Crazy Rant

Ok, I just had the (mis)fortune of reviewing two songs by the band 'Mirima' almost back-to-back. I panned both songs, not knowing they were by the very same band.

Now, I like to see how my reviews compare to what other people are saying about that song. Neither song had any reviews. In fact, as I write this, neither of the reviews I've done has appeared in their song page. It's usually instantaneous, but sometimes it takes a minute to appear.

Now, before I go any farther, let me tell you how the charts work on garageband. Your song starts at the bottom of the pile and it goes up depending on the reviews you get. Pretty simple.

Well, these two songs that hadn't gotten any reviews that I could see- except for the two bad ones that I'd written myself- were not at the bottom of the pile. One was decently up from the bottom and the other was ranked in the top 1/5th of songs in that genre. Well, that's not supposed to happen.

So, I wrote a 'hey, what's up with this?' type of message on the forum. 'It's a bug in the system, thanks for pointing it out' was the response I got. Fair enough.

Did that explain why the reviews hadn't appeared? No, but what the hell. I don't really care that much. Except... something was bugging me about the band.

Mirima already has management(WildWestManagement), if not a record deal. In fact, in the band member listing is Manager: John G. This is atypical of the bands I've seen on this site.

All of this led me to scratch my head and wonder why an already signed band is trying to compete on GB? Well, duh. Street cred, of course, and marketing. And at 19.99 for an upload credit, the four songs Mirima has up are a real bargain. I can't imagine 80 bucks amounts to anything in music marketing. John G got himself a great deal.

Now, you can also do a bunch of reviews in order to upload a song instead of paying, so how do I know that Mr. G payed. Well, you can click on the names of the band members(if they have their own accounts) and see how many reviews they've done. Well, the only clickable name on the list was Manager: John G. And how many reviews had he done? 0. Nada.

Well, who is John G? John Giacobbi is the director of Websheriff and it's parent company ELA. ELA means Entertainment Law Associates, btw. WildWestManagement is another subsidiary of ELA.

Which means, to my cynical ear, that Mr. G's assistant made a mistake including his name in the list of band members. Makes it a little to easy to see the corporate gears in motion. There goes your street cred for anyone who cares to spend a few minutes looking. Which, granted, only a lunatic like me would bother with.

Still got the marketing, though. I spent enough time to write two reviews for him and his band. That really pisses me off. I don't mind listening to crappy music and writing reviews because I know that other people feel the same way about my music, but I really hate being swept along in someone's marketing scheme. John G just made me his bitch and I didn't even know it.

Now, the fact that this band's songs started off a little higher than everyone elses looks a little suspicious. The fact that my scathing reviews haven't yet shown up under their song feels a little suspicious, and 'oh, it's a bug in the system' sounds like... bullshit.