You have got to be kidding me.

EDIT: Update with their utterly brazen response here.

I woke up this morning to find this email from Indie Music Album Reviews, offering to review my latest single in exchange for money.

I know there are promotion companies that have bands write their own reviews, which then go out to a roster of no-name blogs that publish everything the promoters send- but this is utterly audacious.

What does it mean for music journalism when bands pay for reviews? What does this do for trust in the music community, when anyone expressing enthusiasm for something might be just doing it for a buck?

Further audacity: The free “weekly roundup” is a JPEG so it doesn’t turn up in search results and they don’t have to link you.

If this were radio, we’d be calling it payola. And of course, this also means that the bands featured on their blog paid to be there.

Hi,

You submitted an album entitled “Dark Days” to our website. The staff took a vote this morning and we decided to move forward with a review. If you are unfamiliar with our website, we only review submissions that we like. Your review will either have a favorable, good or great rating meaning a 3.0 or above. (We think it’s a little more fun to keep the detailed rating a secret till your published date). In order to maximize the exposure to our audience we give the artist a couple of different options.

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Option 1 (Free)

With this option your album will be included in our “weekly roundup” section. This section is published once a week (on Friday) and is a list of the albums we enjoyed. Here is an example of what it would look like:

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http://www.indiemusicalbumreviews.com/1/post/2013/02/weekly-roundup.html

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Option 2 (25 dollars)

With this option your album is featured as one of our daily reviews

One of our trusted writers will elaborate on the rating we have given. We talk about the genre of music, the tracks we felt were highlights, where the band is from, etc. This includes its own distinct URL, cover art,two links of your choice (bandcamp, website, reverbnation, facebook, record label, etc) and a professionally written review. (2 -3 paragraphs sometimes more)

Here is an example of what it would look like

http://www.indiemusicalbumreviews.com/1/post/2013/03/david-bowie-the-next-day.html

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Option 3 (35 dollars)

This option includes everything from option 2 and also includes a song or songs of your choice to be embedded from soundcloud or bandcamp.

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If you want people to actually hear your music from our site while reading your review-we can do that to. The song or songs have to be uploaded to soundcloud or bandcamp. We will embed it right on our page.

Here is an example of what it would look like

http://www.indiemusicalbumreviews.com/1/post/2013/02/eels-wonderful-glorious.html

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Option 4 (40 dollars)

This option includes everything from option 2 and 3. It also includes a video upload. The video must be on youtube and be a music video or live performance.

Here is an example of what it would look like

http://www.indiemusicalbumreviews.com/1/post/2013/03/youth-lagoon-wondrous-bughouse.html

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Process

No matter what option you chose we will need to hear back from you to confirm your review. (You will need to reply to this e-mail telling us what option you selected in the body of the e-mail.)

If you chose option 1 all you need to do is reply to this e-mail and put option 1 in the body. Within a couple of days we will send you a follow-up e-mail confirming what day your review will be published. If you chose option 2, 3, or 4 we will send you a invoice through paypal for the option you selected to your e-mail (let us know if you want us to send the invoice to a different e-mail). Once the invoice is paid we will send you one last e-mail confirming the date that it will be published.

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For option 2, 3,or 4 we will also need you to include the proper links for soundcloud,bandcamp, youtube video, your mp3 etc.

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This review will be up on our website forever with its own specific URL. Feel free to put it on your website, use it in your press kit or send to fans.

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Cheers,

The team at indiemusicalbumreviews.com