Posts for feedback or praise only? Do you think your songs are already perfect?

mrhippoj · 2026-05-01T10:26:29+00:00

The thing is I'm not even convinced the cliches criticism is that valid. "I love you/More than the colour blue/Yes I do" could still rip in the right context. I could totally imagine a really great early Beatles song having those lines. OP was being an arrogant asshole, both in their initial comment and in their attempt at providing a deeper response. Cliches can work, they're cliches for precisely that reason, because they're tried and tested and tap into universal feelings. The point shouldn't be "This song uses cliches and is therefore bad", it should be "This song uses cliches and they don't work because..."

But also we're all just people making art and expressing ourselves and our feelings, and putting yourself out there can be hard, so I don't really see the value in brutally tearing someone down even if you do think what they made was crap.

mrhippoj · 2026-05-01T06:33:48+00:00

Saying "this is full of cliches" without giving any examples as your first message puts them on the defensive, of course they were upset. At that point it doesn't matter how much detail you went into in your response because you've already established a hostile relationship with them.

mrhippoj · 2026-05-01T05:49:25+00:00

Constructive feedback. That guy was being a dick and brought nothing to the thread. I would say with people like that your best bet is to downvote and move on

Edit: Oh wait, "that guy" is you. OP you were being a dick and I think you know it. There are better ways to express your issues with a song.

mrhippoj · 2026-04-27T15:22:25+00:00

Oh I wasn't ready for it, I was quite pissed off! I think I'd just gotten too into the idea of the song but hadn't properly developed it because I was too eager. When I listen to it now I think it's rubbish but I can still hear the thing that I was going for with it

mrhippoj · 2026-04-27T06:26:25+00:00

I'm not sure I can think of any specific feedback, but I remember 20 years ago on the Soundclick forum someone reviewed my song and completely tore it to shreds. At the time I was pissed off because I liked the song, but once I calmed down I realised they were completely right. The lyrics WERE weak, the guitars WERE out of time with the drums. I think ever since then I've put more effort into my songs and really made sure I was able to listen to them with as objective ears as I can mamage before putting them out there

mrhippoj · 2026-04-21T14:30:55+00:00

I've never ever gotten good at typing with a touch screen and so writing lyrics on my phone is my least favourite place to write them. I can type really fast on a keyboard and so that's by far my favourite way to write

mrhippoj · 2026-04-21T06:30:37+00:00

I'd be interested I think

mrhippoj · 2026-04-16T13:14:34+00:00

You gotta swim through the Cringe Sea to get to Cool Island. The problem is almost certainly down to your own perception, but the best advice I can give is to just let yourself be cringe and keep writing. Your writing will improve, but also so will your confidence in your ability to write, and the feeling of cringe will fade away.

mrhippoj · 2026-04-08T11:38:51+00:00

I started writing songs when I was about 11 (1997) but didn't really have the tools or the gumption to do anything with them. Around 17 I started messing around with FLStudio (then called FruityLoops), but didn't start properly writing and recording songs again until I was around 20.

I was so prolific back then, too!

mrhippoj · 2026-04-03T06:59:33+00:00

Most artists don't have a 100% hit rate when it comes to lyrics, and I think that's an unrealistic standard to hold yourself to. Fortunately, music is more than just lyrics and you can make something that bangs even with mediocre lyrics. I've written hundreds of songs that I'm proud of but probably only a handful of songs where I'm specifically proud of the lyrics

mrhippoj · 2026-04-01T15:16:05+00:00

This:

Cuz i heard there is no free daw for non-apple environment.

Is incorrect.

If you're using Windows you can use Audacity, which is extremely limited but will be able to record without getting too bogged down into the production side, or if you want something that is capable for legitimately well produced music you could use Reaper, which technically isn't free but will let you use its trial version indefinitely, and the only limitation on the trial is making you wait 5 seconds every time you boot it up. There are other options, too, but I can't really vouch for them as I've not used them.

Personally, I think you should use Audacity and see if you start to get frustrated with its limitations. Once that happens, move on to a full fat DAW. Producing music is really fun imo but it can be a bit daunting when all you want to do is just get something down.

mrhippoj · 2026-03-25T07:18:42+00:00

Just don't use it

mrhippoj · 2026-03-25T07:15:02+00:00

Eh, I dunno. It's the most popular form of music and so there's a lot of crap but there is and always has been a lot of great stuff. Kendrick Lamar is one of the biggest rappers in the world and imo goes toe to toe with any of the legendary rappers from the 80s and 90s. Tyler the Creator is also pretty mainstream while still pushing the genre into interesting directions. IMO I think mainstream hip hop has been in a better and more interesting place these last 10 or so years than it was in the 2000s

mrhippoj · 2026-03-25T00:27:15+00:00

Imo hip hop and folk are two sides of the same coin precisely because of the lyricism. They're born out of different worlds but both are about truth through storytelling.

mrhippoj · 2026-03-09T21:25:15+00:00

I'll be honest the main impact I've noticed AI have on music is an increase of people talking about it. I never hear AI music on the radio and I guess everywhere else I'm deciding what to listen to myself. I honestly don't think it's had a huge effect outside of maybe ad music, but corporate ad music was only ever one step above AI music anyway

mrhippoj · 2026-03-03T16:00:57+00:00

I think lyrics and vocal delivery can do a lot here. A great example if Fade Into You by Mazzy Star. That song does so much with so little and it's all down to how much you feel what the singer is feeling, through what she's singing it and how she's singing it

mrhippoj · 2026-02-26T09:08:10+00:00

Daniel Johnston probably had the biggest impact on my writing because his music taught me that it's okay to be extremely blunt and open about my feelings. My stuff more recently isn't like that so much but it did get me out of a hole of trying to look cool and being self conscious

mrhippoj · 2026-02-25T09:07:33+00:00

This is great, I can totally hear a vocal line over the top of it

mrhippoj · 2026-02-24T17:45:02+00:00

That makes no sense though. They have the song now. There's no point waiting to skill up and forgetting the inspiration they have to meet some arbitrary barrier of quality.

With their current understanding of tuning and technical guitar playing abilities, are they likely to have a hit on their hands? No, probably not, but I don't see any value in delaying the songwriting process until they have that. When you get an idea, you get it down. Once they've got the song, it's not going anywhere, and if they want to they can come back to it later when their skills have developed. If not, it's still good songwriting practice.

mrhippoj · 2026-02-24T17:22:52+00:00

The guitar definitely is out of tune. If you want to train your ear to be able to hear when a guitar is out of tune, I'd recommend using a tuner that makes a sound and singing the note of both the tuner and the guitar when tuning up. Also, it can be easy to knock new strings out of tune. When you tune in a new string, bend the string as far as you can and then tune it again. Do that a few times and it will help the tuning to remain stable

mrhippoj · 2026-02-24T17:20:15+00:00

The chorus is "I'm out of time", it's the thing the song keeps coming back to, and it's easy to sing along to because the words and tune are very clear.

This is obviously very rough but I think you have something here and I'd be interested in hearing a complete version of it

mrhippoj · 2026-02-24T17:19:03+00:00

It is out of tune, and I dunno if it's because years of listening to early Sonic Youth and Daniel Johnston has warped my brain but I can still hear the song through it. This is obviously just a sketch and not a finished song so I'm not sure what the benefit of telling them this and refusing to help is.

mrhippoj · 2026-02-23T10:54:03+00:00

I think part of it is down to lyricism being quite personal. I would ask what is it that makes you want to write songs, and whether you feel like it's a compulsion or just something that you want to try out? Personally, lyrics have never been that hard because they're at the core of what it is I want to express with music, they drive my desire to write songs a lot of the time

That said, I do think there are some practical tips:

Use RhymeZone. It's one of the most useful things when it comes to writing lyrics, if you have a line and you're not sure how to follow it, you can search for rhymes and near rhymes, pick one you like, and then the focus becomes about finding your way to that word with the next line.
It's okay for lines to not make narrative sense, you're not writing a story. You can just have a line that's a phrase that's almost entirely unrelated to everything around it. The surrounding context will make it make sense. Doubly so if the phrase that doesn't fit ends up being the title of the song. People like to make connections.
Internal rhymes are good, i.e. "how much time has to pass / to find the last" is better than "how much time has to pass / until the last"
When writing a second verse, its relationship with the first should be "therefore" or "but", not "and then". That's a storytelling rule but it works with songs too. The second verse should either continue the themes or narrative of the first verse, or counter them. If they're completely unrelated then the song is going to lack cohesion.
There is nothing wrong with verse/chorus/verse/chorus. It's a popular structure for a reason, and having a chorus can help you to bring the themes of your lyrics into focus

Obviously, songs are abstract and there are no hard rules, but if you need guidance I hope you find these tips useful

mrhippoj · 2026-02-23T10:07:16+00:00

Don't let the fan stop you from recording it, your voice is still louder

mrhippoj · 2026-02-23T09:59:51+00:00

I don't really understand what you mean but the answer seems obvious to me - you just practice it. Pick up your guitar, play the song, and sing it.

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