 so far in licensing and BMI royalties (the song ended up in a couple of direct to video movies and in a TV sitcom).

With cable ...... movies tend to get shown over and over - so the ongoing royalty checks generate a few hundred books each year (and we anticipate we'll continue to get BMI checks for a couple more years) However, the publisher gets 50% - so we've only seen about $2,000 to date .......... however, this one song easily justified the cost of Taxi.
 
Chili said:
I wouldn't know the monetary amount, but she's happy with it. She is getting placements and has signed a contract with one TV producer. She calls that success.
Click to expand...

Yeah, people don`t like talking about how much they make:) Well, most people don`t
 
Xdrummer said:
We've had a couple of songs placed through Taxi. As indicated - they look for very specific, very "commercial" material. I don't consider "commercial" to be a bad thing - but for Taxi to pass a song through to publishers, etc ...... they have to be good songs, well written and following a fairly well defined song structure - with strong musical or lyrical hooks.

More important than the amount of money ...... through Taxi we got in with a legit publisher that works a lot with the film and TV industry ........ we likely would not have been able to access this publisher without Taxi

We have one song that has generate about $4,000 so far in licensing and BMI royalties (the song ended up in a couple of direct to video movies and in a TV sitcom).

With cable ...... movies tend to get shown over and over - so the ongoing royalty checks generate a few hundred books each year (and we anticipate we'll continue to get BMI checks for a couple more years) However, the publisher gets 50% - so we've only seen about $2,000 to date .......... however, this one song easily justified the cost of Taxi.
Click to expand...
I know what you mean! And it`s not just the money. It`s also a validation of your existence:)! The fact that you made it! So you would definitely recommend becoming a member. I pretty much made up my mind to join... Thanks!
 
DONT KEEP US ALL IN SUSPENSE . . KEEP THIS TOPIC GOING! WHAT'S UP WITH HITQUARTERS?
Any one know if the successes talked about with TAXI happen to include hip hop?
 
Success with Taxi, for the most part, seems to be with developing the ability to write music to suit their listings. If you are a singer/songwriter just looking for a deal, Taxi probably isn't for you. If you're a composer who can write instrumentals to specific demands and just need help getting the music to the right people, Taxi seems to be a good avenue.

For bands and artists, Taxi I would think isn't the best option, it is definately better suited to composers.

And remember, like somebody else said, getting a forward through Taxi can mean nothing. So you should be very sure of the quality of material you're submitting before you lay out the dough.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top