We are continuing with our discussion on best practices for submitting music. Last week, we discussed the problems that arise when people use all caps when submitting songs. You can check out the article here. This week, we are going to discuss another huge aspect of music submissions, which is cover art. Cover art is important for music in general, but it also helps with submitting music. Cover art is the first impression people get before they even hear your music. That is one of the biggest reasons it is super important to make sure it is on point. Here are two main points to keep in mind when thinking of cover art:
- When designing or having cover art designed for you, do not include any kind of altered advisory label. A number of artist will add in some kind of wording like “Spiritually advisory” or something that looks like a mainstream advisory label. Artists with real explicit content often submit their music to Christian music sites and because of that, a lot of the music submitted that is actually explicit with the parental advisory label attached doesn’t get looked at. When reviewers are looking through a numerous amount of submissions, they might be inclined to ignore any with labels that look similar to the real advisory label. Christian artists with a variation of that type of label might accidentally get passed up on. By avoiding this label on the cover art, it will reduce that likelihood of getting passed up on by accident.
- Another thing that can throw off music submission reviewers is if the cover art has other things that look suspicious. If it looks sexually explicit, then it may get passed up. The same goes if there is a lot of drug looking paraphernalia or alcohol bottles. Those can confuse the person looking at the cover art because they can assume that it looks like you may be promoting those items. For example, an artist had a bunch of pills as a part the cover art and the biggest reason I knew it was probably a Christian song was because of the well-known features. Other than that, it looked like the song was promoting drug use. Even if the content is not promoting drug use, you don’t want to confuse the audience by the cover art. Remember that your artwork gives the first impression.
Though there aren’t many points in this discussion, the points I shared are important. I try to encourage others to make sure their artwork is great quality and it is important that it show the message the song carries. I really hope you take these ideas into consideration when you are sending in your music to Christian websites for promotion.
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Thanks and God Bless.
