"Different songs fit different markets and follow different guidelines.

It would be silly to critique a hip hop or pop song using country lyric criting guidelines

I wish that people would see merit and embrace it, but the industry looks for accomplishment, each songwriter who truly desires commercial success has to make a journey to it.

Get a big cut or have a big single or write a career making single for an artist and you'll find many doors open.

Demos pitched to artists and producers need to sound awesome.
Unfortunately awesome is expensive, plus when you write a lot of songs it's hard to figure out which songs to do up right."

In response to this, I would just like to say that people who critique songs ARE coming from preconceived angles. Before you even send in your songs for review, the song screener usually already has a particular idea as to what they are looking for...so this means that even if you've got a totally awesome song in the genre they are requesting for, if you are not sounding exactly like the current top forty bands in that market, you will be over looked. For example, in TAXI people within the industry, want to you sound like so and so, be in so and so's age group, dress like so and so. Therefore instead of sounding like YOU - a nice fresh, new, fun, and interesting twist on that particular genre...more industry people want you to sound and be JUST like "so and so," with the exact same chord progressions, stage presence, and singing style...only under a different name. When this happens, its less about the music and more about the overall package of what it cool at the moment. Just like when driving persons get tunnel vision, so too I believe this happens with the ears, and a person block out all other fantastic music because of listening and seeking out only the same one thing with nothing else in mind. Time and time again this happens.

I'm not slamming those who make it, I'm just saying that the big wigs in the music industry don't always recognize every aspect of talent right away. I've read countless stories on how people stayed true to their own musical style and blew up anyway, surpassing what some people first thought of them. Something to keep in mind as food for thought.