WHAT SHOULD I EXPECT WHEN I GET A SONG APPROVED BY YOU ON SUBMITHUB? | #HI54FAQU
FAQ U is an attempt at a recurring blog category where I try to answer some of the questions that people often ask me (or some of the questions I feel like people would ask me if anybody read this blog enough to have any questions they could be bothered to ask). This is one of those questions.
TODAYS QUESTION: WHAT CAN I EXPECT WHEN I GET A SONG APPROVED BY HI54 ON SUBMITHUB?
[NOTE: this post is for people who've submitted / are thinking of submitting music into the HI54 Submithub queue - if that's not you, but you would like it to be, here's the latest update on the HI54 submission process]When I approve a submission on Submithub, not only does that mean I liked the song, but it means I liked it on that level where I feel an urge to pass the tune on to someone else via digital mix tape cd (which is a much higher level of “like” than your standard “ya, I like this fine enough”). According to my Submithub submission stats, that happens only about 6-8% of the time with my ears. So, being in the top % for the ears of some dude on the internet that's… something, right?
As for how I follow-up on the urge to "pass the tune on to someone else" - almost 100% of my Submithub approvals lead to placement in one of the human-curated Spotify "mix cds" that I update on the regular. You can usually expect to go from 'approved’ to ‘shared' within one week, sometimes sooner (I try to clear my Approved queue on Submithub every weekend).
I try to run my Spotify playlists a bit like a DIY radio station (in fact, I even setup a mountown radio station that runs on 95-track Spotify playlists for the mountain town I live in), and hopefully in a way that encourages people to come back and listen more than once. I am always tweaking the selection and re-promoting the same playlists (ie. adding / removing tracks rather than creating new playlists like 'June 2018', 'April 2016', etc)—but you can expect your song to be in the playlist I share with you for at least a month or so (usually much longer). I also try to share music I like multiple times, so once a track is in my "DIY radio library" you can expect the song to pop up in other playlists of mine down the road, for as long as I use Spotify / have a music blog.
For example, every week I shuffle up all the tracks I’ve included in Mix Tapes & Mix CDs over the years, and I put a fresh mix of 19 songs / artists on top of my ‘THE HI54 WEEKLY SHUFFLE’ playlist (and remove 19 from the bottom to keep things at a nice, even 95):
And besides the specific mix cd your track will get featured in & all the subsequent HI54 playlists it might find its way into later, all HI54 Submithub approvals also end up in a big archive playlist (which makes for a nice ‘shuffles for days’ listen) + you can also expect your track to end up in my ongoing collection of music ‘liked’ this year (and/or maybe it also ends up in one of these nostalgic ‘end of year’ headphone collections).
Some Submithub approvals (depending on what they have linked as different audio sources) will also find themselves in a monthly "SubmitCloud" Soundcloud playlist and/or in a music video shuffle thing called "FM/TV" (and I’ve also started creating ‘available on Bandcamp’ lists for my ongoing Spotify playlists over on Buy Music Club).
NOW PLAYING ON FM/TV
If I've approved a track of yours on Submithub, it is safe to assume that I'd be open to having MP3s sent my way for consideration in a weekly Mixcloud "mix tape" (these mixes are much more dependant on flow/song order, so I can't make any guarantees that a track you send me MP3s for will make it into a mix tape + it’s not unheard of for me to share your track in a Spotify playlist and then 5 months later include your track in a mix tape — I don’t believe good music has an expiry date, so I don’t base what/when I share on release dates). I also have a ‘mix tape radio’ setup called MTR - FRESH TAPES that’ll play one HI54 mix tape after the other, all day, for those interested in tuning into something like that.
My preferred way to have MP3s sent to me is via a Bandcamp download code, as that way I can also add the album to my Bandcamp collection and, if I have time, I can also write a little mini-review that will show up under the album on Bandcamp (a fave BC feature of mine that inspired an ongoing HI54 feature called 'Fandcamp'). Also, sending me your music via a Bandcamp download code will make your album show up in the Music Feed of all the folks who follow me on Bandcamp, which can sometimes lead to actual purchases (aka a #BandcampBooyakasha). Also, the Bandcamp app is a pretty handy mini record pocket player.
I don't really write reviews about why I like albums/songs or how they make me feel on the blog anymore. I think I ran out of ways of expanding “I like this, you should check it out” every day/week quite awhile ago + I also was never really good at that stuff (and there are others who are way better at that art form). Instead, I just try to create different listening experiences (aka "radio alternatives") where folks can casually discover new music/artists while they go about their day-to-day. When I do write long things, they tend to be about broader topics that I am trying to figure out how I think about & not album reviews (sorry, just ain’t the field I dig in).
That being said, I do think people like hearing top shelf recommendations if the task is spread around to include tastes other than just my own — which is why there is an ongoing Q&A feature on HI54 called HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
These Q&A's are open to artists that get past the original submission gate of "do I like the music?" - so, if you’ve had a track approved and you'd like to do one, shoot me a message in our Submithub chat to let me know (or send me an email). I’ve also got a few other ideas for attempted new recurring blog features, so if you’ve already done a Highly Recommended Q&A before and you find yourself reading this post again, just let me know if you’d be interested in doing something similar (I’ll share examples once I have some live ones).
And I guess that more or less sets the table of expectations for what one can expect when they get a Submithub message that says:
"Good news! I would like to share YOUR SONG as part of a blog playlist, ideally within the next week on HIGH FIVE FOR"
As you can see, Submithub is like my ears Firewall. And once something gets past my Firewall, it usually ends up in my regular rotations. Call me old fashioned, but I like to spend time with the stuff that catches my fancy for more than just the week I discovered it — because what’s the point of finding stuff you like if all you do is just keep looking for more stuff?
So there are often extra random adds/shares that I do beyond the original Spotify playlist add that I will send you a link to on Submithub to ‘mark your track as shared’.
But, all of the above comes first with you getting a song into my ears and me going, "I like this song that is in my ears" — and the way to do that, if you haven't already, is by getting your song in my Submithub queue (and, again, if you want a long ramble on why I use Submithub, you can find that in another blahg post).
I accept Premium AND the free Standard submissions and my queue is only open for submissions on Mondays (because there’s a limit to how much I can listen to & share before I’m just not getting anything else done in my life — also, even though I am only open for submissions one day a week, I still get sent 100-200 submissions to deal with every week).
Cheers and see you out on the internets \m/
I hope you found the above information useful, but if you didn't and would like to ask a different question for the HI54 FAQ U section that is relevant to your interests, you can do so on the form below:
Or you can check out some other Submithub posts below ⇊
Because, like, WTF even is a music blahg, amirite? ESPECIALLY if they stop accepting music submissions.
The HI54 Submithub queue had switched to only being open for new submissions on Mondays, but… at the moment, I’m actually just on a total music submission break in general (extended until April 2022). Read this blog post for more info if you’re interested in the whys & hows.
It's not all broken hearts and rejections over on SubmitHub. For example, here's an ongoing collection of all the songs that have made it past the HI54 submission firewall and over onto the blog.
“Submithub is like my ears Firewall, so once a track I like gets past that, it ends up in my regular rotations— because what’s the point of finding stuff you like if all you do is just keep looking for more stuff?”
“If you want to try and have a rational conversation about Submithub, which is no easy task, there are two important things that need to be kept in mind right from the beginning, otherwise the discussion quickly heads down illogical ego-driven roads that are near impossible to turn around from. So let’s start there…”
“HI, here’s FIVE counterpoints FOR those people out there who think Submithub is an example of everything that is wrong with the music industry (it’s not).”
Near the end of 2019, I started experimenting with closing my Submithub queue for a full ten days before opening it again for another four… and I’ll be damned if the blog/work/life balance hasn’t felt a whole lot more balanced ever since.
It was February, 2018 and I had recently started fielding music submissions from a service that promised the rarest of rare music industry promises: music blog haz income stream?
