Sending album(s) to ind./underground/foreign labels

[shackrock]

so my friends and I got a rap group, and we've made three "official" cds, i guess you could say.

Anyway, people love them - rarely do we hear honest complaints. Two of us members (out of 3) are in an international program called CISV, and the people who hear the album (from all over the world) really really really seem to think that we should send them to small labels here in the USA or at least some foreign labels in their countries.

so i'm all like - game on. haha.

anyway, even if we are complete crap, I still want to do it - and do it proffessionally at that.


How can I go about doing this? Write a formal letter (what do I say in it?)? Mail it to many places, simply with the letter and the album in it? Should I point out a few select tracks to listen to?

And even MORE importantly - where can I find these labels? I've scoured the net, but really I'm not so sure what labels are jokes and what are serious - and rarely do I find contact info, or am sure if the label is even what I'm looking for. And even more confusing is the foreign websites that are simply not in english. HA!

So I don't want to waste my time and money mailing it to fake labels, but I am serious about mailing a bunch out by two weeks from today (when I'm back at school).

Thanks guys. Also I'm interested in any websites you know of that kinda help me with this.

PEACE!

 

[Outlaws]

This where you start your own lable and do all your own marketing. Send your album to zines and magazines that do reviews. See what happens there.

Get gigs and hock your shit. Get more gigs and make people wanna come back. Get gigs after that and intustry people might start to show out of curiosity. Then you can maybe just skip the independents and go all out.

 

[shackrock]

hmmm...that sounds tite. but to be honest we cant as easily/dont want to get shows around here in cincinnati. the idea of traveling kind of sparked everything haha.

but i would definately love to send the album(s) to magazines and things like that, especially online ones - to get reviewed. know of any cool ones off the top of your head? hiphop/rap, if i didnt mention that already. ha.

 

[David Hooper]

Before you send anything out, you need to think about return on investment. Your odds of getting picked up are probably pretty good, but odds of getting paid are not.

 

[shackrock]

Before you send anything out, you need to think about return on investment. Your odds of getting picked up are probably pretty good, but odds of getting paid are not.

yeah...that's not a concern as of now.

 

[earworm]

well, i've been doing that for years, but not on a serious base ;..you know,

i've always been making music, since a kid, and i got a shedload of tapes, mididiscs, cds and harddiscs full with my experimental 'crap'

when i was about 16 i loved it when people started hearing my stuff,
so i put it online, worked together with Handsfull of little underground labels,
i never signed one contract, it was allways on a "friends-basis"

i had ten-thousands of downloads and streams on internet over the years,
sold a bunch of cds online

but now its all more difficult ...at least, thats how it seems,
everyone is making music these days, its hard to be "special" and noticed,
everyone tries to make money with it, everyone tries to do business,
and thats just no fun, its business,

so if you wanna do it all underground,and if yer not interested in a REAL record deal,
then its easy:

simply do a search on google.com for underground labels,
there are millions of them! (i had a few during the years)

one of the things i do is: i gather special musicians, not just every kid that has frootyloops, but people that have an edge, not GOOD stuff, just SICK SHIT, knwo what i'm saying ?
i give them free hosting, free website, help them with mixdowns and publicity, we might start working on a second compilation cd

you can do alot of things with lots of people , but from the moment MONEY gets involved, sigh, then everything gets fucked up, then everyone wants his share;.... i guess i'm not a real business man, i just wanna have some fun too ;... only my "engineering" is taken serious for the moment,
thats what i tell everyone i work with: in the "studio" its all SERIOUS,
the website stuff, the tiny live gigs, thats FUN

so how serious are you about your stuff ? you say you got like 3 official cds, so thats already pretty nice, isn't it ?
if you got some good shit, try to send it to magazines like "sound on sound" and the other big ones, you'd be surprized how many people read those demo reviews!! whoha