BBC Music Introducing Live: How to get your song on Love Island

BBC Music Introducing Live is an event for anyone interested in the music industry if your an upcoming artist, songwriter or producer, or if you want to be a music manager or work behind the scenes. It is a must-attend event.  It’s full of useful and enlightening talks on anything and everything to do with the music industry. It’s a fantastic event to network at, no matter your position in the industry.

The yearly BBC Music event took place at Tobacco Docks over jam-packed few days from 31 October – 2 November 2019.

These are the Top 5 tips we learned from the show-makers at this year’s BBC Music Introducing Live about getting your songs on the show.

• There are no rules, but it helps if you associate the song with similar situations the Islanders are in. The lyrics are so important! It helps if the tracks are about love, lust or heartbreak.
• It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’ve come from. You don’t have to be a major artist. It’s all about the right song.
• The team receives thousands and thousands of songs each season, but what particularly works are instrumental and acoustic songs or versions. And clean version. Although there’s loads of swearing on the show, explicit tracks don’t make it onto the TV!
• Email, Instagram, send your songs! The team are looking for new songs all year round. Ideally, send no more than five at a time. And make sure the links don’t expire. Make it as accessible as possible. Spotify is a great way, so the team can listen to the tracks anywhere they go, at home and on the tube, get the songs into their heads! The team have a what’s app group all about the music called Magic FM.
• Don’t leave it too late. The show is a 24-hour production and things get busy, so if you can the earlier the better, but the team are always looking for the perfect music!

Receiving thousands and thousands of songs each season, a total of 1,030 songs were played on last year’s show. It is the UK’s most popular show for introducing new music into millions of homes, including Freya Riding, whose career took off after her song  ‘Lost Without You’ made it on the show in 2018.

One of the show’s success stories, singer-songwriter Lusaint whos cover of En Vogue’s  Don’t Let Me Go which she retitled  More Than Friends was played on the show.

“Last year, I put a lot of covers online. I recorded about 10 songs, stripped back versions and covers. It got noticed by the Love Island team and my cover of En Vogue’s  Don’t Let Me Go was played on the show last year. It got played again this year and it went crazy. I had 30,000 Shazams in just one night. I think it really works doing songs acoustically, on the piano, slowing them down. In a way make them as lovey dovey as possible! Love Island has enabled me to work on new material, my own songs and work with some amazing people. It was a shock. To see the spike on streaming platforms, it was a crazy few weeks. I’m really thankful for the team at Love Island.- Lusaint talking about having a song on Love Island

Let us know your thoughts on the music played on the show at @CelebMix!

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