Originally Posted By: musiclover
Who would you rather listen to, someone who does cover songs well, or someone who does original songs and most of them are not that good, not from a personal perspective but general view of a good section of the audience.


I'll go with the second option every time.

I don't drink. I hate being in bars. So no matter how well the band can play copy music, they are doing nothing for me that I can't do at home. If I want to hear "I Love Rock and Roll" (FYI, I NEVER want to hear that insipid song again!) I could stay home and dial up the Joan Jett channel on Pandora. I would not have a beer in front of me just like the bar, and I won't have to listen to 17 conversations going on around me involving people who should be shutting their pie holes and listening to the entertainment.

I prefer the songwriting band, no matter how weak the material might be. And I prefer it because they TRY.

Look, guys, I was in two of the best cover bands Cleveland has ever known. I understand. But I have since grown musically and want to express my own thoughts. Tell my stories. If I DID have a band to play this music out, I would tell the backstory to every song and engage the crowd that way. Here Goes Nuttin' is about how I have been married 3 times and will NEVER do it again. But "baby for you, ya know I'd do it again. Here goes nuttin'." And "The One That Got Away" is relateable because every one of us has someone in our life who is the one that got away. And so forth. I would MUCH rather hear that than someone playing Brown Eyed Girl. Add to that the fact that every band in town plays the same 45 songs and it gets worse. Flawless copy does not stimulate me at all.

Listening to originals, even mediocre originals, is more appealing to me because I may hear something that stimulates thoughts in my mind to write something, or maybe I would meet a writer who writes lyrics well but needs some musical ideas. Or maybe there is a good player who needs better lyrics. I would be happy to join forces and collaborate with them.

All about personal tastes and preferences. I find copy bands boring. You may like them. That's great! Somebody needs to support cover bands. It just won't be me. I know a lot of people who are upset with me because I never go hear their bands. And I tell them the same thing when they call me out on it. "Write some songs and I'll be out to hear them."

I find it comically ironic that here we are on a forum hosted by a company whose product is a composition tool and there are so many people who refuse to even TRY to write songs. Write a song about your idiot brother in law. Write a song about how your last girlfriend ripped your heart from your chest, threw it on the driveway and ran it over with YOUR truck. And write it exactly the way you'd tell the story to your buddies at the corner bar. Just make it rhyme and fit the cadence of the music. You CAN write songs. You just have to accept that every song is not going to be a gem and that you will write a lot of bad songs before you write good ones. You are a quarterback suffering through rookie year growing pains throwing a lot of interceptions and bad passes. Next season you will be better, and in year 3 you will be great. It took a LONG time for me to accept that everything I wrote was not great. Most of the early stuff was not even good, much less great. But after some years of trying, they are getting better. Once this CD is done, I will revisit the scratchpad stuff and work with them and start the next CD.

"Can't do" should not be in anybody's vocabulary. You CAN do. Step one is to fail. I listen back to things I did 3-4 years ago, recording on a Tascam 8 track, with outboard gear.... and I thought it was good then. Now? I hate it. Several of the songs for the next CD will be those old songs redone using inside the box recording. I will have to program the Real Band chord structures because back then I would create, record onto the Tascam, and throw away. (Remember, I thought they were good!) I am actually embarrassed by some of that early stuff. It was truly awful. And I may find that THESE songs on the CD are awful too. That will come from listeners, not me. I had to swallow that bitter reality pill and accept that I am NOT Lennon and MaCartney, or Diane Warren.... But I have to think that John and Paul and Diane wrote some really bad songs early on like everybody else does.

My dime.