Jerry wrote:This is my point exactly. And while I thank jb for his response and agree with each point, I find 'sounds-like' comments to be kind of lazy. Or they're a bit name-droppy, like 'sounds like early Blowhole' (an imaginary band). So? It's not Blowhole. If you think it sounds like Blowhole, how is this helpful to me? I suppose I could try to track down a Blowhole song to see if this particular song I've written for Songfight does indeed sound like Blowhole. I even had someone tell me an earlier song I submitted sounded like someone who used to send tunes to songfight. Uh, yeah? Thanks for the review. Before someone tells me to blow it out my hole, jb is correct on all points. But it hardly passes as a review or critique and is, more often than not, irrelevant.
Irrelevant to what? Good christ, dude. Sure, any one- or two-line comment is kind of lazy, but mentioning another artist at least tells me something about what the song sounds like to other people. It's a way to sum up one's impression of the song. I mean, someone telling me, "This song sounds like Paul Anka," taken the right way, is potentially a lot more useful than "This song is good."
The thing that makes this a lot worse is the reviewer here gave you mix tips, told you what he liked about your track, and then made the comparison. It's shorter than anything I'd write, probably, but it's still a good chunk of information for you. Reviews are free, dude. Beggars can't be choosers. Complaining about their quality just sounds like bitching to all our ears. Because it is. People on here have written reviews of my songs that had no purpose except to mock me and put me down, and not in any sort of playful or jesting manner, either. Even then, I didn't directly respond to it. Maybe I don't know enough about the business, but I've never heard of a producer writing a letter to Roger Ebert, and saying, "HEY MAN, WHY'D YOU PUT MY MOVIE DOWN LIKE THAT?" or even worse, "HEY ROG. WHY THE FUCK DID YOU SAY MY MOVIE REMINDED YOU OF THE BREAKFAST CLUB? WHAT KIND OF SHIT IS THAT, MAN? I MEAN, SERIOUSLY. WHAT DOES THAT TELL MY AUDIENCE? NOTHING RELEVANT TO MY FILM, OBVIOUSLY! JESUS."
Let me tell you something. If someone sounds like Blowhole, we really shouldn't have to tell you to go listen to Blowhole. Jesus Goatfucking Christ, dude. Unless you're some kind of sadistic son of a bitch like me or Frank Zappa or something, you wouldn't dream of making music you don't like. If you sound like Blowhole, and the comparison's accurate, if nothing else, you ought to like them, as an artist. If you listen and you don't think the reviewer is right, you're welcome to come back and say so, though you'd probably still sound pretty bitchy. But you're right. If the point of SF for you is closing your mind off from new music, and not doing any research to find out what someone means when they make a comment (talk about fucking lazy), then I guess it is pretty useless for someone to tell you that you sound like Blowhole, isn't it?
Did you look at the review I got from this fellow? If you thought yours was short and/or lazy, come on. And am I complaining about this? I'd have loved some indication of whether the song was actually enjoyable to the listener, what I might do to make it more appealing, or what worked well for it. But you know what? Somebody thinks my song sounds like the Kinks. If that's not a good piece of information for me to have, I don't know what is. I sound like the fucking Kinks? Sweet. I win.
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