<<< ... there are so many really bad written/produced songs that would NEVER have been published 10-20 years ago (before you could do everything yourself). >>>

Will, I was just thinking about this yesterday and have been giving it some thought and study for some time and I have to disagree. There have always been more poorly written, arranged and produced songs than good ones. Top artists release duds as well as hits and there is a wealth of songs that linger for years sometimes before someone comes along with a new arrangement of a song that turns a dud into a #1. That's the very premise of the Tom Hanks movie "That Thing You Do".

Looking back, you'll see that artists use to self-finance recording time, trade their talent as studio session players for personal studio time and there were many small recording studios spread across the country. Today, these independent unsigned artists finance and otherwise develop currency to buy semi-pro hardware and top grade DAW software and other gear. The path is the same. Just the location has changed from a studio to a bedroom and the artist now days owns the gear and location rather than rent commercial space, gear and technicians.

This is precisely the point I was thinking about for some time and the thought behind it is from the Website Trunkworthy. Trunkworthy has a short comparison between the 'In the Style of..' songs written for the movie "That Thing You Do" and the actual songs used for their inspiration. Listen to "That Thing You Do" and then its inspiration, "LIes (are breaking my heart) by the Knickerbockers; "Hold My Hand Hold My Heart" from the movie to "Then He Kissed Me" by The Crystals and so on.

Locally for me and available to you via streaming, is an obscure little FM radio station that is absolutely addictive for song analysis, obscurity and a library of songs inspired and written toward the 'In the Style of..' genre of music. In a span of 10 minutes you will hear three of the most obscure songs followed by one of your all time favorites. A lot of famous artists find their way to this station via side trails they took during their career steering away from the Pop genre where they are massive stars to Jazz, Blues and other genres that were major influences on them when they were young and just starting their career in music.

More interesting to me is that many of these songs played on this station were not made by artists under contract to major labels and fall into that category of independent artists believing in themselves, financing a song meticulously following a hit record ' in the style' template so all the elements of a "hit" song are there and many times, the artist is very talented. But the end result is a cliched, poorly written, average produced and predictable dud...... But there is a great mixture of masterpieces never released as singles, just album cuts, from major artists and you'll hear many, many of your Oldies favorites. A great blend of music.

There is a lot to learn from this music. Nearly all of it is comparable in quality to a BIAB generated soundtrack. Nearly all of it can be identically replicated from BIAB. Some can be improved using a BIAB soundtrack because the original backing track is 99% a keyboard workstation Style generated soundtrack. To me, it's a place to hear the opposite of Rick Beato's YouTube series - "What Makes This Song Great?" and becomes "Why Didn't This Song Make It?"

It's important to study the great songs but also important to study the duds because we learn from repetition and by studying duds, you'll definitely see patterns developing and hear songs with all the 'right' elements, a great singer but at the same time, an instantly recognizable DUD....

BIAB Ultra Pak+ 2024:RB 2024, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.