JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum So Where Does Your Song Rank On Ourstage?

Mark.....Are you sure you are not confusing this with how many times a song has been played ????

Cause I don't see anything that says how many times a tune has been judged....Plays have nothing to do with rank is my understanding.....

Something weird happened today. The folks at OurStage removed "Agincourt," from the Indie-Pop channel, apparently because they felt it didn't match the genre very well. I didn't know they did that. Good to know. I kind of agree that it didn't (more of a long-ish war ballad), but there was nowhere else to place it after I had placed other songs. The funny thing was that it was doing pretty well (150th out of 836)!

One thing I don't understand is why I keep hearing songs in other channels that clearly don't match the genre either. I just assumed that it would be a self-correcting system. If an Indie-Pop audience thinks a song doesn't hold up against its competitor, it won't rank high on the chart, I assume. It seems odd that there would be any oversight, content-wise, that did have to do with violating copyright or vulgarity or some such.

Oh well. You live/you learn.

Ken

Ken
Someone might have "flagged" the song as being inappropriate for the channel. If Ourstage agrees they would move it.
I don't quite get it though. I have flagged a few and they never got moved and they were clearly NOT in the right channel or were copyright violations. Some are still there.
Go figure

I don't get it.
My song One Hell of A Good Storm has bounced all over the place in Country. It has moved down 150 points since this morning.
How does it go up 200 points in one day then back down 150 points the next, LOL.

For those frustrated by artists entering covers and claiming it to be theirs.. this is the type of stuff that artists try to pull all the time. It's why musicians in general have bad repuations because often, if left to their own devices, some will lie, cheat and steal. Are they just like everyone else? Sure... but often artists seem to view themselves, as a collective, as above the fray. Add to the dishonesty the complete delusional state which many others are in about the quality and mass appeal potential of their music and you'll see why people at Labels and Publishers etc. put up so many barriers between them and the masses of musicians. As someone who has submerged himself into the often murky waters of the grassroots music community, I of course see way more amazingly nice and honest people in our community than outsiders often see. The reason is that it's sadly common for those who lie and cheat the most to get the most attention and go the farthest before being caught.. or in some cases they are never caught and find mainstream success instead. I think it's why so many big music stars turn out to be such horrible people (i.e. drug addicts, sleazebags, irresponsible jerks and so on). Our industry seems to encourage that behavior as a right of passage towards success. The nice honest folks often get nowhere doing it the right way. I think we see the exact same thing in Politics and Business in general. Fortunately for me, I chose a path where I get to spend most of my time with the honest and good people.

= )

Brian

Bill,

It's a tidal wave of issues. Though your reports may have been exactly spot on, I am willing to bet just as there are idiots entering covers and claiming they wrote them, there are the same types of people filing bogus claims of wrong genre or covers when they aren't. Ourstage is getting well over a million unique visitors a month so you can only imagine how many of those flags are being filed each month and each has to be checked out by a real person. Then there's the reality that many folks don't have the first clue about what belongs in a genre, and that goes equally for those flagging as well as those entering. And in some cases, songs really are sort of in that grey area so a judgement call has to be made. But since the same person isn't making all the judgement calls, even those deciding may have different opinions. I see that all the time in our awards where I can't find 5 people who agree on a definition of a genre or where a song or album belongs.. let alone over a million...

I know from talking to Daniel it's a nonstop, neverending process. They do the best they can on it.

Brian

I have two songs doing well in the two new channels, comedy and bluegrass. One picked up two favourites. WOW!

Just another day #12 Bluegrass

Tax payers blues #6 comedy 2 favourites

A note to web master of Ourstage, these two new channels does not appear on the list that shows on the home page.

Well, I checked out Everett's stuff, and to my surprise there was the "Rarely Herd", a bluegrass band a local guy plays in.

And somehow, in a roundabout way, I came across the guy below...this guy is just plain funny! And he has some really clever music across several genres...he is my find of the month, I've really enjoyed listening to his stuff.

And Big Bob Cushing, you should learn "The Cigarette Smokes". That's a Bob Cushing song if I ever heard one...He should have put it in Comedy instead of Americana...

Anyway, this guy is cool because he is so himself...

http://www.ourstage.com/fanclub/mickeymikesell

I am seeing a lot of JPF members doing well again this month.. good to see you got on there Everett.. even with your slow connection!

Brian

Thanks Brian, I have to upload my songs in lower quality or else it would take too long.

Tax payers blues moved up to #4, just another day is now #14
Oh well gain a little, lose a little.

Well
After a bit of soul searching I have decided to give it til the end of this month. If my songs don't do any better in the rankings I will be asking Ourstage to remove all my songs and close my account.

It seems obvious to me that either I am not playing songs that the Ourstage community likes or I suck big time. Not much point in continuing either way.

Of course to my ears I don't get it because I have listened to a lot of songs in the Genres I am in and IMHO my songs are better than about 80% of them. And my friends and family must be a bunch of real idiots because I hear the same thing from them, including folks right here on JPF.
The only thing I can figure is either they are woefully wrong or I am just playing to the wrong crowd.
What is truly discouraging is there are at least a dozen clear cut copyright infringing covers ranked higher than my songs. If the listeners cannot tell the difference then I don't think I even want my songs being judged by them.
I guess this might be a wake up call for me. I am not as good as I thought I was. My momma is gonna be so disappointed.

Oh well. I am off to Tennessee to work on my house. I am expecting visitors there next month, LOL.

Bill,

I don't have to do much soul searching -- my songs are plain just doing lousy in any genre I stick them in! I think the 15 second rule sinks me, so I am just not commercial enough. Of course, I plan to continue -- I just need to write/record a song that really grabs the listener right away and stays good throughout. Better singing would also improve my chances -- which means getting someone else to sing my stuff.

Kevin

I kind of feel the same way Kevin
What is really interesting is I was at a local music venue that had internet access. There were a few people there so I asked them to do something for me.
I logged into Ourstage and played my song without telling them it was me. Then I played 2 of the top 10 songs in the genre.
ALL of the people there ranked my song better.
Go figure.

Bad vocals will pretty much kill your chances with the general public no matter how well written your song is. This is definitely not a case of "we'll hear past the bad demo" to find your great song. In fact, that's a completely bullshit lie that industry and those wanting your money will tell you. (There's a couple of exceptions, but they are rare and few). Your vocalist doesn't have to be a superstar, but if they aren't at least reasonably pleasing to the ears of the majority of listeners, it's going to be really tough to make headway.

As for people not knowing what is and isn't a cover, I think that's a little overboard. To the average music fan they don't even know the difference between a cover and an original most of the time. If they are country fans it's even more confusing because a lot of country artists do other people's songs in the first place. I bet some of the covers that are obvious to you Bill aren't even obvious to most of us, just as covers that are obvious to me may not be songs you've ever heard in the first place.

Certainly having a song that grabs someone quickly is a valid concern if you want to find any level of commercial acceptance or success. 15 seconds is an eternity if the listener isn't into what they are hearing. We have folks here (I think Big Jim was one of them) who said it was tough for him to even listen to 15 seconds of many of the entries. I also remember that for a while he wasn't doing well on Ourstage, but for the last couple months has been in the running to win the cover channel. There are songs that do well one month and plummet the next. That's because a different batch of listeners are judging so of course the results will be different. If they weren't, the exact same song would win every month. It's a bit of education for everyone to see that dynamic and how it can affect things. It's the same reason why every label passed on the Beatles and then someone finally "got" it and made history. Had they given up 1 person earlier, they'd never have seen the light of day commercially speaking. And guess what? We've lost lots of "Beatles" and lots of great songs over the decades for that reason.

Music should be fun. Getting feedback is a fun part of it. Even if you're doing REALLY badly, who is to say the next song you record, done so with the knowledge of the previous results, won't do better? After reading about he passing of Janell Rock today, I think there's very little for any of us to be angry or unhappy about when we're able to make music, post it for people to hear and discuss it. Even if nothing better than that ever happens, we're still light years ahead of many others.

As for pulling songs at the end of the month, if you aren't in the top 50% of a channel, the songs now get pulled anyway. Why you need to cancel your account, which suggests some level of anger or animosity, is unknown. If you're at least 1 song above dead last, that means you're still doing better than someone else. If you ARE dead last, you can take solace in the fact that someone always has to be dead last no matter how good everyone is or isn't. I'd take it as a fun challenge to see what I could do to move up a few notches the next time. That's a learning experience that will translate to success for any listening audience. I bet Bill, even with his vocals which he says himself aren't that good, could be crafty enough to pull off something that would do better. Come up with a really intersting first 15 seconds is a challenge that sounds like a fun activity to me. Isn't that sort of challenge a creative persons reason for being?

Brian

I guess I was dead wrong about the plays now showing...I was confused by a sudden huge amount of plays showing up on a new song. Actually, I'm STILL confused, because I could swear a couple songs showed hundreds of plays that now show less. Beats me. Either there was some technical glitch that happened, or maybe I finally got one of those flashbacks they've been promising me all these years.

Seems like all my songs are holding fast to whatever place they were in last week. Top 2 are #6 in comedy ("Twenty Chickens for a Saddle") and number 63 in Rock ("Eldorado"). The Rock song probably means more as there are 1234 entries as opposed to Comedy where there are 51 entries...but then again, Comedy is getting tons of hits, and that's what it's all about.

Hi Bill just to clarify what Brian said about me struggling to listen for 15 seconds. I think I have been misquoted or taken out of context. There are some woefully bad songs on Ourstage god knows what the people were thinking about when they were producing them. Some are so bad you think it is a joke and a competition to find the worst song. You probably know what I am referring to. These are the songs I struggle to listen to. Most songs on Ourstage are not that bad considering. Some are pretty good and should have made the big time especially when you hear the crap in the charts.

I still maintain that there is some pretty poor judging and there are major problems with the system but hey that's life.

Bill I did not think you were the give up kind. You must know by now that this is a hard knock cut throat business and sometimes we have to write/perform songs we hate and do things we do not like to earn our corn.

I am not saying I'll give up.
What I am saying is I will not likely continue with ourstage.
I am sorry Brian but there are literally dozens on songs that are ahead of me which I cannot even finish listening too. They absolutely suck. The vocals suck, they are off key, pitchy, and the lyrics suck, they are obvious Karaoke tracks, there are covers of well known songs.
I am not a professional singer but I don't sing that bad. I have never been told my vocals were bad. Not professional maybe but certainly not bad.

Whatever it is that the people judging Ourstage are looking for I obviously do not provide it.
I have listened and Judged and I do not understand what it is they want to hear.
I just don't see the sense of beating a dead horse.

We have always said on JPF that we don't want false praise or Back patting for our songs. If the song sucks then say so. I don't want to hear my song is good if it isn't.

Brian you made a comment on a thread a few months back that really angered me. I almost quit JPF because of it.
Edit. I later realized I took it all wrong.
As I read the statement you basically said we (JPFer's who post here regularly) are a bunch of amateurs and pretty much suck. If we want to succeed we need to get better.
Well I have come to the conclusion you might be right( at least in my case)

If the only way I can move up in the ranks on Ourstage is to Hire a Professional singer to do my songs and then post them as my own then no thanks. They need a DEMO category for that.

My truck is Loaded and I am ready to head south to Nashville. I'll check in when I get there tonight.

Hi there,

Battle views do not count as "plays". We do this because folks would try to use the number to determine their rank. It doesn't work that way and if we don't want to encourage counter-productive behavior. There was a (I'll call it bug, where play counts were incrementing higher than they should for entrees in finals. That issue has been corrected. Battle views don't count toward your OS play totals.

That said, Marketplace IS our cool new feature. Any thoughts on that?

Bill,

I truly respect your position/opinion on this. Some thoughts to consider.

1. If you view OS not a contest, but as a way for you to "gut check" songs and meet other like minded individuals you'll enjoy it more and be frustrated less.

2. The rankings change a lot over the course of a month. By the end I've found that they're pretty well accurate. At a minimum the top third belongs together, same with the middle same with back. Of course everyone will have opinions on the exact order, but the groupings are pretty spot on.

3. The new markeplace introduces the concept of a MOJO score. MOJO is a composite score. It takes into consideration historical rankings as well as fan base. This way OS consistent performers (i.e. middle of the pack, but consistently there) will have a higher mojo than the bad song that caught on for a month. Bad songs don't tend to do that over time we've seen.

4. OS will ALWAYS have the free ranking/mojo/epk. If anything, use it for the EPK. No limits on media. No fees to pay. Not sure we can do much better.

-Daniel

Bill,

I am pretty sure I never said anything remotely like "all JPF members have no talent and suck and are amateurs." In fact, I remember a big argument where I said specifically that almost NONE of our members were amateurs. Remember? When people were throwing a fit that American Idol should ONLY be amateurs?

And I did not quote Jim remotely out of context. He just said exactly the same thing. Some songs were so horrible that he had a hard time making it through 15 seconds. There's hardly any misrepresentation going on there. He's said it several times now.

Those people who Jim thinks must be doing it as a joke would, for the most part, strongly disagree and be offended to hear him say that just the same as anyone here would feel that way if it was said about their music. I've learned that even the most shockingly bad song or performance often has a sincere person behind it who thinks they're doing well, or at least that they are half way decent. So I always find it hypocritical for someone to get angry when they don't do well when they are also comfy pointing out that something else is truly horrible. The reality is that for most fans voting, in that first 15 seconds they may well find any number of songs truly horrible. Perhaps if they listen all the way through they could determine that one song is still better than the other, but they don't owe anyone that much time if the first part of the song is terrible to their ears. As a writer or artist, if you WANT commercial success, you have to please the ears of some group of listeners. If your song is doing really poorly, it's clear you have failed at that. You can't justify a bad result saying that someone else is even worse! It's like the crooks in politics who say sure, they may have gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar, but the guy on the other side stole more cookies! It doesn't matter!

In all serious here.. listen to the first 15 seconds of the songs near the top.. then listen to the first 15 seconds of yours. Is yours really better? REALLY? If so, then I think you have a case to make. If not, then you should LEARN something right there and then go back and apply what you learned. You may not be able to sing.. but you certainly could record a pleasing sound instrumental intro to your songs. If you did that, you'd like move up in the rankings no matter what comes later. And that is fair and how it should be. Once you displease the listener, nothing else matters. You can bore the crap out of someone for the first 1/4th of a movie and expect the masses to support it no matter how good the ending is.

Why is it so wrong to suggest someone learn something and improve what they do accordingly? Ourstage is a type of audience that is far closer to the real world than playing for friends and other musicians you know. So if you want to dip your toes into commercially viable music, use this tool to gauge what is working and what isn't. That seems like a great tool to have in my opinion. Use it. Don't try to make the audience change.. that isn't going to happen. You need to adjust your own approach. That's your only solution. And even with the worlds worst vocals, it doesn't prevent someone from having the worlds most interesting or well performed and recorded intro. I think it might be a fun experience to try a write and record the best 30 seconds of intro ever. And see how it does, even with a really week rest of the song. Wouldn't it be funny to see it rise and rise? Sure would be a practical learning experience.

Brian

I think Brian you are being a tad hard. I respect all singers and performers regardless of talent. That does not mean that I have to like what they do. That said I was referring to some songs, if you can call them that, that quite honestly are a disgrace. I can cite examples. There was a drunk bimbo squealing happy birthday several times and giggling and some guy screaming into a mic as loud as he could and growling like a monster. There is a big difference when somebody is not very good but you can see they are genuine and trying to produce music and others who are just playing silly games.

Brian
I don't know where this is all going but this has been a huge dissapointment to me personally.
I had thought of Ourstage as a tool to guage how well my songs would do on a public forum.
If this is any indication I will have to concede I am wasting my time.




On that 15 seconds....There are songs ranked higher that have 15 seconds of silence. Maybe I'll just upload a silent 3 minute song and see if it does any better.

Well, I've had a lot of fun. There is some great music on here. Plus, one of my songs was favorited! By somebody! Whooo Whooo! (probably my Mom - hahah).

Jim.. it appears you are unfamiliar with the very popular genre called SCREAMO... and I am not joking.. it's a legit genre with a very large number of fans. It's quite similar to Death Metal, though Screamo can have less metal music production whereas Death Metal is basically really hard metal with screamo vocals. The fact that you don't consider it music is no more or less legit than someone saying what you do isn't legit. It's all opinion. But in the case of someone screaming in a gutarral way where you can't make out a word, that's a 100% legit artform with a legion of fans. In fact, we may make it it's own genre in our awards. It doesn't mean I like it or would choose to listen to it, but I can also clearly make out when it's done well and when it's not done well. As for the woman with the birthday giggle.. I hear stuff like that all the time. In fact, I bet at least 20% of what we get (of the 500,000+ songs this year) is at least as bad as anything you've ever heard on Ourstage. (Some of it is likely the same people). Those folks are serious.. they have CD's out and they are selling them.. and I'll bet some, even the very worst you can find, have sold some CD's.

Each year in the awards, we have a secret category that only a handful of judges get to access. It's called "Exceptional." That's where we put the stuff that is the very worst of the worst we come across. It's stuff that is so heinously bad, it's actually got merit in that when we play it for folks it entertains them in a novelty sort of way. I can assure you that most if not all of those folks are dead serious about being musicians and think they're doing good work and at least a few people in their lives have agreed with them. Your complete joke and waste of time is someone elses favorite CD.

Brian

Bill,

Philip Glass already beat you to the silent recording. He even tried to copyright and patent silence. (Not sure I remember the result of that effort).

You should try getting a REALLY clean crisp guitar intro to one of your songs, and then instead of singing, do a spoken word performance of one of your lyrics.. and then post it on Spoken Word.. you might be surprised how it does.. or you could even do it without the music.. if the lyric is really cool and can stand alone, you also might be surprised. That's the fun thing about Ourstage, you can experiment, try different things and you'll get some response on what folks think about it.. if it's in the bottom 20% they don't like it. But so what.. .try something else.. I'd write a new song for as many channels as possible every month and post it and see how long it took me to hit the top 50%.

Brian

What happened to the plays. I had two songs that showed as being played well over 100 times, yesterday it showed well below 100. What happened there?

What song? What channel? That doesn't sound right.

Well, do I smell omens in the air? Though two I have in the competition are barely middling, one has been rising regularly. Now, out of 511 entries (Mel Ott's total career home runs) in country, "Here With Me" has reached its high water mark at #7 (Mickey Mantle's number!). So, as anyone can see...the tea leaves seem to be aligned for something dramatic.

One encouraging thing, with that many entries, it would be difficult to cheat one to the top. The man hours needed for a large group to impact a given song would hardly be worth the payoff (which wouldn't guarantee the entry would win the 5 grand, anyway).

Ben: That's a good country song! Way to go.

Kevin

Wow, the Ourstage world is a small one after all! I also have a song entered in the Comedy channel:

The Locker Song (#3-117)

And I'm #19 right now in acoustic--wowzaroonies!!!

Run Away

I also uploaded a video of myself playing a classical piece that jumped to #102 in the Live Performance category:

Rhapsody in G Minor

It's amazing how much I judge my self-worth as a musician based on how I'm doing on this website. This is my first time competing and I'm so happy I'm not in last place! (Although even if I were, that'd be okay, I guess, considering music is just a hobby for me and does not represent any kind of career goal.)

Yay! Way to be, everyone.

--Stephie

Yeah, that happened to me too with the song I entered in the Comedy channel. I think it had close to 200 plays and then it dropped to 30 or so.

Ah, so I DIDN'T get a flashback!

Yeah, I saw the same thing early in the month and that's why I assumed they decided to show total plays, battles and all. Whatever it was, everything's back to normal now.

Hi Stephie! Your songs are great. Welcome to JPF.

-Mark

Thanks, Kevin.

OK, Stephie, you cutie-pie, I just "favorited" your live performance (in which, by the way, your hair has an auburn tint...what's up with that? )

"Way to be?" I LOVE it. Thought I was the onliest one who used that term, the origins of which (in my experience, anyway) are from baseball. (Guy gets a clutch hit..."Way to be!" )

Glad to see you getting an early start in this rat race. You can do well!

Ben

Haha, well that doesn't mean you still weren't having a flashback. =p

And thank you!

Hi, Ben! I'm happy you liked my performace and my internet jargon and my hair color. That's actually my natural color, but I deep dying it dark brown because I think it makes me look...um, well, smarter. Or something. I guess I'm just fickle.

Comedy and bluegrass. Just another day and Taxpayers blues.

Bill,
I think you're right! I think some folks may be using this flagging technique to get rid of certain songs. Could that be? I just had another song removed last week!! This time it was one of my "pop-iest" songs (a 3-minute love song, with a hooky chorus in 3-part harmony), and it was removed from "Indie-Pop" with the only explanation being that they (OurStage) were trying to find a "more appropriate" channel for it."

Here's the weird thing. My 1st song to be removed, "Agincourt," was #52 out of 833 (82nd percentile) in Indie Pop on July 7th, and had been "favorited." The next day it was removed! OurStage said they thought it would be more appropriate in Acoustic, so I moved it there, swapping it with "Everything that Matters," which at that time was 173rd out of 914 in Acoustic (81st percentile). Both songs moved into the 600+ positions (both now less than 10th percentile...with ETM now gone completely) in their new channels and have continued to plummet since.

So in summary, I had two songs after 1 week in the top 20% in their charts. Then they were removed for not being "appropriate" for those channels, and promptly fell to the bottom 10%, one of them continuing to plummet by the day.

I am still learning, definitely, about OurStage, and will attempt to do a better job matching genres (though that is so subjective...) and possibly re-mixing the entries to be "front-loaded" in terms of the first 15 seconds. It ought to be fun to experiment that way.

Oh well. You live, you learn.

Thanks for this forum!!!

Ken

How possible would it be to have some folks here give me their opinions about the channels my songs should be in next month? Clearly the whole "genre" thing is an issue with me.

If anyone would like to help me out in that regard, I'll just ask for channel opinions for 3 of my songs this time. "Agincourt," "Son of the Sea," and "Everything That Matters."

If anyone is interested, I'd love your genre opinions! These can be heard at http://www.myspace.com/kentheriot , where I have put them as my first 3 songs on the page.

Thanks!

Ken

I definitely wouldn't have put Agincourt into Pop.. there's nothing remotely pop about it. Pop music is Britney Spears and The Go-Go's and Justin Timberlake, when he's not doing R&B.

That song belongs in either Singer Songwriter or Folk or maybe Contemporary as a stretch... but Pop? Nope.

It's not a bad song though. = )

Brian

Thanks Brian!

Yeah, I agree with that. I think I even said something about it when it seemed to be doing well on that chart since it is a war ballad that is 8-minutes long:).

I appreciate you listening!!

Ken

Ken I have problems with the Genre assignments as well. Most of my songs all sound more country to me. But I have a hard time defining myself..
Personally I don't understand the whole thing.
I have two versions of a song up because Brian felt it was the performance that was hurting the song. So I uploaded a demo with some of Nashvilles top session players and a professional singer. It is doing a little better but not much.
I still don't understand the judging. I judged 250 battles in the country channel and kept seeing the same songs over and over again. My song came up once. I do understand someone else may see different songs.

I put a song in the new channel Traditional country. I immediatley went to that channel to judge. My song came up first, There were only 14 songs there, so I voted it and I did vote my song better. It said only 11 Percent of those voting agreed with me. It had been less than a minute from when I entered it. I am not sure that many people could have judged it in that short a time, A little later I judged it again I voted my song better It said 70 percent of those voting agreed with me but the song I voted against was 10 places higher than me, If 70 percent agreed with me that my song was better why was it not ahead of the other song..It's confusing.

Regardless of my placing I think it is a good tool for learning howe tpresent your songs. I just wish they would tell us how many times the songs are judged.

Bill,

That simply means that only 11% ALSO voted the same score. They could have voted you the same or worse as well. It's possible to be doing better than the other song and see that result. It's possible no one thought the other song was better, but only 11% had found yours to be better. The others easily could have said tie. If 11 people vote and 1 vote that you're is better and 10 vote a tie, then only 11% of the folks are agreeing with you. (That's a simplified version). The reality is that with 1.2 million visitors who likely visit multiple times each, it takes only moments for scores to start registering. In a channel that small, it's probably almost instant that songs have votes already.

I advised against them tell people how many times songs are judged. It's a tool to help cheaters plan (or determine how worth it it is to cheat). The valuable number is not how many times someone has been FORCED to listen to your songs via the way of judging, but how many times they listened because they wanted to or they were curious. That's a good number to see.. the other is just your random number of times it comes up. It also reveals too much info on the works of their system and I don't think they owe anyone that much info, especially potential competitors. They are a free service. I don't think they owe folks that info when they aren't even charging to use their site. Even if you don't follow or care about the voting stuff, they have a free EPK (Electronic Press Kit) that I think could substitute for the mandatory paid "Service" of Sonic Bids. I've always thought that they were like Ticket Master and they had inserted themselves as a cost for offering up basically nothing in return but a simple EPK. Now that Ourstage has a free one that is just as good, those conferences and festivals and venues who say they just want the convenience shouldn't have the excuse that Sonic Bids is the only option. Accept their EPK and save the artists probably millions of dollars in useless submission fees, that in my opinion only corrupt the submission process and make it a haven for scam artists.

Ourstage is expanding and offering more and more free tools. They are by far the most responsive company of it's kind I've ever seen and they not only listen but they make changes pretty quickly when they can (and it makes sense for them of course which is only fair). But on the subject of showing how many judging battles, I think they are doing the exact right thing by not making that available. If they did, aside from cheaters and competition, artists who were in less popular channels would complain they didn't get as many judgings as those in more popular channels. Who needs that headache? I'd rather have them spending their time adding cool new servers, or finding cool new prizes and gigs for folks.

Brian

Brian
So Far everything I have seen on Ourstage has been positive.
I have no complaints about it. I still think it a usefull tool and worth the time to be there.
The only negative I have seen is the blatant copyright violations or obvious mis-use of Genre just so you can enter a song.
It does seem the site is more for Performing Artists. Although I think most write their own material. I guess that is how it should be. Songwriters do linger in the background and rarely get recognition for their work unless they are also a performer. Most people have no idea who writes the songs.

For the life of me I cannot see how knowing how many times your song is judged could help someone cheat. I also don't see how someone could be stupid enough to think a popular channel would get less action than a less popular channel.
Now I can see how someone would complain if their song is never being judged on a channel and someone else's song is being judged dozens of times.
I don't think the judging is even. I think the random system has a flaw. Too many people have said they keep seeing the same songs over and over again.
IMHO if I am judging songs on a channel with 500 songs on it I should not see the same song more than once in 250 battles. I should not see the same song 20 times. And it seems that the ones I am seeing over and over again are always ranked pretty high, at least in the top 20 percent or so it seems.
If a song is not being judged how can it move up...or down...
I have had one song that I was watching carefully. It was stuck at one spot for days. The only time it moved was when the total number of songs on the channel increased, if the number went up by two the song dropped by two, if the number went up by one the song dropped by one. If the song was being judged it would have moved.
If a song is coming up for judging every twenty or thirty battles it will get voted on a lot more. Familiarity brings recognition.
Who is going to go searching through 1000 songs to find a song hidden at number 700? Most people will figure any song that low must really suck.

On your advice I uploaded a professional demo of my song I was upset about. I put my version in the Southern Rock channel. It is doing better there. The Professional Demo version is in the Country channel. It is doing a little better than my version but not much. So I guess it wasn't my singing. Ha! or my guitar work.

But I judged that channel 250 times in one day and The song came up ONCE. Other songs came up so often I knew the words to the song and could sing along. How can that be fair?
All I would be interested in knowing is how many times my song is up for competition compared to those songs I heard a dozen times.
I'd also like to know how many people are listeners and how many are performers. If the majority are bands/performers it is a peer site. If the majority are listeners it is a fan site. That would be interesting to know.

Beyond that I think Ourstage is doing very well.
And, the songs that are winning deserve to win. From what I have seen they are very good songs.

Hmmm
I just read this again.


So, the best song is not always the winner. The best song is determined by how many battles it is in.
Why not just rank the songs by how many people listen because they want too?

If every song in a genre is judged 40-50 times in a month, and in another genre they are judged 200-250 times, people will complain and say it's not fair. You're unhappy with some things and are complaining (at least in a nice way) right? Well, most people DON'T complain in a NICE way. Daniel calls me all the time asking how to deal with the unreasonable and angry people he hears from. I understand where he is coming from. Over the years I have had literally THOUSANDS of people complain about JPF, and it's totally free, just like Ourstage is. I get personal attacks so horrible I couldn't even print them on this site. So why give fuel to people spoiling for a fight? No thanks.

Their judging system gives every song a fair chance. At any given time, some songs are playing catch up in the voting process so you'll see them come up more often.. but if you judge every possible combination, you'll see that they all eventually match up to all the others. I've actually done that... it took me 7000+ judging sessions, but I got through 100% of the pairings in a category a few months back and it was 100% balanced and equal. But on a given day, 1 song could have very few contests and others a ton. And people would be complaining daily based on the current number. When you have over a thousand songs in the running, there's going to be even more discrepancies. Plus, the system is smart in that it also LOOKS for match ups that tells it more than just randomized match-ups. For example, if a song is entered late in the month, their programming will do contests that will match it up to songs with similar results.. if they do well, the the system will match it up against better songs.. if it does poorly, it will match it up against weaker songs... since it's impossible to have an equal number of judging when you have songs entered day 1 and others entered the day before it ends, it has to set up selective voting to get good data to figure out how to best rank something. That's also why you see songs suddenly plummet or go up. It's been paired against better stuff and it falls or vice versa. While all this is going on, the number will be all over the place. But of course someone will complain that their song was only judged 40 times and someone elses was judged 60 times. Believe me, it's not worth the headache.

As for cheating.. people have already been creating programs to fake judge automatically. They catch them all the time. The more info these idiots have, the easier they can craft software to try and beat the system.. it's a reality they have to deal with. Many artists are cheating, lying scumbags.. it's just the way it is.

Look at all the dishonest idiots who enter other people's songs or put stuff in the wrong genre just because they can.. heck, someone on here was saying they knew a song didn't belong in a genre.. so the question is "Why did you enter it in the wrong place when you knew better?" And they answer often is simply "because I can..." Welcome to the real world.

Brian

Just a quick note... I received an email today from OurStage regarding the final 4 artists who won a spot at the Newport Folk Festival.
One of those winners is not only a friend of mine but also a JPF member ... Ryan Fitzimmons!!!
I am very excited for him!!
that's all I wanted to say
Joanne

Where does it show how many times a song has been judged ??? I have never seen it yet and i have judged alot....Am I missing something ????

I've looked and still don't see it

Steve they do not reveal how many times a song is judged.
According to Brian it would help the cheaters figure out a way to cheat better.
Of course if every song gets judged an equal amount of times I am not sure how it would help the cheaters.

Hey Joanne
Hooray for your friend. I don't think I know the name but if he is your friend HOORAY for him.

Bill,

It helps the cheaters because some categories have a tiny number of voters and some have a lot. If a category has a small number of voters, cheating is an effective task. If there's a lot of votes, it's pointless. It also gives competitors an idea of what is going on throughout the month. Songs will rarely have the exact same number of votes at the same time because the system is playing catch up, PLUS, a song entered later isn't going to have as many battles, so the system strategically places them against certain songs to figure out a fair ranking with less votes.

The bottom line is that that's the way it is. I guess you'll have to decide if you can live with it or if the free service they offer isn't worth your time.

Brian

Brian Don't be so defensive.
I have accepted it is what it is. I will continue to use it as a way to evaluate my songs.
It is an interesting exercise. I have been spending a lot of time listening to the songs in the top spots and examining how the different artists are communicating with each other by friends lists and posts.
Trying to get a feel for how many actual "Fans" there are vs how many bands. It is a good exercise.

Like you said people will upload songs as their own just because they can
The Number one song in the Traditional Country channel
Cowboy's Sweetheart.
Was recorded and released by Leanne Rimes, Patsy Montana, and others. Yet it is Number one on the Traditional Country channel.
Like you said, just because they can. I don't even bother flagging them any more.
But actually it may be perfectly legal for the song to be there. But I thought it should be in Covers.
Do people have to prove they have license to do the covers?

Well, "Wait in the Valley" was number one in Bluegrass for two days, then dropped to 128, went back up to 6, down to 24, was at 8 yesterday, today it's at 9.

I'm not doing any of the political stuff like I should, but there's only so much time in the day. I try to judge a bit, because, like Bill, it's an education to hear what musicians and fans actually vote for anonymously, as opposed to how they react on a public forum.

It's a lot of fun.

Mike

Mike