Want to submit a CD for consideration of airplay on Radio K?

A majority of the CDs we receive each day comes to us from the various national promotion companies (AAM, Cornerstone, Fanatic Promotion, Spectre, Team Clermont, and Pirate!, just to name a few) that deal with sending out CDs to CMJ-affiliated stations. We do also receive a handful of CDs each day from independent artists — here are a few tips we've accumulated after handling and hearing tons of them.

Think you’d be a good fit?

Check our playlist and charts to see if you really think your music would fit on a station like ours. We do play a lot of genres, but there are certain genres we don't play for various reasons. We can't stress enough how important this is because in the long run it will save you time and, most of all, money!

Do not clutter your package with tons of paper (press releases, posters, stickers, etc.). Unfortunately, we don't have time to read all the press releases and frankly we don't treat you in a higher regard if you've been mentioned in Time Magazine or Rolling Stone. A simple one sheet that lists the important details will suffice — a short bio, contact information, other bands you really sound like, a list of songs that aren't FCC friendly, and 2-3 songs that you think would sound good on the radio. Oh yeah, please only send us one unwrapped CD! If you send us more than one, we can assure you we'll be recycling the cases.

After submission

Follow up with us via email or by phone in about 2-3 weeks time to see where it is in the review process! Don't assume we'll get in touch with you as we'd be on the phone the whole day and not listening to music if this were the case. We listen to all the music we get in and then pass it on to our volunteer reviewers. This is the primary reason why our review process takes a little longer than other comparable stations. If you contact us, we'll let you know whether you're in rotation, explore, if we passed the CD onto the host of a speciality show (as it may not be something for regular rotation), or if we passed on the CD.

You passed on my record?

Please do not take this personally as your music may just not be a fit for our station (going back to the point we made earlier). If we do in fact say no, please do not keep pursuing us aggressively via phone or email as we're not too keen on getting into a verbal/written fist fight.

Can someone else do this for me?

Wait, you are an independent artist, right? If this seems like too much work for you and you'd like to devote time to other the areas of being an artist, we'd highly recommend contacting one of the national promotion companies mentioned above as they'd be able to send out the packages to as many CMJ radio stations as you want and track their progress.

We look forward to hearing your CD!
The Music Department