Taxi Music Unbiased Review: Don't Use Until You Read This
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Written by Ramsey Brown.
Musicians and artists are always in search of an opportunity to showcase their talent. Sometimes a little exposure is enough for the artists to reach the heights of success. This is what Taxi Music works for.
Taxi Music, also called Taxi A&R, is an independent company. It is a US-based company, popular among music artists.
It is an online platform that helps musicians, songwriters, and artists by providing them with the opportunity to work. Taxi Music is linked with several different ad agencies, recording labels, music libraries, and music publishers.
Since it is an online platform, many artists hesitate to work with them. Is Taxi Music really worth it? Does Taxi Music really help artists? You will find the answers to these questions and many more in this article. Stick to the end for an unbiased review.
Taxi Music
Taxi Music was founded by Michael Laskow in 1992. It claims to have been assisting and helping artists around the world. Taxi is connected to a large community of publishers, supervisors, and labels.
To become a member of Taxi, you need to get registered by paying $299.95 yearly. Along with that, annual renewal fees of $199.95 have to be paid by all the members of Taxi.
Once you get registered with Taxi, you have to upload songs every 1st and 15th of a month. For every individual, screeners select the right song.
You must have heard of making money with Taxi. Is it true or just a scam? Continue reading to understand that.
How Does Taxi Music Work?
Taxi Music works more like a negotiator or a middleman that receives work from creators and forwards it to the music publishers or labels.
Taxi claims to have gathered all the professionals together at a single platform, Music Publishers, Ad agencies, Composers, Video game companies, Record labels, Music License companies, and so on.
You have to submit your work for $5. After the submission, your work will be checked for quality, and it will be screened. Once satisfied, Taxi judges will forward your work to the concerned company. In the case of rejection, you will receive feedback along with the reason why your work has been rejected.
Once your work gets selected by the labels or publishers, Taxi Music will share your contact details with the company and you will be put directly in touch with them. At this point, Taxi takes a step back so that the dialogue is completely between you and the labels.
Taxi Music Cost
In order to become a member of Taxi Music, you need to pay $299.95 annually. You will purchase their membership plan after paying this amount. This membership will continue for a year from the day you joined.
Every year after that, you have to pay $199.95 as renewal charges. In addition, you have to pay $5 for every work you submit to Taxi A&R for review. Taxi claims that they need to review every work thoroughly so that only quality work gets submitted from their side.
If you like to upload your music to the website of Taxi, you will have to pay $2 as charges. For the scanning of photos to the album, an additional $5 has to be submitted.
There is another dispatch plan for Taxi A&R, which requires you to pay $0.5 on a daily basis in addition to the yearly subscription.
Here is the summary of the total cost of being a member of Taxi Music.
Membership: $299.95
Yearly Renewal: $199.95
Song Submission: $5 per song
Uploading song to the Website: $2
Scanning of Album: $5
The overall cost of a Taxi goes above $400 per year, which is a lot. Also, not everyone gets the chance to get recognition after spending this much money.
Who Can Join Taxi A&R?
Taxi A&R is for every composer, a musician, or a songwriter. If you are any one of these, this platform is just right for you.
Before getting registered with Taxi, you must be confident about the content you are producing. Since there is so much competition on this platform, your skills must be of high quality to get exposure among so many artists.
If you are just a beginner, we at Omari Music promotion recommend you to get your skills polished before spending so much on Taxi A&R. After all, Taxi will not in any way help you in mastering your skill. Rather, it is an independent company that works for you to find a label or publisher.
Making Money With Taxi Music
Since so many different music agencies are registered with Taxi Music, Taxi posts about opportunities every month. Members linked to Taxi can apply to these opportunities to try their luck.
Because there are so many songwriters and musicians out there, almost everyone is looking for exposure. Different labels and song publishers let Taxi know about their needs of artists. With the help of Taxi, artists and labels are able to get in contact with each other.
Once the deal is final, artists work with those labels or publishers and earn money.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
You can save your time in finding contacts and getting engaged with the industry. With Taxi music, your problem of finding contacts gets solved. If you have a strong sample completing all the requirements, there are chances that your work will get accepted.
Once you make a contract with any agency, you will receive all the payments directly. Taxi is not liable to ask for a commission or cut from your pay. You get to keep what is yours.
Taxi A&R comprises a team of professionals who provides you with feedback. The critique is important in helping you improve and getting aware of what areas you are lacking in.
There is a money-back guarantee as well. If you are not completely satisfied with the services Taxi is providing you with, you can simply file a complaint and get your money back anytime.
You also get the opportunity every year to interact with the professionals of the music industry. It is up to you to impress the supervisors with your work and communication skills. You might get selected by these agencies.
Since Taxi is registered with several agencies, you get hundreds of opportunities every month to test your luck. However, the competition is equally higher on this platform.
Cons:
Taxi music does not guarantee that your work will get accepted or not. You have to pay a lot of money just to get rejected.
The registration fee itself is very high, which is $299.95. Along with that, there are many other renewal fees and other services charges.
If your work gets rejected, there is no option to get your money back. In other words, you will be paying $$$ just to get feedback.
A very few artists out of thousands get the opportunity to showcase their talent. If your talent is beyond exceptional, then there are chances of you getting placed somewhere. All other artists have to face rejection, and in many cases, they get discouraged and leave what they love to do.
People with good talent but not enough money are unable to get the opportunity. This is because artists have to pay in almost every step while being a member of Taxi. This platform is useless for you if you do not have enough money.
Taxi Music: Is it really worth it?
Taxi A&R is indeed really expensive, but the work they are doing is truly appreciative. Apart from such high prices, this platform seems legit. If you got the talent, go for it.
With the increase in the number of people taking an interest in the music industry, the competition keeps on increasing. There are so many artists yet so few opportunities. Keeping this in mind, we recommend Taxi Music, but with a condition.
Why Do We Recommend Taxi Music?
People with exceptional talent and who are actually professionals should give it a chance. If your work is really worth it, there is no reason for not getting their membership.
Why Do We Not Recommend Taxi Music?
If you are just a beginner in the world of music, it is sincere advice not to waste your money on it. With so much competition and so many artists trying their luck, you might get discouraged with the rejection.
Be a professional in your field to get exposure and the spotlight.
In Conclusion
Taxi is a legit platform that helps artists around the world make money by getting in touch with music professionals and agencies.
So many musicians have worked with them and found their way to the music industry. By paying around $400 a year, you can enter the music industry. This saves both your time and money.
Though the aims and objectives of Taxi Music are positive, the costs and prices of the services they offer are extremely high.
Other than their high prices, the company is completely legit. Do you have talent? If so, we recommend trying Taxi A&R independent company for a chance to break into the music industry.
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31 replies to "Taxi Music Unbiased Review: Don’t Use Until You Read This"
Taxi is garbage unless you write rinky-dink synthetic music. No musical instruments required.
Hi,
I’m a member for some years now., don’t judge before you check it out yourself and read everything about taxi music. I’ve been to the free taxi convention and that was amazing 😻
I have many songs signed by publishers through Taxi now. And even placed in tv-series like Riverdale
Their name is taxi for a reason… it’s not a songwriting contest!
I noticed that during September to October – and will probably continue, I only received ‘dispatch’ opportunities. This means I have to pay more for every submission I make. I posed this question to TAXI. They said, ‘We are just responding tumour clients’. So now, clients only want songs submitted at a moments notice? Seems to me this is a cash grab.
Incidentally, I have been with TAXI on and off since the mid nineteen-nineties. The only tracks I’ve ever had accepted were those submitted just as my subscription was about to expire.
Thank you for your clear explanation of the pros and cons of Taxi. An associate passed the company over to us for the possibility of our artists ilismo and Lili Forbes joining. They’ve been in the music industry as duo twin sisters and as solo artist since they were young girls. They write , produce music, plays and music videos. As you have stated, great talent is getting harder to be seen or heard by the right companies for opertunities. We will definitely look into Taxi now thanks to your review. Perhaps it will work for our artists..Regards to you and all the best🙏🏽🙌…Alilga
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL54K1q_WVNujTRIyTwM4vOxebL9rxQYWu&si=uZyPSivve7QFKeu7
🔥🎼Various music and live shows by “The Johnson Family and 506Crew: Lili Forbes, ilismo, Vinny Johnson, Acha sxm and 506Crew . Click, Love, Share, Support 🔥💃🏽🕺🏽
I would like to thank all of those that commented on their experience with TAXI.
After reading everything I have decided this is not for me. Seems to be right up there with pay to play. Seems like you have better luck with buying a lottery ticket. Thanks for saving me a pile of money.
I have recorded three albums and have had some success and no doubt the competition is stiff, but this sounds like a great business model to exploit money from songwriters and musicians. Great for them, but not for songwriters.
Tom Pinsent
http://www.tompinsent.ca
This thread is a pathetic collection of comments from people that have no idea what they are talking about. Taxi is a service ideal for people that want to get into tv sync… the community is welcoming and offers actual, experience-based advice for those willing to listen to it. They do not “take your music”, their goal is to judge the quality of music that they send to the people that actually place it into shows and movies. The goal in sync is not to express your art or force fit your song into a show… the goal is to create music that fits the needs of a particular scene at a particular time according to a particular music editor. A rejection by Taxi doesn’t necessarily mean your music is bad, it just means (in most cases) that it is not up to industry standards.
If you want to sell yourself as an artist, go do that on your own, and good luck. Taxi actually does run listings for A&R people looking for talent, so you can make connections. But you need to know what you are doing and how not to screw up your first impression. The first step is having music worth listening to.
Y’all need to do some more research. Check out the free Taxi Forums if you actually want to know what’s going on there. Disclosure: I’m a Taxi member and it has helped me a ton, but I get nothing for defending a service that I use and that has helped me. https://forums.taxi.com.
Here’s just one of the problems from my point of view. The people screening your work are basically failed songwriters themselves. Otherwise, they would not have the time to listen to a ton of incredibly bad “music”. So if they couldn’t figure it out for themselves, what is the chance they are qualified at all to judge your work? And every artist including the Beatles were turned down by lables many times before making it.
Taxi is a legitimate business with a great business model. They know how to make money by way of telling people what they want to hear. After interacting with them and attempting to communicate, it didn’t take long to extract the reality of what this company actually is.
Taxi is nothing more than a song writing/music contest company. It is true, they have connections but it is also true that they are asking its members to do all of the heavy lifting and provide them with enough material to cherry pic from.
The artist, does the song writing,
Personal performance, studio work,
Compositions, editing, Mastering etc…. This takes a great deal of time and money. Taxi not only gets all of your hard work given to them on a silver platter but they even charge you for it.
You pay to enter their song writing contest which from what I experienced is judged by a body of people who don’t know what the other is saying regarding critiquing
Music.
I found many contradictions in comments made. It is possible to win a lottery but make sure you read the fine print.
I write music for the love of it. If any song I write falls on the right ears, so be it. I certainly don’t need to be critiqued by people with an obvious self gaining agenda. After speaking directly with some of Taxi’s staff it didn’t take long to see how out of touch they were towards actual experienced musicians in the field.
I feel that Taxi is legit however not transparent regarding the reality of
Anyone’s chances of winning. After all they would be out of business if the members realized their odds.
Bottom line, they and their ” clients ” have discovered a way to exploit
Sincere good talent and save and make money with.
Not for me !
That Omari would endorse Taxi is telling about Omari’s association. Sometimes, it’s best to decline a check.
Heck, even Taxi knows they are
hucksters.
It is unfortunate that Taxi preys
on the naivety of so many
extremely sensitive, gulible
songwriters out there that
wear there hearts on there sleeves.
Still, greedy scam artists like
Taxi help toughen up songwriters
about the real world.
Their “service” is bullshit! Do not fall for it
This is a scam
Do not use this “service”!
SCAM!
Do not use this “service”!
SCAM! SCAM! SCAM!
Do not use this “service”!
I agree with the majority of comments. Taxi’s so called gate keepers are basing their declines mostly from personal like or dislikes. I soon realize, the game is to have you to continue submitting and paying hoping to get lucky. Don’t waste your money with these guys. Could so many people be wrong about Taxi? THINK!!
Taxi is a total scam
How do you approach libraries on your own?
What do you do if you’re a novice and shy? I encouraged my sister to join but seems like it wasn’t what you’d called user friendly. She had basic concerns such as 1) do you need the music transcribed? 2) Does it have to be professionally recorded? 3) Does she have to copyright before performing it on one of the TAXI meetings? She let it lapse after 2 or 3 years and now it’s too expensive to consider. Basically I guess you have to already be experienced. I think it may be better if I pay for her to go to a recording studio and shop her compositions around. Pretty good stuff.
Yea, who needs the monkey when you
need to talk to the organ grinder.
You and I have to do our best to
write and record great stuff.
Let’s do what we can do get around
these Taxi Music Hucksters.
Good luck to all of us
If the screeners are legit, then how
come nobody has heard of them?
Seems to me if the screeners were
any good they would have songs in
movies and what not.
I have seen a lot of testimonials,
but I haven’t really seen testimonials
from actual filmmakers of note.
Don’t the Coen Brothers or
Martin Scorsese just use the same
guys or trust there own judgement?
Maybe it’s me, but Taxi is more
than welcome to convince me
that there “ screeners” actually
know something..
I’m not actually sure they
have “ Screeners” per se at all.
I think anybody at Taxi could
listen for 3O seconds, send out
a rejection notice with any number
of reasons your song is rejected.
Taxi kind of reminds me of
“ Acting” schools on Hollywood
Blvd. guaranteeing they will give
your picture and resume to Big
Shot producers and directors in
the movie business.
Save your money and write songs
from the heart.
Maybe they will find you, maybe they
won’t.
Let’s hope they find us both
You know me, at least some of you do
I joined TAXI. I write songs. I was hoping TAXI would help me to get my songs published. Their member services are almost non-existent. They furnished almost NOTHING in the way of exposure to producers, publishers, agents – anyone having to do with HELPING a musician, or song writer. It was a waste of money, time, and effort. It only took me a month to realize it was a huge scam. Fortunately I had a credit card company that assisted me in getting my money back – but, total waste of time.
@Frank Blades – they don’t support the math well, but the cost isn’t just $299 per year. There are lots of little gotcha charges – $5 to submit a song, $2 to upload the song, and another $5 to “scan” the song’s cover. That’s $12 per song in addition to the joining fee.
Trevor where did you go to get your songs heard “liberies “would appreciate any info thank you
Taxi is a shortcut to nowhere. There are no shortcuts.
Thank you for the article it has been most helpful. However the “Speak Your Mind” comments have been the most help. As a professional musician and composer for over 40 years I thought I’d give TAXI a try during the pandemic. Once you pay your money the TAXI Music News emails with opportunities look very enticing. Unfortunately you quickly find that the “Screeners” offer contradictory advice to the “Reference Tracks” they offer, lack any productive criticism and don’t seem to understand what their clients want. In addition, it appears that the “Screeners” lack legitimate musical knowledge and offer criticism based upon personal tastes. I’m in my first year and have uploaded and submitted over 20 original tracks and have one forwarded which I never heard anything. As your other songwriters/musicians commented developing a network and relationships with “Music Supervisors” and “Artists Management” is the most productive way to get your music heard. I’ll be trying to get my money back from the “TAXI A&R” service.
Don’t waste your time and money with this joke of a company! SCAM ALERT!!!! Completely over priced and zero follow through on forwards. For that price they should be following up and communicating with you about a forward. I was with Taxi for 12 years and had a ton of forwards and never got a single email or call or anything from anyone. Starting approaching libraries on my own and immediately started getting deals faster than I could sign them. Since then I’ve made great money and worked with everyone from Netfilx to Amazon and in between. I gave them Taxi thousands of dollars to do absolutely nothing. DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME AND MONEY WITH TAXI!!!.
Oh and the owner is a complete narcissistic asshole.
Why doesn’t TAXI listen to your music first and then if you’re approved you pay the membership!? Before I get any work I’m already in the whole $400 with no guarantee!? This sounds like a way for armatures to get screwed similar to a talent agency that you pay through the nose for exposure and never get any work. The pro’s most likely are NOT using this site and every amateur they doesn’t know any better is. I could be wrong but as a professional musician for over 25 years, I would feel more comfortable submitting works to be approved first before I hand over my credit card without speaking to ANYONE face to face or over the phone!? ✋🏻 No thanks
This article does not seem to be entirely accurate. TAXI is $299.95 to join, and then $199.95 for every year after that (this is not cumulative), so to state that ‘The overall cost of a Taxi goes above $400 per year’ is a bit misleading.
But otherwise I found the article useful, Thanks guys.
Taxi does not have a monopoly on the music industry . Those ” cheat sheets” mean nothing the same music supervisors that are getting music from Taxi are getting music from MS pro and other legit library’s . Lets say I get a “listen ” from MS pro that means that I have skipped the middle man from Taxi and i know that the music supervisors are hearing my music but Taxi wants me to pay 5.00 to see if my songs are worthy to send to a superviser? I know for a fact that I have hundreds of songs in music supervisors personal files for future reference . I was with Taxi 3 years spend Thousands and I dont have a clue if anyone even heard my tracks ? People looking for music are not sitting around relying on submissions from Taxi . Go to a place where the supervisors find you if you have want they need they will eventually start listing to you . people who use Taxi are trusting there success to “screeners” and paying for it ! If the screeners have the authority to send or reject music based on there experience, success, and knowing the biz …. One question, why are they working for Taxi ? They should be able to get music unto to very projects that they are screening you for .
Ok I just write lyrics but I have music to my lyrics
So my question is if my song get accepted. Will the music publisher get an artist to sing a song that fits him.
Thank you,
Thurman Hinnant
Check out this animated music video about a cowboy with the wild west feeling. Sounds best with headphones! Share if you like! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtPdlO4jtjw