thing I learned today

[rikibeth]

There are very few song-intro riffs interesting enough to make it worth waiting more than 30 seconds to get to the vocals.

This discovery brought to you by the need to free up some space on my hard drive. I spent the day going through my iTunes library and listening to all the songs by the artists whose names were unfamiliar (I have a lot of samplers in my collection). I got rid of about 1.5GB worth of songs that ranged from mediocre to sucktastic.

The pattern emerging in the songs I kept:

1. Intro riff I liked

2. Gets to the vocals in 20 seconds or less

3. The singer SINGS instead of screaming

and

4. The singer can CARRY A DAMN TUNE.

Now, most of the samplers I was vetting were alternative/punk or indie/pop. I didn't bother vetting the goth/industrial ones, because I tend to have broader tolerances in that genre, and I was also pretty sure I'd already deleted the songs I really didn't like off the samplers and compilations I do have.

Still. If you have a band?

GET TO THE VOCALS IN THE FIRST 30 SECONDS, or you've probably lost your audience.