I don't care if you guys love or hate my songs. They could be your favorites, good, passable, poor, awful, or the single worst songs you've ever heard in your life. I take everything evenly; everyone has their tastes. Like I said, I write songs that I like to hear, and regardless of whether you're judging my song on its own merits or based on what you think of me as a person after one post, everyone has different tastes, so my song won't please everyone. It is a pretty childish to review someone's song based on their review of your song, though, and that's something I've noticed for years. The songfight community has long been home to a wide variety of musical styles, and everyone deserves unedited input on their song from everyone who hears it. None of you make exactly the same kind of music as me, so I
want to know what a metal artist thinks about my shitty solos, or what a solo singer/songwriter thinks about my shitty lyrics and vocals. Quit fucking holding back. Quit sugar-coating reviews. You're not helping anyone. I grew to where I am through criticism, HARSH criticism that (I am the first to admit) hurt me very badly at the time. I know what it's like to be a young musician trying as hard as I can, thinking I've done better than ever before, only to get absolutely torn apart in reviews for not being able to sing for shit. I'll even volunteer the evidence for you:
Red Robot
Snow Globe
Floating Bridge
Those are FUCKING AWFUL! Horrible. They have absolutely no musical merit whatsoever! So why, when people submit songs this bad, are people so intent on finding anything positive to say about them? People called my early songs shit, because they
were shit, and I stopped making songs like that. Think whatever you may about my musical style, but you're a liar if you say that my
Get a Life isn't better than any of those songs. I evolved that much because Frank and John and Jeff (especially Jeff) and Damian and Hoblit and Chris (PfM) and blue and drew and so on and so on were honest. They weren't "mean," but they certainly never held my hand. They were honest, and I owe them for and am thankful to them for every single fucking fiber of songwriting talent that I have.
I'm the first person to tell you what I feel I've done wrong in my song. If anyone knows that my "
Please Don't Call Me Ken" blatantly ripped off Matthew Good Band's "
Middle Class Gangsters" and the Pillows' "
Strange Chameleon," it's because
I fucking told them, because I'm honest about music. I want you to be honest, also. Critical analysis is the key to improvement. Again, is that defined as being mean? No. It's also not defined as being overly nice about a song that doesn't deserve it. It means being honest at all costs.
Mark, I know you don't like me, so I'm completely unsurprised you posted like that. That's fine! As long as you're being honest, rip the fucking shit out of me. Say my lyrics make no sense, my vocals are weak, my lead guitar skills are nowhere near where they should be for a song of this style, my basslines vary between boring and masturbatory. I may or may not care for your music (I actually like most of what I've heard, though I haven't heard nearly enough to be a fair judge of you as a whole), but I know enough to know that you're a far better guitarist than I am. If you think I'm fucking terrible, I
want you tell me. If deetak, as a more orchestrally-minded composer (seemingly; I don't mean to typecast, I know nothing about him), thinks my songs are too straightforward and lack instrumental complexity, he should tell me. Sorry, jackfrost; I see you've been a forum member for a couple years, but I haven't quite been active enough to know who you are... but you're holding back! You must think my song is shit for a reason, right? Tell me!
I certainly don't think everyone here is making music with the ultimate goal of being famous, but I can't imagine anyone is making music without wanting to improve. Why hold back? That's what I'm saying is wrong with things "these days." I'm not throwing around terms like "old days" or "used to be" to stroke my ego just for being old school. Being old school doesn't mean shit for my ability or knowledge. It means I have a different perspective on what songfight means, and its current state is far more reserved about reviewing than it was. I don't say "things should be like they were" to show off that I've been here for so long; I say it because more people improved more often back then, and because
I want all of you to improve, too.
If I didn't care about songfight or about any of you, I would fuck off and do my shit my own way without ever visiting these forums again. I stay here because songfight means the world to me. I've never hid the fact that my ultimate goal is to be a rock star, or that I would promote songfight like fucking crazy if I did manage to succeed in my music career. I want songfight to be as amazing an evolutionary tool for all of you as it was for me. If that means I'm the fucking songfight supervillain like blue and drew before me, whatever, but as long as I'm writing reviews, I'm going to honest with you because that's fucking fair to you. If you hate me after a negative review, fine. Sorry for hurting your feelings. At least listen to my point of view, because for every person like me who will actually take the time to write out what I feel about your song, there are hundreds who will turn your shit off and never look back. I didn't do that. I took a couple hours and seriously gave every one of your songs a chance, and whether I came away liking yours or not, I showed some fucking balls and told you exactly how I felt.
I'll reiterate it, because it bears repeating: If I hurt your feelings with my reviews, sorry. I'm not reviewing you as a person, I promise. I would probably love most of you as people. Songfight is one of the most important things ever to enter my life, and given my perspective on it, it fucking breaks my heart to see the way it is now. I know that all of you have a different perspective on songfight, and most of you are probably satisfied with the way it is, and I respect that you comparatively new folks could look at me trying to change things and think I'm an asshole. I only mean well by it. I want it back the old way so that those same comparatively new songfighters can experience the same incredible, thriving community of driven, ambitious musicians that I found years ago, where everyone is actively concerned about improving and helping each other improve, and where everyone shares the fruits of that ambition together.