NSAI ripped this song apart

I need some feedback on a song I wrote and submitted to NSAI for evaluation. Well I kinda offended the evaluator, its just a stupid song to make people laugh. Apparently he thought I was just trying to mock country songwriters and fans all together. He even went as far as to say that I am a horrid country music fan. Welp, anywho, I want your feedback.

The song is called "What's In Worse Shape."

http://www.purevolume.com/trevenkraus

thanks...don't hold back if you think it sucks let me know

-Treven

Lyrics would help the overall review...listening just now to the music I would say the guy was right. I couldn't understand anything except ...Give this bottle a whirl.

about the same for me

thanks for your input, I appreciate it

You might consider hiring a singer for your demos. While a song may be good, a bad vocal can ruin it and make it sound worse than it really is. Just a sad fact of life with the competitive nature of the market. That's why a decent singer can sell "She Loves My Tractor" while someone like a Bob Dylan would probably never get a foot in the door today commercially.

Well, you get points for using the phrase "I stood in my bed [and cried]" (at least I think that's what it was), echoing long ago sports writer Joe Jacobs who said, "I should of stood in bed," remarking on the foolishness of leaving a sickbed on the coldest day of the year to go to Detroit to watch his team lose a World Series game he'd bet heavily.

Anyhow...

A lyrics sheet would help sort out the words, to be sure. But I'll weigh in on the general sense of the song.

It feels like the chorus comes back around too many times. If you had a million dollar chorus, you could probably get away with it and the sense of repetition might be more an asset. It's hard to really peel apart the words but no real bons mots popped out, except for the title phrase, which is an OK starting point... but you don't seem to evolve that phrase into the kind of cleverness it suggests you were initially headed toward (unless I missed it).

Now, about the presentation. Sometimes one can get away with mixing a heavy effected vocal (language sticklers, I'm talking about the application of effects, not the action of affecting, OK, it's a neologism, if you will) with an acoustic guitar accompaniment and it might get an old Sun Records vibe. And sometimes it just sounds a little overblown. Combine the hard, bright echo/reverb with a very busy guitar part that seems to sort of gingerbread up the song (gingerbread being, in this sense, unnecessary ornamentation). The triplet descending figure particularly wears out its welcome. (And I noted a very similar figure in the very next song in your playlist, a sensitive fingerpicked instrumental. You might want to move them apart in the playlist, at the least.) Also, the little lead flourishes sound a bit jammed in and too slurred, I think they undercut the guitar part. But it's the busy-ness of the guitar part that makes it seem to step all over your own vocals. (I do the same thing in overdubs. Put an electric guitar in my hands and slap a pair of cans on the sides of my head and the first thing I seem to want to do is "augment" my vocal by playing right over it. )

Anyhow, I suspect a more relaxed version of this song might allow its charms to reach the listener a little more easily, not to mention making it a little more straightforward giving feedback on the songwriting itself.

I wouldn't feel discouraged by criticism... I'm not even sure what NSAI is, I'm not a joiner and acronyms seem to imply something to join; I suspect that "national" and "songwriting" or "songwriter" or some variation and probably an "association" and maybe an "international" might be in there... but that's all not-enough-coffee guesswork. Anyhow, wudda they know? Eh?

Anyhow, keeping writing is the key to moving forward.

PS... with all due respect to BlueStrat, I don't think you so much need to 'hire a vocalist' (who's got the money for that these days?) I think you just need to relax a little and sing in a nice, straightforward manner, without a bunch of FX. I wouldn't worry whether or not Bob Dylan could get a start today -- the music biz as we've known it is dead. Death simply hasn't reached the extremities yet; apparently, not unlike the proverbial fish, the music biz dies from the head -- and the heart -- down. The little hammer toes like Britney and Ashley or whoever may still be wiggling, but it's just a post mortem reaction.

(Anyhow, I feel confident that the young Dylan could, no question, get some attention these days; I just listened to his first album again for the first time in a couple of years; his voice is a good, strong folkie voice, nothing like the exaggerated Dyland-doing-Dylan of later years. The songs are, almost entirely, folk standards. His next album features his own work, which is a bit of a mix, but has some gems, and the next few albums were among the best of the folk rock era. Maybe a big record co like Columbia wouldn't pick him up and build him, but I suspect that, if he kept at it, his own, sometimes perverse charms would out.)

I thought the melody was not very inventive, and the vocal performance left a lot to be desired. The playing was rushed and sloppy. The production quality was very low.

I don't know what they were offended about, cause I couldn't understand the lyrics. But, I also don't know why you would pay to submit that for review.

Exactly. The song might be pretty decent. At the least it's a soundly structured country blues jig. Maybe more. It's hard to tell, though. Your singing ruins everything. It's distracting.

You sound like an accomplished guitarist. You might be styling your vocal delivery after the busy way you play. It doesn't work. The funny thing is your voice itself doesn't sound all that awful. It's the way you use it.

On a positive note, I'll say you clearly swing for the fences when you sing, which is commendable. But your delivery needs a lot of work. Start by toning it down. Maybe consider some voice lessons. It's sounds like someone taught you how to play some sweet guitar.

Pretty hard to listen to as-is.

Thank you all for your extensive input, this is definitely the first place I'm coming next time I need some feedback.

-Treven

www.purevolume.com/trevenkraus

"Well, you get points for using the phrase "I stood in my bed [and cried]" (at least I think that's what it was), echoing long ago sports writer Joe Jacobs who said, "I should of stood in bed,"

I stood TALL in bed, it didn't matter, she left anyway. Wait? Are we talking about the same thing?