Re the Commercial recordings only recommendation from TSA Noel.
I think it is just that, and is put there to let entrants know, they are competing with some well produced material and production comes into the eqaution in that field.
As someone who has submitted non commercially produced entries into the Pro section of TSA (Mark Cheli and I made the semi Finals of that class with a 90 minute from go to whoa demo of our song The Pub in 2000), and so have read the score sheets, it sure can make a differance.
We got all A's for lyric, Two As and a b for composition and Es and fs for production.
Big thing was the judge's comments though.
They all liked the song, and while it never got the song recorded any better by someone who could, it is now being done live here and there.
Re the ARIA thing.
At the level we are talking here, if an artist isn't up to the level, they are wasting time fretting about the issue.
ARIA awards have a big "how many records you sell" factor in their makeup.
You have to be getting a lot of air and sales to even be in there.
I base my opinion on what a triple ARIA award winner of my aquantance told me the year the group he was in got theirs when we were working on a collab.
Graham

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