Feedback wanted: Why does this song sell?

Maybe I need an outside perpesctive. I put out a CD where the firt disc is a bunch of demos (and made that clear), and one song in particular (Ghostider) sells an average of 3 downloads a month. Well, I certainly am not complaining!

But I do find it somewhat amusing/baffling, because here's what I hear

The production is...oh..there isn't any!

The acoustic guitar sounds very thin

The electric guitar...you'd never guess from this that a couple of studio engineers have asked for my help in recording distorted guitars! (Well, this track was recorded in '93)

The vocals are nowhere near what I'm capable of today.

I still like the way the drums sound

If you can't take much of the "awesome production values", I'll understand! Oh yeah, here's the link where you can hear the whole thing (but I don't actually expect you to listen to the whole thing.) Vocals start at 1:00 if you want to skip the intro. (unitentional Darth Vader impression around 5:52) Just curious as to what -if anything-might resonate with people. http://mp3.rhapsody.com/skovol-unit/chronology-of-chaos/ghost-rider

Not my style of music, but Ghostrider seems of a piece with the other songs I listened to. People are strange, as someone once said.

As for production, average listeners don't give a damn, generally.

I mean who knows why folks like what?!

We have this piece called "Mud" (on the myspace). There's just not much to it, but it's got some loyal fans that always message us or comment or put on their profiles or whatever whenever we put it up.

Why?

Dunno!

They're buying it to use as their own, in some form or another.

Is it in English? It has a european rock, or Scandinavian rock quality to it and those guys buy anything that rocks. I definitely like the guitars, but if I was to buy something I'd look to the vocals first, not the production or anything else, and as you say the vocals are weak. Oh wait, did you say that?

Not sure - maybe it's the cool name. Ghost Rider. I'd buy a song called Ghost Rider.

Yes, it's in English. And come to think of it, our myspace page does get the most of hits from Scandanavian countries, followed by European countries.

I actually said the vocals "are no where near what I'm capable of today", but I was implying that yes, I think the vocals are weak.

Are all your songs that long? Some people find long, meandering songs irresistible for reasons that I've never understood i.e., Grateful Dead, Opeth, etc. Also, there may be a (intentional?) cheese factor that people dig.

The average length of one of my songs is about 7 minutes. I've gotten better about reigning them in, but I still write lengthy ones. Another one that gets the most listens from that disc is "The Measure of a Man", which is about 11 minutes long:eek: with even worse sound quality (pretty good for a 4 track in the early 90's though).

I was going to say there was no intentional cheese factor, but, I was trying to write a heavy-metal western song...I guess that is pretty cheesy!

Well some real meandering songs have become cult favorites, sure.

In a gadda da vida, for instance.

We have an 8 min version of Apophis and an 8 min version of Fallen Star, kind of based on the same idea. The song becomes it's own movie, kind of, it's own story.

I agree with you, dude. Ghost Rider is pretty weak compared with the others, especially the opener. Maybe it's the horse whinnies during the intro...