Want to be Featured on Collected Sounds?

CD Review
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Spotlight

First of all, if you've reached this page on your own, congratulations!!! You'd be surprised how many people just hear about this website without ever visiting it and seeing the clear link for artists' info on the front page. This site is primarily for female musicians in the pop/rock/folk world yet people still insist on sending me gangsta rap. Seriously.

OK so…because Collected Sounds is just me and I do all this alone (with the help of a few friends who do CD reviews for me) I am not able to do a lot of promo for free anymore. I spend at least 20 hours a week on this site and as much as I support the music and want to get it out there, my time is just too valuable to continue doing this all for free. Gal's got to pay the mortgage you know. The more hours I have to work outside of this (i.e. for The Man) the less time I have to spend on this. My dream is to make enough so I don't have to have a "real" job and can spend all my time promoting independent musicians.

I've been producing this website since 1999 and the only money I make is from donations and visitors buying from CD Baby, iTunes, or Amazon.

I still do album reviews at no charge. I feel that if people paid for a review it would make me feel really bad to write a not-so-glowing one. How honest could I really be? So those are still "free". However, if I review your CD and you're happy with the review and you know you're going to use the quotes on your website or elsewhere, a donation would be very much appreciated.

But I do charge for Spotlights. I am also a web designer and I charge $50 an hour for my services. It takes me, on average, a little over an hour to put up a Spotlight. If the info is sent to me via snail mail I have to scan the photos and resize them myself and also sometimes have to retype bios, which takes longer, but on average, it's about an hour and a half. Therefore, I will charge $45 (you get a little break:) ). I realize that CD Baby charges about this same amount for a page on their site and they also offer sound links but remember, they also make $4 per every CD sold. I am a member of the CD Baby affiliate program so I have the possibility of making a little on each CD ($1). But for the most part, once the page is up, I don't get to collect anything more, nothing more from you, ever.

The $45 gets you a page dedicated to you with:

I can take either a money order or personal check or via Pay Pal. (checks and money orders can be sent to the address below).

There is some criteria: you must be a female singer/songwriter, or band where there is a female front person. You need to write at least most your own music (co-writing is fine) and playing an instrument is a plus, but not a requirement.

If you still would like a Spotlight, you may send the info (with a note specifying that you want a Spotlght) either via email or to this address:

Amy Lotsberg
Collected Sounds
2751 Hennepin Ave S #630
Minneapolis, MN 55408

Please be sure to write on it "Do Not Bend". You'd be surprised at how they will mangle an envelope to make it fit in a small box! I have actually received CDs in 2 pieces!
If you don't believe me [click here]

If I put up a CD review (see below for more details) I will let you know and ask only that you link back to me. Because the Spotlights are not free I won't require a link but I would love it if you did anyway :)

Thanks so much for your interest!

let me know if you are interested

CD Review

The criteria is simple. I will post reviews of female singer/songwriters, or band where there is a female front person. If you're a guy, you can also go ahead and submit, but I generally only get to the guys if I've already gone through all the ladies. The artist must to write her own music (some covers are OK) and playing an instrument is a plus.

Your CD has a much better chance of getting reviewed if it has full liner notes as opposed to a disc you made at home and put in a paper envelope. I need to know the names of the musicians on the CD and what they played and on what songs. I need to know the song titles (not just on the CD, I can't read them if it's in the machine) and I need to know who wrote the songs, the year it came out, etc. Please don't make me hunt down the info on the internet.

I understand jewel cases are more expensive to send so feel free to send them without, but just make sure it's wrapped properly so it doesn't break. Here is an interesting article I found on CD Baby about How to important the CD presentation is when sending them for review. The bottom line is professionalism. If you're not serious about your music why should I be?

Just a personal pet peeve, take this with a grain of salt...If I cannot play it in my computer, we have a problem. This is what I generally use to listen. If there is other junk on it like movies or malware and it won't play in WinAmp (or similar) I can't listen very easily. I won't download or install new software just to listen to a record. Sony taught me that much.

This means that I have to either rip the tracks onto my computer or listen in my car, and since I don't spend a lot of time in my car, it will take me a long time to give it the amount of time I need to in order to write about it. This translates to: I have to absolutely LOVE your music in order to go through this trouble. But I have done it. If you're that great take the chance!

I listen to AND KEEP every CD I receive, even if I don't care for it. So far I've received thousands of CDs and there are some I won't listen to again. But I won't get rid of them. Call me a packrat. You should see the office! I have gifted some to others that I know would appreciate them much more than I do; but I never sell them. I also don't keep the ones that are reviewed by my other reviewers. I let the reviewer keep the music as a trade since I can't pay them.

I sometimes can't get to reviewing them all. I figured out that in order to do a proper educated review, I must listen to the record many times, play it loud in the car, really think about it. Then there's the actual writing of the review. Sometimes that takes a long time. Sometimes I'm inspired, sometimes not. Once the review is written I have to create a web page for it. So in total, I spend around 8 hours on one review. It's 8 hours I enjoy, don't get me wrong! But it's still a good deal of time.

Unfortunately, I no longer have the time to "pre-screen" artists and promise reviews. Please do not send me an email asking me to check out your Electronic Press Kit, My Space or website and then tell you if I want to review it. There aren't enough hours in the day to listen to everyone, decide, and then promise a review. I can never promise a review. Even if I like your stuff it's always possible that the day your CD arrives, so do 30 others (it has happened) and I just cannot promise a review to everyone.

Please don't be offended if someone other than me reviews your record. It can mean either: it wasn't my favorite genre (this will happen with Country, Christian, Opera and Blues…I'm just not a good judge of these genres because I don't care for them); or someone else sent me the review before I wrote mine, or I simply didn't have time. Keep in mind, this site is a hobby for me, and I also have a 40 hour a week "real" job! :)

If I really don't care for the music or it does not meet the criteria I may not write it up, mainly because I don't have the heart to write something terribly unkind. But if I don't review your CD it doesn't mean I don't like it. Some music is just harder to review than others.

That said, in an attempt to review everything I get, I have begun doing what I call Mini-Album reviews on the blog portion of the site. So if something is good, but doesn't drive me wild, it may get a mini-review. Or if I like it a lot, but it's just a sampler or an EP it would go there as well.

I do not charge to do CD Reviews. However, if I review your CD and you're happy with the review, and you believe my words will help you in some way (via either CD sales or you want to use my quotes in your press kit) a donation would be very much appreciated.

If you send your music, that's great! I'd love to hear it and if it moves me, I'll do what I can to promote it.

Amy Lotsberg
Collected Sounds
2751 Hennepin Ave S #630
Minneapolis, MN 55408

Please include artist information

Please be sure to write on it "Do Not Bend". You'd be surprised at how they will mangle an envelope to make it fit in a small box! I have actually received a CD in 2 pieces!
If you don't believe me [click here]