Speaking as some one who has judged a LOT of contests, while we try NOT to let production influence the decision on song, when you listen to a LOT of songs, they all start running together. So the ones with better production will stand out more. But there is a bit of a trait you notice over and over on them. On the unproduced, work tape or guitar/piano vocal songs, you find them NOT as well written songs. The people who have the craft down and are serious about what they do, usually will have the more produced songs to compliment what they do. So you find those songs actually better written.
I've judged a lot of contests and can't remember a guitar/vocal song ever impressing me enough to pass it forward. They are usually not well written and not well represented,
Personally, if I was entering contests, and I have been in a few and won a few, I would never enter something that wasn't fully produced and well represented. Even if the prize was a professional demo. If I did that and won ,I would use the demo prize for another song.
But since most contests disqualify you if you have ever had a major cut or publishing deal, it probably doesn't matter either way. Just my opinion.
MAB
It's like going to a job interview in sweats and a stained T-Shirt. If you are serious about your music enough to enter a "contest" and pay money, your only chance is to be professional. Frankly there is not a single contest worth paying to enter in my opinion. Because even if you win, it means NOTHING. Sure, maybe you'll be the lottery winner that year, but for every winner, there is everyone else who are making the "contest" rich off of their futile effort. If an award is real, they don't ask you to PAY for it. I am not talking about buying a ticket to an awards show, they must cover the cost which can be huge if they put on a nice show, serve food/drinks etc. But paying to enter in hopes the people you paid will give you a nod for it is hollow. We ran our awards first just because we got all these CD's handed to us around the States and Countries we visited, so I thought, hey, some of this stuff is really good, let's bring some positive attention to it. The numbers were manageable so we did it for free, we had a free awards show the first year (like ALL our events) and everyone was a winner. We had one sponsor that paid for the Trophies (they cost us 6K+ each year) and on we went. As it grew to unimaginable numbers (42 times larger than the Grammy's last time around) we got a long list of corporate sponsors to pay the cost of the process and trophies and charged tickets to the show which was phenomenal which anyone who has been to one will tell you. We didn't gouge people like the Grammy's do ($600+ for a ticket? WHY? Only because they CAN). The rich people, ironically, get free tickets or get paid to attend, if not directly by the Grammy's then by sponsors and networks etc. (according to sources). The rank and file nominees (including many JPF members) pay full boat. They also pay to join their org. They also vote even though they don't have to listen to the music before doing so. So they do ALL the heavy lifting. We allow nominees to vote if they want to pitch in on other genres, but everyone must listen to the music for their vote to count (we monitor that sort of thing to catch cheaters or lazy judges). So our awards are on merit.
And what do these contests do? Well, some of the biggest name contests pay others to do the judging. They don't do it in house. It is outsourced. (No, I am not naming names or outing the people they hire. You can trust me or not). I happen to know most of the people they hire, and it's just another mundane chore they don't much care about. Sure, they try to pick stuff they like, but usually it is one person's opinion that decides it. Not really fair. Often the category winners are "adjusted" when the winners are announced (yup.. the people who screened it are overridden for no apparent reason) so some have speculated if it isn't all fixed. But once they have category winners, the grand prize is chosen within the company and so big cash paydays can go to whoever they feel like based on whatever criteria they want. Do you really trust that? At least you have something to think about before you enter a paid contest. When something is free, there is no agenda to fix a category or take a shortcut. In our case, the weakness of what we do is it takes a whole lot of time to ACTUALLY listen to the music, across many people (thousands in our case) and it takes us YEARS just to get it down to nominations and then like this year, it can be more than a year to hit the number of volunteer (versus paid) judges. So instead of doing it yearly (which would be impossible without more than 10-20K voters to be fair) we used to do it every 2 to 3 years. This process got fully underway in 2016 and here we are in 2019 still not finished. But we won't announce winners until all 70 album and 62 song genres are finished. A paid operation just pushes it all through on a mandatory schedule using paid judges usually outsourced (unless it is a tiny contest) and often the winners are chosen (or at least significantly narrowed down to nominations) by one person in a cubicle somewhere. Are there exceptions? Maybe. I am just unaware of who they are. Part of me hoped our free awards would put a dent into their operations and force them to get better at how they do things. But when you gotta make payroll, you minimize cost and maximize profits. So does any of this ring untrue?
You can't buy success. And you can't pay for legitimate praise. It is a lesson that most contests hope you never learn. Just like the lottery.
