OURSTAGE.com Critiqued by Sole

I have evaluated ourstage.com and the judgement system and found flaws with it. THis isn't the first site for me to critique(ratemymusic.com was the first for me to critique) and it will not be the last. First off, I am going to list the genres in which you can compete in. Be careful though because there is music that doesn't fit into ALL of these genres. Hopefully you will stick to the guidelines, lest you be removed by force of will from the competitions!

You've selected: Electronic
Electronic music is a term that covers a wide range of electronic or electronic-influenced music. The term has been defined by some to mean modern electronic music that is not necessarily designed for the dance floor, but rather for home listening. Some of the archetypal electronic musicians include John Digweed, Orbital, The Chemical

You've selected: Acoustic
The Acoustic channel is for music that solely uses acoustic instruments, such as the acoustic guitar, banjo, violin, piano, cello, voice, and others.

You've selected: Blues
Blues is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on the use of the blue notes and a repetitive pattern that most often follows a twelve-bar structure.

You've selected: Country / Americana
The Country/Americana channel is for the more traditional American styles of music, usually very centralized on a single or two guitars that are often acoustic, with a very strong emphasis on a vocal track with particular lyrical styling.

You've selected: Electronic
Electronic music is a term that covers a wide range of electronic or electronic-influenced music. The term has been defined by some to mean modern electronic music that is not necessarily designed for the dance floor, but rather for home listening. Some of the archetypal electronic musicians include John Digweed, Orbital, The Chemical

You've selected: Experimental
Experimental music is any music that challenges the commonly accepted notions of what music is. There is an overlap with avant-garde music.

You've selected: Hard Rock
The Hard Rock channel is for rock music that usually involves heavy use of electric guitars, drums, and bass guitar. Hard rock is often characterized to the sound of Alice in Chains, Led Zeppelin, or Pearl Jam.

You've selected: Hip-Hop
Hip-hop music consists of rhythmic lyrics and an instrumental track or beat, often performed with a DJ or drum samples.

You've selected: Alternative Hip-Hop
Alternative Hip-Hop is a sub-genre of Hip-Hop that frequently includes more of the laid-back, groovy, conscious and lyrical music in the genre. It also frequently draws from funk, jazz, and other genres of music.

You've selected: Club / Gangsta
Gangsta/Club is a style of Hip-Hop that became popular in the late 1980's and remains very popular today. Many of the long-standing important commercial artists in this genre are cited as being Ice-T, Snoop, and Dr Dre.

You've selected: Indie / Alternative
The Indie/Alternative channel is for modern rock songs that often do not have a consistent beat throughout the song and feature sound patterns that change over the course of the song and often diverge from the standard rock or pop music sounds. Some of the recent indie musical efforts that gathered national attention have been The Postal Service,

You've selected: Jazz
Jazz Music uses improvisation, blue notes, swing, call and response, polyrhythms, and syncopation, and blends African American musical styles with Western music technique and theory. Jazz music usually focuses on a full set of brass and wind instruments with one or two vocalists.

You've selected: Latin
Music featuring traditional Latin American instruments and rhythm. Often songs are in Spanish or Portuguese.

You've selected: Metal
Metal rock is a genre of rock with a thick sound from drums and guitars, fast paced guitar solos and heavily amplified. It is now characterized by heavy use of electric guitars, and electric bass with other accompanying instruments at times, with loud vocals that are often accompanied by crashing drums. Some famous metal bands include Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and Motley Crue.

You've selected: Pop
The Pop channel is for the mainstream popular styles of music, usually with a certain melody and a pattern of verse and chorus.

You've selected: Punk
Punk rock often features one or more electric guitars, an electric bass and drums with vocals. Vocals are often accompanied by a shouting vocalist that backs them. It has been described as very anti-establishment music and very rebellious to the normal characteristics of rock music and other genres. The term rises out of 70s bands like The Clash and The Ramones, or the Sex Pistols.

You've selected: R & B / Soul
Rhythm and Blues / Soul is a popular music genre combining jazz, gospel, and blues influences, first performed by African American artists. Some famous R&B musicians include Chuck Berry, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, and B.B. King.

You've selected: Reggae
Reggae music has a small dynamic range, is generally slow paced, and incorporates a lot of instruments generally only seen in reggae or music with a heavy reggae influence. Comes from the Caribbean islands and their immigrants mainly.

You've selected: Rock
The Rock channel is for music with a prominent vocal melody, usually accompanied by a guitar, drums, and bass. Many rock songs also involve pianos, synthesizers, or other instruments. Some of the mainstream bands that model the sound of rock music range from The Rolling Stones to The White Stripes.

You've selected: Solo Performance
Solo Performance is a channel for solo artists to show off their best pieces. All types of instrumentation are welcome here, but we strictly limit performances to a single instrument and vocalist. A song in this channel should be capable of being performed live by a single person.

You've selected: World
The World channel is for music that usually uses distinctive ethnic scales and usually non-Western styles in music, and is very frequently accompanied by classical ethnic instruments like steel drum, the sitar or the didgeridoo.

You've selected: College Clash
At least one band member MUST BE A FULL OR PART TIME STUDENT OF A NEW ENGLAND COLLEGE (a current college ID will be required to win). Up to 3 high-ranking performer(s) from this channel will be selected to perform in Boston, MA with the band Yo La Tengo (venue and date TBD).

You've selected: Plug Miami
Contestants must be residents of the southeastern region of the US (the states of Florida, Alabama, and Georgia). Track must fall into one of the following genres: rock, indie/alternative, hip-hop, electronic, punk, or Americana. One high-ranking artist will be eligible to perform at the PLUG Miami city highlights show in Miami Florida (venue and date TBD).

You've selected: Noise Pop 2008
The first-ever online competition for Noise Pop 2008 submissions! Music genres accepted: pop, rock, acoustic, electronic, and punk. All bands in these genres are invited to enter. The top 10 finalists from Oct, Nov, and Dec will be considered to 3 performance slots at Noise Pop 2008!

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Will somebody tell me where religious music would fit properly into what genre? There are more and I care not to fully discuss any genre flaws. Lord knows that I am not the best genre namer out there. But I will say that to live in a certain area and it be considered a 'genre' and not other more traditionally accepted genres not be considered within the 'guidelines' is "sacriligious" and don't mind the pun.

Onto the critique that IS this forum. Ourstage.com is a buddy judging system. There are more holes in it then swiss cheese. LET THE FANS DECIDE! is the motto. The incentive? Well, money and gifts. Lind of like mystery auctions on EBAY. The best song gets a few thousand dollars. It is yet to be determined what they think of as the best genre, but we will leave it up to them. The makers and creators. The other top winners of the other genres can go places and perform, or win the $100 reward. Will someone tell me which genre gets the few thousand dollars for a reward each month. I want to do that one. Also alot of the other top contestants get the StarBucks music program(never heard of it but it might be worth downloading it since they gave it to a slew of October winners! Might save the hassle of competing and win that hundred bucks because I chose the wrong genre on accident and missed the few thousand bucks I could have gotten choosing the right one!

The fans who decide are a great concept. But the buddy system has a play in this. YOu get to hear two songs and view the contestants cover art(which you MUST have or else your song wont count in ANY competition) for each song as well as the title of the song and the group doing it. You hear two songs and choose from slightly better or worse to more so and so on and so forth and whereever you place your dot determines how much better that song does in the competition. For example, if you choose WAY BETTER, then that song jumps way up the rank chart, and I believe the opposite is also true. Wow! This morning John Doe was in 2nd place. He comes home from work and all of a sudden he is in 160th place. Good job JOhn! Makes you want to do it again right? Not.
Worse still is if you are new to making music. Because people that know people determine the outcome, a more experienced musician has a MUCH better chance on the site then say, uum SOLE from maketunes. Are you kidding? The radio plays Joe Bob from Germany on the radio. A fan sees Joe Bob go up against Sole, and Joe Bob they know and love. Way better. For the artists that are in a established band. For that artist coming out with that next video from MTV. Good for them!
The nail in the coffin for me happened yesterday. SOnya called me in to her computer to check something out. I saw that the two songs competing were both mine. It was Sole versus Sole. My song "I'm A Freak" versus "Sole's Christmas Medley". I was dumbstruck. WTF?!!?!?!
Sonya went ahead and chose "I'm a freak" as being way better then "Sole's Christmas Medley". After judging it presented previous stats regarding the songs, and I quote, "About 49% of the people agreed with you" Do you see a problem with the judging system at ourstage.com as I do? Am I moving up or going down? WHY AM I not promoting myself? I thought that was supposed to be what we the artists needed. I did not put my songs on the site to compete against myself. This was a glitch in their far from perfected judging system. I have withdrawn all the songs but two at this point. I then sent them feedback stating that it was very messed up what my wife and I found out about the "judging" system. I still had Industrialization in under the Hard Rock genre, and another under R&B/SOUL. I had placed Industrialization under another genre on the last month's competition. However I wanted to place it under another genre and I chose Hard Rock. If you read above and the description of Hard Rock and what the genre entails then listen to the song you will see that what I have done is proper. There was an email waiting for me I open it, expecting them to address their flawed judging system with me. Boy was I in for a surprise. I have pasted the actual email in it's entirety below along with my response back to give you oh faithful reader the big critiqued picture!
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OurStage wrote:
Hi Jeremiah,
We have received several messages from OurStage Fans who say that your song 'Industrialization' doesn't belong where you put it in Hard Rock. We reviewed your song and our definition of the channel (posted in the FAQ on our site, http://www.ourstage.com/about/faqs), and we agree with them. As a result, we have removed your song from competition in the channel Hard Rock. You are welcome to find a more appropriate channel in which to enter it. Feel free to write us back if you have any questions or concerns. We hope to see you in the spotlight soon!

Brian

OurStage Support Staff
www.ourstage.com
Let the Fans Decide!

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That is fine. I am not going to compete again until your competition system is different. I gave feedback about the competitions yesterday in regards to what my wife showed me. YOu guys had one of my songs competing against another one of my songs. HMMMmm! Sole going against Sole. Now that isn't a very good promotional system. I bring myself up the ranks to bring myself down? So I was thinking that perhaps ourstage isn't the best place to compete. I have started my own competitions on maketunes and offer prizes myself. I thank you for the inspiration you have granted me in holding competitions, and how also not to do it. I also have watched the view count and understand that for all the monetary incentive, there are ALOT of artists but only so many judges. Judges shouldn't be based on fan counts but rather the music itself. Truthfully, ourstage doesn't cover enough genres out there and I plan on making a future of this. I thank you for the time I have shared with you and farewell.

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Let me reitinerate the genre specification of Hard Rock on ourstage.com:

You've selected: Hard Rock
The Hard Rock channel is for rock music that usually involves heavy use of electric guitars, drums, and bass guitar. Hard rock is often characterized to the sound of Alice in Chains, Led Zeppelin, or Pearl Jam.

Yup! Industrialization definitely has electric guitar in it, plus drums, and bass guitar. No problem. Got that covered. Why was I removed?

So at this point after sending the email right back at them, concerning an apparently NEW issue, I have withdrawn myself from all competitions current and will not compete on OURSTAGE anymore. I still will leave my songs up there and sell them if I can but I do not trust them and their decision making abilities. I also belive that my song fit under the genre description just fine. No I am not a full band with three other amigos, but I can fully still ascertain that I shouldn't have been forcefully removed from that competition. They should have addressed my feedback in this regard as well. They shouldn't be swayed by naysayers, but rather look at their own system and change it accordingly and knock out the dents. A true judgemental system in all fairness would be vocal productions on one side and instrumentals on another, for every genre conceivable sectioning off from that. Two songs go at it. The listener not being able to see who made the song, nor the name of the song to give it away. Best song moves on. Tournament style. Do not keep comparing two tracks over and over again. Only once per judge. Equal prizes for the top artist or group of each genre. Winners and ranking revealed at the end of the competition and not during it. Kind of like a blindfolded taste test. Judge the music for the music and not for the credentials of an artist or how many band members there are. Be articulate in the genre specifications. Clarify if computer generated music and sounds are allowed or not. Do not pull someone out based on what is being said by other competitors, but rather dispute the issue with the artist themselves if there is an issue. Be the middleman but don't take sides. That is rather unfair and leaves a bad taste in ones mouth.