Who owns ScoreTunes.com?
The site is owned by ScoreTunes Music Services. A company run entirely by the fans who built and maintain the site. We are not affiliated with any mainstream radio stations, record labels or management companies.

What does membership cost? Do I have to buy CDs through your website?
Its free! No charge. Ever. The buy buttons are linked to the album page on Amazon.com and the iTunes buttons are linked to the artist's page on iTunes. They are there for your convenience only. You are not required to purchase anything from us. Ever! We are here because we are fans. We built this site for other fans like us. We did, however, pick two of the most user friendly and lowest priced retailers to affiliate with. We do appreciate it when you do choose to purchase through our site because a portion of the small commission that we get goes to our favorite charity(s). Of course the rest also helps us recover some of the costs of maintaining this gigantic website for you.

Why do I need to register if it is free anyway?
The site is designed to be very easy to use without having to sign into multiple different sections. You sign in one time, enter the site, and do whatever you want. It tracks all of your ratings,reviews, contest entries and survey results without you having to do anything else. In addition, we only want those who are real music fans, and actually participate on our site, to be able to access the information that we work so hard to put together for you and the album scores and reviews that we collect.

Will I get tons of spam or junk mail if I register with you?
Heck no! You will get NO junk mail if you register with us. We have denied several affiliate companies because of their policies of sharing private member information. We will never share any of your private information, including your email address, with any third party company without your permission. We hate spam as much as you do. From time to time, you will receive emails from ScoreTunes.com. These are to share important new survey, contest and site update information with you. These emails will come from us and only us. We will never use a third party mass emailing system.

What do you do with the results you collect from the ratings?
The results are used to decide which are the best CDs according to the fans. We have our own awards system based entirely on the fans opinions of the albums. Sales numbers have very little to do with our awards system. The sales numbers are only used to help determine eligibility of an album. It is painfully obvious that quantity of sales does not reflect the quality of the album. From time to time, we will also share rating and review information with labels, managers and radio in order to help them better determine demographics for their artists. No personal information is shared.

What are the contest entries for and how do I get them?
The automatic contest entries are for free music drawings. You get one automatically when you rate a CD. You also get one automatically when you submit a review that is approved by the staff. From time to time, we will also feature special promotions and contests which will require separate entries. So check back from time to time for new contests.

How do I make sure that a review is accepted by the staff?
Most reviews are accepted. Use common sense. Here are a few tips...
-The review feature is not a discussion board. It is for you to post your opinion only. Don't respond directly to another member's review.
-ScoreTunes.com is registered as "safe for 13 and under". If there is anything even remotely inappropriate in your review, it will not be accepted.
-Make sure the review is on topic.
-The review feature is there for your opinion on an album, not there for you to bash an artist.
If it is obvious that you only wrote the review to insult the artist, it will not be accepted.

Do I HAVE to rate or review albums?
No. You are welcome to sign up and browse the site. But, in order to have your opinion counted, you will need to submit a rating for the CD. You will not have full access to the site until you rate a (very small) number of CDs. The review feature, however, is entirely for your benefit. It is not necessary to submit a review to have your score counted. However, keep in mind that submitting a review gets you a contest entry just like submitting a rating does. More importantly, submitting a review helps other members decide whether they would like to look into that album further. You know you read the reviews, take some time and write some. We have designed an industry first, quick review feature. It was designed to be the easiest review system created. No writing talent is neccessary. Some people who like to write long editorial style reviews may take some time to get used to this system, but those who are not as talented at writing will love it.

How do I find sound samples?
Almost every CD on our site has a "buy" link and an "iTunes" link. If you click on these links you can listen to sound samples on either of our retail affiliate's websites. We have also directly linked to samples on a number of CDs. In most cases, you can also find a link from our site to the artist's official website. Often times, sound samples can be found on these official artist websites.

Why are some of the sound samples linked to Amazon and some linked to iTunes?
We currently provide easy access to purchase music or download songs from the two largest, lowest priced and easy to use online music retailers. Our samples, up to the mid June 2005 releases had been serviced by Amazon.com due to ease of use and multiple choices of format. However, we have found that the low quality of the sound samples from Amazon does not accurately portray the music. Therefore, as of the new releases starting mid June of 2005, our sound samples will be serviced by iTunes wherever available. The quality is superior to any sample on the internet. iTunes is free for both Windows and Mac users.

How do I locate a specific album?
The albums are categorized first by year, then by genre. Click on the year you wish to browse, then the genre. You will find a list of albums in alphabetical order by artist name. Please see our "contact us" page for further information if you cannot find a specific CD.

Is ScoreTunes.com safe for my kids?
Our site is safe for 13 years old and under.

How are the staff favorites decided? Can we request that you review an album?
The album receives a staff favorites award if the average score given to it by the staff (in that genre) is very high. Due to the widely varying tastes of the staff, this is a very difficult feat to achive. Not all staff members review every album, we don't think that would be fair. For example, our Rap staff may not give a very good review to a country album or our Rock guys may not like a pop album. That doesn't make it a bad album, it just means that it is not their style of music. It is a staff favorite if the staff that usually listens to that particular genre of music gives it high scores. You cannot request a staff favorite. However, if you know of an album that you think is outstanding and isn't getting a fair amount of press, you can request that we review it. See our "contact us" page inside the site for more details. We will do highlights of albums that we feel deserve more press even if they don't score high enough to make the staff favorites.

Why can't I see the featured promotions and/or the related link artwork?
If you cannot see the related link artwork and/or the featured promos, you may have an ad blocker turned on. Unfortunately, the related link artwork and featured products operate off of software that is similar to ad banner software. Ad blockers may mistake these for advertisements. If you are missing out on the featured promotions, you may be missing out on some good things. They are all hand selected and tested by the staff. If you cannot see the related link artwork, you are missing out on some artwork that the owners of those sites worked hard to create. We recommend that you turn off your ad blocker or set it to allow ads when viewing ScoreTunes.com. The ad blocker may be included with Firewall software such as Norton or may be included with the browser that you are using. The ad blocker may be adjusted or turned off by accessing the preferences of these programs.