Musical Demo Submission thread

[BonsaiK]

Our myspace

http://www.myspace.com/talesofthehundred

And our youtube page

http://www.youtube.com/user/talesofthehundred

hope you enjoy!

snip

cheers, yeah the vocalist is staying round my house for a week and I'm gonna make sure we practice vocals alot more and also, the stages we have played are tiny lol

Small stage is no excuse. All the more reason to make the most of what you have. Observe the following video where the band does their best with an area not much bigger than what you guys had at your gig - they don't move outside of foldback wedge range:


Okay so they look a bit douchey, but they're interesting to watch and that makes all the difference. Don't be afraid to look like a fool, it gives people something to talk about later, which is like free advertising for your band. Also, it's fun.

 

[AgentNein]

Alright alright, I'll bite.

http://www.myspace.com/zombiebombmusic

This is the last project I was a part of, I left however cuz (1) it really wasn't my kinda music, and (2) it's a zombie themed band. Now I like themes in bands. Love it even. But I've found the whole zombie revival thing corny back when it was fresh. It was fun for awhile, doing zombie proms and such, but our singer (a good friend) wanted to push it into a serious project, and I've done serious projects, I'm up for serious projects, but a zombie themed band that constrains its lyrics to fit in with the theme isn't something I can do seriously.

WITH THAT SAID, I'm honestly curious what you think of the first three songs we've got up on there, first two are originals and the third is a cover of Concrete Blonde. Came from a cheap demo recording.

(currently working on a surf punk project I hope to have recordings of soon, yeah yeah, no market for punk now or any time soon, but the national punk scene has treated me well before the revival hit, after the revival hit, etc)

 

[BonsaiK]

Alright alright, I'll bite.

http://www.myspace.com/zombiebombmusic

This is the last project I was a part of, I left however cuz (1) it really wasn't my kinda music, and (2) it's a zombie themed band. Now I like themes in bands. Love it even. But I've found the whole zombie revival thing corny back when it was fresh. It was fun for awhile, doing zombie proms and such, but our singer (a good friend) wanted to push it into a serious project, and I've done serious projects, I'm up for serious projects, but a zombie themed band that constrains its lyrics to fit in with the theme isn't something I can do seriously.

WITH THAT SAID, I'm honestly curious what you think of the first three songs we've got up on there, first two are originals and the third is a cover of Concrete Blonde. Came from a cheap demo recording.

(currently working on a surf punk project I hope to have recordings of soon, yeah yeah, no market for punk now or any time soon, but the national punk scene has treated me well before the revival hit, after the revival hit, etc)

I agree that zombie-themed stuff is old-hat. There's a lot of this stuff kicking around at the moment and none of it has gotten past cult status. What does that tell you. I think that if your heart wasn't in it, you did the right thing by leaving this project.

Other than that I'm not going to comment on this band because it isn't actually your band anymore.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

Well, my band only has one studio recording, and one passable live recording (and by passable, I mean "with our drummer"), which is missing about 20 seconds of time due to camera difficulties unfortunately.

We're called The Last Full Measure. Formerly were called Freedom-Kill, which I only mention because the live video is still labeled with that name.

Spoiler: New Athens (studio recording)

Spoiler: Broken World (live show)

The second video is currently messing up on my computer, but the account is still valid and the video has not been removed intentionally, so there is no real reason why it should not play. Therefore, I've posted it anyway, assuming that my computer is being glitchy as usual.

 

[BonsaiK]

Well, my band only has one studio recording, and one passable live recording (and by passable, I mean "with our drummer"), which is missing about 20 seconds of time due to camera difficulties unfortunately.

We're called The Last Full Measure. Formerly were called Freedom-Kill, which I only mention because the live video is still labeled with that name.

Spoiler: New Athens (studio recording)

Spoiler: Broken World (live show)

The second video is currently messing up on my computer, but the account is still valid and the video has not been removed intentionally, so there is no real reason why it should not play. Therefore, I've posted it anyway, assuming that my computer is being glitchy as usual.

Both videos worked fine for me.

First song isn't too bad. However it needs rearranging. The first and second verses are short, the third one is longer - should be the other way around. Needs more chorus at the end, more verse and less chorus at the start. The chorus is the good part - so don't let 'em have it quite so soon, drip-feed it a little more. Also if you're going to do that Pixies/Nirvana thing with the quiet verse and the loud chorus, you want to make the difference more in-your-face. Gang vocals are amusing, a little off-key but I kind of like them that way, gives it a nice "we got drunk in the studio" feel. Overall, not bad, not bad at all, a little shifting around of the musical arrangement is really the main thing you need.

Second song would make a great two-minute punk song, pity it's five minutes of mid-tempo chug. Try playing it at three times the speed. I'm being completely serious, it would make the song way more viable. Also, what I said to the other guy - move around on stage more. No excuses. I don't care how little room you've got, I've seen Mike Patton give an incredibly energetic performance fronting Mr. Bungle where the 7-piece band were crowded on a tiny stage and he had about half a metre squared of floor space to work with. He didn't even have the advantage of any props like a guitar to swing around like you guys do. You guys need to be more interesting to watch. You don't have to wear fancy clothes, but just get into it more. A lot more. If I walked into a venue and saw some guys projecting your level of visual excitement, I wouldn't stay. You guys need more onstage energy badly especially if you've got any kind of vaguely political/social commentary edge to your lyrics, because you need to compensate for the fact that most punters just want to have a good time and don't want to hear that stuff.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

Well, my band only has one studio recording, and one passable live recording (and by passable, I mean "with our drummer"), which is missing about 20 seconds of time due to camera difficulties unfortunately.

We're called The Last Full Measure. Formerly were called Freedom-Kill, which I only mention because the live video is still labeled with that name.

Spoiler: New Athens (studio recording)

Spoiler: Broken World (live show)

The second video is currently messing up on my computer, but the account is still valid and the video has not been removed intentionally, so there is no real reason why it should not play. Therefore, I've posted it anyway, assuming that my computer is being glitchy as usual.

Both videos worked fine for me.

First song isn't too bad. However it needs rearranging. The first and second verses are short, the third one is longer - should be the other way around. Needs more chorus at the end, more verse and less chorus at the start. The chorus is the good part - so don't let 'em have it quite so soon, drip-feed it a little more. Also if you're going to do that Pixies/Nirvana thing with the quiet verse and the loud chorus, you want to make the difference more in-your-face. Gang vocals are amusing, a little off-key but I kind of like them that way, gives it a nice "we got drunk in the studio" feel. Overall, not bad, not bad at all, a little shifting around of the musical arrangement is really the main thing you need.

Second song would make a great two-minute punk song, pity it's five minutes of mid-tempo chug. Try playing it at three times the speed. I'm being completely serious, it would make the song way more viable. Also, what I said to the other guy - move around on stage more. No excuses. I don't care how little room you've got, I've seen Mike Patton give an incredibly energetic performance fronting Mr. Bungle where the 7-piece band were crowded on a tiny stage and he had about half a metre squared of floor space to work with. He didn't even have the advantage of any props like a guitar to swing around like you guys do. You guys need to be more interesting to watch. You don't have to wear fancy clothes, but just get into it more. A lot more. If I walked into a venue and saw some guys projecting your level of visual excitement, I wouldn't stay. You guys need more onstage energy badly especially if you've got any kind of vaguely political/social commentary edge to your lyrics, because you need to compensate for the fact that most punters just want to have a good time and don't want to hear that stuff.

I'll keep in mind the idea of holding off the chorus for a while in songs I write in the future. All the guys in the band are in love with New Athens as it is, as well as having recorded it already, but I'll take your advice into account when writing songs in the future and see how the guys like that.

When we wrote Broken World it was eventually going to be a bit of a reverent send-off at the end of an otherwise pretty high energy punk album, but now our style and our song line up has changed so it might not even have that quality. Next time we get together I'll have them play it faster and see what they think of it.

As for stage energy, I definitely agree. We are a bit more energetic on stage now than we were then, but still we need to be a bit less dead. I would normally be the one doing things on stage, but unfortunately I'm usually glued to the mic throughout the whole of our songs. On the couple songs I don't sing I'm usually a bit more energetic.

All in all, thanks for the advice and criticisms, and I'll try to keep these in mind in the future when writing songs. We don't tend to like the idea of intentionally changing ourselves to be more viable, but I've been realizing lately that really, our music is about trying to influence people, and if our Socialistic message is gonna be heard by anyone that doesn't already agree with us, we're going to need to be able to make a few adjustments to make music that we still love and love to play, but that others can like to.

Anyway, again- thanks.

 

[BonsaiK]

Hey, I have a music composition I'm going to be recording on Wednesday hopefully, and I was thinking of post it here to see if you could give me some feedback on it. However, the multi-track I'll be using at the school is not of the highest quality, so I was wondering if you would prefer I leave it a little longer until I get the chance to record it on a better system, or do you not mind? It's by no means awful quality, but it certainly isn't great.

Thanks in advance

Demos are demos - i.e demonstrations, they're not supposed to be of release quality. Don't make the mistake of think a demo has to be super-polished, in fact if you have music career aspirations super-polishing your demo is almost always a bad thing. It's the job of a professional producer to re-record your stuff, smooth out your rough edges and polish your songs up for radio or whatever - why try to do their work for them in a half-assed manner? They want to hear the rough edges, it gives them something to tidy up. So yeah - bring it on, if you want.

 

[cocoadog]

http://www.youtube.com/user/JimmyNore
http://www.myspace.com/jimmynore

Take care,
Jimmy Nore

Wow, someone signed up here just to post this. That's bold. I hope you read the OP.

Onto the music. So you can play really, really well. That's nice. And?

"Shred" peaked in the late 1980s. Then in the early 1990s, it died. Almost overnight. Why? Grunge. People started demonstrating that you didn't really need all those extra notes to make music that was both guitar-heavy and spoke to the heart. People who were up until then listening to shred went "oh" and then started listening to stuff with three chords in it. To this day, this situation hasn't changed - grunge is no longer a going concern in music but it's been replaced with other equally straightforward styles. The era of the "shred guitarist" that birthed Satriani, Vai, Malmsteen, Becker/Friedman, Michael Angelo Batio etc is over. The sad truth is that you will not achieve fame and fortune with what you are doing now, no matter how good you get at it.

You might think "but wait.. what about Dragonforce? They play ridiculously fast...". Okay, well now that's true isn't it. Go and dig out their best album - "Inhuman Rampage". Now, here's a quick pop quiz - what don't you hear on that album? Think about it. If you guessed "instrumentals" then you win the gold star. Vocals everywhere on those albums. Why? because most people find that they relate most strongly to a human voice, even a mediocre singer can be more expressive than the best guitarist. Everyone has a voice but not everyone can play guitar, so people like to hear voices because that's what they can relate to. The only people who really want to hear guitars and only guitars are your family, your girlfriend/partner and other guitarists. Also guitars just aren't that distinctive to the untrained ear - to the average punter, one good guitar player sounds much like another, but anyone can tell the difference between Tom Waits and Pavarotti. Your playing sounds a lot like Vai to me, if I closed my eyes I would struggle to tell the difference, and I'm a trained guitarist who has been playing for over 20 years. Sure, that's a compliment for your obvious skill but it's also a nasty double-edged sword - why would anyone sign you up when Vai already has umpteen records out (some of which haven't even done that well commercially)? You need to be more distinctive than this to get ahead, and the easiest way for you to do this is to incorporate vocals in your music, somehow.

Moral of the story - you have great skills but no songs. You need to get yourself in a band with a vocalist because nobody wants to hear this stuff you're doing now except other shredders. (Exception is in Japan where this kind of thing is still big, but then you're dealing with all sorts of competition that can play just as good as you.) Chances are being such a good musician that you're already in such a band so maybe you should link me to that.

Aside from that, If you want to see how a shredder can get successful in today's music marketplace, look at Orianthi. The girl comes from the same town I do and she wasn't born yesterday. She went to LA and got a gig working with Michael Jackson. When it came to forging a commercially successful solo breakthrough album, did she go and make a shred excursion? Hell no, she knew that was commercial suicide (or her agent did). Her new album has ONE instrumental song on it. The rest of it sounds like this:


She's like a rocking, shredding Taylor Swift - talk about a license to print money. It remains to be seen how long she lasts, but she's got the skills to back up the hype so her odds are better than a lot of people. Certainly better than yours, because she sounds more distinctive than you. Not because she's a better player (hell, she might not be) but because she's making more saleable and distinctive music.

Time to make fun of you! (I'll do your little numbering system because you like it so much).

1. "Shred" This one is obvious, but uh Jeff Loomis, Buckethead, Abasi, Yngwie (maybe in the late 80's but I'm pretty sure he is still doing pretty well). The list goes on.

2. How on earth is inhuman rampage Dragonforces best album? The only one that was mildly tolerable was sonic firestorm and that was iffy.

3. How can you even use distinctive in the same paragraph as that vile excuse for music? It sounds like a guitar track thrown on a miley cyrus song. Sure that might make money, but did you ever think (since you also play music) maybe you should have some dignity and invest your time and effort into music that means something? Instead of generic trash that gets spit at people everyday.

 

[BonsaiK]

Time to make fun of you! (I'll do your little numbering system because you like it so much).

1. "Shred" This one is obvious, but uh Jeff Loomis, Buckethead, Abasi, Yngwie (maybe in the late 80's but I'm pretty sure he is still doing pretty well). The list goes on.

2. How on earth is inhuman rampage Dragonforces best album? The only one that was mildly tolerable was sonic firestorm and that was iffy.

3. How can you even use distinctive in the same paragraph as that vile excuse for music? It sounds like a guitar track thrown on a miley cyrus song. Sure that might make money, but did you ever think (since you also play music) maybe you should have some dignity and invest your time and effort into music that means something? Instead of generic trash that gets spit at people everyday.

Oh yay.

1. All of whom made their career mark decades ago, except Abasi who I'd never even heard of and had to look up, which says it all really. Yes, there are, and will always be, people who like this kind of music, but it's never going to appeal to the huge sector of the population that it did before 1992.

2. Whatever, I'm not a huge fan of them so I don't have a lot invested in this part of the debate. I'll give you this one.

3. I'd actually class a lot of shred as highly "generic". "Means something" is also highly subjective as what might mean a lot to one person might not mean much to another. Orianthi could have made a shred album easily but she chose not to. Why? Because she wants to be successful, and most people don't actually like listening to a guitarist do nothing but wank off. Most people brought up in Western culture actually like songs. Here's an instrumental song from her new album where she shreds it up a bit:


...and that's all well and good, but it's not going to sell records or speak to many people besides other musicians. Hence why the above video wasn't the first single. If you want music that "means something" to the greatest number of people, vocals really help because they can communicate ideas more directly and specifically than a bunch of notes can on their own.

 

[cocoadog]

Time to make fun of you! (I'll do your little numbering system because you like it so much).

1. "Shred" This one is obvious, but uh Jeff Loomis, Buckethead, Abasi, Yngwie (maybe in the late 80's but I'm pretty sure he is still doing pretty well). The list goes on.

2. How on earth is inhuman rampage Dragonforces best album? The only one that was mildly tolerable was sonic firestorm and that was iffy.

3. How can you even use distinctive in the same paragraph as that vile excuse for music? It sounds like a guitar track thrown on a miley cyrus song. Sure that might make money, but did you ever think (since you also play music) maybe you should have some dignity and invest your time and effort into music that means something? Instead of generic trash that gets spit at people everyday.

Oh yay.

1. All of whom made their career mark decades ago, except Abasi who I'd never even heard of and had to look up, which says it all really. Yes, there are, and will always be, people who like this kind of music, but it's never going to appeal to the huge sector of the population that it did before 1992.

2. Whatever, I'm not a huge fan of them so I don't have a lot invested in this part of the debate. I'll give you this one.

3. I'd actually class a lot of shred as highly "generic". "Means something" is also highly subjective as what might mean a lot to one person might not mean much to another. Orianthi could have made a shred album easily but she chose not to. Why? Because she wants to be successful, and most people don't actually like listening to a guitarist do nothing but wank off. Most people brought up in Western culture actually like songs. Here's an instrumental song from her new album where she shreds it up a bit:


...and that's all well and good, but it's not going to sell records or speak to many people besides other musicians. Hence why the above video wasn't the first single. If you want music that "means something" to the greatest number of people, vocals really help because they can communicate ideas more directly and specifically than a bunch of notes can on their own.

1. Wrong Nevermore's first album was 95 and jeffs first solo album was in 08 I think. Buckethead was probably started early 90's but is significantly more popular now, and yngwie i'll give to you because he did start early.

2----------------------

3. I know "shred" albums aren't meaningful? I was just saying it still does well for itself, that being the case they are still more relevant than some teenage girl griping about her past love life or highschool problems. If that means anything to anyone I am truly disappointed in humanity.

 

[BonsaiK]

1. Wrong Nevermore's first album was 95 and jeffs first solo album was in 08 I think. Buckethead was probably started early 90's but is significantly more popular now, and yngwie i'll give to you because he did start early.

2----------------------

3. I know "shred" albums aren't meaningful? I was just saying it still does well for itself, that being the case they are still more relevant than some teenage girl griping about her past love life or highschool problems. If that means anything to anyone I am truly disappointed in humanity.

All your points are basically the same one in spirit so I may as well address it all together.

The single biggest fallacy that people have about the more commercial end of the music industry is that it doesn't matter how little talent the performers have or how bad the songs are, because the target audience is so easily manipulated so you can get them to like just about anything. GODDAMN, HOW I WISH THAT WAS TRUE! If so I'd be a multi-millionaire by now, because I know how a pop song is written and I know a few pretty girls who I could pay to dance around a bit and shake their asses. However it's not that simple, and never has been. The proof is in the fact that for every Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, or [insert famous pop performer you don't happed to like very much here], there are thousands upon thousands of pop performers who wanted to be that person, who had equal "talent", who got exactly the same marketing shove from the right people, and who even looked the part... and they failed. Why did they fail? Because no-one liked their songs enough to shell out the money for them. That's the bottom line - the songs didn't cut it. The reason why so many people believe the fallacy that there's nothing to pop music, is because good pop music is extremely popular (hence the name) and people (especially antisocial internet nihilists) like to think that their own music taste (as well as their own taste in many other things) is somehow superior to the "masses".

Now let's look at the world of "hot guitarists". The only ones who are doing really, really well financially besides the original 80s guys, are either making pop music (Orianthi, Kaki King), have attached themselves to or are associated with a band that has actual songs (Buckethead, several others), or have their fingers in a few other pies just to pay the bills. The chances of any given new solo guitarist in the "shred" genre making enough money just out of playing that kind of music to support themselves and basically live a lifestyle equal to someone who works a reasonably well-paying 9 to 5 job let alone achieving fame and fortune is so stratospherically unlikely that it could be compared to a 1 ton meteor hitting your own house. Yes, 1-ton meteors do hit houses sometimes, but I wouldn't bank a music career on it. This is my point when I replied to that guy. Hell, I don't mind the odd bit of hot guitar, who doesn't, but people en masse are not going to pay to listen to a bunch of licks that any reasonably competent shred guitarist on YouTube can also do. Maybe 20-30 years ago, but not in this day and age.

 

[lokust2001]

Hi,

Criticism and evaluation is always welcome however critical or brutal. That's part of life, especially in the pursuit of something creative. So advise away;

HEBEPHRENIC


Rather than going into too much detail here the best bet is to visit our last.fm page;
http://www.last.fm/music/Hebephrenic
Aswell as a biog and a couple of pics it has full downloadable tracks for all of our recorded stuff. The most recent stuff is the first 3 featured tracks.

Also 2 videos, the first an old and very basic music video, the second an unofficial Akira based one with a slight sound glitch at one point. Video production for new songs will be much higher level when I return from Japan in April.

Anyway we always welcome thoughts and I'd be interested to see what you think.

Cheers,
Dave, Hebephrenic

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[cocoadog]

1. Wrong Nevermore's first album was 95 and jeffs first solo album was in 08 I think. Buckethead was probably started early 90's but is significantly more popular now, and yngwie i'll give to you because he did start early.

2----------------------

3. I know "shred" albums aren't meaningful? I was just saying it still does well for itself, that being the case they are still more relevant than some teenage girl griping about her past love life or highschool problems. If that means anything to anyone I am truly disappointed in humanity.

All your points are basically the same one in spirit so I may as well address it all together.

The single biggest fallacy that people have about the more commercial end of the music industry is that it doesn't matter how little talent the performers have or how bad the songs are, because the target audience is so easily manipulated so you can get them to like just about anything. GODDAMN, HOW I WISH THAT WAS TRUE! If so I'd be a multi-millionaire by now, because I know how a pop song is written and I know a few pretty girls who I could pay to dance around a bit and shake their asses. However it's not that simple, and never has been. The proof is in the fact that for every Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, or [insert famous pop performer you don't happed to like very much here], there are thousands upon thousands of pop performers who wanted to be that person, who had equal "talent", who got exactly the same marketing shove from the right people, and who even looked the part... and they failed. Why did they fail? Because no-one liked their songs enough to shell out the money for them. That's the bottom line - the songs didn't cut it. The reason why so many people believe the fallacy that there's nothing to pop music, is because good pop music is extremely popular (hence the name) and people (especially antisocial internet nihilists) like to think that their own music taste (as well as their own taste in many other things) is somehow superior to the "masses".

Now let's look at the world of "hot guitarists". The only ones who are doing really, really well financially besides the original 80s guys, are either making pop music (Orianthi, Kaki King), have attached themselves to or are associated with a band that has actual songs (Buckethead, several others), or have their fingers in a few other pies just to pay the bills. The chances of any given new solo guitarist in the "shred" genre making enough money just out of playing that kind of music to support themselves and basically live a lifestyle equal to someone who works a reasonably well-paying 9 to 5 job let alone achieving fame and fortune is so stratospherically unlikely that it could be compared to a 1 ton meteor hitting your own house. Yes, 1-ton meteors do hit houses sometimes, but I wouldn't bank a music career on it. This is my point when I replied to that guy. Hell, I don't mind the odd bit of hot guitar, who doesn't, but people en masse are not going to pay to listen to a bunch of licks that any reasonably competent shred guitarist on YouTube can also do. Maybe 20-30 years ago, but not in this day and age.

The second part you are definitely right about not gonna argue there. It's nearly impossible to sell a guitar album unless your name is already out there. The first part however is so morally fucked up it saddens me. I know making it as a pop star is one in a million (probably more) and that's a damn good thing. People aren't shelling out money for all of them because they are all nearly identical. They all sing about the same crap and they all have the same musical sound. 90% of the time the pop performer has a gimmick that is attractive to the masses. Miley Cyrus has a TV show, The Jonas Brothers are (ready for this?!) brothers, Taylor Swift writes her own music (which is respectable in it's own right I suppose) and Justin Bieber is a flaming **** nugget. Honestly I can't figure out where the appeal is with Justin. Anyone who listens to a decent amount of music however never seems to like any of that. It's usually rap, rock, country, metal, techno, jazz, and all that stuff. I personally am a metal guy that's just what I like, but I can tolerate that stuff (except for rap because I like music not hand clapping and the word nigga) but pop is just amazing to me (at least nowadays I mean come on gotta love m.j) The entire pop genre only applies to young girls and it commands so much of the music market. There is so little musical quality in it I am truly baffled. Hell that's the world we live in and I know that, but still I'd like to anyone that truly listens to music stays away from that genre. I still think you personally have a better chance finding a guitarist that can make you money rather then the next Hannah Montana haha.

 

[Squarez]

Snippy

I'm not a massive fan of pop music but I get the feeling that you don't listen to much pop music. There really are some gems amongst the crap, but then when has that not been the case for any genre of music ever.

Taking rock music, for every Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd there would be a hundred shitty bands clogging up the music stores, and it kind of annoys me that people only think that this rule applies only to modern pop music.

 

[cocoadog]

Snippy

I'm not a massive fan of pop music but I get the feeling that you don't listen to much pop music. There really are some gems amongst the crap, but then when has that not been the case for any genre of music ever.

Taking rock music, for every Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd there would be a hundred shitty bands clogging up the music stores, and it kind of annoys me that people only think that this rule applies only to modern pop music.

Name one good current pop anything.

 

[Ham_authority95]

Snippy

I'm not a massive fan of pop music but I get the feeling that you don't listen to much pop music. There really are some gems amongst the crap, but then when has that not been the case for any genre of music ever.

Taking rock music, for every Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd there would be a hundred shitty bands clogging up the music stores, and it kind of annoys me that people only think that this rule applies only to modern pop music.

Name one good current pop anything.

Just to inform you, "good" is completely subject to taste, as BonsaiK would probably agree with.

So your idea of "Good" (probably guitar solos, crunching riffs, etc etc) is completely different from someone who just wants a catchy melody and beats to dance to.

 

[Shale_Dirk]

I do have an interest in posting in this thread...however my band's myspace currently has our early demo recordings, which we are in the process of re-recording professionally. Drums and bass are complete, but we're waiting for studio time for guitars and vox.

Seeing that it will likely be around a month for recording and mastering, I shall be back to post around that time.

 

[cocoadog]

Snippy

I'm not a massive fan of pop music but I get the feeling that you don't listen to much pop music. There really are some gems amongst the crap, but then when has that not been the case for any genre of music ever.

Taking rock music, for every Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd there would be a hundred shitty bands clogging up the music stores, and it kind of annoys me that people only think that this rule applies only to modern pop music.

Name one good current pop anything.

Just to inform you, "good" is completely subject to taste, as BonsaiK would probably agree with.

So your idea of "Good" (probably guitar solos, crunching riffs, etc etc) is completely different from someone who just wants a catchy melody and beats to dance to.

Yes I know that and I stated I have no problem with that stuff. Pop however does not fall anywhere into that category.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Here's an instrumental song from her new album where she shreds it up a bit:

.

That was frickin awesome. Made me smile.

And my goodness, Steve Vai just does not age, does he?

 

[BonsaiK]

Name one good current pop anything.

"Good" is 100% subjective. Nobody can look at any piece of music, anywhere, in any style, and say "that is objectively bad music". (That's right, even Stairway To Heaven ultimately gets off the hook.) The fact that something is "pop" (short for "popular" and let's not forget that) suggests that a lot of people may like it, and if a lot of people like something, well, there's a whole bunch of people who think that the music is "good" and therefore not "bad". People don't make a habit of buying music that they hate, strangely. Market research indicates that people buy the music that they enjoy.

Steve Vai just does not age, does he?

I suspect the involvement of the medical industry. Or perhaps he's just a really healthy, clean-living guy (wouldn't surprise me actually).

I do have an interest in posting in this thread...however my band's myspace currently has our early demo recordings, which we are in the process of re-recording professionally. Drums and bass are complete, but we're waiting for studio time for guitars and vox.

Seeing that it will likely be around a month for recording and mastering, I shall be back to post around that time.

Mastering for a demo recording is overkill if you ask me. But yeah, whenever you're ready, this thread is ready.