Last June, I wrote a blog post about how to submit your music to Pandora because last year I released my album, TEMPTATION, and I wanted to see if my album would be approved to be played on Pandora.

This week, I found out that my song, “Like They All Did” was not approved by Pandora’s curator team.

I know that a lot of people submit their music to Pandora because there are a lot of musicians out there. However, it still hurt to get this news.

I wasn’t told specifically why my song wasn’t approved. The email I received provided me with a link to find out more information, and it brought me to a standard post on their website that said that Pandora chooses songs based on what they think will appeal to their audience.

So, from what I do know, they believed that “Like They All Did” wouldn’t appeal to Pandora listeners.

Unfortunately, this was not the news I was hoping to get from Pandora. Because it took over eight months for them to process my submission (instead of getting an immediate rejection), I thought that maybe I had a chance to have my music on Pandora.

With this news, maybe some people would quit, and they wouldn’t try again, but that is not me. If I were a quitter, I would have never released my album. When I told people that I was working on my first album, a lot of people looked at me like I was ridiculous, and they looked at me with a wonder as to why I was trying to compete with all the musicians out there and with a wonder as to why I thought I would stand a chance.

Although Pandora didn’t give me the news that I wanted, I’m going to try to submit another song. I hope that the next song I choose will be one that they feel will appeal to listeners.

The reason that this news hurt is because my songs are my heart and soul, my pain and happiness, just put out there for everyone to hear. In the beginning it was scary for me to share my music because my songs are so personal. It’s hard not to take rejection of my music personally.

Nonetheless, every challenge in life is an opportunity to grow, and I’m not going to let this bring me down. I’m going to move forward and try to submit again.

I’m not going to give up on my dream to share my music with the world.