I try to listen to everybody at least once, when I can find the time. If I hear one song that impresses me, I'll listen to more, and maybe put them on my buddy list so I don't miss a new song. I only comment when one of three things is true:
1. They rock! And I want to find out if they have a commercial CD so I can buy it.
2. They are an asshole with an overactive fantasy life, who believe they are waay better than all those superstars, just because it's fun to yank their chain.
3. I actually have something in the way of a useful suggestion that might help the person out. I think I'm a pretty good songwriter, a mediocre musician (not a bad one, just mediocre), and a really cruddy mixing engineer. So I will decide what I think about a mix, and then follow the comments of good mixing people to see if I am hearing what they are hearing.
Of course I have pet peeves.- Singing lots of words that don't tell me anything. Songs that lack dynamics. No bridges, no chorus, no volume changes, no tempo changes, no key changes, just yada yada yada. If I want to hear that, I'll turn on the radio. And of course, samples of any kind always turn me off. I pretty much have no use for synths, loops, or techno. If I don't detect humans playing music, I'm gone.
I can't see any point in trashing a person's song, no matter how much it sucks, unless they are a cocky asshole who's asking for it.
If I can't find something good to say, I usually say nothing. More often I say nothing because I don't have something useful to say.
Regarding SPAM, I consider myself a productive member of an extended family here, and like my relatives, I don't love them all. Yeah, if some shredder with a couple of posts is just here to sell a product, I'll probably ignore him, unless I listen to one cut and he really does rock. And I will listen to that one song, because you never know. As far as the regulars, I would probably buy a commercial release from most of them, just to support people with the get-down stubborn streak it takes to home track a commercial release.
In that sense, I'm one of those people. I came here to get help gaining the knowledge to do just that, and what I learn, I share with others, when I'm confident that I really know it. Yeah, if Mustafa Salaam released a CD of belly dancer music and terrorist rap, I would probably buy it, what the hell? I just think it's a mistake to dismiss as a spammer anybody that is trying to promote a commercial release. Frankly, it's the only way I can cut the losses on my toys. I think you make the call on a case by case basis. Is the guy a homec'er who's finally made a decent album, or just some dweeb that thinks this place is CD baby?-Richie
