4 replies to this topic

[markerrj]

Hi everyone -- this is my first song post to songstuff, so I hope you like it.

http://writersofsong...0/31/broken-up/

Broken Up is a rock/reggae song that my co-writer Michael and I have been working on off-and-on for a while. All critiques (both positive and negative) are very welcome.

Thanks for listening,
Mark

[androidlove]

Well, I like the set up. However, I think most of us know reasons birds sing and how plants grow. It's also pretty easy to Google these questions. Perhaps deeper mysteries are needed? It feels like a combo of 70's easy listening, 70's rock, and reggae. I appreciate your ability to invoke the 70's. The mix and playing are great, and your voice is pleasant. I understand this song may be a bit of a joke.

Edited by androidlove, 09 November 2009 - 04:09 AM.

[markerrj]

The song wasn't really meant as a joke, but we definitely weren't shooting for deep, meaningful lyrics. If you think the simple lyrics are distracting from the music/melody, maybe we should change them to be a bit more serious, as you suggest...

Thanks for the review -- Mark

androidlove, on 09 November 2009 - 04:08 AM, said:

Well, I like the set up. However, I think most of us know reasons birds sing and how plants grow. It's also pretty easy to Google these questions. Perhaps deeper mysteries are needed? It feels like a combo of 70's easy listening, 70's rock, and reggae. I appreciate your ability to invoke the 70's. The mix and playing are great, and your voice is pleasant. I understand this song may be a bit of a joke.

[tunesmithth]

Nice job....I actually thought the song was pretty cool! You really didn't give much guidance about what aspects of this you'd like critiqued, so I'll just give some random thoughts....

- as a general rule, it's really helpful to the reviewers if you post the lyrics up with the song link

- It really didn't seem like the imagery presented by the first 2 lines of lyrics were a good fit for the musical feel of the song. Birds & plants brought things to mind for me that didn't set me up very well for where you took the rest of the song. Those 2 lines come off a little weak, a little too popish and they are the first 2 things sung to the listener.....you know what they say about 1rst impressions

- I'm not sure how well the non-ryhme at the end of the last line of that verse worked....it sounded a little akward. If you decide to rewrite thoses first lines, it might be good to give some thought to meshing them somehow better with the final one.

- I thought the song was a cool mixing of styles. The verses come off kind of grungy-pop & the choruses reggae....I thought keeping the bridge reggae was a good choice, loved the harmony lead sections....very nicely done. This player format doesn't give the listener a way to fast forward or rewind, so I'm not possitive, but I thought you changed the format of the 3rd verse to reggae also? If I'm remembering right, I thought that worked well also. Up to the point of that first lead, that verse-to-chorus format shifts twice on the listener....after that lead I liked the style maintaining a more consistant feel throught to the end....another good choice!

Overall I thought it was interesting & well done.....nice job guys! Welcome to the site!

[markerrj]

Thanks for the thorough review, Tom!

In the future we'll be sure to post lyrics and specify the type of review we'd like, as you suggest. And I already had an email discussion with Michael about your critique, and I think we're becoming convinced that we may need to re-write at least the 1st verse's lyrics.

One note about the wordpress audio player -- you should be able to click inside of the song progress bar to move to a different part of the song. Not as intuitive as forward/rewind, but it does the trick, at least in my browser...

Anyway, thanks again for the feedback. This was exactly the kind of critique we were trying to find.