The pain and joy of receiving demos

We’ll soon have to throw away a couple of hundreds demos that have been send to us during the last years. It’s something we’ve tried to avoid for a long time, because we don’t like the idea of dumping all that music in the dustbin. But we have to make room someday and storing CDs that we will probably never ever listen to again, doesn’t make much sense. For sure we will keep some demos we’ve liked, but most of it has to go.

At least half of those demos are totally out of place on 2nd rec, and it would have been better for everybody (except postal services and CD-R manufacturer) if they would have never been sent to us. We do release a lot of different music, but for everybody who knows 2nd rec a little, it should be quite obvious that we aren’t that much into nu-metal or psych-trance.
Still we get tons of music, which doesn’t fit to our label at all, because a lot of people sending us their demos don’t know anything about 2nd rec. They have never listened to any of our releases and probably got our address from some label directory on the internet.
I’m always a little bit annoyed when we receive those demos, because it’s a waste of time, resources and money. Plus, I can’t really understand why so many artists want their music to be released by a label, they obviously don’t know, let alone appreciate.

I may write some other post with tips on sending out demos, but for now here are some examples of DON’Ts. It’s just a small selection of pointless demo submissions we receive all the time.

It’s flattering if people think that 2nd rec is a bigger company than we actually are. But even if we were twice as big (which would make it 4 persons), we still wouldn’t have an A&R department…

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… and certainly we wouldn’t have a whole A&R department for just rock/alternative.

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OK, so we can change the lyrics and the singer… how about the music?

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Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by
______ on Thursday, June 23, 2005 at 01:32:17

message: Hello!

My name is ______.

I make the music at trance style.
I found your address in Internet.
And I thought releasing my tracks at your label would be interesting for both sides.
…

Thanks for you mail, we’ll forward it to our A&R Department, Trance Subdivision.

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From: ______@hotmail.co.uk
Subject: 2 patricks and a wicked ted!!!!!!
Date: 14. August 2005 23:49:52 MESZ
To: info@2ndrec.com

hey fuck wits,im from the band ______. i would honestly say im the most fucking intelligent producer song writer,out there in this sad pathetic weak and troubled world.
if you fucking pathetic fuck wits get of your stinking pretencious smelly fucking armchair arses,and go to this site,you will fucking understand what i mean.
i am not fucking scared of you twats,you will make from me as much as i will make from you,you fat fucking tits.
im not a fucking messer,and you poofs should take fucking heed in what i say,ill smack the living shit out of you gayphex twins,your poofy franz ferdinands,these twats stole my fucking style,i fucking swear,listen to my shit boys,it will make you fucking money,i look better,sound fucking better,and im twice as fucking dangerous.there aint one style i cant fucking do.

(link to soundfiles)

dont be fucking muppets,one fucking listen,and you will sign me,bollocks to the pistols,they held back to much,noel liam are gutless deacons,fucking poncey eminem?
all fucking twats.
get back to me soon boys,my track goes out on xfm sunday,eddie temple…
he knows my shit is gonna be big,just takes someone with half a bleeding brain to fucking pick up on it…
now move your arse…
a mimimum of 30 grand should do the trick,and dont bollocks me about promotion,these are fucking instant fucking hits,mike skinner is fucking lame so dont bullshit me about fucking streets…
i know what the fucking streets are,i fucking scrapped,stole,pissed in dagenham lifts.
all this pathetic english fuckkkkkking rap is toot
speak soon
move quickly.

Ehhh… yes.

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Despite all those pointless demos and the huge amount of awful music that comes with them, we love to check out new music and we listen to everything that is sent to us. There’s always one good demo that makes it worth going through 10 bad ones. So if you really think that your music fits in with our catalog, we truly appreciate if you send us your demos.

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