Music Blogs To Submit To in 2021

Posted on 15/12/2020 by TeenStar

Are you looking to launch your music to a wider audience, get noticed by labels and increase your profile as a musician?

There are a number of top music blogs to submit to in 2021 – based on their success and following over the past few years. But which music blogs should you send your music too? This will depend on your genre, style and the stage of your career.

In this article, we’ll identify some of the best ones in the business, with our guide to the pros and cons of each.

Where can you post your music online to get noticed? Whether you play indie music, hip-hop, or just want to get recognition from A&R, submitting your music to a blog is an easy step to being noticed by the right people.

Which blogs should I send my music to?

We’ll take a deep dive into the best blogs to submit your songs to. As well as identifying your chances of being featured, according to category and level of experience. Most of these sites are free to submit to . Although some will ask for a minimal fee or donation. So if the cost is an issue for you, avoid any which we state may require payment.

Indie music blogs to submit to

Let’s begin with a rundown of some top independent music blogs.

Indie Shuffle

A no-nonsense blog for new music, Indie Shuffle even has its own phone apps which can massively help with exposure. The main genres they advocate are Indie Rock, Hip-Hop and Electronic, plus all the subgenres that come under those header categories. The site uses SubmitHub (Jason Grishkoff, who created Indie Shuffle also created SubmitHub), a popular platform for submissions. Indie Shuffle has a Best New Songs section and each track has a ‘sounds like’ which helps to find music like what you enjoy. And there’s a ‘Best of each month’ playlist provided.

Another great feature of Indie Shuffle is the option of the random songs, so even if you’re not featured on the best-rated, your music will still be heard on the random selection. It’s more of a niche market for genres, so if your music falls under these genres, you get a more targeted audience. The Random Music page means that you are always in with a chance of getting heard, even when starting out – and they accept free submissions.

Keep Walking Music

Keep Walking Music (KWM) is a simple but effective site that welcomes press releases, and publishes new independent music. They state on their site that they are: “Dedicated to discovering and featuring exceptional artists that we feel deserve a platform in the public eye.” and do this very well, with over 20,000 followers on Twitter.

You can submit your work either through HumanHuman, or directly to their site via a link for SoundCloud, YouTube, or Spotify with a quick form. They say that if you want to submit an EP, first submit your best track. KWM feature premiers on new songs, a review of the song, along with the music video should you provide one, they also review Albums, EP’s and Events. Keep Walking Music features Artists to Watch out for, which is a perfect opportunity to get some recognition as a new and upcoming artist.

Indie Mono

Indie Mono is a self-professed “Indie Curators of Spotify Playlists” and that’s exactly what they do. Submitting music is simple, head over to their submission page, then you select a ‘box’ that your music best fits into. If approved, they add your music to one of their hundreds of Spotify playlists, check out a list here. IndieMono’s top playlist is Sad Songs. So if that’s what you write, make sure to submit to the sad/love box.

Hip hop music blogs to submit to

The Word is Bond

One of the best underground hip-hop blogs around for up and coming artists. In fact, it’s almost exclusively hip-hop (T he Word is Bond accepts other genres too, but mostly sub-genres of hip hop or similar genres like blues, funk and its whole own section for jazz). Daily Bond shares new music and videos, and also features competitions, best of the year, and also drop on a classic which talks about classic tunes. Music submissions are done straight through their website.

Dope Cause We Said

A really cool blog for DOPE Pop, Hip-Hop, Rock, RnB/Soul, Americana/Folk and Electronic Music. They post to their own site, social media, youtube, and have playlists on Soundcloud and Spotify. Submissions are done simply with a form attached to an email and they don’t accept anything that is older than one month. This keeps all their material super fresh.

One of the most interesting and different things about Dope Cause We Said is that if you have a new EP, Mixtape or Album, then you can send them a press release that they will put on their site. And if you get in contact and email them with the release date, they even agree a ‘Site Takeover’ for your release which is brilliant.

It’s easy and free to submit to, from Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Audiomack and Spotify embedded links of your songs and YouTube or Vimeo links for videos. Having nothing older than a month keeps music really fresh. Due to the submission via email, it may take a longer time for you to be uploaded.

This Song is Sick

This Song is Sick works with “musicians and record labels from all over the world to showcase a variety of the freshest electronic, hip-hop, indie, and alternative music to a global following that is comprised of millions of music lovers in over 110 countries”.

Its submission is purely through SoundCloud, which of course is free. They have an option for Exclusive/Premiere if you haven’t uploaded to any blogs yet, but they do also take regular submissions, just follow the step-by-step process on the site.

You also get the chance to feature on one of their SoundCloud playlists, which boasts nearly 770,000 subscriptions, as they have listeners in 110 countries. They prefer exclusivity, so if you have posted elsewhere you won’t get as much support, but your music could still feature.

Music blogs for new artists

Xune Mag

Xune Mag is an online magazine with the sole aim of uncovering independent, and emerging artists across the world. They feature new and upcoming artists, release album/EP/mixtape reviews, and do interviews with upcoming artists.

It’s easy to find out how to submit music just head over to their site – they then ask that all music and press releases should be emailed to them. You may need to like or share the Facebook page or share Xune Mag on Twitter.

Xune Mag also offers a guaranteed placement feature with a £30 donation, which is put towards supporting independent music. It can’t be guaranteed that your music is posted, or even listened to at all without donating. They post interviews, music reviews, live performance reviews on upcoming artists. All genres of music are welcomed.

Song Dew

This blog has its own live online TV channel that’s forever showing new music videos – so this is a great place if you want to submit a new music video. The opportunities also include free promotion on multiple music radio station, free mixing/mastering, free digital marketing, help with licensing and even paid gig opportunities.

Their upload process is simple and intuitive and the site contains great tools to track your progress and performance. You upload the file raw, so it doesn’t need to be posted anywhere else like a lot of these sites. It’s rich in opportunities to progress as an artist and they take music from all countries and genres. However, the majority of the music is Indian, and therefore this may not reach your UK target audiences as effectively as other blogs.

Stereofox

Stereofox has recommendations, interviews, album reviews, artist mixes, and live footage of artists. They upload content that they like to YouTube, Soundcloud, and Spotify and the genres that they include are R&B, Indie Electronic, Instrumental, Neo-Soul, Downtempo.

Stereofox is a great blog to get your music onto and submissions ate via SubmitHub. Be mindful of suitability though. They explicitly express: “No straight-up pop, autotunes, EDM, really hardcore trap. As vague as it may sound – no extremes in those genres.”

The best music blogs of 2020

A&R Factory

This was nominated one of the Top 10 blogs in the UK, and Top 100 worldwide! Their site claims that their readership includes: record labels, publishers, management companies, radio stations, PR and sync companies. This is a multi-genre blog, open accepting submissions for most music genres. It’s easy to apply just head over to their site and submit a link from SoundCloud, YouTube, Spotify etc. As it’s so big, it may be hard to be noticed and they may not be able to get through all submissions. You can link your music to A&R Factory , but you do have to submit at least one track.

HighClouds

Labelling itself the “Music Junkies Holy Bible”, the Belgian blog does album features as well as articles on new and upcoming artists.

Their submission is simple and goes through two platforms. SubmitHub, which is used for singles or a music video, and HumanHuman is used for EP/LP submissions. The benefit of using SubmitHub is that you get a response in no more than 48 hours with at least 10 words of feedback, and on HumanHuman you are publishing to a community of tastemakers, consisting of music bloggers, A&Rs, radio professionals, festival organisers, and more.

HighClouds also picks one weekly album randomly and writes a feature about it which will stay on the main page of their site for at least 5 days. You do have to pay for your submission, but it’s only 50 cents (around 50p), and if your song is not used or featured, this credit is refunded back to you.

Now it’s over to you. If you’re an aspiring artist, DJ, band, collective, or someone who writes music, then there’s no time better than the current to get submitting to these well-respected publications.

Music Blogs To Submit To in 2021 | Which Blogs Should I Send My Music To?