Premiere Writing Guidelines

Hello everyone. I’ve given you this page to just provide some basic guidelines on premiere writing for Big City Folks. The context here is that premiere-writing is slowly being eliminated at major music outlets, so it is very difficult for musicians to get premieres in the way that they used to. This is a good time then to have Big City Folks take some of that up, if we can. And if you gain enough experience writing premieres, you can probably move into writing premieres (and reviews) at other outlets.

What can we write premieres about?:

• Can be an audio or a video single.
• Must be for at least an EP or LP release (no standalone singles).
• You are not writing a “review” and the language should be more descriptive than evaluative – you are not giving it a thumbs up or thumbs down.
• We only accept premieres as requested through our web-form, which I will generate – which as a rule *must be on or before the date of release*.
• The artist must agree to promote the premiere on their socials, and exclusivity of the premiere.

Some of the guidelines here are based on the concept of a premiere. A premiere in the industry works to give an early preview of the record, giving other outlets notice that an EP/LP is going to be released in the near-ish future. Hence, the premiere must be *for an EP/LP release* and must be before the EP/LP otherwise it’s not fulfilling its function.

As a premiere-writer, you would be checking in to see if people have submitted requests for a premiere via our web-form, and writing about whatever it is that you like. You can only write premieres for artists who have submitted through the form. If you have a friend you’d like to write a premiere for, please have them fill out a form. I know this seems like a formality, but we want everyone who submits to have an opportunity to be evaluated on a level playing field. Additionally, I generally would discourage writing about people whom you have a close relationship with. Please also be prepared to at least listen and look at the information of musicians who you don’t know. And as a part of this, be open-minded about what you write about, keeping in mind that we want people to have an opportunity for a premiere, regardless of race, gender, sex, class, religion or political affiliation.

As an example of Premiere writing, this is a good example of a standard Premiere written for website PopMatters: https://www.popmatters.com/elliott-park-to-the-moon-2648132255.html

• Paragraph about what the EP/LP is about, including the circumstances of its creation.
• Basic information about the artist – including label/style/release date/etc…
• General description of the single being released as a part of that EP/LP release.
• Quotation from the artist about what the single and/or video is about.
• Fairly neutral description of what you hear or see from the single or video that you like, remembering that you are not writing a review, or giving the artist a “line”.
• Additional quotation from the artist about the single and/or video.
• Information about touring.
• Also – Premieres must have a photo included (both EP/LP cover and artist photo).

Thanks!