Great Escape reviews - Part 1

Here are some of the reviews that I've received on GarageBand.com for my song The Great Escape, and my thoughts.

From Chicago, Illinois -

This has an interesting and unique feel to it. The percussion sounds good down the middle with the acoustic tracks panned around it. A couple minor performance flaws but well conceived and performed well overall. Shows some good musicianship and originality. I would have liked to hear more and see where else it could have gone.

Nice comments, and I feel encouraged by them. As far as where the song could have gone - it went were it went, and if it had gone anywhere else it would have not have been The Great Escape but a different song.

From Philadelphia, Pennsylvania -

OK it seems very strange to be rating this song in this genre when there is no lead vocal, and so much depends on that. I like the fact that you treat your guitars as lead instruments though, and I like how they work off each other. The bongos are sort of bothering me- they seem out of place or they are mixed too high. When it kicks in around 1:50 or so that is very cool. I have to say this sounds like a soundtrack more than a stand-alone song- a tune I could compare this to is Alice in Chains "whale & wasp"- which treats the guitars like you guys do- but check that tune out, because alot happens in a couple minutes.

I am glad that this reviewer picked up on how we used guitars as lead instruments - that was completely intentional and it is nice when listeners pick up on what we were trying to do with the song. I really like how the guitars play off each other as well; I am glad that this reviewer picked up on that.

From Dallas, Texas -

the intro is a bit weird. It sound like some of the sounds are meshing. Maybe try some compression on the bass. there are some nice melodies here. very somber.

The intro may sound weird because there is actually no intro. I did not write this song to any particular form; when I originally wrote it I couldn't think of an intro, so I asked myself why not write a song without an intro? Of all the songs I've written, this one in particular said to me that if I was going to experiment by writing a song without an intro, this was the song to try it on. The vocal version of this song also has no intro - the vocals come in immediately.

The Rolling Stones did a song called Ruby Tuesdays which also has no intro.

From New Haven, Connecticut -

I enjoyed this very much, the overall fell of the song is mellow and very earthy with a nice slight change in tempo at about 1;20 that works realy well. I really enjoyed the use of percussion as to drum set on this, it helps keep the fell real and not over stated. The guitar work was nice and consistent throughout and compliments the organ very nicely in the final 30 seconds of the song. Good mix, good production value and a good song, I can't find anything bad to say about this one.

I totally, totally like this review!