Were artist submissions ignored at CMJ?

The CMJ Music Marathon, long a bastion for the tired, the poor, and the unsigned masses of the music world, is now facing accusations that it ignored digital submissions from this year's festival hopefuls. Considering the thousands of acts that annually apply to join the lineup, it might be understandable if a band or two slipped through the cracks. The only problem: those artists all paid a non-refundable $45 entry fee to Sonicbids, a musical networking service that pledges to connect up-and-coming artists with music promoters. Several bands who were tracking their Sonicbids plays reported that none of the tracks they submitted to CMJ received any plays.

None of these revelations might have come to light, however, were it not for an e-mail snafu on the part of Sonicbids. On Monday, a missive went out to about 670 CMJ hopefuls, informing them that they were on "stand-by" for the festival. They were to contact a CMJ showcase director with dates they could potentially play during the five-day festival. Imagine the excitement of a young band given such a notice. Unfortunately, a sucker punch followed, in the form of a corrective letter from CMJ Showcase Coordinator Robyn Baskin:

"There is a bug in Sonicbids system and the wrong email was sent out to many people. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. This is the email that you should have received:

It is with regret that we inform you we are unable to find a slot for you to perform at CMJ Music Marathon 2007..."

And so it went. But things got worse: the 670 recipients were each copied on the message, instead of blind carbon copied (BCC'd), thereby allowing every band who received the rejection to reply to everyone else. This quickly created a festering spam cesspool, with every band's inbox soon stuffed full of shameless self-promotion and aimless complaints from other groups. But from this cacophony of junk messaging, some unsettling facts began to emerge. An e-mail from Brooklyn-based Shiny Little Records, as later quoted on the Ghost Media blog, unveiled the potential Sonicbids scandal:

"Check your SonicBids account and see how many plays you received. Ours, attached, shows that there were NO plays of any of our music by anyone (CMJ was the only ap we submitted). $45 should at the very least mean that they get an intern to click play on your song once. How sloppy. Yes, I think a refund, apology, and full explanation are in order."

Basic math painted a grim picture: 670 bands x $45 entry fee for each + 0 (alleged) listens by CMJ staff = $30,150 in (potentially) misbegotten profits.

From there, it was off to the blogosphere races, as the scribes at Ghost Media, QCLA, Brooklyn Vegan, and others broke the story to the Web. Once again, the blogs proved their worth for generating conversation and keeping organizations honest. In response to the outcry, Matt McDonald (CMJ's Vice President of Artists & Events) issued the following statement to various online outlets:

"We very much appreciate the amount of blood, sweat, and tears that each artist puts into his/her music, and the CMJ Music Marathon wouldn't have lasted for 27 years if that appreciation were not in clear focus for everyone involved in the event. As head of the staff who reviews the music and selects the artists for the marathon, I can tell you firsthand that we do in fact listen to at least two songs from every single artist who applies. For the ease of listening, the showcase department downloads mp3s from Sonicbids EPKs and drops them into our iTunes player. Sonicbids has recently changed their system to track streamed plays, however it does not currently track these mp3 downloads, making it appear that we did not listen when in fact we did. We can report back which specific songs were reviewed. Our review process is extremely thorough and difficult and with or without payment for submissions, I cannot even fathom the injustice of ignoring any submissions. I can reassure you that each and every artist was given the same respect and critique."

The staff at Pitchfork put this explanation to the test by setting up their own Sonicbids account, downloading the mp3s they posted there and seeing if those downloads registered as plays. Their results, unfortunately, proved inconclusive. If there's any happy ending to this story, it's that these confused bands can purchase CMJ Marathon badges (normally $495) at a steep discount of $175, according to QCLA.

So, just what exactly happened here? No one can say for sure just yet, but it's a sound logistics lesson: next year, CMJ and SonicBids would do well to either set a limit on entries or else devise a better system for sorting through would-be marathon runners.

More updates here as they arrive...

UPDATE - 10/1/07:

After reading our news item, Panos Panay, founder and CEO of SonicBids sent us the following open letter:

Sonicbids & CMJ Submissions: An Open Letter

I have received many emails and viewed several blogs in the past 24 hours about artists upset that CMJ rejected them without first listening to them; and also voicing their dismay at the cost of the submission through Sonicbids. Their concerns are based on a “not-selected” email that some artists received on Monday evening from a CMJ staff member who accidentally copied the other non-selected artists; and also from some artists checking their Sonicbids account and noticing that even though they got a rejection from CMJ, their Sonicbids “hits tracker” did not indicate that their songs were played. After carefully reading all emails and posts, I thought that it would be appropriate that I use this forum to respond.

First, let me say that to the best of our knowledge CMJ did in fact listen to all artists that have submitted through Sonicbids. How do we know this? Well, one of the nice things about being an online company is that we are able to see activities that happen on our servers such as page views, MP3 streaming, file downloads, etc. The issue arose from the fact that the current version of the Sonicbids EPK “hits tracker” tells you if an MP3 was streamed, but it does not indicate if it was downloaded (yeah, makes no sense to me either, but we are fixing that). Since CMJ prefers to review submitting artists by downloading their tracks first, this resulted in several bands getting a rejection from CMJ, but, when they checked their tracker stats, noticed that their music was not registered as having been played. I would get mad too, specially if I paid $45 to submit and thought that no one listened to my music. Obviously that was not the case, and we are working as we speak on making the EPK hits tracker a lot more accurate.

In addition to this, we know that CMJ listened to the artists that submitted because, simply, we know CMJ. Big deal, you say, right? I can tell you that there is hardly an organization out there that has done more for independent music in the past 25 years than CMJ has done, both with its Music Marathon and its music charts. In fact, CMJ has booked and presented close to 2,000 different bands through Sonicbids in the past four years – that’s TWO THOUSAND. I can barely name an artist who broke big in America in the past quarter of a century who has done so without benefiting from the exposure that they got from playing CMJ or from appearing on their charts. If we trust one organization to meticulously review all submissions that they get, it’s CMJ. These people are music people, plain and simple.

Second, I understand that some people are upset about the cost of submitting to CMJ through Sonicbids. Let me make it clear that the cost of submission for CMJ is $45 whether you submit through Sonicbids or not (if you still like sending in a physical promo kit, that’s a $45 check plus the cost of the postage and material). Unlike, say, Ticketmaster, MovieTickets, Active.com or other similar services, we do not add a surcharge to the submission cost. Instead, Sonicbids makes its money by taking a fee out of the promoter’s submission fee so that the applying artist is not double-charged.

Why pay a submission fee for CMJ or any other similar event? Well, submission costs are fairly normal no matter the industry you are in. You pay them whether you are an architect submitting to a contest; an immigrant applying for a visa; a craft artist applying for a show; a college student applying to a university. Putting on an event, running a college, staging a competition is not free and yes, part of the costs of running these events is covered by these fees. No worthwhile “connection” in life is free. A phone call costs money, a meeting at a coffee shop costs money, even a call through Skype costs money as you still have to pay your internet bill. The real issue is to decide whether the upside of any submission fee (that is, being selected) is worthwhile. If not, I would strongly suggest that you do not submit, as it would be a waste of money.

As far as the total number of selections versus the number of applications, all I can say is that any event worth its salt will have far fewer slots available than applications. Would you rather go to a college that accepts 10% of all applicants or 90% of all applicants? Take a job that accepts all comers or be offered one that has a strenuous selection process where only the best get in? Anything with a high standard will also have a high number of rejections. That’s why CMJ is popular and that’s why it’s relevant to the college radio programmers that have attended the event every year for 27 years.

I know that rejection is disappointing for everyone and it’s something that all of us - who care about becoming something better than who we already are – experience, and will continue to experience. It’s part of putting yourself out there. I also know that on occasion, any website and any technological solution encounters bugs and glitches and no matter how much testing one does, nothing is fool-proof until it’s truly tested out there in the marketplace. We do apologize for any confusion that may have arisen as a result of a buggy tracker, which we are busy fixing.

We are committed here at Sonicbids to creating the best site that exists to help every band and artist, no matter which stage of their career, to find and connect with any gig that’s appropriate for where they want to go next. We are doing, and will continue to do, our best to live up to your understandably high expectations of Sonicbids.

Panos Panay Founder & CEO Sonicbids

Related Links:
Paste: CMJ Unveils Initial Lineup
Paste: CMJ Announces Screenings, Concerts
Earl Greyhound Plays CMJ '06 (YouTube)

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