Sometimes you're the pearl.... #1
... sometimes you're the swine.
I rely heavily on song critiques. I get them from my industry organizations and from independent song coaches and from peers sometimes. The "industry pro" versions are often anonymous, and they evaluate my song on characteristics like lyric, melody, commercial potential, structure, arrangement. I think getting critiques is crucial for anyone who wants to get his or her song on the radio. I often hear people saying that those who give critiques aren't qualified, "how many cuts do they have?" etc. The answer is often lots of cuts. And then a lot of people don't agree with what the critiques say. I think critiques are valuable for the advice they offer (sometimes), but also they require that I step outside myself and look hard at my song, and most of the time, they require that I make edits.
I generally try to saw my brain in half for critiques. It only hurts for a second. Half of my brain wants to talk about whether the song is good, and the other half wants to do what is necessary to get the song on the radio. When I started trying the commercial thing two years ago I promised myself that if I never agreed with the critiques I would stop, because trying to change my songs in a way that I fundamentally disagree with would be too soul-killing. But I generally agree, either because they truly make the song better or because I want my song on the radio. Bad.
Now, two years in, I'm ass-deep in critiques, and after the brain-sawing, sometimes I notice that the critiques aren't always helpful. Some are awful, painful, and/or laughable.
Two of the worst evaluations I have had lately happen to be for "Feel This Way" and "Don't Miss Out," which are songs that have done kinda well for me lately. (coughcough first and second place grand prize cough) And it's not just a Smoky Mountains Songwriters Festival thing... "Feel This Way" was my first Taxi forward (I hate Taxi! I will write about them one of these days) and I have an exclusive contract for it sitting in my "What do I do about this" pile. "Don't Miss" has arrangement issues, and other problems, but damn it's got some fun na-nas in it.
Here are a few excerpts from the "Feel this Way" critique. I won't give you identifying info for this evaluator, but if you are a songwriter and want to know, message me privately.
Lyric: "but I just / feel this way / don't know much about it / one more day / I want to see you again / pointed to you like an arrow / oh I don't know I just follow.."
"don't know much about it""oh I don't know I just follow" "what can I say" I think you should change these lines. It's best to refrain from saying you don't know things in a song. It's your job as a songwriter to tell a story and you should say instead of "I don't know" something that describes the situation. This is my first time, I've never felt this way before. I won't try to understand it, I'll just follow the feelings.
Hmm... how about "pointed to you like an arrow, oh I don't know I just follow?"
"You unwrap me like a kid at Christmas" This means that you unwrap kids at Christmas. The correct metaphor would be you unwrap me like a christmas present. I don't know if you should put a holiday reference in this song unless you want to make it a holiday song.
"Pointed to you like an arrow" This metaphor is unclear as well. I'm an arrow pointed to you.
"Ladadeddadeda" This is a good melody, why not put some words to it?
While the evaluator's comments on metaphor are sort of funny and sort of wrong, there is probably nothing wrong with trying to make the metaphor tighter and more obvious. It's not obvious enough already? I guess not. And the song is not perfect; its hook is not nearly as shiny and clever and aerodynamic as Nashville requires. Although "Feel This Way" is a pop song, and the pop market is a little bit less fervent in its worship of the hook as the country market. But, whatever. The idea that it's a bad idea to mention a holiday in a song seems silly to me, and has not stopped the publishers and music licensing pros who have offered me deals on this song so far. Particularly since this terrible holiday reference doesn't occur until the bridge, where you've either decided you like the song or you've turned it off.
The troubling comment is the last one; it is common, understood, obvious knowledge that la las and whoa whoas are very, very hot right now and any analysis of the #1 songs for this year and last will show you that most of them have some kind of melismatic or nonverbal vocal hook. Larry Beaird would back me up on this if he were here.
So, yes, that last comment is not a subjective opinion, in my opinion, but a lack of understanding or insight about what is commercial right now. Did it invalidate the whole eval? Sort of, but sort of not. It's possible for an evaluation to get it wrong here and get it right there. I'm not going to change "Feel This Way;" it's an old song, it's in the can, and I'd rather write another, better song than tinker with an old one. Nevertheless, as whack as a lot of this eval is, it's made its* mark, and in the future I will probably diagram some of my metaphor-laden sentences to make sure that the unwrapper and the unwrappee are clearly differentiated, and that items indicating direction are also clearly represented by a pointy, directiony thing. Maybe an arrow?
*You're welcome.
I rely heavily on song critiques. I get them from my industry organizations and from independent song coaches and from peers sometimes. The "industry pro" versions are often anonymous, and they evaluate my song on characteristics like lyric, melody, commercial potential, structure, arrangement. I think getting critiques is crucial for anyone who wants to get his or her song on the radio. I often hear people saying that those who give critiques aren't qualified, "how many cuts do they have?" etc. The answer is often lots of cuts. And then a lot of people don't agree with what the critiques say. I think critiques are valuable for the advice they offer (sometimes), but also they require that I step outside myself and look hard at my song, and most of the time, they require that I make edits.
I generally try to saw my brain in half for critiques. It only hurts for a second. Half of my brain wants to talk about whether the song is good, and the other half wants to do what is necessary to get the song on the radio. When I started trying the commercial thing two years ago I promised myself that if I never agreed with the critiques I would stop, because trying to change my songs in a way that I fundamentally disagree with would be too soul-killing. But I generally agree, either because they truly make the song better or because I want my song on the radio. Bad.
Now, two years in, I'm ass-deep in critiques, and after the brain-sawing, sometimes I notice that the critiques aren't always helpful. Some are awful, painful, and/or laughable.
Two of the worst evaluations I have had lately happen to be for "Feel This Way" and "Don't Miss Out," which are songs that have done kinda well for me lately. (coughcough first and second place grand prize cough) And it's not just a Smoky Mountains Songwriters Festival thing... "Feel This Way" was my first Taxi forward (I hate Taxi! I will write about them one of these days) and I have an exclusive contract for it sitting in my "What do I do about this" pile. "Don't Miss" has arrangement issues, and other problems, but damn it's got some fun na-nas in it.
Here are a few excerpts from the "Feel this Way" critique. I won't give you identifying info for this evaluator, but if you are a songwriter and want to know, message me privately.
Lyric: "but I just / feel this way / don't know much about it / one more day / I want to see you again / pointed to you like an arrow / oh I don't know I just follow.."
"don't know much about it""oh I don't know I just follow" "what can I say" I think you should change these lines. It's best to refrain from saying you don't know things in a song. It's your job as a songwriter to tell a story and you should say instead of "I don't know" something that describes the situation. This is my first time, I've never felt this way before. I won't try to understand it, I'll just follow the feelings.
Hmm... how about "pointed to you like an arrow, oh I don't know I just follow?"
"You unwrap me like a kid at Christmas" This means that you unwrap kids at Christmas. The correct metaphor would be you unwrap me like a christmas present. I don't know if you should put a holiday reference in this song unless you want to make it a holiday song.
"Pointed to you like an arrow" This metaphor is unclear as well. I'm an arrow pointed to you.
"Ladadeddadeda" This is a good melody, why not put some words to it?
While the evaluator's comments on metaphor are sort of funny and sort of wrong, there is probably nothing wrong with trying to make the metaphor tighter and more obvious. It's not obvious enough already? I guess not. And the song is not perfect; its hook is not nearly as shiny and clever and aerodynamic as Nashville requires. Although "Feel This Way" is a pop song, and the pop market is a little bit less fervent in its worship of the hook as the country market. But, whatever. The idea that it's a bad idea to mention a holiday in a song seems silly to me, and has not stopped the publishers and music licensing pros who have offered me deals on this song so far. Particularly since this terrible holiday reference doesn't occur until the bridge, where you've either decided you like the song or you've turned it off.
The troubling comment is the last one; it is common, understood, obvious knowledge that la las and whoa whoas are very, very hot right now and any analysis of the #1 songs for this year and last will show you that most of them have some kind of melismatic or nonverbal vocal hook. Larry Beaird would back me up on this if he were here.
So, yes, that last comment is not a subjective opinion, in my opinion, but a lack of understanding or insight about what is commercial right now. Did it invalidate the whole eval? Sort of, but sort of not. It's possible for an evaluation to get it wrong here and get it right there. I'm not going to change "Feel This Way;" it's an old song, it's in the can, and I'd rather write another, better song than tinker with an old one. Nevertheless, as whack as a lot of this eval is, it's made its* mark, and in the future I will probably diagram some of my metaphor-laden sentences to make sure that the unwrapper and the unwrappee are clearly differentiated, and that items indicating direction are also clearly represented by a pointy, directiony thing. Maybe an arrow?
*You're welcome.
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