Horticulture said:
This is a great thread- you're definitely right about the difficulty in getting honest criticism about music.
If you're willing to deal with a Soundclick link [http://www.soundclick.com/orchidnc], I'd love some feedback on a couple songs. The balance is pretty atrocious and there are a few mistakes, but I'm curious to see what you think about the melody, structure and overall vibe.
A little off-topic, but SHP, I'm really liking the Gilmour vibe in your last recording. Maybe I should save unqualified flattery for the Jam Session thread, though
Edit: Youtube links
I'm so sorry. You seem like a nice person. I apologise in advance.
I have no problem with the fact that this has obviously been recorded in the corner of a jam room, that's fine. Wish I could make out the lyrics but no big deal really, I can still hear the vocal melody. Yeah the balance is terrible but once again no big deal. A few mistakes too but that's okay, I can handle that.
Okay, so I'm trying to be positive here. You're all good musicians, basically. That's good. Your vocalist overstretches annoyingly and he really should not do that really high shit - but in the lower register he's really good. In fact, everyone overplays a bit, especially the drummer. Damn he's a good player, but his job is to keep the beat, not wow me with his ability to hit all of his toms at once with only two sticks. The songs, well the first one is just the same thing over and over, you could mix it up a little. Maybe add another section. The second one is more varied, but... oh who am I kidding. I'll stop beating around the bush and get to your one real overarching obstacle. Please forgive me.
You are the first person to submit something here that hits on a
forbidden genre, which is early post-grunge style rock. This style of music is
not acceptable to labels right now. Why? Because it just went
out of fashion very recently. Yes, there are still
established bands making this kind of music - what that means is that there is no room for
new bands to make this kind of music. No band that makes this type of music has been signed in the last few years to a major label in a western country. Feel free to check, you will find that this is true. All the bands who will ever make this type of music on a global scale in the next 20 years have already got record deals. Your chances of success are absolutely 0%. You need to change the style and sound of your band completely, or just get a new band that wants to make different music. Maybe keep the songs or at least the song
ideas, or just write new songs, but nothing will ever happen for you with this band, with this sound. You could get some gigs in your local town, maybe go on a small tour at the very most, or sign a distributor deal where you pay for all the manufacture and they don't care about your music style and just add it to the catalog to be forgotten about unless someone orders it, however any actual proper label you send this to will reject it within about 30 seconds of listening, regardless of playing or songwriting quality, simply because of the
style. What you are doing is like trying to start a glam metal band in 1993 just after the big grunge explosion. You're all talented folks but you're wearing bell-bottoms in the mid-1980s. You are out of fashion. The music industry is fickle like this. I'm so sorry.