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

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