How To Get Signed By a Record Label in 2022

How can I get Signed by a Record Label in 2022? It is a question asked by every artist out there. I am going to give you the proper guidance Step by Step. By following the road map, There are high chances that you might be the next on the list of Artists under the label that you dreamt of.

Many people keep asking me – Is it easy to get signed by a record label? How can I get signed to a Record Label? I just answer them – Why worry, If you have one of the most important things with you, that is needed everywhere and that is what every Record Label is looking for. TALENT.

Having the talent of being the best in what you are doing, Creating the best music in the genre you are, you need no one. you can sign the deal with Record Label without a lot of hustle. I am not saying that’s gonna be a cakewalk, but the path will definitely work.

How can I get Signed by a Record Label in 2022

So, Hello and welcome here. Today I’m gonna show you how you can get signed with the label of your choice With no track record, no contacts, and no audience. Before starting with the procedure let’s start with the warning. The things that you should avoid doing in order to get signed by the Record Labels.

If you want to get signed by a big-name label like Armada, Spinnin Records, Vevo, and many others, you have to follow don’t do this list seriously. Don’t just send them an email directly to the mail ID given on their website. Because they get thousands of demos daily and the chances of your email getting noticed by them become very less. So, just follow me till the end and I will let you know what is the perfect procedure to get yourself signed by a big record label in 2022.

Step 1– Choose your label

You have to choose the label on which the music releases should be of your type. This means you cannot send E-mail to 250 random labels that you find anywhere on the web. Instead, just focus on two, or three labels that produce your type of music. That will increase your chance of getting signed with the label because you’re focusing on fewer numbers and that will give you more time to prepare yourself for other parts of the procedure.

You should have the first choice which may be like Spinnin or Armada. And then second choice and later third choice that’s it. Not more than that.

Step 2- Make music that Suits you and Label both

You might wanna focus on making the music that is great. Because that’s all that every label is looking for. If you are making music that just either isn’t good enough, It doesn’t fit the style of the label, They ain’t gonna sign you. It doesn’t matter how much famous you are. So there are a few things you can do about it. There’s a checklist I’ve presented below from where you can check if your music is fine or needs work on it. If you follow this till the end, there’s a high chance of getting Signed By a Record Label in 2022.

Choice of Label

Many record labels release different types of genres of music. Like Spinnin Records, For example, it has future bass, Future House, and five or six other genres. So you have to just check that the music released on their platform is of the same type as yours or they are releasing some other type of genres On their platform. Because, If the types are different then the chances of getting a response will be very less. That will be totally off the table for them.

Reference the drop or chorus

You also have to check out if your drop has a similar sound, similar energy as other songs on the record label. In other words, while looking for the labels, make sure that the genre should be the same as yours. If you are producing Pop songs, The label should have Pop songs. That is actually pretty basic but probably, the most important thing to remember while doing the research.

Be Unique

Okay, now you’ve checked that the genres are the same. But also remember while looking for the same genre, your song should not sound the same. If you are looking for everything similar in your track, there becomes a huge chance that you may sound similar to the tracks already been released on the label.

So make sure that your music sounds unique from the already released songs. For that, you need to have a unique approach with your song that should hit differently to the person listening. This might increase the chance of getting signed by a label even more.

Also in order to be different, you need to listen to the new and upcoming artists. That will help your mind to always bring new music through listening to various new artists in the industry.

You can read about new rising pop artists in 2022 from here and listen to their songs. 7 Best New Pop Artists to Listen to in 2021

Checking the level of competition

How to make sure that your song is capable of competing with the songs that are already on the label? So the thing you have to do is first, listen to the songs from the label that you like. Then, immediately listen to your song and speak out the genuine feeling you get after listening to it. If you find it difficult to review your song yourself, you can try this with any other person who knows you and have a little knowledge about music. They may guide you if the song has any loopholes. And if everyone says that the song is good, then Congratulations. You’ve passed the first step.

OK, so now you have made sure that your song is good enough to be on the list of releasing through the labels. The next thing you have to do is work on your social media profiles. As we all know the most important part of a musician’s life is social media. Those are the first place where you usually share your music with the world. I’m gonna tell you everything that you have to do and how can you make your Social media profile look clean.

Step 3 – Maintain our Social Media account

Make sure that you have a decent-looking Soundcloud profile, Facebook profile, and Other Social media accounts you are on. You don’t need to have a lot of followers on that, but with limited pictures or videos of the songs of yours, the profile should look professional. If you’re not sure how the outlook of your profile should be, you can go and reach out to your favorite artists, have a look into their social media profiles, and work accordingly.

Just look at how they are posting and how they are maintaining their profile. Apply that on your Facebook page, Instagram page, and Soundcloud. This will give a professional outlook on your personality. because when you are hustling to become famous, you need to make your personal brand popular and for that, the brands should look appealing. Isn’t it?

If You are verified on Spotify, that will be quite easy for you to make a good impression.

If you want to know how to grow and build a strong fan base on Spotify and Make your song be heard by many, make sure you buy this E-book:

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Step 4- Choose artists with less followers

Once you got that list of DJs and producers, Checkout their social media profiles. Then you have to find the artists who have around 30k to 40k fans or followers on their profile. Because the artist with more than 40,000 fans can get hard to get in touch with. And may not be of any use to you. so I recommend choosing the artists who have less than 40K followers in general.

If you go for the artist who has millions of followers like Hardwell, Martin garrix, Charlie Puth, or Shawn Mendes it may be impossible for you to reach them ‘coz they get nearly thousands of hits every day. Instead, if you choose the artist with less than 30K followers, they are more likely to respond to your request. And that leads us to the next step.

Step 5- Provide help First

In order to reach the artist you like to talk to, you need to provide value to those people. Now there are a few ways you can do that. You can go to the comment section of their tracks on SoundCloud or wherever they are, you can share them on social media making sure that you tagged them, you can use their tags too. They will get notified and there may be any chances of resharing your post to their own social media profile. Once they did that, you can move further with the conversation.

Or you can also go to their website. This is a good trick. If you click on their website, sometimes there might be a broken link. Because there are always various new social media coming out at different times, the chances with this kind of smaller medium level of artists sometimes slip through the cracks and the broken links can be found on their website. Now, this is great because you can just send them an email using a broken link on their website.

You can say “hey whomever you are referring to, I was checking on your website, love your music, by the way, I couldn’t help but there’s a broken link on your website. And you can inform them about that link. This helps you start a chat with the artist you want to talk with. Something like that, you can do many other things, like just asking for help or how you can help them. Because you cannot ask to grant a favor to you without any relations right? So firstly you have to offer help to them, which they may need.

This will build a strong relationship between you and the artist you are following. After doing this, I’m pretty much confident that they will email you and say “thanks man, I really appreciate this”. And then you got other dialogues going continue with the chain.

Step 6- Continue the Conversation

Then you have to continue the conversation. You can say like hey I like the track you make, they are just right up my street and then be specific about what you loved about that track. That might be the piano, might be the breakdown, might be the beats, whatever is that you just have to make sure that you should be genuine. Don’t just try to overreact or over compliment that artist as that will make them feel cheated.

See, if you didn’t like the song, you won’t be contacting them. And if you’re contacting them that means you like the music. So be genuine and tell them exactly what you like about their music. And in that same email, you can write that “I also make the same genre of music like yours. It might fit well into your set. Do you mind if I send them over to you? if you want to listen to them? Cheers. well, whatever your name is”.

Step 7 – Send a link to your track and invite feedback

If they send yes, then send the track over to them. You have to send them your track only after sending the previous mail. And when they respond with a positive word. like “Yes, Send them over. I would love to listen to it. You cannot send your song on the same email. You have to wait for the response. If the person in front of you agrees to listen to your songs then only you send your track link to them through email.

Now the chances are that they will come back to you after listening to your track as you said in that mail, “Here is my track let me know what you think about it and I’ll be waiting for your response. Or something like that.

Step 8- If they like it, Ask for a little help

They will come back to you with a review of your song. You can say thanks for giving a genuine review of my track. Then continue with “I’m trying to get it released on ‘name of the label you want to get released on’, do you think it will fit with the needs of label or is there anyone who could pass it onto the label?”

Now the chances are that they will either say yes and they will do that, or they will say no and then they will help you with other options like the label you are looking for is not suitable for the type of track you make or give you the reference to other labels. They can also give a reference to other DJ or producer friends who may get your song released. Now you don’t know what will happen Next. But if your music is good, it is on point, then something is going to happen. Just be positive.

Step 9 – If they don’t like it, ask for feedback

If they don’t like it and it does happen. If they don’t like it, ask for some feedback, say “Thank you for being genuine, I appreciate it. Would you mind letting me know what you think could be changed in the track?” or something like that. Something that’s gonna invite them to give them honest feedback about your track because sometimes people feel scared, to be honest. So say anything to make them feel more comfortable.

In other words, make them give you honest feedback. But if they don’t like it and you’re still committed to getting your track to the label, then try with a few more people on the list, and if three of them on the list coming back to you saying Nah, it’s not for me, the chances are your music is not that good.

The next thing is, you understand by the feedback they gave you and what was the mistake in your music and why they don’t like it. So you can just go back, add some tweaks, modify your music, and then try again. But don’t get disheartened.

Step 10- Keep in touch

The next step, If you do get signed with the label of your choice at this point is where you don’t wanna slack off. OK, you’ve got a foot on the door and this is where you want to shine. You cannot just end up your relationship with the person who gave you the chance. Keep sending your songs to this DJ or producer once or twice a month. Don’t do the spamming and just only send them your best stuff.

They might ask if you want to collaborate with them or even if you want to remix their song. All these are good things. These are all the opportunities to prove yourself to other producers on that label. And then you can start building your reputation.

Step 11- be professional

This step is mostly like the previous one. Which is basically “don’t blow it”. And another thing I want to mention is don’t be greedy. The idea here is to provide value. Now prove yourself don’t worry about the money on the first date. As that will come later. You got the opportunity, use it, and then you’ll start getting paid.

It could be a couple of hundred dollars at first then it could go up to $500. Just start building your brand and try to give more than you get. Because you love this, and you want to get success.

(While writing the blog, I took inspiration from the EDM Tips youtube channel. You should check this out. He makes awesome content- https://youtu.be/Dqimx2WLU5o )

Conclusion

Now you got the ladder through which you can climb up and shine bright. Now you know how To Get Signed By a Record Label in 2022. If you follow this step by step, there is a higher chance of you getting signed by a record label of your dream. Just keep in mind don’t be demotivated if got rejected once or twice. Maybe the Third one is your chance. Keep on doing the hard work, Success will reach you on its own.

Below, I am answering one of the most asked questions of all time. I hope it helps to clear your doubts.

Why independent artist need label?

Whether to Choose a label for independent artists or not is the biggest question that everyone has in their mind. Do you know that thousands of artists get signed by a label every day? And what happens to them? do all of them get fame? So that basically depends on you. The style of music you make, the kind of genre you are into, And the fanbase you are trying to build or you already have. So, let me start with the answer.

Labels are for those who don’t have the resources to market their product, to market their music. The most important thing in the field of the music industry is marketing your music. There are many artists who make beautiful songs, but because of low marketing techniques, they fail. It’s pretty simple actually if people will not listen to your song, how are they gonna know about it? So basically what I am saying is that label helps to market your talent and in return asks for a bit chunk from whatever you will be earning in the future.

After all, it depends on you whether you want to get signed by a label or not. But according to me, getting signed by the label is a better option because then you don’t have to worry about the production cost, locations, also they help with the video production process. And the most important thing you can get from this is that you can get shows from the very beginning of your career.

Is it hard to get signed by a record label?

No. It’s not at all difficult to get signed by a record label. I mean it’s also not so easy but you can not say it’s hard. It all depends on the way you choose. There are various opportunities. You just have to grab it by the first chance you get.

FAQ

Let’s look at some of the most frequently asked questions about how to get signed by a record label in 2022.