TAXI Review: does it work? Is it worth the money?

TAXI is an independent A&R company based in US, quite popular among unsigned artists and producers.

If you are a paying member of TAXI (the annual fee is $299.95), you will get an updated list of requests for music from companies within the music, film and TV industries.

You can view a sample of the industry listing on their website:

http://www.taxi.com/industry.php

Few months ago I decide to take a chance and I paid the annual fee and subscribed to TAXI.

I mainly monitored the "instrumental" section of their listing page: all my current tracks are in that genre.

I made very few submissions so far (there is a cost of $5 for each song submitted), and I have received a critique of my music when it was rejected for a specific listing.

In fact you submit songs for every individual listing: it could be approved for one but rejected for the other. TAXI doesn't screen all your music first an then match it to the listings: you have to do that and decide what to submit and to which request.

My thoughts after having used the service for a while:

1) If you have a small catalogue of tracks (like me), in a very specific genre, you will find very few listing that are requiring a submission in a style close enough to your music.

2) Most of the requests are for pieces in a style close to modern production and music you can hear in recent TV ads. So, if you produce pieces in that kind of style, you will have good chances to get a placement.

3) The A&R reviewing process seems to be serious; I was happy of the feedback I got (the track was too far off from the requested genre), and it reassured me that even with a home-production gear I was able to realise a track that was evaluated as professional and well recorded.

4) If you wanted to maximise the potential placement you should have an ample catalogue of tracks, or produce a particular piece for a particular listing: in that way you will have a submission very close to the request of the advertiser, with a strong chance to get signed for it.

Conclusion:

In my opinion, TAXI would benefit most those musicians and producers who can create a professional track ad-hoc for a specific request from the market.

I think the website design and interface is not fantastic, it looks it was done in the 90s, it certainly could be improved. 

But the overall feeling is that the service is not a scam, and if you are a musician-producer committed and with the time/resources to create custom tracks to fit a specific listing, your rate of success could be very good.