Glossary · The record itself
Station drop
A drop is a short recording an artist makes for a specific station: your name, the station's call sign and frequency, and a line of your own. Hosts play them between records. It takes five minutes to record on a phone and it is one of the cheapest ways to be remembered by a station.
It works because it solves a problem the station has. Small stations need imaging and rarely have budget for it, so a usable drop from an artist they are already playing is genuinely welcome. It also creates a reason for your name to be said on air in your own voice, which no amount of submission polish will do.
Offer rather than assume. Ask whether they would like one and what wording they prefer, get the call sign and frequency exactly right, and record it clean, close and without music underneath so they can place it themselves.
Pick your sound and region on Rotation and each of these stations shows its real submission contact and the exact rules it posts: clean edit, WAV, form or mail. Checked by hand and kept current. No station here paid to be listed.
Open my sheet →Radio is the free half, and it stays that way. Every station here is free to reach and no station ever pays to be listed. The Doors is the other half: 100 verified places that are not radio, sync libraries, music supervisors, festivals, contests, live sessions and the music press, 43 of which can actually pay an artist. It also lists the 162 we opened and refused, with the reason each one failed, because most lists of this kind are stale and the rejections are the part nobody else will show you. $9.99, the 2026 Q3 edition →
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