They are definitely different, a Plugger, or promoter, usually has established creditable clients. They have a reputation that can be easily confirmed and checked out. They have proven to be effective fascilitators. The pay per plays are first of all relatively new, and secondly, they are spending a lot of money advertising participation figures that are without merit.

Your second point of trusting in a third party to do what they promise, when you could easily with a little knowledge accomplish the same thing by doing it yourself is a legitimate concern. The old saying " The best way to make sure something gets done right , is to do it yourself." certainly applies here. There are many other benefits to doing it yourself beyond making sure it gets done, the relationships you build personally, the knowledge you gain through those relationships, and the networking opportunities that present themselves along the way make doing it by yourself not only more beneficial, but also more rewarding.

However I think the bottom line is that the personal pride songwriters take in their craft won't allow them participate in this type of structure. Many of the sites that promote new music encourage one to tell all their friends, and fans they have posted music on a particular site, and have them come join the site and vote for their song for some kind of reward, or to keep your music in their radio rotation. I generally do not participate in that kind of behavior and here's why. I want an honest opinion of the unbiased listeners on that site, and if I invite all of the people who I already know like me , or my music, to vote then I skew those figures in my favor and that defeats the credibility of the ranking. It definitely creates the image that I am popular on every site, but it doesn't really give me an honest evaluation of the public appeal of my music. I would rather have the honesty, than to stroke my own ego by creating an image that makes me look popular.

You keep talking about leaving it to dumb luck, but believe me dumb luck has nothing to do with success. When we we write a song and put it out there, we do everything we can do to see that it gets airplay, and a fair chance to be evaluated by the masses ( short of paying DJ's to play it...lol ). If that song makes it onto the top 40 charts of a radio station, it doesn't make it because of dumb luck, it makes it because we got it out there, and the listeners enjoyed hearing it.

Last but not least, singer/songwriters have already given up most of our sources of revenue in order to obtain real Am/Fm radio play, and get our music out there in this " Music should be free" mentality that currently exists. Now you expect us to pay for the privilege of having our music played on the air waves?

I guess one could point out by giving up those revenues, in a way, we are already paying, and I wouldn't argue that fact, but at least we are getting air play at real AM/FM radio stations with real audiences, and I can live with that.

Billy Darnell

http://www.billydarnell.com

http://www.songwriterservices.biz