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

Don't blink...

I'm gonna duke it out with you guys in Comedy this month!!!..."When We Get Kissy Pooh"...

I just put up an acoustic Bob Dylan song in covers. It will be interesting to see if it gets anywhere, it's starting at 312

Post deleted by TAMERA64

Well my song plummeted out of the top ten with just a few hours to go finishing in 37th place. It had held a top ten spot for most of the month. I have been watching the Q/F judging so far and I think there is some pretty dodgy voting to say the least. I still maintain that the system is flawed. I saw a number of deserving songs that suddenly dropped and missed the cut and some songs suddenly climbed into the top twenty from nowhere. They are now in the top ten.

Hi Everyone,
I'm curious about something regarding cover songs on Ourstage.
I noticed recently, in January '09, that more cover songs are appearing outside of the Cover Bands channel. For example, in New Age/World and Christian/Spiritual, etc. I'm wondering if there's a new rule that allows this, or if fans can't recognize cover songs and therefore aren't flagging them?

Personally, I don't mind hearing cover songs in their proper genre channel, but then artists should make note of it so audiences (and judges) are prompted that the song was not written by the singer, performer or band, etc., but by another writer/publisher. In other words, require that credit is given where credit is due.

Also, if someone wins with a cover song outside of the dedicated Cover Bands channel, could they be disqualified if later a judge or the management discovers this fact?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Michael

Tammy,
Their automated reply system works well, and fast, but now I'm also waiting to get a human reply about a song removal on my account. From past experience, it's usually taken them several days, like anywhere from 3 - 4 days, so I'm not sure what to expect now. Have they been running slower lately?

Michael

Hi Michael I also have been waitng for over a month to find out why one of my songs was suddenly switched channels to IMO an inappropriate channel. I have flagged several songs in the past for being off topic but they never took any action OR EVEN REPLIED. I gave up flagging as I felt I was "flagging a dead horse" LOL

Re your comment about cover songs appearing on other channels yes I agree it does happen. I have also noticed that people are putting up original songs in cover bands just to confuse the issue even more.

I'm having second thoughts about Ourstage. This street team voting or gang voting is getting a bit much. If they can't correct what is happening, it is going to ruin this site for me. I just want to check my songs against other ligitiment songs, don't even care if I win, but trying to get a fair appraisal against gang voting proves nothing.

Yes Everett our complaints seem to be falling on deaf ears. If they produced stats to show how the voting works and how many people have voted it might help. I am sure that tactical voting is rife.
On the positive Ourstage is a great idea and a good place to promote yourself however I would not put too much faith in the accuracy or legitimacy of any chart positions. The voting system needs a rethink. It is impossible to vote a whole set of head to heads in the first round so how can so many partial opinions be put together to form an accurate overall picture. Theoretically I think it is flawed. Random battles produce random results. I decided to vote this month and judged 278 fourway battles. There were still songs I had not had a chance to vote for even once. Whilst others appeared many times. My own song did appear a couple of times but was pitched against songs that were hundreds of places lower. I deduce that randomly voting that this song is better than that proves nothing in the grand scheme of things especially when a full set from each voter cannot be put into the equation.

Jim,
Right... all these things also concern me!
Flagging can be good if used properly, but some people might be flagging to purposefully tamper with legit songs in legit channels that are normally achieving good rankings. The purpose would be to hurt the competition or just to make trouble.

Placing original songs in cover bands is wrong and placing cover songs in channels geared strictly for original songs also wrong! I've seen both happen and it continues every month, so it seems out of control.

Maybe the best way to control the problem with cover songs is to get rid of the "cover bands" channel all together and simply let artists upload their songs in the best genre fitting channel.

The management (Ourstage staff) then needs to create some filter which lets people know which songs are truly original. One way to do this is to let artists fill out some copyright notices so everyone knows exactly who wrote the music and lyrics. This way proper credit is given in any case. If artists abuse or violate these conditions, they can be permanently removed from the site, or at least those songs they posted, depending on what the management decides.

Bottom line, the Ourstage management needs to properly enforce their own rules, conditions and terms of service. They can't leave this up to the crowds of fans and judges, though fans and judges may help by reporting serious and obvious violations.

In my humble opinion, the best way for Ourstage to build respect and a good reputation is to properly manage these issues with no nonsense "hands on" management, otherwise the site becomes "too zoo" to build a rep as a serious music industry filtering and awards program. Though they may have other challenges, this could currently be the weakest link in their chain.

Michael

Michael you are spot on with your analysis and suggestions. I have been bleating about this and other aspects that have concerned me for some time. I have even got into bother and been called negative and a complainer from some fellow JPFs. My criticisms I see as constructive. If you do not know a thing is broken how can you fix it. They need more feedback and more importantly they have to LISTEN and act on it quickly to improve things otherwise many good people will be disheartened and chased away. Ourstage is a great site but it has flaws and these need addressing.

Thanks Jim,
My sentiments exactly!
I believe the Ourstage talent discovery concept has some great potential, so it should be worth the effort to address and fix these relatively minor, but important, flaws.

I think it's more of a management thing (feedback, careful evaluation and smart execution) than a "big budget" thing that requires millions extra in funding. They need a bit of time and TLC (tender loving care) to fix these flaws.

Michael
P.S. Bleat bleat bleat...

BTW Michael I think your idea about posting copyright notices detailing the songwriters and possibly accrediting the performers is excellent. Not only would it sort out the covers v originals issue but it would go a long way towards proving copyright for an original song as well as promoting the artists. More off topic songs would be flagged if attention was drawn to who the writers were and covers could be easier identified.

Bump!
And besides, by posting the correct copyright notices and related credits, it's also the proper way to "publish" music, especially in public venues such as OurStage.

Any artist, band or label that posts music there (or anywhere on the internet) is really PUBLISHING their work, so it's important anyway to credit their own material, but especially when covering another publisher's works, which is also a legal requirement to do so.

Michael

Well, I made the quarterfinals but didn't make it past.

#14 in Cover Bands - "The Last Time"
#79 in Comedy - "Andy's Hair"
#94 in Singer Songwriter - "Doubting Thomas"

Post deleted by TAMERA64

Tammy,

You have experienced pretty much the same thing that all contests suffer from, overreaching expectations. I think they all mean well, but once they find out how much costs are (about half way into your event) the prize money starts to dissapear quickly. And they can't admit it because it usually will impede the next one (which they are always on to the next one the second the one your are in is over)

In 1984, My band, 24 KARAT was involved in the Miller High Life Rock To Richies' Natural talent search. It had around 30,000 bands nationwide, and was sponsored by MCA records and Miller Beer. The contest was exciting with 5 regions across the US, (we were the southeast region). In previous contests, the second runner up,(1981 Twisted Sister, 1982 John Bon Jovi)so it had a nice liniage. But none of the winners were ever heard of.
When we won we got to play rock star for a week. Fine hotels in LA limos, the whole bit. We all got jackets and SWAG and had a great time. But the $50,000 in cash ended up in prizes. That was a sound system that really was not worth much. I did get a 4001 Rickenbacker bass but the rest was very fleeting and very superficial.
The point being is that contests are just that. And they almost never deliver what they promise. I am not familiar with this one, but they all are just about the same. I have never met a contest winner that really has too much positive to say about the contest experience. It is what it is. hope you get your hundred bucks. You may need it for gas.

MAB

Marc,

OurStage is a Community Partner with JPF. They're an ongoing contest, EPK site, community etc. here's their site:

http://www.ourstage.com

Tammy,

You might want to PM Brian about this. Three months sounds like a long time to wait. I assume you've contacted Daniel Palmer?

Post deleted by TAMERA64

There's a big difference between Ourstage and contests. Contests charge a fee to enter and then give PART of that money back in prizes. Ourstage charges ZERO to anyone to participate. They give out prize money (way too much in my opinion, something I've told them since day one) and to date 7 JPF members have won $5000 dollars and all 7 have told me they got the money. (And 2 or 3 of them have posted here about it all first hand)

They also give 100 dollars to individual category winners. According to Tammy (and I believe her 100%) they haven't paid that money out. She says she has another friend who also didn't get paid that month. I think she is right in complaining and I also agree with her that if they'd say there was a reason for the late money and they kept in close contact with those they haven't paid, that would be understandable. When someone isn't responsive and doesn't talk straight, it's a problem.

Now... I believe 1 of 2 things will happen. Either Tammy will get paid, a bit later than she hoped, or Ourstage will cease to exist. I'd much rather it be #1 than #2 because they really have been a positive thing for 10's of thousands of artists who haven't had to spend a dime to participate.

Just the $35K (not counting all the $100 dollar category wins) our members have won without risking a dime of their own money means that it's been a great thing. We have also gotten some sponsor money from them (no where near 35K to be clear) which helps us do OUR awards for free so that people can get recognition from both places without spending a dime to pay an entry fee.

Ourstage wants to build a large musician community. They have actually succeeded. But once you build it, you have to be able to pay for it and with this economy I fear that a lot of sites, organizations and services are going to be in trouble. Even JPF has been hit hard because we lost our BMI sponsorship because they had to cut that program from this year's budget, and if we lose Ourstage too, that's going to be over 50% of our operating income just vanished. So I am being patient (they're behind paying us as well to be clear) in hopes that they can hang on and keep going. If our members were giving them money, I'd be far less patient, but they aren't. It's voluntary to participate and it's free to enter there various contests. They've invested a lot of money and when investments dry up, it's hard to keep a large site going.

Tammy is the only JPF member that I know of that hasn't gotten her prize money. If in the end she never gets it, I already told her I would give her the $100 dollars myself. (And remember, I don't even make a salary running JPF.. I've done this for free for 11 years). But my hope is that they can figure out where to go next, they will continue to sponsor us and continue to offer the only monthly free music contest with real cash payouts I've ever seen in the music industry. That's a big deal and I think if we turn on those who have been doing something good in our community because they are suffering some tight money issues right now, then we're going to get what we deserve in the end, which is nothing.

Food for thought. By the way, I am as in the dark on this as you guys are. I did get a note that they got some additional funding in this week and are working on getting everyone else caught up.

Now you all know everything that I know. If you don't want to participate there with the questions that are out there, I certainly understand. If you're not on there worried about winning prize money in the first place, then you should keep enjoying it as a feedback tool (which for me is it's most useful purpose anyway) and if the prize money continues on, great, if not, then it's still useful. Frankly, if they took away the prize money, it might become a far more honest voting system because the artists who are trying to scam the system (and we've exposed several of them in the last year) would have no real motivation.

So, I am going to stick with them for now. I will continue to share with you what I know as it moves forward. I've always felt (and told them this myself) that it would be a tought model to make money from offering all that stuff for free and giving out so much prize money and other offerings. I think they could make some changes to improve their process that might help, but I am not running their company and I didn't put up the money to start it or pay their bills.

Those are the facts. I still think by virtue of it being free that's a great contest for the grassroots community, especially in these tough times where you may no longer have $30 dollars per song to enter the myriad of other contests. It's why we're so proud of the JPF awards which has been free for 11 years and processes 50 times more music than the Grammy's do. We need to stick with the folks who were with us in the bad times if we want them to still be around in the good times.

Brian

Hi Tammy,

There were delays with November prize fulfillment that were resolved early last week. An email went out to all winners. I'll forward this note along to our prize fulfillment coordinator to investigate. Sorry for any run around. Not intended. Anytime you have an OS Community issue, feel free to stop by my OS profile and send me a message via the Message Center (http://www.ourstage.com/fanclub/danielpalmer). We'll do our best to resolve. Thanks!

Thanks for following up Danny.

Brian

Post deleted by TAMERA64

Tammy and Daniel,

I just sent you both an email with each others email addresses. PLEASE communicate directly with each other.

Brian

Tammy, I hope you don't lose your home, I don't have that worry, I have no mortgage.

As far as Ourstage goes, I think, like Brian said, it would be a fairer contest if there were no prizes. There would be less of this block voting (I believe) and you'd get more honest feedback. $100.00 is not a great prize ($5000.00 is), but some people will do just about anything so they can boast that they won cash for one of their songs. My aim was just to finish in the top ten, which I did a few times, but lately I can't get a look-in, while the quality of the top ten has gone down, so there has to be some block voting. I'm fast losing interest, I'd like to compare my songs against other songs on a level playing field, but not against a bunch of street teamers that vote for their song regardless.

So where's your entry for the "Nowhere Man" contest Everett ?

Here's your big chance ! At stake ( so far ) are a one packet of crisps, and one bottle of beer, both faxed to you if you win.

Time to put up ! You can't get any fairer than a JPF contest.

cheers, niteshift

Thanks for the post Brian...and thanks to anyone who offers a free site like this with such gold-mine information (embarrassed to admit i've never even heard of ourstage but am going to check them out now). it can't be easy, and i believe the benefits are probably more than you even know. i'm going to donate to JPF now! we need all these sites to keep going...

Post deleted by TAMERA64

Hi Tammy No probs here logging in. Still disagree with some of the weird judging though.

No problems here either Tammy. Have you been banned ? Cooooool !

cheers, niteshift

I'm teetering on the top ten in comedy with "Big Busted Women Flat Busted Broke". I've been floating between 8 and 11. We'll see what the PC posses do next week before I get too hopeful about reaching the quarters.

Tammy,
Re: The $100 prize for the 1st place channel winners.

I was reading that the $100 prize is actually an online gift card, so it's not exactly the same as "cash money". You can verify this here:
http://www.ourstage.com/about/prizes
Towards the top it says:

For payout details, you'd have to check their competition "terms and conditions". I looked there, but the only place I saw more details about the prizes was on their contest rules page:
http://www.ourstage.com/about/rules
Here's what it says:

So the $100 gift card prize is based on an approximate retail value, but it doesn't say when you can expect to receive it. Probably they can't mail these out before they receive them from their sponsors. Sadly, if they are losing sponsors, they may have to change their prize/value structure.

Regardless, congratulations on your 1st place acheivement!
Hopefully they'll clear this up soon and deliver your promised prize, whatever it is!
Michael
P.S. I'm able to login at OurStage, so I'm not sure why you seem to be getting blocked. Try sending Danny a PM (on JPF) and ask him to help you with this problem.

Looks like the channel for Comedy is going byebye. Too bad, I've entered it every month since it started. Not enough entrants.

Hey Mark,

Or maybe they thought the entries were a joke ? Knee slap, knee slap.....

cheers, niteshift

Hi Mark. Where did you get this info? I went to Ourstage when I read your post and couldn't find anything to confirm this. I also checked the amount of entrants in Comedy(143) and found that the Spoken Word/Perf. Poetry had only 133 - less than Comedy. Reggae only has about 183.
I agree with Brian about the prizes being too much. That only invites dishonest, organized voting. The comedy category also seems to invite younger contestants who aren't really serious about a career in doing comedy, performing novelty songs. etc. - who were just entering as a gag. And because they were in an age group were friends generally have more time to do self-indulgent things, they could have their PC posses vote them to the top or vote down the real competition.
Having said that - I did notice some real talent in the comedy genre - there are some entertaining artists there. It would be a shame to totally remove such a category. If financing prizes is a concern, combining several categories and eliminating repetitious categories may improve things. There would be apples to oranges competition - but isn't that the way it is in the industry anyway?

It's in Daniel's blog post:

http://www.ourstage.com/profile/danielpalmer/posts/86

well, i just threw West River up there (babetteUS...babette was taken)... not sure how it all works, just wanted to put something up to learn about it. i'm thinking putting a song up toward the end of the month isn't the best move? i think judging is almost done.

not really sure how the process works, and my recording sounds a little funny for some reason. hoping it's just my headphones. words of ourstage wisdom appreciated....you could PM me so as not to get off topic here.

anyway, i'm at #432, wohoo!!!

Impossible to get off topic on Page 27 of a thread. Babette, it's a lot harder to move up the ranks when you enter later. They do say that their software takes late entries into consideration and bumps up the number of matchups for that song, but from what I've seen, your chances are much better when you enter it right away.

But the point of this place, to me, is not to win. It's to hear and be heard. I've gotten a LOT of plays on OurStage, and have met people as a result, some in the industry. I think too many people freak out about the whole contest aspect and miss the point of what they're trying to do with their music: get it heard, get it advanced, move it forward. This place does that. If you really want $100, start clipping coupons. If you want to get your music noticed for free, this is an excellent place to do it.

cool... thanks mark! maybe i can enter it again on March 1st?

yeah, pretty much everything is just an experiment right now and just to learn. i will start clipping coupons now!

saw pablo last week and passed along your howdy. such a small little prairie town we live in.

Well, it looks like my song 'I Wonder' in the Solo Instrumental category has been going back and forth between 1st and 3rd. We'll see how long that hangs on!

I think there's more than just specific number of entries that goes into whether a channel is viable. I think they need both quantity of entries and quantity of judging numbers and activities among those who visit the site. If there's not many entries and there's not much interest by the visitors as well, then it's a problem. So you can't simply look at entry numbers alone. Quality of entries is another issue as well.

They've given some genres a chance to catch on, if they don't then they have to do what they have to do. If interest isn't there, they need to focus on what visitors and participants are most interested in.

Brian

Amen Brian. OurStage has recently given notice about their intentions to eliminate certain genres.
One of those genres, Comedy, is one in which I've participated and done some in-depth
study and analysis. In recent months I've been dedicating my available time for things
like judging songs in the JPF contest in a variety of genres. However, this month I took
some time to revisit OurStage as I still compete - although I haven't voted for several months.
Since I was ahead of schedule on the last genre I have yet to complete for JPF, I took the
opportunity to vote on OurStage for the last week before the quarterfinals, when I could.
Before I started voting, I was holding steady at about 10. I started on voting this week and
slipped - but held steady in the top 20. The song I had entered - Big Busted Women Flat
Busted Broke - is my most favorited and listened to song that I have posted on OurStage.
Yet I've never reached the quarterfinals. I've reached the quarterfinals with other songs - albeit
with smaller numbers of competitors. I voted enough to have heard all of the competition and
honestly feel that only about 15 songs out of the 150 or so entered are worthy of my ears.
With such an absence of quality, it's no wonder that neutral fans don't participate in the judging.
Why listen to crap in this genre when so many other genres on OurStage have much more
worthy material? As I mentioned in an earlier post, the PC Posses did come out and the negative
voting started. On 02/19 late afternoon, my song was 22. On 02/20, 12 hrs. later, it had dropped
to 122. Can I reach the absolute bottom? I hope so - as this would show what a farce this
genre has become and why OurStage has good reasons to eliminate this genre. I would still
compete - as I do in other genres - knowing full well that my novelty songs have no chance
of ever winning. But as I and others here have said, it's not about winning at OurStage, it's
about getting exposure. And frankly, I think I get more exposure for my songs entered in
the other genres than I do in comedy because much fewer fans participate in judging due
to the lack of quality.

#4 in comedy as of this hour. I don't vote(can't).

I think it is about time that some pre-screening process was put in place before a song is accepted as an entry. Not only would it reduce numbers but it would increase quality alround and possibly attract more judges. I have looked at almost every genre and there is a lot of dead wood clogging up the system.

I understand that competition is not everything and people deserve to be heard but they could still post songs...just not enter them.

Jim,

I think pre-screening would be a mistake. How can someone test out a new song if it doesn't even get into the process? It would really eliminate much of the benefit for everyone other than actual Grand prize winner. The time it would take alone to pre-screen things in a quality way would make it impossible. They'd never be able to start at the start of the month because it would take weeks to properly "pre-screen."

We spent 7 months pre screening the JPF awards and removed 60% of the entries to get it down to the mammoth numbers that are still in the running. It's a big job and we're more efficient at it than anyone else in the world. I understand the sentiment of wanting to narrow it down, but really, their voting system's whole reason for being is to sort through the music and hoist up the fan favorites. To keep people from even competing would just be wrong in my opinion.

Brian

Summeoyo, I know it sometimes seems hard to understand why things happen the way they do, but I know for a fact that neither Everett nor I have any sort of active fan base, and right now Everett is #1 and I'm #10. So I take just a WEE bit of offense that you call it a farce...it's based on a negative opinion rather than fact, and it insults our work and our standing in the contest. I do know this wasn't your intention because you've always had nice things to say to us both...but think about it: how are we supposed to feel about your post?

Thought I might test run the "Nowhere Man" song. Yep, I'm nowhere alright. 218th in 366 entries. Long live obscurity.

cheers, niteshift

WOW! #1 this morning, do I dare to hope.LOL Maybe it's because we are close to tax time.Ha

Dropped to #13 for about three days, it seemed like no changes took place in any positions for those three day, I ended up in #3. Can't complain with that.