The tips on licensing are great – it’s always about fitting that square peg into the square hole. It’s not going to fit if you keep trying to force it! Find the right shaped holes for your music, and suggest solutions for music supervisors. In that environment, a “pitch” for your music isn’t even necessary.

Hook does a great job knowing the “problem” inside and out, and suggesting a “solution” to the relevant folks. Screaming LICENSE MY MUSIC, especially on the scales that seem common for music licensing libraries.

Music always comes back to quality not quantity.

I used to encourage Pump to artists and know many that have signed up with them. But I don’t think any of them have been placed in anything significant, except for the instrumental-library-producer-crowd. With these new splits, I would tell them all to run and take their music with them, except the instrumental-library-producer-crowd who aren’t planning to use the music for anything else.

The best deals happen when you’re pulling, not pushing. Artists+Managers can do this on their own these days. It should be another part of the busines plan. Ask yourself:
1. What shows regularly place songs like mine?
2. What brands use music like mine?
3. What production companies use sounds like mine?
Make a list. Research and reach out. Share your music. Repeat. If a song works, the song works or it might work down the road.

Hook Audio receives music licensing requests from music supervisors daily. Most of them already know our sound and trust our ears. Even better, we are quick and easy to work with whcih makes their life easier. We send music to them regularly. 3-5 tracks customized around their ears. Just the best of the best. Our list has grown over the years and I think every band could do the same. Well, at least the best of the best.

Music always comes back to quality not quantity.

I always imagined a mobile version of Spotify would be a great “try before you buy” facility. I could load up the new albums I’m interested in trying out this month, give them a spin, and add them to my permanent collection if they make their way into the “In Case of Musical Emergency…” category.

Agree totally on the recommendations thing; I often get paralyzed by the paradox of choice when I launch Spotify. The fact that they supported Last.fm scrobbling looked like a good sign initially.

FWIW, the inability to play in the background (and a host of other features like pausing when you get a call or unplug headphones, double-tapping home) are because Apple won’t allow developers to access that functionality. It’s own Mail, Music, SMS and Phone apps are the only ones that can do anything in the background.

Live 365 — I’ll do a quick search using my band’s name to see how many stations are currently playing our tracks.

Pandora — same thing, I’ll look to see how many pages of fans we have.