Music Publicist

It seems like every day brings another CD release by a new “next big thing,” or a collaboration album from an old favorite. How’s a Music Journalist, Concert Promoter, or average Joe supposed to know what to spend their precious time listening to?

As a Music Publicist, you work with Artists, Managers, and record labels to push the competition aside and get your client to the top of the listening heap. A good way to think of this job is as a PR Agent for music.

As a Music Publicist, you connect and communicate with the media by doing things like preparing press kits, sending out press releases, and getting a buzz going online through blogs or twitter. You work to get your Artist mentioned and interviewed as many times as possible in magazine articles, on TV shows, and on radio programs, as this gets listeners interested. The more interested a person is, the more they’ll go out and buy concert tickets and CDs, and (most importantly) spread the news of your client to their friends.

The purpose of your job is to make sure the band or Artist you work for always looks good, and for some Publicists, this task carries over to the personal side of things. Because you’re a Music Publicist—you can handle scandal, disaster, or big events in your client’s life, and are the one to craft the press releases sent out to the media. In good times, you might be announcing a new concert, but in bad, you might use lines like “No comment” or “Collapsed from exhaustion.”