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Scamming musicians is nothing new. They’re easy marks, whose best defense mechanism against the scammers lining up to get a hand in their wallets, is the lack of funds within. But musicians’ lack of money doesn’t stop these scam artists from trying… it just means they have to scam in bulk.

Case in point: Music Xray. Music Xray will tell you they are providing a service to these musicians by offering “exposure opportunities”, that put their music in front of “Music Industry Professional”… for a fee. Right, so if you’re a musician, instead of buying that QuickStop burrito, you can pay $3+ to submit your music to one of these “exposure opportunities” and have your music reviewed by an “industry professional”. Of course, anyone can sign up to be one of these said “professionals”. Yup, anyone and their uncle can sign up as one and start creating “opportunities” that charge musicians a submission fee. Or you could just cut out the middle man and give your uncle Lenny $3 to tell you how great you are (thanks Lenny!).

Think American Idol, except all the thousands and thousands of contestants have to pay to have to pay each judge for every “opportunity” to perform for them and instead of Simon, you get berated by uncle Lenny (who was in a band once). And in this scenario, Music Xray would be the TV producers who get to make coin off the whole thing, while declaring their innocence of any wrong-doing. It’s not their fault Lenny is really a refrigerator repair man and can’t cary a tune in a bucket.

Want more proof? Music Xray are also prolific spammers. Once you’re on their list, they will email you constantly with “opportunities” from a range of email domains, so you can’t kill them off with a spam filter. You can keep trying to “unsubscribe” but it won’t do you any good. Classy! How much money would you give to a spammer?

And Music Xray also searches for, and responds to, articles that discus their business as being a scam (like this one). This in itself is an obvious mark of a shady business.

So, is Music Xray a scam? Maybe it depends on how much you like QuickStop burritos. Judge for yourself…

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Hi Dasspunk. Mike McCready here, co-founder and CEO of Music Xray.

It’s not so much that we seek out any articles about our company so much as people find them and alert us or we get a Google alert or something like that and as with any business that deals with thousands of users it’s important for us to manage our reputation.

I appreciate the intention behind your post. As a one-time jaded musician myself, the whole reason we took our company in the direction we did was to be part of the solution to the numerous shady offers that are out there. So, I get what you’re trying to do. Nevertheless, we are backed by venture capital have reputable advisors and partners who would never be involved in a shady operation. We’re held to a pretty high standard.

Please allow me to address a couple of your points.

Yes, it is true that anyone can sign up on our site and offer to be a music industry professional and accept song submissions from artists. However, all of these accounts must go through an approval process and we do not publish any opportunities we find to be bogus. If any slip through the cracks, we have an extensive community policing system that enables any musician to rate the industry professionals and leave comments right on their profile page for everyone to see. We publish all legitimate comments, good and bad and you can see an example of that here: http://www.musicxray.com/profiles/626

Also, this is the commitment we make to artists: http://www.musicxray.com/our-commitment

This is where success stories are published and anyone can vet them if they’d like to: http://www.musicxray.com/success-stories

Lastly, regarding the spam: we only launched the site a few months ago so we are in an aggressive marketing stage – trying to get the word out. Part of our effort to do that involves getting a lot of our users to sign up to our affiliate program and we encourage them to sign up other musicians. We’ve run email address gathering contests and other campaigns that have unfortunately resulted in some people being signed up to our email list multiple times and against their will. Frankly, we should have foreseen that. As a result, it has given us a mixed bag of outcomes precisely because we’ve received a number of complaints and it has been hard for a small number of people to unsubscribe because we use several different email service providers with multiple lists. We hope to have that solved this coming week. We’re not ignoring the issue and we’re changing the way to ask our users to help us spread the word. I’m not saying it won’t happen again but we’re trying to stem this.

In conclusion, we run a very transparent ship. I’m not saying there aren’t legitimate complaints about our service. We’re not perfect but we do engage and interact with our users in an effort to improve. We want Music Xray to be the fastest, most economical and most efficient way for musicians to get in touch with music industry professionals. We are always open for dialog and to address concerns. We have 24 hour customer service during the week and it’s only slightly reduced on the weekends. We’re doing our best and will make improvements in the areas where the criticisms ring true.

Thanks Dasspunk for the opportunity to address this. I try to be personally available as much as possible so if I’ve left anything un-addressed please get in touch and Ill be happy to give you my best answers.

-Mike

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Dean writes:

I am a MusicXray member myself, and I do wonder about the integrity of anyone who charges people just to listen. The rule of thumb preached by the major songwriting organisations and musicians unions is that as a musician or writer you should NEVER hand over any money upfront, and anyone asking you to do this is untrustworthy.

I get sensational e-mails all the time from Music Xray saying things like ”songs neede for Beyonce”, ”songs needed for Taylor Swift”, and ”songs needed for major brand ad campaign”. However when one looks more closely it is usually an independent publisher or company, or even just a person, who is going to ‘attempt’ to plug your song to the companies who represent Taylor Swift or Beyonce, which could of course just mean putting a CD in the post, which we can all do ourselves, and which we all know is pointless. These e-mails are totally, and deliberately, misleading.

Certainly the ‘success stories’ to which Mike McCready has helpfully directed us here make no mention of any song being succesfully placed with these artists, or as far as I can see any recognisable artist at all. Same goes for the ad-campaigns. There is no mention of any of it. Instead success stories are things like: ”Block Scholars just got accepted to be placed on Valleyarm MIDEM Sampler to be handed out to industry movers and shakers in Cannes, France at the MIDEM Conference!”

This sounds to me like somebody is going to make some CD’s, take a bag full of them, stand outside the conference centre and pass them to disinterested music execs as they pass by. It’s hardly the same as Beyonce selling a million copies of a song you wrote and she recorded. Has music Xray never succesfully placed a song with an established and recognisable artist? Not one? Ever? If they have why are they not shouting it from the rooftops?

The ‘Torrez Music Group’, one of the most regular and misleading parties making money through the site, regularly claims to require songs for artists such as Carrie Underwood, yet does not list any of the artists it claims it represents or has contacts to on it’s website. Makes no metion of them at all. The website is sparse to say the least and doesn’t look as if it’s been updated for about a year – http://www.torrezmm.tk/
The whole Music Xray thing is cleverly done – they do have their little success stories – they’re not just pocketing all the money they get and clearing out, so it is very difficult to throw any mud that sticks. This is a much more sustainable and legitimate way to take money from musicians (who of course usually don’t have much).

I love that the main article here states that Music Xray looks for and responds to articles that describe it as a scam, and the very first comment? From the CEO himself!
I await the reply to this post…

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Greg writes:

Yeah, if things seem too good to be true thats because they are.

Welcome to the new age “labels” and I hate to say it but I’d rather have worked with the guy with the cigar then a
f**k website.

Thanks for educating songwriters about this SCAM. I will stay away and encourage my friends to stay away as well.

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In short from reading about it and the CEO responding to it. It very well seems to be a legal scam, a scam nonetheless. And BandMix is partnering with them. This speaks badly I feel for BandMix having to attribute themselves in a bad form. A far better partnership I feel would have come from http://www.exploretalent.com/. And not some shady business venture from Music XRay. From what I read in full is the CEO constantly was trying to sling political & social hogwash around in a way to validate the scam. As afforded in short by the few aforementioned texts.

Scamming musicians is nothing new.

It takes years for a "real" promoter to get on the map, and to obtain the ability to land you qualified exposure. There will always be a fox scouting a hen-house, or a wanna-be posing as bigger than he/she really is.

How to tell the real deal.

1) When a promoter is interested in you, he/she will usually approach you with a check in hand and will lay out specific details for immediate work. There will be no doubt about where, when who and how.

2) If you don't see the check in hand... walk away. Period!


3) If you do see the check in hand, you should inform the promoter that you would like a timeline of consideration. ( This is important, because a scammer will try to rush you into a decision to keep you off balance from any discovery.) Meanwhile you're doing a back ground check , right? If he says he works for a label, hunt down that label , verify and confirm.). If he starts dropping names of big artists he's worked with, stop the conversation right there and ask him to arrange a business lunch (and to invite the said celebrity to that lunch.) (Another way for you to buy time and to see if the dude squirms)

4) Under no circumstances should you ever pay a fee to have your photos placed in a catalog. In fact, you have a right to sue him/her if they use that pic without your permission. With that in mind, yo should actually charge the bitch some money for using your picture at all...


Again.. the real deal is prepared to meet and satisfy your needs, whereas the scammer is trying to part ways with your money.

I feel you, Daniel. I've noticed that people have just found another way to get rich in this new age of music.

Case in point:

I'm a producer who basically hasn't had anything going on since the 80s and 90s. I claim that I will critique your song, produce you because I worked with xyz band or whatever. I'll put up 3, 4 and 5 opportunities charging musicians $10 each, music x-ray gets $4, so you get charged $14 total. Imagine how many people all over the world who are members of music x-ray. You get 1,000 responses over a period of a few weeks, that's $10,000 just for one opportunity. I'm sure he may pay music x-ray a percentage of this, but still. This guy doesn't have to select anyone to work with, he can critique people and people will respond - "oh he was quick, I didn't get picked, but I appreciate how quick he responded."

I've noticed in the nine months I've been a member, some of the same people have ongoing opps on there. That's a nice little chunk of change to supplement your income.

Also, there have been people who have been selected for certain things, and they say so, yet they're back on music x-ray submitting to even more opps.

From the people I know who do music for films and TV, you know a guy and you're pretty much in the door. You can go to that same guy or you can use the clout of that one TV spot to open the doors for others. That's pretty much how I became a session vocalist. You get your foot in that one door and you do a great job, it's like a domino effect after that.

Now, pretty much every music website out there will offer you paid opps. Sonicbids, Reverbnation, now there are more and more sites offering you fans, this and that all for a monthly fee. I'm sure there are a lot of jaded musicians who are saying screw this, I'll just start a site to say I'm helping musicians and meanwhile I'll get paid.

Here's the real deal:

1. Unless you have a top-notched, mastered, radio-friendly recording (meaning you spent some big bucks getting your song produced), don't bother. I've stopped submitting because my music just isn't up to snuff, and I don't have the money to compete right now.

2. Unless your stuff sounds pretty much like what you hear on the radio, commercials and TV shows, Disney, don't bother.

3. Acoustic and Electronica is the rage now, if you do Rock it has to be top quality mastered and beefed up with samples and electronics, otherwise, don't bother.

I think what knocked me over the edge was this promoter who does a big fest in Long Beach every year. I have a vending spot, I don't perform. But he accidentally sent me an e-mail stating that since they had such an overwhelming response of bands seeking a slot they're going to have bands pay $10 to submit through Sonicbids and they'll have a Battle of the Bands type of deal with the best 4 getting a slot. So basically, they don't want to just select bands to play, they want to get paid in the process.

Watch, this will become a trend for everything.

Record labels and production companies now scour Sonicbids and Reverbnation and look for bands who have the most fans and they'll come out to check them out. It has nothing to do whether you're good or not. I've seen bands on these sites who really are okay, they're not really that good, but they've just been great at networking or they've been out there long enough to get a huge fanbase. But I've seen some really good bands whose music is pretty good and I really like them, who don't have that good of a following, at least not yet.

What's worse, if you dare mention any of this or attempt to talk about it, you get people who claim you're whining, they don't want to hear any complaints about anything. That's the nature of the world now, "Don't complain, just deal with it." Okay, if you wish to be taken advantage of, be my guest.

I'm pulling back. I've decided that I don't want to be a jaded musician and that I want to actually enjoy what I'm doing and keep money in my pocket to get a good production on my songs. If somebody wants them, I'll wait for them to show up and we can talk.

Chaeya

Oh dear, $3 to be paid by the performer to have somebody listen to his/her music, I still remember when the listener had to pay to listen to a performer song or music, from what I’ve read in your post X-ray sells opportunities to musicians at $3 a pop, the only opportunity I see is for X-ray to make a lot of money by selling nothing but false hope and empty promises.

Entities like X-ray are capitalizing on an unprecedented amount of hopeful musicians more musicians and would be musicians than any other time in the past, they don’t need for a musician to be successful to make their money their responsibility and liability ends once they get the $3, the only obligation for them is to expose your music to some would be promoter/ producer, how in the world can a subscriber ascertains that his/her music is indeed played to people in the music industry?

Come on people get real you’re not going to sell your music by paying
some web site, if your music has merit they’ll come to you... as for exposing your music? Do it the old fashion way get gigs generate a buzz about yourself and don’t stop until something happens.

That's $4, Nav and it isn't just Music X-Ray who stands to gain. Already there have been people questioning certain so-called music production companies who claim that they are looking for music for movies and whatnot. If you google these companies and research them, you have little or no evidence that they have any experience placing music with any movie or TV shows. Basically, I can set up a production company, get a savvy website, file all the necessary paperwork then sign up with Music X-Ray and offer opportunities. I can say that I've placed songs with this company and that company, unless you're an investigative reporter, there's no way you can really find out if they have or haven't. Also, on other forums criticizing Music X-Ray and like, they have created phony accounts with people praising them and saying they've made money, yet these people haven't been able to produce any evidence where they've gotten placed or paid.

So you're right. I think if musicians get wise and refuse to go with these people, they'll start to lose money.

Just today I got an ad from some company offering me fans if I just "sign up". Yeah whatever.

Chaeya

Chaeya wrote:

I can set up a production company, get a savvy website, file all the necessary paperwork then sign up

Darn it I almost want to go in business with you...Yeah you could do that but you won't coz scruples and integrity prevent me and I suspect you as well from doing it, if not we'd be making shady money alrady.

$4 pop? Never knew that a click of the mouse was so expensive.

I don't know or care if XRay is a scam or not. In my view American Idol is a scam. Who the hell is Simon Cowell? The only people who matter to me are those people who might get some enjoyment at my gigs and take their minds off their troubles for a few hours. I don't have any delusions of making it big. I'm already hero-worshipped by my 270 lb autistic son at home. I'm hoping to produce a legitimate CD for MY satisfaction. If other people like it that would be icing on the cake. If something weird happens and it ends up going platinum I'll consider it like winning the lottery. I'll be able to rush more meat home. I'm NOT going to pay anybody to listen to me. I'm NOT going to suck up to anybody to gain anything. What I do musically is for MY enjoyment. A little profit won't hurt and I expect people who make a profit off me to pay me a fair share. But NO payola, NO brown-nosing, NO lubricating dry palms. I'm NOT buying anybody and nobody's buying me.

Just to clarify for those who feel the initial post was my own. It was not it was from another figurehead. However, I felt it had some great points.

@Chaeya Yes that is why I mentioned exploretalent.com .. For me it has been like the craigslist for musicians (and some others, but for me its music). And I've gotten a few good leads to starting a beginner band there. So for me its been good. I do feel that shows how little exposure BandMix is now getting, if they have to partner with a scam site. It really doesn't show well for them.

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And a good thing to always remember, think some forget it, is "if its too good to be true, it most likely is". And that website most certainly screams "too good to be true". And even if they say so and so will look at your music. They said for a long time that personalized messages from the president, were from the president. Now they have said its usually from the autopen or just someone in his office signing his mail. What makes people so sure that that website doesn't employ the same tactic. Saying we'll promote you to industry A, then in truth have someone pretending to be from industry A reviewing your material (who might just be another minimum wage worker employed by the very same company). What made me laugh is the post had said that they sought out anything on their company on the web. And the very first post was by its CEO .. LOL. A good business doesn't need to defend its practices of morality and reputation across the net so aggressively. I feel, unless they are not so proper. And the validation of defense affords them piece of mind in their legal scam. A good business runs and speaks of itself past the negative. A bad one must be fought and defended against its practices. Then again thats just my thoughts.

Why is the CEO feeling he must aggressively message all these places on the net. Simple, because their website doesn't seem to be a proper business. And they don't want their potential consumer base to educated. As that would limit their income. Even in the posts he had made he had said, well join the site do this or that, see if its for you .. and in the end if you don't like it you don't have to stay. My comment there would be, why do we have to even engage your business to begin with, rather than educate others and avoid it entirely. If I do not wish to join, do not try and convince me. You are not some door to door salesman, that I'll need a dog on my porch for now .. are you? No is no. And you can do very little to stop others from educating others. Sure there could be misleading in education. However, in this model of education its only displaying their proper business model. Not some outlandish claim to what is not there. Feel the need that its not right what others say .. fix it. They had noted to others what they felt could be changed, others had noted, and all they did was either ignore or bash it with their own diluted political/business model. Such is business eh? Ask what needs to be fixed. Though instead of fixing it feel its a open forum for rhetoric and "its fine as is". Why ask what can be fixed if they will aggressively feel its fine in the end? I don't want Mcdonald's debating to me next that the burger they served me is fine, if they added mustard (when I had said no mustard). So in the end I will say to that business do try and listen better and give the burger without mustard. Instead of saying its ok and trying to shove the mustard infested thing in our mouth.

On a distant side on just a overall note. Businesses have noted how uneducated the masses are. And to this seek to always exploit them to their beneficial end. Regardless what medium and what age of life you are. People as always are out for themselves. I would have thought after so much time more people would be educated against being suckers. However, there's a sucker around ever corner. And with that there is a chance to make some cash around that corner from that sucker. And Music XRay ultimately is nothing new. Though until they change their business model up some, its a website to lure in suckers over opportunities. Sure opportunities are never for sure, but a sucker paying you for each exposure is. Hence comes that fee.

I don't know or care if XRay is a scam or not. In my view American Idol is a scam. Who the hell is Simon Cowell? The only people who matter to me are those people who might get some enjoyment at my gigs and take their minds off their troubles for a few hours. I don't have any delusions of making it big. I'm already hero-worshipped by my 270 lb autistic son at home. I'm hoping to produce a legitimate CD for MY satisfaction. If other people like it that would be icing on the cake. If something weird happens and it ends up going platinum I'll consider it like winning the lottery. I'll be able to rush more meat home. I'm NOT going to pay anybody to listen to me. I'm NOT going to suck up to anybody to gain anything. What I do musically is for MY enjoyment. A little profit won't hurt and I expect people who make a profit off me to pay me a fair share. But NO payola, NO brown-nosing, NO lubricating dry palms. I'm NOT buying anybody and nobody's buying me.

I hear you on it being for your enjoyment as is me doing my vocals. Even if some do not like them. It will not stop me from enjoying it. For myself when I growl/scream I feel in touch with myself and who I am. It gives me not only focus, but a meaning to my presence in this world.

I don't know or care if XRay is a scam or not. In my view American Idol is a scam. Who the hell is Simon Cowell? The only people who matter to me are those people who might get some enjoyment at my gigs and take their minds off their troubles for a few hours. I don't have any delusions of making it big. I'm already hero-worshipped by my 270 lb autistic son at home. I'm hoping to produce a legitimate CD for MY satisfaction. If other people like it that would be icing on the cake. If something weird happens and it ends up going platinum I'll consider it like winning the lottery. I'll be able to rush more meat home. I'm NOT going to pay anybody to listen to me. I'm NOT going to suck up to anybody to gain anything. What I do musically is for MY enjoyment. A little profit won't hurt and I expect people who make a profit off me to pay me a fair share. But NO payola, NO brown-nosing, NO lubricating dry palms. I'm NOT buying anybody and nobody's buying me.

I hear you on it being for your enjoyment as is me doing my vocals. Even if some do not like them. It will not stop me from enjoying it. For myself when I growl/scream I feel in touch with myself and who I am. It gives me not only focus, but a meaning to my presence in this world.

As long as there is ego and vanity and an insatiable need to be worshiped, adored and so on... there will always be a shark lurking to get your money out of your pocket. . Its the oldest exploit in the world... The Music Industry is a sucker's game, often not having a damn thing to do with music. Just say focused on the music, expose your self with real musical works in real venues. If you are good, audiences will tell you, for free, whether you can come back or not.

Dog, people don't just want to be worshipped and adored. Not every musician feels that way. I don't. I've worked hard on myself and what I do as well as my husband, plus all the other musicians I know. The lawyers in my firm have prestigous organizations they wish to join, yeah it may be solely out of ego, BUT it gets you work. Some of us wish to move up the food chain a bit, and like to see ourselves getting some recognition for what we do.

Yes, if you want to get philosophical about it, it is vanity and ego, but religions made ego and vanity out to be a bad thing but frankly, nothing in this world would have gotten accomplished without somebody going "I want to do this" or "I can make this better" or "I have a contribution." Vanity and ego is no different than any other thing such as sex. A balanced amount goes a long way, too much and you have a problem.

Music is a driving force on this planet and I have some favorite musicians that I'm glad had the ego and vanity to put themselves out in front of someone. Their music has brought me a lot of joy and I'm glad to have been able to hear them. If everybody just sat in their bedrooms making music for themselves pretending they don't want to be famous, then we wouldn't really have an industry, would we?

The problem with shows like American Idol is it's all about television. Talent takes a back seat and they just want people who have good stories and can sing. It doesn't show the artistic quality of these people. And all it does it entices the regular populace to being rock stars. Now, everybody wants to be a rock star. Cooks want to behave like rock stars on the cooking channel.

So sadly, companies like Music X-ray will prosper from this. There's nothing anyone can do about it. But the real musicians can watch out for them and save their money.

Chaeya

Chaeya

Dog, people don't just want to be worshipped and adored. Not every musician feels that way. I don't. I've worked hard on myself and what I do as well as my husband, plus all the other musicians I know. The lawyers in my firm have prestigous organizations they wish to join, yeah it may be solely out of ego, BUT it gets you work. Some of us wish to move up the food chain a bit, and like to see ourselves getting some recognition for what we do. Yes, if you want to get philosophical about it, it is vanity and ego, but religions made ego and vanity out to be a bad thing but frankly, nothing in this world would have gotten accomplished without somebody going "I want to do this" or "I can make this better" or "I have a contribution."

Pride/ Vanity (a function of ego) has been touted by some as one of the seven deadly sins. The Greek philosophers nailed down the mechanisms of it by examining "Hubris". All I am saying is that its very exploitable ("Vanity...my favorite sin" - Al Pacino as Lucifer in 'Devils Advocate")

Vanity and ego is no different than any other thing such as sex. A balanced amount goes a long way, too much and you have a problem

.
I can't imagine too much sex as a bad thing

Music is a driving force on this planet and I have some favorite musicians that I'm glad had the ego and vanity to put themselves out in front of someone. Their music has brought me a lot of joy and I'm glad to have been able to hear them. If everybody just sat in their bedrooms making music for themselves pretending they don't want to be famous, then we wouldn't really have an industry, would we?

A healthy dose of pride is always constructive... But I'm talking about people who lack confidence in their own self -efficacy, and become prime targets. Pride sets the rules on where we would "like" to be. The sharks know this and target the weaklings. A weakling is best spotted as the one who takes the lure of "promises" to fame and fortunes, without actually validating or qualifying their own body of work. This is what I mean by a suckers game. Unfortunately, there or more people who face this dilemma than not.
I have always contended. just because we "will" it does not always make it so.
And contrary to what many people preach,. we cant all be "anything we want", regardless of how much we set our minds to some of that.

Ego is balance, when we drop to our Id behavior or shoot to our Super Ego behavior is when problems arise.

Sin is subjective in regards to community, there really is no Sin, rather what is prescribed as Sin is the result of the social structure and its moral codes at the time period and/or cultural environment.

So basically we're in agreement. But I'm with Etu, sin is a matter of perception. I operate more out of the law of karma or balance.
But you're right, the uninformed will be suckered out of their cold hard cash by these companies.

Yet here's the issue, the industry is locking up ALL opportunities. Pretty soon, even club owners will want to use avenues like Sonicbids to force bands into competing just for playing slots. Of course, we can balk and say we won't do it, but then there'll be no places to play.

On a positive note though, I'm seeing how I can just create my own avenue. I'm really so finished with the music industry. Now, I'm just performing on my terms. I already know that I'm not going to have any mainstream fame, so I'm like Bob in that respect. Still it's annoying though.

Chaeya