We love music.
We love how music makes us feel inspired,
how it can take us back in time,
or how it can instantly change the mood of any situation.
We believe music can change the world—even when no one is listening.
We are searching—endlessly—for music that does that.
We believe it’s yours.
Guaranteed Music Review was created in conjunction with The Ark of Music by independent musician Noah James Hittner after a long and arduous search conducted in 2014 in an attempt to gain press for his second solo album. Currently, GMR is owned and operated by indie-folk musician Jess Chizuk. Passionate about true musical talent, Guaranteed Music Review is dedicated to discovering—and providing greater exposure for—the unheard-of, independent, and small label musicians of planet Earth. Whether the music is old or new is of no concern. We only care that it’s authentic, and likely, under-appreciated as of yet.
Guaranteed Music Review provides professional, timely reviews for your ALBUM or SINGLE…GUARANTEED. We provide this service for a reasonable fee. We then publish these music reviews on The Ark of Music—a platform designed as a place where music fans everywhere can come to discover what we feel is the best music in the world.
Our music reviews are so thorough (including interviews, playlists, tour schedules, videos, and more) that we like to think of them as Online Music Press Kits. We also deliver our music reviews to our subscribing fans via our Music-Discovery E-newsletter. So you see, we are creating more than just music reviews. We are also creating instant publicity for you and your music. (For complete details, click on How It Works.)
Regarding the idea of writing music reviews for payment…
We are aware that the idea of providing music reviews in exchange for payment brings up some questions. So here’s the deal:
- Professional writers who happen to write for big-name publications (such as Spin, Rolling Stone, Vibe, Pitchfork, etc.) are getting paid by their employers. Those we’ve named here are giants in the business. They make lots of money from advertising. We are a small company using minimal ads. Thus, in order for our staff to be compensated, we must charge the artists directly. It’s a simple idea.
- Every day there are more and more DIY artists recording music in their basements and bedrooms, and releasing it to the world. These no-names are every bit as deserving as the big pop stars (if not more-so) of being reviewed in a professional and timely manner. Our guaranteed service evens the playing field for these small/indie-artists.
- If we’ve reviewed the music, it’s because we found talent in the music, it’s because the music inspired us in some capacity and we felt it was worth sharing with the world—it’s that simple. We absolutely do not provide false-positive reviews.
- If, on occasion, we feel that an artist has submitted music that we feel is fundamentally sub-par (I.E., vocals are off-key, instrumentation is not in-time, poor quality recording, juvenile lyrics, etc.), is otherwise unappealing due to violent or offensive content, and generally does not represent the creative culture we are trying to create, it is then our policy to respectfully decline writing the music review and promptly refund the artist’s money. (Yes, we’ve done this on a number of occasions.) There is no reason to write about/criticize music we don’t like. What would be the point of that?
- Finally, this is not a hobby project. We are professional grade. Guaranteed Music Review & The Ark of Music are the primary “legs” of our parent company, The Ark of Music LLC. We take our company and our work very seriously. We work hard and pays taxes. Thus, we strive to represent ourselves—and our artists/customers—with the utmost professionalism and integrity.
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