Broadjam Pro Song Reviews

Broadjam Artist: Jaeme Worelds
Song: Whispered

Broadjam Pro Reviewer:
Roy Hamilton (Songwriter and Producer)

Pro General Comments: I want to first say congratulations on creating such an amazing song and getting it to completion! It definitely has a Top 40 feeling to it, someone like Kelly Clarkson, Demi Levato or Katy Perry (Among other artists) would love and sing a song like this. The opening line is great and the story flows nicely. If I could say one thing as a constructive critique, maybe there could be a little more space in between the chorus and 2nd verse and then another short 1 bar break before the song ends, Just to add a little room. I love the musical hooks that are happening with the guitar and the way the synths work together with the overall melody.

Quote From Pro: Jaeme Worelds has a bright future as a singer/songwriter! I want to first say congratulations on creating such an amazing song and getting it to completion! It definitely has a Top 40 feeling to it, someone like Kelly Clarkson, Demi Levato or Katy Perry (Among other artists) would love and sing a song like this. The opening line is great and the story flows nicely. If I could say one thing as a constructive critique, maybe there could be a little more space in between the chorus and 2nd verse and then another short 1 bar break before the song ends, Just to add a little room. I love the musical hooks that are happening with the guitar and the way the synths work together with the overall melody.

Broadjam Artist: J.J. McGuigan
Song: Home

Broadjam Pro Reviewer:
Brian Rasner (Music Supervisor)

Pro General Comments: Impressed how fast song drew me in so quickly. The song like the title and subject matter fittingly are straight to the point and not over saturated in a good way as not being too complicated to mask the artistic expression..the nice feeling and sentiments of song wanting to be home, away from the wondering, complications, uncertainty..seeing clearly that Home whether physical or otherwise is where he needs to be.Reminds me of J Mascis solo work but you might know him of Dinosaur Jr. Fame. Vocally have a lot of the same reflections and get into similar territory which is a compliment. Guitar solo too..he's well known for his prowess and lead guitar lines. Memorable and strikes right at the Heart.Sometimes you just want to hear a song that feels good, not too edgy, over run with heaviness and complexity, one that you can nod your head to with instant feeling..this song has accomplished it. I appreciate the fact that its memorable right off the bat with just a couple of listens because it taps into a place we all have been and felt in our lives. Lyrically you did this excellently. The guitar lines lead us there, all the while tugging on our heart strings. Vocally its an emotional roll down your window while driving pondering landscapes or city lights it doesn't matter its universal, and I think that's something everyone can hear and appreciate The only thing I would love to hear is if you added or even replaced the guitar solo with that of a pedal steel or even a slide..To me this would do a lot and the subltly tug a little deeper when your vocals aren't there to guide. Overall great work and I will look forward to hearing more from you J.J.!

Quote From Pro: 'Home' a song that speaks to the universal desire in us all who have lost our way and feel that craving deep down inside of us wanting more, rushing out us as fast as our Hearts can beat, this is you're theme song. Roll down your windows and head for Home

Broadjam Artist: J.J. McGuigan
Song: Home

Broadjam Pro Reviewer:
Brian Rasner (Music Supervisor)

Pro General Comments: Impressed how fast song drew me in so quickly. The song like the title and subject matter fittingly are straight to the point and not over saturated in a good way as not being too complicated to mask the artistic expression..the nice feeling and sentiments of song wanting to be home, away from the wondering, complications, uncertainty..seeing clearly that Home whether physical or otherwise is where he needs to be.Reminds me of J Mascis solo work but you might know him of Dinosaur Jr. Fame. Vocally have a lot of the same reflections and get into similar territory which is a compliment. Guitar solo too..he's well known for his prowess and lead guitar lines. Memorable and strikes right at the Heart.Sometimes you just want to hear a song that feels good, not too edgy, over run with heaviness and complexity, one that you can nod your head to with instant feeling..this song has accomplished it. I appreciate the fact that its memorable right off the bat with just a couple of listens because it taps into a place we all have been and felt in our lives. Lyrically you did this excellently. The guitar lines lead us there, all the while tugging on our heart strings. Vocally its an emotional roll down your window while driving pondering landscapes or city lights it doesn't matter its universal, and I think that's something everyone can hear and appreciate The only thing I would love to hear is if you added or even replaced the guitar solo with that of a pedal steel or even a slide..To me this would do a lot and the subltly tug a little deeper when your vocals aren't there to guide. Overall great work and I will look forward to hearing more from you J.J.!

Quote From Pro: 'Home' a song that speaks to the universal desire in us all who have lost our way and feel that craving deep down inside of us wanting more, rushing out us as fast as our Hearts can beat, this is you're theme song. Roll down your windows and head for Home

Broadjam Artist: Randall Rutledge
Song: Non Stop Flight

Broadjam Pro Reviewer:
Tirk Wilder (Songwriter, Performer)

Pro General Comments: Randall and Raymond,First, I want to apologize for the length of time it took me to get this review back to you. In my defense, I got back form a medical mission trip to central Guatemala on March 18th, and I myself was sick for a week after we landed. Then the family showed up for a weekend, and that shot everything too. Not an excuse. Just an explanation.Now to the song.Love the groove you have going on here. Top-notch studio musicians.I think the idea of the song is excellent, and very hooky.I think that you could successfully place this song with some production libraries and do some good with it. Just on the strength of the tracks.Everything I say here is only my opinion. All I would try to do is inspire you to greater heights.I believe there is room for a lot of improvement in this song, and I will give you my suggestions.But please keep in mind they are only SUGGESTIONS.There's an old catch phrase among commercial songwriters. It's become an indispensable arrow in the songwriter's quiver. I give it to you as it was given to me long ago. Made me re-write every song I had with it in mind."Less is MORE".Every syllable must count. If you can think of a way to squeeze the number of syllables down, the further down you get it the stronger it becomes.For instance:"We taxi down the runway hand in hand". There is no need to add the words "We taxi". It makes it sound cumbersome, as if you have to hurry the lyric to get them in. And you can drop a few syllables in the second part of the line, and have it look like THIS:"Down the runway, hand in hand, we take off on our own flight plan"...Much easier to sing, much more fluid on the ear.Every line has to SNAP with cleverness and be different than the lines before it and after it."As we take off on the go" is kinda meaningless here. For one thing, you've already used the phrase "take off" in the first line. I'm of the opinion that the only thing that should be allowed to repeat in the whole song is the HOOK. It makes the hook more POWERFUL.You could get crazy and say "Leave our baggage in the hold, turn off air traffic control". (You can use that, free of charge, if you want to.)Every line in this song needs to lose weight to gain power, if you know what I mean.And do your best, whatever you have to do, to make sure you have NO CLICHES in your lyric, unless you are presenting them in a fresh way. These are words or phrases that have been used so many times, they lose their meaning.For instance:"On the go", "Our love is true"."Well around the world many things I've seen but loving you I've earned my wings" is repeated three times, which is okay if it's the chorus, but it doesn't stand out as melodically different from the rest of the song. The most successful song form in the history of the recorded music charts is Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge Chorus. The chorus, in this form, should be completely different from the verses in melody and lyric. It's usually the only place where the hook is heard.I'm not really sure it matters in this song. It seems to have it's own form.But if that's the case, I would urge you to consider making every verse different, as in NO repetitions. If for no other reason, you are repeating the heck out of "Non-stop Flight, when I'm a-lovin' you", and everything else should be different, IMHO.Also, I would encourage you to try to make the verses a little less cumbersome in places. For instance:"We ignore radio frequency cause we're flying frequently" sounds a little tough to sing, and frequency and frequently are the same words, really. See if you can come up with something to beat that.Remember, you don't HAVE to have EVERY line be an airplane reference.If you give this song a re-write with these ideas in mind, I think you may end up with a stronger, more commercially viable piece of music.And I wish you the best of luck.

Quote From Pro: Randall Rutledge can take you around the world on a NON-STOP FLIGHT. Fun music, good times.

Broadjam Artist: Randall Rutledge
Song: Non Stop Flight

Broadjam Pro Reviewer:
Tirk Wilder (Songwriter, Performer)

Pro General Comments: Randall and Raymond,First, I want to apologize for the length of time it took me to get this review back to you. In my defense, I got back form a medical mission trip to central Guatemala on March 18th, and I myself was sick for a week after we landed. Then the family showed up for a weekend, and that shot everything too. Not an excuse. Just an explanation.Now to the song.Love the groove you have going on here. Top-notch studio musicians.I think the idea of the song is excellent, and very hooky.I think that you could successfully place this song with some production libraries and do some good with it. Just on the strength of the tracks.Everything I say here is only my opinion. All I would try to do is inspire you to greater heights.I believe there is room for a lot of improvement in this song, and I will give you my suggestions.But please keep in mind they are only SUGGESTIONS.There's an old catch phrase among commercial songwriters. It's become an indispensable arrow in the songwriter's quiver. I give it to you as it was given to me long ago. Made me re-write every song I had with it in mind."Less is MORE".Every syllable must count. If you can think of a way to squeeze the number of syllables down, the further down you get it the stronger it becomes.For instance:"We taxi down the runway hand in hand". There is no need to add the words "We taxi". It makes it sound cumbersome, as if you have to hurry the lyric to get them in. And you can drop a few syllables in the second part of the line, and have it look like THIS:"Down the runway, hand in hand, we take off on our own flight plan"...Much easier to sing, much more fluid on the ear.Every line has to SNAP with cleverness and be different than the lines before it and after it."As we take off on the go" is kinda meaningless here. For one thing, you've already used the phrase "take off" in the first line. I'm of the opinion that the only thing that should be allowed to repeat in the whole song is the HOOK. It makes the hook more POWERFUL.You could get crazy and say "Leave our baggage in the hold, turn off air traffic control". (You can use that, free of charge, if you want to.)Every line in this song needs to lose weight to gain power, if you know what I mean.And do your best, whatever you have to do, to make sure you have NO CLICHES in your lyric, unless you are presenting them in a fresh way. These are words or phrases that have been used so many times, they lose their meaning.For instance:"On the go", "Our love is true"."Well around the world many things I've seen but loving you I've earned my wings" is repeated three times, which is okay if it's the chorus, but it doesn't stand out as melodically different from the rest of the song. The most successful song form in the history of the recorded music charts is Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge Chorus. The chorus, in this form, should be completely different from the verses in melody and lyric. It's usually the only place where the hook is heard.I'm not really sure it matters in this song. It seems to have it's own form.But if that's the case, I would urge you to consider making every verse different, as in NO repetitions. If for no other reason, you are repeating the heck out of "Non-stop Flight, when I'm a-lovin' you", and everything else should be different, IMHO.Also, I would encourage you to try to make the verses a little less cumbersome in places. For instance:"We ignore radio frequency cause we're flying frequently" sounds a little tough to sing, and frequency and frequently are the same words, really. See if you can come up with something to beat that.Remember, you don't HAVE to have EVERY line be an airplane reference.If you give this song a re-write with these ideas in mind, I think you may end up with a stronger, more commercially viable piece of music.And I wish you the best of luck.

Quote From Pro: Randall Rutledge can take you around the world on a NON-STOP FLIGHT. Fun music, good times.

Broadjam Artist: RandomReality
Song: knock knock

Broadjam Pro Reviewer:
Doug Diamond (Music Supervisor, Engineer, Producer, Composer )

Pro General Comments: Hi Scooter -Wow, thanks for sending this song to me to review. I think it is really great! I'm a big 80's Rock fan anyway and this song is definitely something I would've been listening to or doing a cover of in my band back in the day.I like *almost* everything about it, from the rockin' chorus to the instrumentation and overall sound it has. My main tweak to this song would really only be to the lyrics. I think the chorus is fine as-is, but I would probably consider rewriting the verses... that's the key to a really great song - rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. I think the verses need some refinement to possibly make it a bit more of a story with a payoff at the end versus a more lustful type of simplistic thing. Those elements are fine, but I think if it was more of a story, it would appeal to a wider audience than it already does. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I think this song has real potential. You mentioned in your Story Behind the Song that you spent 30-sec. to make the words rhyme, etc. ....well, that part of it does sort of sound that way a little. Don't get me wrong, it's good, but it's not quite "great" yet. Take your time when writing songs. The chorus is GREAT and that's the best starting place to have. Maybe go back and really listen to some of Joan Jett's lyrics or someone else similar they seem really simple, but it's difficult to get them to be that way oftentimes.Excellent melody and performances, recording, etc.From a technical standpoint, I'd think about a remix. I'd bring the drums up in the mix and give them a more front-and-center position. The guitars and vocals and everything else is really fine to me, but the drums are too low in general. Also, have it professionally mastered as that will make a HUGE difference if it's done right.That's it really, otherwise, nice job!

Quote From Pro: "Knock Knock" is the hit song that Joan Jett & the Blackhearts never had! It's an excellent 80's sounding Rock song with great synch potential.

Broadjam Artist: RandomReality
Song: knock knock

Broadjam Pro Reviewer:
Doug Diamond (Music Supervisor, Engineer, Producer, Composer )

Pro General Comments: Hi Scooter -Wow, thanks for sending this song to me to review. I think it is really great! I'm a big 80's Rock fan anyway and this song is definitely something I would've been listening to or doing a cover of in my band back in the day.I like *almost* everything about it, from the rockin' chorus to the instrumentation and overall sound it has. My main tweak to this song would really only be to the lyrics. I think the chorus is fine as-is, but I would probably consider rewriting the verses... that's the key to a really great song - rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. I think the verses need some refinement to possibly make it a bit more of a story with a payoff at the end versus a more lustful type of simplistic thing. Those elements are fine, but I think if it was more of a story, it would appeal to a wider audience than it already does. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I think this song has real potential. You mentioned in your Story Behind the Song that you spent 30-sec. to make the words rhyme, etc. ....well, that part of it does sort of sound that way a little. Don't get me wrong, it's good, but it's not quite "great" yet. Take your time when writing songs. The chorus is GREAT and that's the best starting place to have. Maybe go back and really listen to some of Joan Jett's lyrics or someone else similar they seem really simple, but it's difficult to get them to be that way oftentimes.Excellent melody and performances, recording, etc.From a technical standpoint, I'd think about a remix. I'd bring the drums up in the mix and give them a more front-and-center position. The guitars and vocals and everything else is really fine to me, but the drums are too low in general. Also, have it professionally mastered as that will make a HUGE difference if it's done right.That's it really, otherwise, nice job!

Quote From Pro: "Knock Knock" is the hit song that Joan Jett & the Blackhearts never had! It's an excellent 80's sounding Rock song with great synch potential.

Broadjam Artist: J.J. McGuigan
Song: In All Honesty

Broadjam Pro Reviewer:
Robert Dellaposta (Writer, A&R, Publisher)

Pro General Comments: It's a little slow but the song is well within commercial radio time restraints...you could try a few more beats per minute but again that is subjective and would be subject to the scene narrative...it's a perfect length for a scene in a movie or tv show although it is lyric specific... very cool groove and arrangement...love the chord progression and melodic lines...the chorus works but I would have preferred more of a separation between the end of the verse and the start of the chorus...there wasn't much of a range difference or meter and phrase difference...great instrumental...professionally done...this is very pitchable on its own...the overall concept is common and there are no lyric lines that stand out as being unique...but that doesn't hurt your chances for movie or tv placement...the track sounds broadcast ready...good luck with this...as I said before the instrumental will be just as commercial as the master vocal...

Quote From Pro: Just my two cents but J.J. McGuigan is producing high quality instrumental beds and high quality masters that many music libraries and music placement services will be anxious to sign...

Broadjam Artist: J.J. McGuigan
Song: In All Honesty

Broadjam Pro Reviewer:
Robert Dellaposta (Writer, A&R, Publisher)

Pro General Comments: It's a little slow but the song is well within commercial radio time restraints...you could try a few more beats per minute but again that is subjective and would be subject to the scene narrative...it's a perfect length for a scene in a movie or tv show although it is lyric specific... very cool groove and arrangement...love the chord progression and melodic lines...the chorus works but I would have preferred more of a separation between the end of the verse and the start of the chorus...there wasn't much of a range difference or meter and phrase difference...great instrumental...professionally done...this is very pitchable on its own...the overall concept is common and there are no lyric lines that stand out as being unique...but that doesn't hurt your chances for movie or tv placement...the track sounds broadcast ready...good luck with this...as I said before the instrumental will be just as commercial as the master vocal...

Quote From Pro: Just my two cents but J.J. McGuigan is producing high quality instrumental beds and high quality masters that many music libraries and music placement services will be anxious to sign...

Broadjam Artist: J.J. McGuigan
Song: Home

Broadjam Pro Reviewer:
Robert Dellaposta (Writer, A&R, Publisher)

Pro General Comments: Lyrically this is well written and the message is clear...Home has been and continues to be a popular subject matter for artist/writers and Americana and country artists...Joe Diffie had a huge number 1 country hit with Home...It's a theme a lot of people will relate to...this particular subject matter although not all that radio friendly will be tv , movie and commercial friendly...you drew me in on the downbeat...great sounding band...very commercial and broadcast ready...your vocal was spot on...a 100% improvement in diction, and mix...I could hear every word and you sounded great...the hook was delivered in a strong melody...I really think home is where I wanna be is the title people will remember...This is an A+....the overall length is well within commercial guidelines and to be honest you sound like a 20 year old indie singer songwriter...I know a young singer by the name of Adam Searan here in Nashville and you sound a lot like him on this song...he's a great singer...you really delivered on this and you got your money's worth on the demo/master...pitch pitch pitch...I would offer you a non-exclusive contract on this song but I want you to pitch it and get 100% of any synch license...you are headed down the "write" road my friend...the instrumental to this song will also be a great pitch to movies, tv and commercial leads

Quote From Pro: J.J. McGuigan's music is extremely commercial and easy to listen to...his Americana indie alternative singer songwriter style crosses over to country and in my opinion will resonate with young and old alike...