Things I've learned about Garageband.com

[gradgt]

Here's a few things I've learned through my experience with garbageband.com:

1. If you do not sound like the same crap you've been hearing over and over again, you will not be number one.

2. Garageband.com is a joke, but the kind of joke a comedian tells and no one laughs at.

3. Most reviewers only listen for the shortest amount of time possible, write an uninsightful and half-assed review so they can amass the number of reviews they need to upload their own song, and thus perpetuating the cycle of crap.

4. You will get very unhelpful reviews. For instance, on one of my songs, somebody said the keyboards sucked. Another guy said the keyboards were great. And so, I got no where.


In my opinion, I'm honored that my songs don't make it all the way up the charts. The truth is a lot of bands you and I love, that would be regarded as amazing, would only make it about half way up the charts. The tops of the charts is reserved for the mediocre stuff that sounds like things you've already heard. For instance, this week the number one song was a guy who sounded just like Yngwie. That's cool, except everyone's heard Yngwie, who wants to hear someone who sounds just like him? I don't know about you, but if I want to hear Yngwie, I listen to Yngwie. Which reminds me, that I hate Yngwie, and that nonstop shredding is NOT an excuse for songwriting.

It reminds me of when I was living in China. There was a fast food place that was a ripoff of MacDonalds, and people would eat there, because there was no MacDonald's around. However, if there WAS a MacDonalds, who would go to the other place? No one.

[brandondrury]

1. If you do not sound like the same crap you've been hearing over and over again, you will not be number one.

2. Garageband.com is a joke, but the kind of joke a comedian tells and no one laughs at.

3. Most reviewers only listen for the shortest amount of time possible, write an uninsightful and half-assed review so they can amass the number of reviews they need to upload their own song, and thus perpetuating the cycle of crap.

4. You will get very unhelpful reviews. For instance, on one of my songs, somebody said the keyboards sucked. Another guy said the keyboards were great. And so, I got no where.

It sounds like Garageband has perfectly mimicked the real world listener.

Brandon

[richiebee]

Originally Posted by gradgt

3. Most reviewers only listen for the shortest amount of time possible, write an uninsightful and half-assed review so they can amass the number of reviews they need to upload their own song, and thus perpetuating the cycle of crap.

It's for Mac users. Why would you expect anything else?

[tatteredstudios]

Originally Posted by richiebee

It's for Mac users. Why would you expect anything else?

Thanks, Richiebee, I needed a good chuckle this morning !

[gradgt]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

It sounds like Garageband has perfectly mimicked the real world listener.

Brandon

truth! i think maybe a good challenge in how good you are at making music AND manipulating people would be to see how high you can go on the garageband charts.

[ChicoBluez]

I came across this thread and wanted to chime in.

I had a #1 song on Garageband.com (Five O'clock Blues by The Fabulous House Rockers) in 2003 and remained #1 in blues for 8 weeks. I was and am still humbled by the experience of having a #1 anything. Last I checked, the song was #127 on the all time list for the blues.

I got slamed by many for sounding like SRV and blew it off knowing I cut my teeth on Jimi. Maybe you do have a point?

Chico

[brandondrury]

truth! i think maybe a good challenge in how good you are at making music AND manipulating people would be to see how high you can go on the garageband charts.

The talent in your craft combined with your talent for manipulating people seems to be how we define success in a capitalist society. I've always been limited in the first and horrendous in the second.

Brandon

[jdaug]

I am a GB participant as well. I generally agree with gradgt, that the reviewers there are the lowest common denominator. I've had diametrically opposed reviews to the same song from different reviewers. One guy will say my production quality was terrible, the next guy will give me high marks for production.

But this is how the real world works as well. Everyones ear is different.

Overall I think garageband.com is a good exercise if you want to try to make your music commercial. You will go through the same gyrations if you are trying to send stuff in to major labels, video game producers, movie studios, etc, except the talent scouts there probably have a better ear for recognizing potential in amateur recordings.

I have learned not to take any GB reviews at face value until after I have listenened to the music of the reviewer. Many times, the reviewer is making music in a completely different genre than me. I dont know why a blues guy would want to review in the death metal genre, but it happens. Not all of my positive reviews come from people with similar influences and musical taste, but I have noticed that the vast majority of my negative reviews come from people who I share almost nothing in common with musically. This makes sense. This is also why I dont review in genres that I dont like (rap, hip-hop), because I know that I cant give a fair assessment, and I am not familiar with how pro-recordings in these genres are supposed to sound. I have generally discovered that my songs that I am happiest with overall are the ones that do the best on GB, so there does appear to be some correlation between quality and rankings.

Then there are other sites like Indiecharts, where your ability to network and market (i.e. manipulate people) seems to be more important than your music itself. If you are willing to go to enough peoples band pages and kiss their asses and give good reviews (even if you didnt listen to the music), then ask them to return the favor, you can create a page with a whole lot of "friends" and "fans" and get a bunch of good reviews, again, even if your music sucks. You can make it look like you have a pretty substantial fanbase. Its all about stroking off the other guy in order to get stroked off yourself. GB is at least blind reviews, and you cant "buy" more or better reviews by kissing ass.

[Phlipper]

if you want to see a system that really sucks try Welcome to Slicethepie
Decent enough in theory, but they PAY reviewers! Result? a site full of schoolkids who think that 'earning' 10p every 10 minutes is a good thang!

[brandondrury]

except the talent scouts there probably have a better ear for recognizing potential in amateur recordings.

That's a fairly optimistic view!

Brandon