We Have Been A Music Blog Since 2012
We started as a music blog to follow the footsteps of 2DopeBoyz, Potholes in My Blog, NahRight, Pigeons & Planes, and all the other buzzing blogs at the time. The blog just started off with two writers: Ryan (me, the founder of EveryDejaVu and the guy still running this ship) and Patrick (who went on to write for 2DopeBoyz, DJBooth, Bandcamp Daily, and now a New York Mets online publication called Metsmerized). Our mission was to spotlight the music we thought wasn’t being written about at other blogs and ensure we spent some time talking about the music and the artist, even if it was just a quick 300 words about a single. Over time, we added a handful of contributing writers and were able to get daily posts up covering whatever we could. Eventually, this became unsustainable for all of us involved as it was just a passion project and didn’t bring in any revenue. At the time, we didn’t have the support of any other revenue streams to keep writers around or reward ourselves for any work we were doing. The blog closed up officially in the summer of 2016, so we could focus on becoming a record label after releasing a few compilations with artists we’d become friends with through our blogging.
But the idea of being a blog never faded. Even though the music industry was changing at an even quicker pace and the publications that formed our taste in music were fading away or pivoting to mainstream or video content, the music that we always enjoyed writing about was still there and being written about even less. We relaunched the blog as a newsletter in 2020 as a way to see if we could still do this thing, and after a few interviews and reviews, it was time to bring back the blog in full form.
In 2022, thanks to additional revenue from our record label side, we were able to allocate funds to pay writers and bring Patrick back to do some editing. While we didn’t start off the most consistent, we’re now at a point where we most every Monday and Friday — sometimes even Wednesday! We’ve also added on Madison Bulnes as our official editor, who manages our content calendar, posts on social media, edits all the articles, and reviews all pitch requests. As of today (May 2024), we have had over 30 writers contribute to our blog and are at over 120 blog posts.
Pitch Guide for Writers
The best way to understand what we cover is to read our blog! We hope to become a place where people come to find rising artists making weird, interesting, innovative sounds—with an emphasis on projects created by underrepresented people. If they’re covered in Pitchfork (RIP) we don’t want them! Usually, we focus on artists with less than 100,000 listeners on Spotify—and the smaller, the better.
- Reviews on albums/EPs out within the last 4 months.
- More than just a song-to-song breakdown, but an analysis of the project as a whole: what it’s saying, what it offers to music as a whole, why it stands out, why we should care, etc
- Reviews on concerts
- Mainly looking to report on shows in Boston and New York, but we’re open to other cities, too 😉
- Q&As
- Narrative interviews
- a more in-depth look into the artist with quotes intertwined
- Email madison [at] everydejavu [dot] com
- Give a brief bio of who you are
- Include sample writings (doesn’t have to be published officially anywhere)
- Link the artist
- A paragraph or two with a description of the sound the artist is making, the angle you plan on taking, and an explanation of why you think they’re special.
We’re a small, DIY blog with little staff working after our day jobs, so we don’t have the highest rates in the market, BUT this is what we can offer at the moment:
- $30 for a 400+ word review
- $40 for an 800+ word review, including a more in-depth review of an artist as well
- $40 for a Q&A with at least a 300-word intro
- $50 for a profile of around 1000 words
There is also a $5 per piece bonus for our “Senior Writers.” Senior Writer status is achieved after a writer has written 5 or more posts within the last year.
Pitch Guide for Artists/Bands
The best way to understand what we cover is to read our blog! We hope to become a place where people come to find rising artists making weird, interesting, innovative sounds—with an emphasis on projects created by underrepresented people. If you fit this description, please send your music our way! At the moment, we don’t get too many submissions that we are able to listen to most that come our way. But regardless of what type of submission it is, it doesn’t guarantee a review or interview since a writer still needs to have the free time to get around to it. With that being said, follow the bullet points below to submit your music to us for your best chance to have your music written about:
- Send all submissions to madison [at] everydejavu [dot] com or fill out the form below.
- Include streamable links. If it’s released already, we prefer Bandcamp, SoundCloud or Spotify. If it’s not released, we prefer private Bandcamp or SoundCloud. Please do not send us files!
- Press kits, EPKs, links to your website and socials are all helpful, but most importantly just tell us about yourself: where you’re from, what type of music you make, what music you’ve released/are releasing, pictures of you
- We focus on music released within the last 4 months. Ideally, the more recent, the better.