Song reviews are ways to get others critique the song for improvements. Songwriters are afraid of this, they always like their songs to get praised. It is not actually the reality, in fact the only way to improve a song is to get song reviews. But most of the songwriters think that anyone can review the song, so they asked helped from their sister, girlfriend, boyfriend or other close relatives to review the song. This is not advisable because by psychology they will not tell the truth. A dishonest song review is good as nothing. Songwriters need to hear detailed and honest reviews from anonymous persons or music professionals.
Song is a product of the songwriter, just like any products being commercially released in the market such as a “CD Single” where it features a single song. It needs to be thoroughly reviewed before it will be released.All products needs a review to be accepted or to improve further. The review will reveal the weakness and strengths of any product, this includes songs.
Assessing the potential of the song is extremely important thing to do. Big music publishing companies rely on critiques and assessments of the songs to decide which songs to pitch to the recording labels or other music consumers. There are several ways to do this:
a. A Paid Song Review service.
b. A Free Song Assessment service.
We lived in a world of business so do not expect always that everything is free, in fact these review services could be very valuable to any songwriter. Below are what I found in the internet to offer Paid and Free Song Review Services, I will comment based on my knowledge on those services. Take note, I am not promoting or endorsing these services but just gives you an honest idea of what to expect by availing this free and paid services.
Paid Song Review Service:
a. Taxi – The most popular of all is Taxi. What you can get with Taxi is that when you sign up as a member at a cost of $299.95 for one year, is a free song critique. You can only received these useful song comments when you submit songs for their music industry listings. These song critiques will be very useful to improve the songs. Take note you are hearing constructive comments from professionals. I am not still a Taxi member as of this moment. But I am planning to be, it is expensive for me at this moment. So far as I have read in music forums, I hear both positive and negative comments about Taxi. It is natural that every music establishments cannot be perfect nor we can expect everybody to praise. There are several success stories I heard about Taxi after submitting songs in their listing and receiving song critiques. This is a good sign that you can get something from their service. And if you need professional comments or song reviews, this is good if you have the bucks.Read for more information regarding Taxi Song Critiques.
Free Song Review Service:
I know two free song review services and they are very useful. Keep in mind that in a free song review services the principle of “give” and “take” applies. This means that in order for you to received song reviews, credits or some trust in the service, you must review other songs as well. In this way you are not only there to get help but to offer also constructive/positive comments on other songwriter songs. It is a fact that if you are not the songwriter of the song, you can critique the song very well. The reason is that you put yourself in a shoes of a listener or ordinary music consumers. This enable any person who loves music to critique the song honestly. Any wise songwriter can use this valuable inputs to improve songs. Personally, I really love receiving and doing song reviews. As a songwriter, I love to hear what others say about my song in an honest way. At the same time as a recording producer, I can get feed backs to how others view my recordings. I need to know if it sounds professional or not. Therefore receiving reviews is very useful to any serious musician. The two below are the ones I currently used and again I am not endorsing any services here.
a. Songwriter Forum Community Message Board – This is a nice place for songwriters and it is free. All you need to do is to register yourself in the forums and you can ask for a review under “Reviews & Recommendations” section. But do not ask always for reviews, there are also other songwriters in need of reviews so listen to their tracks and offer some useful comments also. They will be very glad and thankful for your review. Just read the forum guidelines first before continuing further. The great thing about this forum is that unlike in Taxi, you can discuss the comments and reviews along with the other song reviewers/other songwriters. In this way, you can ask for a more detailed reasons why he/she made such point which help you understand better the information contained in the reviews.
b. www.broadjam.com song review service – This is the place that I started doing music seriously. It was 2004 and I do not know about song reviews very well and my songs sound pretty crap until I met Broadjam. The good thing with Broadjam is a wide community of artist, musicians, producers and any other music industry professionals all packed in one big site ready to help you. If you need more services from Broadjam, you can sign up with fee, the cost is reasonable but I am just a mini-mob member (free version) and planning to upgrade soon! I am already a fan of Broadjam for 4 years and I believe they have great services for any aspiring artist/songwriter. To receive song reviews, is to review other songs first. Read their review guidelines and I am hoping things are still the same and they won’t be switching to paid song reviews or else a lot of starter songwriters/musicians will be affected. Before you can review songs, you can sign up as an Artist, upload a maximum of 3 songs and start listening/ reviewing other artist songs. Their chart is powered by song reviews and rating system is quantitative/detailed which is good if you need to evaluate the full potential of your song.