JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum So Where Does Your Song Rank On Ourstage?

Steve,

I think that is the eventual goal of the site. It's just going to take some time to determine how to deal with people being dishonest. Someone will always look for the short cut to success, especially those short on talent and long on desperation. The good news is that clearly the system is working more often than not as you made the top 10 (and it was well deserved). I found 4 very strong songs in your category, 2 middling songs and 4 weak songs. I think as time progresses (and the quality of music uploaded improves) we'll find that the top 10 songs are all worth of attention and in those cases, it's hard to find fault with any song that would win. I think the 4 strongest songs in your category would all be respectable winners. And when there's something out there that is bringing attention to great music that otherwise might not get noticed, that is far more positive than the actions of a few cheaters. If all the artists involved encouraged their fans to vote, the results would balance out and even the cheaters eventually couldn't succeed because all the other fans who would be voting honestly would put them in their deserved spot.

We do our awards based on the idea that we're bringing attention and recognition to a lot of deserving songs. Do we make mistakes? Sure. But in the end, if our nominees are all songs that deserve attention, then we've won the war we're fighting. It's very difficult to get unbiased praise these days. Magazine reviews are fixed and fake, (like the famous review of the latest Black Crowes album done before the reviewer at a large magazine had even heard it), Radio play is still paid for in a variety of ways and TV is a whole other world filled with back door deals and favoritism and schemes. Our awards I think are the best and most honest attempt to recognize music for no gain to those doing the work. Ourstage, in the context of a company trying to eventually make a profit, is clearly doing the right thing to try and do the same work. (I think Pandora net radio also is trying to do the right thing by the way).

We need to keep the honest people involved long enough to overcome the actions by a few cheaters. It's rare to find a company so responsive to the comments and opinions of their users (try getting MySpace to change something.. ha!). Let's all work together to help them get it all right because if they succeed, we all win.

In the meantime, we still have a lot of JPF members in the running in a lot of categories.. let's hope the most deserving ones win!

Brian