PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Song reviews

Ha, ha -- I completely missed that thread listed by Brallan, that's a doozy! My opinion: the person being reviewed blew a 50amp fuse. A better response to those critiques would have been: "Thank you very much, can I have another?"

How about a simple form to be filled out by the poster of a new song stating:

Title, Author, Genre, Original or cover, Inspiration or goal if original (Optional), Experience (Novice, Enthusiast, Veteran), Recording process, Open to criticism or not (maybe a checklist to help zero in on strengths and weaknesses), Misc comments.

Might also help avoid misunderstandings, let listeners determine which songs they want to take time to listen to (if they are not into Jazz, Christian, Hard Rock etc)and help PG more easily organize their list of posted offerings.

Carkins

It's clear that there are two different points of view here regarding whether to critique or not. My preference would be to keep it simple. One forum can handle both preferences if the person posting the song just says up front what type of feedback is welcome.

Maybe things like:

"No feedback necessary, because I doubt that I'll change it"

"tell me what works and what doesn't in this song "

"Constructive criticism welcome, but be kind"

"This song is as good as I know how to make it... what am I missing? How can I make it better?"

"I want total honesty... tear it up, pick it apart, report any and all flaws so I can learn how to avoid them in the future"

That way anyone who cares to comment can do so within the guidelines set by the OP, and nobody will ever get more than they asked for.

I don't like it when spammers cut and paste a legitimate post but insert ad links.

But in this case it resurrected an interesting thread and I had a high ol' time rereading everybody's thoughts.

The problem as i see it is that we all have different views of what is appropriate.

I was a big contributor at the Acid Planet forums a few years back, and there is an active music review program there. When you dig in and get involved by reviewing others music, it causes your music to get reviews, and the more plays and reviews holds your work on the charts , no reviews and plays it will drop down and disappear. The problem i saw after a while was that it became a popularity contest, and not a true music review system. The good part was you got a lot of solid feedback.

Here you get "great song", "awesome job" "keep em comin'. That is nice if all you want is to be told you are great, even if you are not! I want the truth, and for that reason i tell the truth. If i think that a song is pretty good, but the vocals are pitchy i say that. I try to be kind, and positive, but still I am honest for the most part.

I say most part, because i have seen a trend where if you speak up and tell the truth you ge blasted back.

For this reason i have decided to not comment much, except for folks that i know a little bit, and know they can handle it, and will return in like kind. I can't for the life of me understand why folks want to post songs that need work, and then get upset when someone tries to be honest and help. But hey one thing i have learned over 10 years of posting in forums like this is that we all have a somewhat fragile ego.

I wish that we could develop a system that works better, and would be willing to help with that, but not to get into a fuss over it. I have heard long rave reviews for several pages over songs that were just okay, and no comment on songs that were first class.

Look most of us here are hobbyist at best. Most vocals are rather weak, and not up to record industry standards. That makes for a song that is rather hard to critique, for fear of hurting someone, that is a fellow musician. But me for one would rather know the truth, and not go around thinking I am all that and a bag of chips if I really need work.

Well I pretty much comment on most of the new songs on the first page of the user show case rather I know the person or not with the exception of those using Sound Cloud.
I figure if I put my songs up there and get comments then that's the least I can give back.
I try to be honest and fare in my critiques and hope I don't hurt anyone in the process or give wrong information.
As far as you comment on my songs and I'll comment on yours attitude, I've seen that on every song group I've ever been on.
That's sort of human nature.
I appreciate any comments I get on the songs I post rather they are one liner ones like great job or I love it.
That tells me the person took the time to actually listen to my song.
Of course when someone really takes the time to critique my stuff it does make me feel more special.
The bottom line for me though with all this is I try not to take any of it too seriously especially myself.

Tim

Sometimes i do make comments, on those songs. I was talking about songs that at the time that i listened to them, at that point had no comments.

It was more of a observation really.