Underappreciated Songs on Audiopolis

[Steve Ison]

http://www.audiopolis.org/music/mudsoul-slave/lover

This is like some of of those really cool,really well written lofi songs i used to hear at GB-think they'd be 4 + stars and look and they'd be like 2.1 or something..
Such a cool vibey psyche/prog song..Chorus is really inspired n instantly resonant..
I just don't get why i love a song like this-and everyone else just dosn't get it...
It kinda feels like the runt of the litter-and makes me wanna get behind it even more n give it some love as its undeservedly unappreciated lol

Shoes by Kim n Hud is a brilliant,distinctive track totally underappreciated here too imo (tho not as underappreciated as Lover lol )-and i just don't get that either..http://www.audiopolis.org/music/kim-christie/shoes

[Peevette]

[cjdenecia]

[Krispy]

[KJB]

My view on this topic. Everyone has their own way of seeing and hearing the magic of a good song. Mine starts with vocals and emotion. I have always said vocals make up 50% of a song. Again, just MY ears talking. So when I do a review, if the song doesn't grab me with those two things, it gets lost in my mind and I'm not going to pick apart each instrument just to satisfy someones ego. I do like how some reviewers are more technical with their responses but thats not me. I just get down and dirty. Not every song can please everybody. If one relied on that for approval of their talent then they shouldn't be in the business. I hate rap but it sells millions, I don't like bluegrass but again there's an audience for it. There's not that many people doing reviews here to get the whole picture but you can at least get an idea about your work. Its one thing to appreciate someones effort and another to create a masterpiece top 5 selling song. This isn't american idol where peoples friends tell them their great when they really suck. I will now go and listen to one of the songs in question on this subject. My review will be posted here. I have no idea about the songs in question so I look forward to listening to them

[KJB]

Just listened to "Shoes". I like the funky beat with that slow groove but the vocals aren't sassy enough for me. At least thats the emotion I think should be coming across because the beat feels that way as well in MY ears. I hear someone like Chrissie Hynde from the Pretenders giving this song that edge and final touch. But there again, I'm not the writer and the band has their own direction they want to take it. Thats all fine and good but that also doesn't mean I have to like the finished product either.

[Peevette]

[KJB]

I totally agree. We as musicians are lucky now a days to even have this avenue. When I first started recording originals years ago you were lucky to get a few people to listen to them let alone give you an opinion

[Krispy]

[Mark Kaufman]

I encountered songwriting review sites on the web and dove right in. After about a year of dedicated reviewing, I found myself questioning how much I valued the process. By the time I came here, I was kinda-sorta interested in reviews, and swiftly arrived at my present state, which is best described as "strongly disinterested in reviews". No surprise to the core group, I imagine.

At this point, once I finish a song, I almost always have a good sense of its actual value--when it sucks, I see it. When it's pretty good, I see it. I'm not confused about any of that anymore. So the whole process is a bit extraneous to me now...it's not why I write, and I don't really crave a response anymore. I just like to make the stuff.

[cjdenecia]

[Krispy]

[Mark Kaufman]

cj, I think I understand why you view it the way you do, and you're welcome to your suppositions about how it REALLY is with me, as opposed to my own experience of said lifetime. But I don't agree with your description. I do indeed play my songs for people, and I do indeed crave and enjoy getting a response to my songs.

But I was talking about reviews. Dedicated, writerly, critic-ee reviews.

Reviews bore the crap out of me now, whether I'm giving or receiving. They are boring. Yours are in fact the best I've ever seen. Seriously, when I think of the awful reviews in Rolling Stone, which is probably the dream job of any rock critic, and imagine putting any one of them next to any one of your serious efforts, it's just laughable. You could own that department.

Was getting reviews here some sort of life-changing event for me? Sorry, no. They were certainly not the first to huwt my feewings, nor were they the first to be relevant, honest or incisive. They were just real good, and this particular community is indeed a strongly focused one that gives consistently great reviews, whether they're positive, negative or both.

That said, I'll reiterate the plain old factual point: formal reviews are not what drive me to make music. MUSIC is what drives me to make music. People's response to it is certainly interesting and important enough...but it's not the music. It's more like talking about the sex you just had...always an interesting conversation, but it's not why you fuck. Not at all.

[Mark Kaufman]

[Krispy]