How to find music blogs to submit to
How to find blogs that genuinely fit your genre and stage, where they hide their submission details, and the fastest way to build a targeted press list.
Updated July 2026
Finding the right music blogs is less about discovering a secret list and more about targeting: the blogs worth your time are the ones that already cover your genre and your career stage, are still actively publishing, and tell you how to submit. This guide walks the free method for finding them, flags where it gets slow, and shows the shortcut once you would rather pitch than hunt. Reaching a blog is almost always free; the work is finding the right ones and confirming they are alive.
Target before you search
The most common mistake is pitching big-name outlets that would never cover an artist at your stage, or blogs in the wrong genre entirely. A folk singer-songwriter and a techno producer should end up with almost no overlap in their press lists. Before you search, get specific about two things: your genre (and sub-genre) and your career stage. You are looking for outlets that cover artists like you now, not the ones you hope to reach in three years.
The free method for finding blogs
Start from coverage of similar artists
Pick a handful of artists who genuinely sound like you and are roughly where you are. Search their names plus "review", "premiere", or "interview" and see which blogs have covered them. Those outlets already have an appetite for your kind of music, which makes them far warmer than a cold list of famous names.
Search your genre directly
Search your genre plus words like "blog", "submissions", "submit music", or "premiere". Read past the first few big results, because the mid-sized and niche blogs are often more reachable and more likely to cover an emerging artist. Keep a spreadsheet: blog name, genre focus, the kind of coverage it runs, and a column for the submission method.
Confirm it is actually active
This is the step that separates a useful list from a pile of dead links. Check the date of the blog's most recent posts. Many music blogs go dormant without taking their site down, so an outlet that looks perfect can be six months silent. If it has not published recently, or its submissions page has vanished, skip it. Freshness matters as much as fit.
Find the submission method
Look for a "Submit", "Contact", or "Submissions" page, or an email in the site footer or about page. Read what they ask for: some want a private stream and a short pitch by email, some use a form, and some route submissions through a specific platform. Send it the way they ask, and read a few recent posts so your pitch shows you actually know the outlet.
Where the free method gets slow
Doing all of this by hand works, and it costs nothing but time. The slow parts are the same ones every artist hits: confirming a blog is still active, digging up a current submissions email, and rebuilding the list next release because outlets keep closing and changing their rules. The finding and the re-verifying, not the pitching, is where the hours go.
The shortcut
That finding-and-verifying work is exactly what a directory removes. My blog directory spans the genre map (Echoes and Dust on the heavy and experimental end, Americana Highways for roots, HipHop-N-More for rap, Buzzbands for the Los Angeles scene), each outlet listed with how it takes submissions and re-checked so you are working from active outlets rather than a stale snapshot.
Verified music blogs on Heard
Active blogs with genre signals and how each one takes submissions.
The blogs themselves are still free to reach; what you skip is the hunting and the dead links, which is where the evenings actually go. Filter to your genre, pull a clean set of active outlets that take submissions, and go straight to writing pitches.
Then pitch well
A good list still needs a good pitch, and blog pitching is a craft of its own, built on angle and fit rather than volume. I walk the whole method, research through follow-up, in how to pitch your music to blogs, and keep a starter list in the best music blogs to submit to.
Do not overlook the smaller outlets
Artists tend to fixate on the few large blogs everyone has heard of, but those are the most pitched and the least likely to cover an emerging act. The mid-sized and niche outlets, the ones dedicated to a single genre or scene, are often more responsive, more likely to write something substantial, and better matched to where you actually are. A premiere on a focused genre blog that your target listeners actually read is worth more than a passing mention somewhere huge. Weight your list toward outlets that fit, not just outlets that are famous.
The bottom line
Right genre, right stage, still publishing, clear submission path: that filter is the entire game, and it is the one the music blog directory has already run for you. Put your first list through it this week and spend the reclaimed hours on the pitches themselves.
Frequently asked
How do I find music blogs to submit my music to?
Start from blogs that already cover artists who sound like you, check that they are still actively publishing, and find their submissions page or email. Search your genre plus "blog" or "submissions", follow the outlets that premiere similar artists, and read what they actually post before pitching. A verified directory speeds this up by listing active blogs by genre with their contact method.
How do I know if a music blog is still active?
Check the date of its most recent posts. A blog that has not published in months, or whose submissions page is gone, is not worth a pitch no matter how well it fits. Freshness matters as much as fit, which is why a directory that re-checks and dates its listings saves you from wasting pitches.
Do music blogs charge to submit?
Most established blogs accept pitches for free through an email or form. Some accept submissions through a paid platform, and a few offer paid features, which should be clearly disclosed. Reaching a blog directly through its own submissions method is almost always free.