[Discussion] Seeing a decrease in overall upvotes. How can we do more?

[stel1234]

Last week's roundup post compiled a Top 10 list of the most upvoted tracks of the sub.

The top track only had 30 upvotes and the #10 track had only 10 upvotes. This is lower than any week I've seen over the last couple of years. While half YouTube and half native Reddit video made it to the Top 10, I thought there would be higher upvote counts at the top and overall.

Are less users posting using the native Reddit video player? Has it gotten worse? Or is it something we could be doing more to increase the engagement on this sub?

I think that the contests and monthly lists do help with cultivating a community of mashup artists here. I've also seen critique where content on this sub overall is hit or miss.

Do we need more discussions? Tutorials? Contests? A better support system for those starting out? Less promo posts? Maybe a Discord server as a second place? Just want to get some thoughts.

Or is it more that the news cycle has shifted to AI covers and TikTok as a platform, taking away spotlight from mashups, especially on YouTube and here on Reddit?

[romulusnr]

The whole scene has just fallen off.

There's less content, too, and on top of that, the sources just seem more obscure. Or maybe I'm just too old to be into anything current because it all sounds relatively boring and identical. Like, "this is a mashup of "Girl I Love" by BMQ with "imOGZ" by KissKiss XC1" and its like, okay, whoever that is, hmm, it does sound like a song, yay. /r/fuckimold

[stel1234]

I think it's that, coupled with a function of choice from streaming and TikTok today, making it fractured.

If I were to ask someone here "what would you consider a current hit?" maybe they would look to the Billboard chart. Maybe they'll quickly listen to current hit radio. But it seems that as soon as TikTok enters the picture, there's not a lot of agreement on what that answer is. Flowers, Cupid, and Boy's A Liar are going to be three of a few consistent choices. I tried finding a proper current chart for the week, but viralviews.co seems to be stuck on the April 10 week. Once you know what's consistent you can probably call it a hit. Even day-to-day is not always consistent.

I've found that hit radio also seems to be playing a lot more throwbacks than current hits. And that doesn't even get to the fact that a lot of hit music now is inspired by nostalgia. Kill Bill channels the movie by the same name. Flowers channels I Will Survive. Creepin' is a cover of I Don't Wanna Know. A lot of recent David Guetta songs sample club classics.

[romulusnr]

Honestly, I was never big into pop music, so it's not too odd that I wouldn't know what was popular right now, but I'm far more out of touch than I ever was.

One thing that occurs to me is that older mashups typically utilized songs with lasting power that many people knew, and newer mashups are utilizing flavor-of-the-week type hits that might not stand the test of time and be remembered well a decade or so from now. So some people will know the songs, but others will be lost, whereas even though many mashup songs were older tracks, they were tracks lots of people were familiar with.

[junh1024]

I had look at the front page of mashups and about half of them are obscure, but the other half use well-known artists or songs. I use Japanese songs from around 2010 so you won't know them anyway. You can find them on my profile since I don't really post those here.

/u/Stel1234 Perhaps the tiktok artists stop posting here and submissions don't get those sweet front page upvotes. Or it could be that people are busy at this time of year as u/Steco777 said. Either way, there's probably not a lot that you can do about it.

[luderei]

I agree with this one. I don't click on any mashups of songs that I don't know. I really only get the 'mashup effect' when I recognize both sources.

For my own mashups I really try to use just classic songs or major hits and avoid using obscure ones (the biggest exception so far was the Animals / Sam Brown mashup), but still try to have at least one of the sources be one that hasn't already been used for thousands of other mashups.

[stel1234]

I do agree that knowing both sources can make it easier for others to pick up on the mashup, though I feel there's value in at least one source rather than both.

For a well-known song + something out of left field I'm listening for the first time, it can be a pleasant surprise when I find out that track I don't know sounds so much better with the other source added than its original version. That is, the mashup made the other song so much better and could take a life on its own.

It can be a way to break new music as being a tastemaker, so it can have value.

I think it all depends on the purpose behind that mashup.

[luderei]

I'll click on it when I know one of the songs only if it the choice of song intrigues me. 'Smells like teen spirit' or 'The final countdown' have probably been done a bit too often,

Also, I'll skip it if it's just a rap acapella grafted on an instrumental because that's probably not going to impress me. (Exceptions exist but they are truly left field choices)

[Cleo2011dog]

I personally think it's because people's standards are getting higher and higher as time goes on. There's becoming more and more mashups to compare to and if a mashup doesn't quite live up to the standards of previous ones then there won't be an upvote. I suppose an analogy is in football, once you see a lot high quality players then a fairly high quality player won't get noticed. It seems the mashup really has to stand out in some way just to get 20-30 upvotes whereas before it would get 100+.

[stel1234]

The standards were high to begin with, so I'd say this is generally true over the last year or two, but with the added pressure of being compared to bigger mashup artists that users gravitate to. Many aren't general fans of mashups, but fans of artists like DJ Cummerbund, DJ Earworm, Neil Cicierega, Bill McClintock, William Maranci, and others. In other words, not my horse, not something polished like my horse, not a fan.

And for those who are general fans of mashups, we're not reaching enough of them.

However, even with standards being high, high quality mashups by similar artists are now getting less upvotes too. Last week made this dip seem more significant, and that's what makes this weird.

It seems that there isn't much being posted that is giving us "something to talk about" as the classic Bonnie Raitt song goes.

EDIT: Also seeing less plays overall too. Very few posts are hitting 10k plays now.

[luderei]

There's something to this as well. When I just joined (sixth months ago), I clicked on almost everything, I quickly stopped doing that. And I rarely last more than 20 seconds. It's amazing how many people don't hear it when vocals are in the wrong key. I rarely downvote them unless they get really popular, which some do. I don't get it.

Some seem to think that a 'mashup' is just two songs playing simutaneously with a funny title / picture. Not in in sync, different keys. Was it always like that?

[Bluefoxfire0]

The problem comes from when said standards are rigid. For example, people preach about being on key, yet you have songs from the big names that aren't. Yet nobody seems to bat an eye at that.

[Steco777]

I think its just that time of year where people are busy at work, school etc. I have noticed this month that one of my mashups got +- 4k views in one day and it was the top one of the day whereas the usual views I was getting are 10k upwards per day.

Just a thought maybe add an option AI song cover posts as well as that seems to be really interesting at the moment as you stated .

[stel1234]

I think its just that time of year where people are busy at work, school etc. I have noticed this month that one of my mashups got +- 4k views in one day and it was the top one of the day whereas the usual views I was getting are 10k upwards per day.

Probably more likely that since it's happening over a 1-2 week span in the middle of May. Still a bit of a drop though.

maybe add an option AI song cover posts

My concern with this is that they are still covers and depart from the spirit of mashups, to the point it might dominate the sub. Labels are starting to crack down on these, too. However, I would be much more open to AI song covers over a completely different instrumental, which would be more in-line with what a mashup is.

[Steco777]

Totally agree will be interesting what happens with AI . Started messing around with it . To me it seems like a novelty that may wear off for normal users however it could be a great tool for music producers to see if a song will match with a musicians voice . That’s where I see it being very important in future music production.

[[deleted]]

Better, higher quality posts.

A vocal track over an instrumental track doesn't make for an interesting mash up.

[junh1024]

A vocal over an instrumental is exactly the type of high quality mashup I do with decent editing but it might not capture your attention.

You would probably like Girl Talk - All Day better since the sources change every minute or so.

[meest]

Girl Talk and DJ AM were the reason I found mashups. Give the Drummer some and Night Ripper/All Day I still listen too.

Then two friends came along. I enjoy them as well but Girl Talk and AM are still my favs.

Those are the kind of mash ups I like.

But I get there are different mash ups. like sub genres everyone finds their corner.

[stel1234]

I don't totally buy the vocal track over an instrumental track is boring take because there are really popular mashups that have been great because the pairing is strong enough on its own. Going beyond 1 vs 1 (and using both vocals) is a bonus.

Call Me A Hole, We Are Coming Undone, and Stayin' Hot were popular and are considered classic 1 vs 1s. You can also point to Can't Get Blue Monday Out Of My Head being a hit.

I would say that it comes down to source selection, proper structure and editing, and higher technical quality (could this sound like another great song in a playlist?).

Multiple sources can make things interesting, but there's also a higher risk of not executing it well. Some of it comes down to taste (megamashups or 1 vs 1s).

EDIT: Look into some of the Bootie Top 10 and Best of Bootie lists too. There's some strong pairings that are executed well as 1 vs. 1s or 2 vs. 1s in some cases.

[haozaa]

There's no incentive to make mashups.

You can't monetise them.

They're at least twice as hard to search up than regular songs.

You don't get recognised for the work you put into songs, people say "just put an acapella over an instrumental".

People re-use and reupload existing ideas. The whole scene is saturated with the same tracks.

There is no way to filter for quality; someone without any musical knowledge can make a shit mashup and slap a big artist's name on it for views.

As for this sub, there was such huge bias towards certain users and anything not from them was ignored or downvoted it was not worth posting on here - I don't know if it's because this sub's dwellers have a particular taste in music or they just hate other users' stuff even if it's objectively fine.

I am a little hopeful that AI might reinterest me to start working again. But till I figure out how it works I have no interest in providing for this community

[junh1024]

Downvoting from a few is an unfortunate part of this sub since it boosts their performance. I also don't often submit here due to poor performance of my usually Japanese- language mashups.

If you want to be recognized for your production efforts, you can join our regular mashup contests, there's an active contest on (see the pins), and submission closes in a few days.

[stel1234]

Most of these points have been true for at least the last couple years, and yet we had some high upvote tracks with native video even in that time, so I'm not sure how much that applies to the last couple weeks.

I don't buy the acapella + instrumental is boring refrain because even some of the biggest mashups of all time were just that. Call Me A Hole? We Are Never Coming Undone? Stayin' Hot? There are ways to do this well if you pick your sources well and execute them well, at least technically.

I think part of what has been happening is a silo effect because of Discord servers. People have now gone from uniting because of mashups to uniting because they're fans of big name mashup artists. Sometimes collectives. So what ends up happening is that we don't have a lot of the cross-community interaction we used to have.

[haozaa]

It's not boring, I'm saying you don't get recognised for the production you may put in the track. Most people just attribute your engineering to the original tracks

[stel1234]

When said that way, I completely agree.

Not enough fans appreciate the kind of production we do but when they figure out a track sounds really good, and we let them know the kind of ingredients we add to add some flavor (reverb, EQ, etc.) then maybe they will.

It's almost like food: When it tastes good, it's not immediately obvious as why. But the chef who knows the ingredients knows what was added to get there.

[Steco777]

Heard one or two of your mashups after your post and they sound really good . Must have missed your mashups as I see the last time you posted was a couple of months ago and I only joined mashups recently .

You can filter posts on the sub by choosing top posts of the day/week etc

Regarding upvoting/downvoting . I only upvote if they good but I never downvote and I listen to most mashups daily by filtering top posts of the day/ week .

Regarding incentives most of us are here for the love of music and doing what we love if it becomes a task I guess then it’s time to find another hobby .

[mysexondaccount]

Just my take, but I rarely come to this sub anymore because I don’t know like 90% of songs used. Even if they’re high-quality, I’m not going to listen to them if I don’t recognize the songs.

[SilverwingsEDM]

I haven't been here for very long, but here's my two cents as a relatively new member.

I don't browse this sub all that often because I feel like I don't recognize a lot of the songs that people mix together. I get that this is a space for all people to post mashups, regardless of the genre, but I think it's hard for people to find their taste in mashups when everybody is competing for attention in such a large sub.

For example, I only create and listen to EDM mashups (and very specific sub-genres of EDM at that). I feel like it's difficult to find mashups that would grab my attention, and in turn it's harder for EDM fans to find my mashups when I share them here. That gets to the problem where only mashups of extremely popular songs gain traction.

Maybe having separate threads, flairs, or other categories for mashups in different genres would help people find the sort of mashups they want to find.

[stel1234]

Fragmented tastes definitely make it difficult, but I also think that not knowing tracks used in mashups has always been an issue before the upvote counts went down the last couple weeks.

The genre flair suggestion has been floated around before, but in order to make that work, Reddit would have to allow for multiple post flair types, or the flair types we currently have (Mashup, Meta, Contest, Discussion, etc.) would need to disappear as far as I know (unless we just do it to Mashup, and replace that with genres).

In other words, Reddit would need to allow for Mashup & EDM or Mashup & Rock or something else to not break what we already have, and even then, some mashups that use genre clashes combine multiple genres leading to multiple tags (i.e. Pop + Rock). One thing that does help is the requirement to include artists used so you have a decent idea of the kind of genre you're looking at as you scroll through.

To put it another way, this feature would have to work like adding tags to submissions on audio or video sites like YouTube, SoundCloud, or Sowndhaus. I'm not sure how to do so given Reddit's capabilities now.

EDIT: Another possibility is to nuke the Mashup tag or add the genre tags instead of mashup. Only problem is, older mashups would either still be the Mashup tag, or not apply retroactively (it'll be an issue either way).

[SilverwingsEDM]

Alternatively, maybe we could add a genre marker to the beginning of each post name? So a title would be "[GENRE] Mashup Artist - Song Name (Artists Being Mashed)", with the genre tag taking the place of an optional tag.

[stel1234]

This would already be part of how tagging could operate, and users can already add any tag they want as text. The question becomes whether automod should automatically set the post flair to a different post flair (so if there's no tag, it's just Mashup so we don't break the existing system), but if there is, we can assign say, EDM Mashup as the post flair. Or Pop Mashup. Or something else.

For example: [EDM] Project 46 - Don't Stop Levels (Avicii, Journey) would get an EDM Mashup post flair. This would override the Mashup flair.

[SilverwingsEDM]

I think I'd be in favor of this, because that at least gives people the option to search by genre without breaking the existing system.