London - Slicethepie, a site that lets fans help finance the recordings of artists they like, on Tuesday announced the launch of SoundOut, a new feature that lets labels and artists test the popularity of new tracks out with the Slicethepie community, which earns credits for rating and reviewing new music.

An artist, manager, label or publisher may upload a track to SoundOut, and for between $20 and $50 receive a report within 24 hours detailing how listeners perceived the song, along with demographic information on who listened to it.

"SoundOut is a highly innovative and cost effective tool that will help managers and labels gauge the market potential for an artist, get an objective view on which tracks work with which audience and establish what a broad cross section of potential fans think of a particular track," said Tim Clark, co-managing director of U.K. artist management company ie music, home to artists including Robbie Williams and Sia.

Since its launch in June 2007, over 2 million music reviews have been logged by the Slicethepie community, and 20 artists have received $30,000 to produce a record.

The company also said that TuneCore, a service that distributes tracks via iTunes and other services without taking a share of revenue or rights, will offer SoundOut reports to the tens of thousands of artists using its service.

Related Links:
http://www.slicethepie.com/About/NewsItem.aspx?NewsId=502

http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/01/slicethepie-goe.html

http://www.soundout.com