Press & PR · 7 min read · Updated 2026-09-27
How to Write a Music Press Release (That Gets Read)
A music press release is a one-page document that tells blogs, playlist curators, radio producers and journalists what you are releasing, why it matters, and where to hear it. It is not marketing copy, it is a briefing for a busy person who decides in under a minute whether to cover you.
We send one for every TSG release. Here is exactly what goes in it, when to send it, and the mistakes that land most press releases in the trash.
What a press release actually does
Nobody streams a track because of a press release. What it produces is coverage: a premiere, a review, an interview, a playlist add with a write-up. That coverage becomes your credibility, quotes for your press kit, proof for bookers and bigger curators that someone already vouched for you.
Think of it as the start of a relationship with the people who talk about music for a living, not a stream-generating machine.
The structure that works
One page. Always one page. The structure:
- Headline, artist, title, release date, one hook. 'Zain K announces Cure My Desire, out October 10' beats any clever wordplay.
- First paragraph, the whole story in three sentences: who, what, when, and why anyone should care.
- The story, two or three paragraphs: the artist's background, how the track was made, what it sounds like, what it is about. Specifics beat adjectives.
- A quote, one or two sentences from the artist. This is what gets copy-pasted into articles, so make it say something.
- The facts, release date, label, format, links to listen (private stream before release), artwork, and contact details.
Timing: two weeks before, not release day
Blogs and curators plan coverage ahead. A press release that arrives on release day asks them to drop everything for you, they will not. Send it two weeks before release with a private listening link, so they can premiere or schedule coverage for release day.
Follow up once, politely, a few days before release if you hear nothing. Once. More than that and you are spam.
Who to send it to
Relevance beats reach every time. Ten blogs that cover your exact genre will do more than a hundred generic music sites. Build your own list: find who covered artists similar to you, note the actual writer's name, and address them directly.
Keep the list. A contact who covered your last release is warm for the next one, that relationship compounds across releases and is worth more than any single placement.
The mistakes that get you ignored
Spelling errors and broken links end the reading immediately, if the press release is sloppy, the assumption is the release is too. Mass BCC emails to 200 generic addresses get filtered or resented. Attachments nobody asked for (a 40 MB WAV attached to a first email) get the whole message binned. And hype with no specifics, 'the hottest track of the year', tells the reader nothing.
Write like a person briefing another person. Check every name, date and link twice. Then send it two weeks early.
Tools for this
Free tools from TSG that do the heavy lifting for the steps above.