Free reference
The Decoder
The words the industry uses without explaining them
Every industry has vocabulary that quietly sorts people into those who belong and those who don't. Music has more of it than most, and almost none of it is written down anywhere plainly.
This is that list. What each term actually means, and the specific way people get it wrong — because using one of these incorrectly marks you as unrepresented in a single line, and nobody ever tells you.
You will not find "it's important to build relationships" anywhere on this page. This is a decoder, not advice.
It's free, there's nothing to sign up for, and it always will be. If it saves one person from offering an "exclusive" to nine outlets at once, it has done its job.
Press
The language of editorial. Most of it is borrowed from newspapers, which is why so little of it is obvious.
Embargo
noun · press
A request that a recipient hold a story until a stated date and time. It exists so several outlets can publish simultaneously rather than racing each other.
Where people get it wrongAn embargo is a request, not an instruction. It has no force until the recipient agrees to it, and nobody is bound by one they never accepted. It also needs a time zone — "embargoed until the 14th" means five different things across a global press list.
Exclusive
noun · press, radio
One outlet, and only one, gets to publish something first. In exchange they usually give it more space or a better slot than they otherwise would.
Where people get it wrongOffering the same "exclusive" to a list. It is one outlet at a time, with a reply-by date so they know how long they're holding it. Editors talk to each other, and being caught doing this costs a relationship permanently rather than for one campaign.
Premiere
noun · press, radio
A specific kind of exclusive: the first public airing of a track or video, hosted by one outlet ahead of general release.
Where people get it wrongCalling something a premiere when it's already on SoundCloud. If it can be heard anywhere else, it isn't one — and an editor will find out in about eight seconds.
Long-lead / short-lead
adjective · press
How far ahead an outlet plans. A monthly print title is long-lead and may work eight to twelve weeks out. A news desk is short-lead and may work in hours.
Where people get it wrongSending everything on the same schedule. The single most common reason a good pitch dies is that it arrived correctly formatted and three weeks too late for that particular outlet.
One-sheet
noun · press
A single page summarizing a release: artist, title, date, label, format, key selling points, notable prior coverage. Designed to be read in fifteen seconds by someone deciding whether to care.
Where people get it wrongWriting two pages. The name is the specification.
EPK
noun · press · electronic press kit
A single link holding everything a journalist needs: press shots at usable resolution, bios at two lengths, a private stream, credits, and dates.
Where people get it wrongBuilding it as a login-walled portal, or on a link that expires. If a writer has to make an account or email you for a password, they will write about somebody else instead.
On the record / on background / off the record
phrase · press
On the record — quotable and attributable. On background — usable, but attributed to a description rather than a name. Off the record — not publishable at all, given to help the journalist understand something.
Where people get it wrongSaying "that was off the record" after saying the thing. It has to be agreed before, not claimed afterwards — and a journalist is under no obligation to accept it retrospectively.
Servicing
verb · press, radio
Sending music to the people who might play or write about it. "We serviced it to specialist radio three weeks out."
Where people get it wrongTreating it as a synonym for pitching. Servicing is delivery. Pitching is persuasion. Sending a promo to two hundred people is servicing, and on its own it is not a campaign.
Masthead
noun · press
The list of who works at a publication and in what role.
Where people get it wrongAssuming it's current. Mastheads lag reality by months, and pitching someone who left in March is the fastest way to look like you bought a list.
Commission
verb · press
When an editor formally assigns a piece to a writer, usually with a word count, a fee and a deadline. The moment a story stops being an idea.
Where people get it wrongAssuming interest equals commission. "This is interesting, send me more" is not a yes, and telling a client you've secured coverage at that point is how publicists lose clients.
Sync
Music in film, television, advertising and games. The vocabulary here is legal before it is creative, which catches most people out.
Sync
noun · from "synchronisation"
Using a piece of music in time with moving image. Doing it legally requires permission from two separate places at once.
Where people get it wrongThinking one permission covers it. It never does — see below.
Master and publishing
noun · the two halves
The master is the specific recording. The publishing is the underlying composition — the notes and words. They are separate rights, frequently owned by different people, and a sync needs both.
Where people get it wrongAn artist saying "I own my music" when they own one half. If you can't say who controls each side, you're not ready to be pitched for sync.
One-stop
adjective · sync
Both master and publishing are controlled by the same party, so a single signature clears the track.
Where people get it wrongUnderrating how much it matters. Supervisors work to deadlines measured in days. A good one-stop track beats a great track that needs three months of chasing, every time, and it is the single most useful sentence you can put in a sync pitch.
Clearance
noun · sync
Written permission from every rights holder to use the track in a stated way, for a stated term, in stated territories and media.
Where people get it wrongSaying a track is "cleared" when nobody has confirmed anything in writing. That isn't optimism, it's a representation somebody may rely on — and it can end a working relationship in one email.
Stems
noun · sync, remix
The separated parts of a mix — drums, bass, vocal, synths — exported individually so an editor can use some and not others.
Where people get it wrongNot having them, or having them at the wrong sample rate. A track that can lose its vocal for a dialogue scene is far more usable than one that can't.
Temp track
noun · sync
Music dropped into an edit provisionally, to show the intended feel before the real music is licensed or written.
Where people get it wrongNot understanding its power. Editors and directors fall in love with temp tracks, and "sounds like the temp" is one of the most common briefs a supervisor works to.
Cue sheet
noun · sync
The document filed after a production is finished, listing every piece of music used, for how long, and who wrote and owns it. It is how performance royalties actually get paid.
Where people get it wrongIgnoring it. A placement that never makes it onto a cue sheet generates no performance income, and chasing one afterwards is thankless work.
MFN
abbreviation · most favored nations
A term meaning nobody gets a better deal than anybody else on the same use. If one rights holder is paid more, everyone on that placement is levelled up to match.
Where people get it wrongHolding out for more on an MFN deal without realizing it raises the cost of the whole clearance — which sometimes makes the supervisor drop the track entirely and use something else.
Radio & mixes
Broadcast has its own rules, and some of them are regulatory rather than cultural.
Specialist show
noun · radio
A program dedicated to a genre or scene rather than to general listening. Usually where new electronic music gets its first broadcast play.
Where people get it wrongPitching the station rather than the show. Specialist presenters mostly choose their own music; the station playlist is a different process with different people and much longer odds.
Playlist
noun · radio
A station-level rotation, often tiered — an A-list track plays many times a week, a C-list track far less. Decided by a committee, not a presenter.
Where people get it wrongConfusing it with a streaming playlist. They are unrelated processes with unrelated gatekeepers, and conflating them in a pitch is a tell.
Clean edit / radio edit
noun · radio
Two different things. A clean edit removes or masks language that can't be broadcast. A radio edit shortens a track to a broadcast-friendly length.
Where people get it wrongSupplying one when the show needed the other, or supplying neither and assuming somebody at the station will make one. They won't. They'll play a different record.
Guest mix
noun · radio
A recorded DJ mix supplied to a show, usually with a full tracklist and sometimes with spoken introductions.
Where people get it wrongSending it without a tracklist, or with artist and label names spelled from memory. The tracklist isn't admin — it's how everybody in the mix gets credited and paid.
Drop / ID
noun · radio
A short recorded line from an artist identifying the show or station. "You're listening to…"
Where people get it wrongTreating it as a favor to refuse. It costs thirty seconds on a phone, and it is one of the few things a presenter will genuinely remember you for.
Payola
noun · radio, regulated
Paying, or giving anything of value, in exchange for airplay without disclosing it.
Where people get it wrongAssuming it's a gray area or somebody else's problem. For a licensed broadcaster it is a regulatory matter and it is their license at risk, not yours — which is exactly why an offer like that ends the relationship rather than starting one.
Booking
Live and broadcast performance. The vocabulary is largely contractual, and vagueness here costs real money.
Rider
noun · live
The document attached to a performance contract setting out what the artist requires. A technical rider covers sound and staging. A hospitality rider covers everything else.
Where people get it wrongSending a rider written for a festival main stage to a 300-capacity club. A promoter reads an unrealistic rider as a sign that nobody involved understands the show.
Guarantee vs door deal
noun · live
A guarantee is a fixed fee paid regardless of attendance. A door deal pays a share of ticket income. Many contracts combine both — a guarantee plus a percentage above a break-even point.
Where people get it wrongQuoting a guarantee with no reference to the room. A number that's routine at 2,000 capacity is an insult at 200, and asking it signals you haven't checked.
Hold
noun · live
A provisional reservation of a date before anything is confirmed. Holds are ranked — a first hold has priority, a second hold sits behind it.
Where people get it wrongTreating a hold as a booking. It isn't one, and it can be released. Announcing a show on a hold is how artists end up canceling.
Challenge
verb · live
When a lower hold asks the higher hold to confirm or release the date, forcing a decision.
Where people get it wrongNot knowing it exists, and losing dates by sitting on a hold nobody ever confirmed.
Radius clause
noun · live
A contractual restriction on playing within a set distance of a venue or festival, for a set period before and after the date.
Where people get it wrongAgreeing to one without reading the distance or the window. A wide radius around a summer festival can quietly remove a whole region from the touring calendar for months.
Advance
verb · live · not to be confused with a financial advance
The process of confirming all practical details with the venue before the show — timings, technical needs, access, personnel.
Where people get it wrongLeaving it to the day. "Advancing the show" is the work that stops the show going wrong, and it's usually the difference between being rebooked and not.
Settlement
noun · live
The reconciliation after the show — ticket income against costs, arriving at what the artist is actually paid, usually on the night.
Where people get it wrongNot turning up to it, or not knowing what to check. A settlement nobody attends is a number somebody else decided.
Money & contracts
Terms that cut across every side, and cost the most when misunderstood.
Recoupable
adjective
Money spent on your behalf that must be earned back out of your income before you see any. Advances, marketing and video budgets are commonly recoupable.
Where people get it wrongHearing "we'll cover the PR" as a gift. Ask whether it's recoupable, and out of which income stream. The answer changes what the deal is worth by a lot.
Net vs gross
adjective
Gross is the money before costs. Net is what's left after them — and the definition of "costs" is where the negotiation actually lives.
Where people get it wrongAgreeing a percentage without agreeing what it's a percentage of. Twenty percent of a net that somebody else defines is not a number.
Term and territory
noun
How long a right lasts, and where it applies. Every license has both, even when nobody mentions them.
Where people get it wrongSigning "in perpetuity, worldwide, all media" without noticing. Those three phrases together mean forever, everywhere, for anything.
Pay to play
noun
Any arrangement where money buys coverage, a slot, or attention that would otherwise be earned.
Where people get it wrongNot recognizing it when it's dressed up. "Submission fees", "curator credits" and "consideration fees" are all the same transaction wearing a lanyard. Sometimes it's legal and disclosed. It is never the same thing as being chosen.
A term we've got wrong, or one we've missed?
This page is only useful if it's accurate, and it was written by a publicist — which means the press entries are the ones I can defend hardest and the others are the ones most likely to need correcting by somebody who works them.
Send a correction and it goes in, with credit if you want it. hello@aaabrief.com
If you found this useful, the companion document is the AAA Pitch Standard — what a competent pitch has to contain, numbered so a recipient can decline with a reason instead of with silence. Also free.