Intelligent POP

IntelligentPop.com welcomes all unsolicited submissions for review and consideration for our top 20 chart and the official Intelligent Pop endorsement that comes with placement there. If you send your CD in for consideration, it will be listened to with care. All CDs are automatically considered for both the top 20 and the general CD reviews section.

You do not have to be entirely unsigned. We consider artists on small labels, and welcome submissions from labels. But whether signed or unsigned, you should not be particularly well-known nationally. Our mission is to find great music that our readers would not have known about otherwise, and if you’re already famous, then they can find you without our help.

By sending your CD in, you authorize us to write a review of it for publication in our online magazine and our newsletter. You agree that we can say about it whatever we think about it. There is no assurance we will be enthusiastic or uncritical of your CD in our review, and there is no assurance that it will be reviewed for publication. We cannot review every single CD we receive.

You should know that when we don’t love a CD, we do not just deride and put down on it. Our goal is for all artists to achieve great things, and we want to help you do that. If your CD is not chosen for endorsement in our top 20, or we do not review it enthusiastically, we believe you are entitled to a reason and a statement of what it would take for a future CD of yours to receive more favorable treatment. If you were hoping for a better result, you may request an explanation and you’ll be furnished with one.

If we like your work enough to place it in our top 20, then we’ll work like mad to help you find new fans and achieve the success we wish for all artists who are trying real hard to do something great.

Of course, even though we are working to bring you recognition, we will never ask you to give us money. We are paid by our subscribers, not by you, and we work to get your music heard based solely on our subjective judgment that it ought to be heard. We don’t accept advertising from artists, and we cannot be bribed! Do not offer us any inducements to rate you highly! It will not work!

As you can see, we are obsessive about our judgmental integrity. This means there’s no need to send us a full promo kit with a great-looking band photo, bio, or a page of nice things other critics have said about you. We will purposefully not look at the photo or the promotional material, so as to keep our judgment about the music as unaffected as possible!

Just send us a regular CD, the same one you sell at your shows or send to record labels, friends, etc. CDRs are fine too. If your CD liner notes do not have the lyrics printed, please send us a copy of all your lyrics, too. We care a lot about them, and they’re much easier to judge if they’re typed out.

And don’t forget to make it real easy to contact you by putting your contact info everywhere. Taking a Sharpie and writing your phone number and e-mail address on the CD itself is actually a great idea!

Please send your package to:

IntelligentPop
5 Harborview Rd
Port Jefferson NY 11777

Thanks for sharing your music with us, and we look forward to spending some serious time listening to your hard work.

-The Intelligent Pop staff