By now only an idiot could have missed that it's mostly lies. Digital's effect on music has not made it easy to promo new singles; the bands and musicians breaking through are still the ones spending money on physical promo and using well-connected promo companies.
No-one downloads links. There are several reasons why.
Purist magazines like Groove in Germany won't download tracks from links no matter how much you beg. If it doesn't arrive on a CD or a 12", they don't want to know.
For less vinyl-focused magazines - the majority of journalists and reviewers - the problem is lack of time. It's difficult, if you've not been a journalist, to understand exactly the siege they are under. If their concentration is not broken by phone calls from PRs every three minutes, that will be because their phone is switched off. And the mountain of mail and promos they see each day is exactly that, a mountain (national-newpaper journalists, Dickheads has been told, average two or three inches of press releases a day).
Given that, which promos are most likely to get a listen? The ones that arrive on a CD labelled with artist, title, label, catalogue number, release date. Plus a contact name for enquiries with phone, email, and a link to print-ready photography and a full bio. The details need to be on the CD, not just the accompanying press release - you can guarantee the two will be separated quickly.
SOME TIPS
It's comical but awful to watch musicians deal with press releases their first time round... Some questions:
If the press sheet is lost and the information is not on the CD, won't the journalist google to find an artist's biography and press shots? No. They might for a short feature; for a long interview they will obviously have done an interview; but for a review or a really short mention? They don't have the time. They're climbing up from under that week's 10-15 inches of press releases.
If the music is great, won't journalists call and ask questions to fill out not-so-great press release Unlikely. If the release reads like shit, they may not listen to the music in the first place.
The first barriers to being taken seriously in music are about presentation and seriousness. If you don't look serious, or like you know what you're doing, you are easily dismissed. Particularly by a busy journalist who looks at a press release and thinks if the release is crap, the production and song are 99% likely to be as amateur.
That is why PR companies are useful. Aside from the contacts and strategy they bring, the act of investing in PR demonstrates that you are more "serious" than musicians who will not.
If a journalist thinks your tune is "tune of the month" but they're on deadline and they can't find your photo or a link to your photo - well, that won't affect how good the review is, right?
This one isn't a hard and fast rule. But have you ever noticed that any tune given prominence - a boxout, a "tune of the month" - tends to have photography, and decent shots at that? Good photography helps. But only if a journalist can find it.
FOR MORE
This piece from the LA Times has several sets of opinion from American PR and label reps on the physical-versus-digital promo question: Confessions of a promo junkie