Pitching your first release: what labels actually want

We've been on both sides of the demo email. We've sent hundreds. As Selected Grooves we receive a few each week. The pattern of what gets signed is more boring than people think and worth being honest about.

Send finished tracks, not work in progress. A label can't sign a project — they sign a release. If your demo isn't mixed, mastered and at the level the rest of the catalogue sits at, it's a no. Not because the song is bad but because they have no time to coach a stranger through finishing it.

Send tracks that fit the catalogue. Open the label's last ten releases. Listen to them. Does your track sound like it could be one of them? If not, you're not pitching, you're hoping. Most rejections come from genre mismatch, not quality.

Three tracks, max. A flat folder with three WAVs and a one-paragraph note about who you are. No Soundcloud private link with a 30-track playlist. Make the choice for the A&R; they will not make it for you.

The note is short and human. "Hi [name], big fan of [recent release]. Three tracks attached, all unsigned, mastered, ready. Thanks for listening — [your name]." That's it. Long pitches signal insecurity.

Follow up once after two weeks. No reply means no, but a polite "just nudging this back to the top of your inbox" is fine. Anything more is annoying.

And — this is the boring secret — the people who get signed are the people who keep doing the work after the rejections. We wrote forty tracks before the first one shipped. Forty. Anyone telling you it happens faster is selling something.