Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

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Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by fluffy »

So, who here has managed to submit to Pandora and get their stuff accepted? And was any of that recent? (Like, I know Heuristics Inc is on it but he also submitted back when they were just getting started.)

One really frustrating thing is the black-box-ness of the rejection, and how their explanation says:
Our policy is not to discuss specific reasons for our decisions, but our conclusions are based primarily on whether a release is right for our collection and our listeners at the time of review.
and yet, no matter how much time passes, you can never, ever submit another song from that same album ever again. It's so maddening, especially now that you can only submit a single song from a particular album, and you're just left wondering if you chose the wrong song to submit.

For example, for Refactor, I tried "Sliced by a Mandolin," which they rejected. I'd love to be able to try again with "Feed," but now Refactor and all the songs on it are permanently tainted just because (seemingly) one reviewer (seemingly) decided that it wasn't right "at the time of review."

This just seems kind of asinine to me.
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by jb »

If only we knew somebody with intimate knowledge of how Pandora works...
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by fluffy »

Yes, if only.

I suspect I already know that the answer will be "I have no insight into that" and/or "I'd love to help/tell you but I can't."
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by josh »

Does Pandora even do independent releases? I've only ever heard mainstream stuff on there.
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by jb »

Sure they do. You can find Songfighter Brad Sucks on Pandora for one example. Dunno which mechanism he used to submit tho.

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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by fluffy »

Heuristics Inc, too. I think he submitted back when they were still The Music Genome Project and got grandfathered in as a result.

It's not the being rejected that bugs me, it's the verbiage for the rejection reason (we don't want you at the moment) coupled with the rejection being absolutely permanent for every track on the entire album, even though they only ostensibly listen to a single track from it. I mean I realize they're busy and all, but... come on. Every other submission system I've seen lets you submit at least a few songs (examples being Feedbands and Getty Images, both of which accepted me based on liking at least a few of my songs in a diverse repertoire).
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by Lunkhead »

fluffy wrote:I have no insight into that
I'm on the enterprise/business side of things so I really don't know what is going on over in the "indie submission" (as they call it) approval process. I don't really even know anybody who works on that stuff.

To josh, yes, Pandora does sometimes incorporate indie music into their library (although apparently it's a bit wonky):

http://help.pandora.com/customer/portal ... to-pandora

My friend Stormy got his EP on there somehow:

http://www.pandora.com/stormy-strong

I've not heard about that "one song from an album rejected means the whole album is permanently rejected" thing. I'll see if I can dig up any info about what is going on there.
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by ken »

My old band Parker Street Cinema is on Pandora, but we got in before the new indie submission protocol. I think it took some personal wrangling from my bandmate.

http://www.pandora.com/parker-street-cinema
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by glennny »

I have enjoyed Pandora in the past, but it's been years since I used it.

If you ask the same question of Song Fighters on Spotify its amazing how many are there: Ross, Balance Lost, Puce, Caravan Ray, Glenn Case etc. it goes on and on.
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by fluffy »

It's easy to get stuff on Spotify though. They don't do the whole "gatekeeper" thing, they're happy to just take peoples' money (or rather, take distributors' money, since it's easy to get your stuff on there using Distrokid or CDBaby or whatever).

But Pandora is both tight-lipped and tight-assed.

I've seen three different protocols from them:

1. The original Music Genome Project one, where they just wanted to categorize/tag every song on the planet and you could just submit anything to them and they'd eventually get to it (but it might take a year)

2. Send them multiple songs from an album and tell them the UPC, and they'll listen to all the songs and (eventually) tell you whether they're accepting you or not. If they don't like any of the songs, the UPC is permanently rejected and can no longer be submitted.

3 (the current one). Send them a link to a Bandcamp or Amazon album page and the specific single song you want them to listen to, and within a week they'll tell you whether they're accepting you or not. If they don't like that specific single song, the UPC is permanently rejected and can no longer be submitted.
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by fluffy »

Here's an example screenshot from the rejection of a song on the basis of another song from the album already having been submitted: (the previous submission attempt from this album was Better Than Before, well over a year ago)
pandora.jpg
pandora.jpg (85.95 KiB) Viewed 2105 times
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by Billy's Little Trip »

I'd like to submit to Pandora. But I want them to ask me first.
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by HeuristicsInc »

fluffy wrote:Heuristics Inc, too. I think he submitted back when they were still The Music Genome Project and got grandfathered in as a result.
No, it was Pandora then... the guy that started it had a series of town hall talks in various cities. I came to see it in Baltimore and after the talk I stopped by to talk to him and handed him a pile of my CDs... I think they accepted all of them once he got back home. But Pandora was pretty new then. Subsequently I submitted the comic book CD I did via the indie process and they accepted that, but maybe because I was already in. I haven't released any albums lately so I don't know anymore...
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by Lunkhead »

State Shirt said his new album got denied too. I'm closer to the people involved in that whole process now so maybe in not too long I can at least try to get some more info about them about their process.
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by user »

They denied friggin' State Shirt? What kind of pretentious, arbitrary standards are we dealing with here argle-bargle-grargle...
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by Lunkhead »

My completely unofficial uninformed opinion is that if your vocals don't sound like they were sung by someone who would do well on "The Voice" or "American Idol", you may not make the cut...
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by fluffy »

Wow, good thing that's the only kind of music anyone ever wants to listen to.
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by Lunkhead »

I certainly don't want to hear practically any of that music. But I think there are a lot of people who have only ever heard that kind of music. I think those of us who make music ourselves, have friends who make music, listen to independent/non-commercial music that's not wannabe pop music, etc. are the minority. Services with 20-30 million song catalogs, who are motivated to increase their catalog sizes, who have few/no costs associated with increasing their catalogs, are probably better outlets/services for people who like indie/obscure/alternative music, at this point.

On Pandora, I don't think there is anything that necessarily prevents indie songs from being spun on stations seeded with mainstream artists. While I can't say for sure, they be making an editorial call not to accept music they feel will sound jarring and/or get a thumbs down in that context. I really don't know. It seems like a shame that they are not more open minded about it. Maybe that will change over time.
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by glennny »

My close friend has a band "Stewboss", they made it on Pandora no problem. He's more of an alt-country Wilco kinda thing. I don't imagine alt-country singers doing very well on those TV shows, but I don't really watch those shows.

We used to spend every Thanksgiving together, a few years ago we collaborated for "Look at the Sky" over Thanksgiving weekend, we submitted as "Something Happy".

I made a video:
https://youtu.be/m9Cmzr3aX_M?list=PL815E1C0D3791E07D
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by Lunkhead »

I don't know, this sounds fairly mainstream and professional to me, even if the genre is alt-country and not bubblegum pop or rap or whatever.

https://www.facebook.com/stewbossmusic/app_2405167945
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by glennny »

Yeah they sound mainstream and professional, but they are indeed independent releases.
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Re: Has anyone been successful at submitting to Pandora?

Post by Lunkhead »

OK. My original point was about having a mainstream/professional sound, whether you're indie or major label, not about being major label. So I'm not surprised these guys made the cut, is what I'm saying.
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