I have found a multitude of problems with the way OurStage runs its “contests.” I put it in quotes because it is hard to know where to start with the statistical flaws and bizarre procedures that typify this company. It is definitely not run by anyone with any training in statistics. First, let’s start with the whole re-entering song thing. I have never, never heard of an entry-based competition where the winning piece is allowed to be entered again. This goes for design competitions, writing, and every song writing competition. It just doesn’t happen. You don’t win a National Book Award over and over for the same book. You don’t win the Nobel prize again for the same thing every year. If you win, you are done. That is how it is. So, for me, any winning song, spoken word, guitar solo or whatever should not be allowed to enter again. Ever. Personally I can’t understand what the artist gets out of it. What’s the big deal about doing the same thing all over again? Did Ernest Hemmingway write The Old Man and the Sea, win countless awards, and start typing the same book all over again? Uhh, no. I find it really disturbing that someone would re-enter his song after winning the whole channel.

The only thing I can figure is that they want to run it like the old top 40 radio stations. In that model, of course, the songs would stay on the chart for as long as they could. I think Dark Side of the Moon was on the Billboard 100 for a decade or so. This, however, is not how they do it. Songs basically start from scratch every 30 days. I’ve decided to do some testing. Up until now, I always pulled my songs after a month. Since everyone starts from scratch every month there is no reason to think they would do any better—if the selection method is statistically sound. Besides, where is the fun in watching the same song? As a test, I left my one song that went to 132 in to see what would happen. The next month it went to 171. That is a drop of almost 30 percent. Early the next month it was at 400. I don’t know what OS expects, but to me that kind of huge change (up or down) shows a large flaw in how they calculate their rankings. The song is the same, the people are mostly the same, you would expect a similar outcome. But I’m not seeing that. The fact that they no longer let members easily know how many songs there are in a channel nor the rankings of other songs (outside of the meaningless top 100) is a red flag that says they don’t want people snooping around their raw data. If they let that happen then anyone with a statistical background can pick them apart. Their disingenuous explanation of not wanting to “embarrass” their members by exposing their “low rankings” is preposterous. They aren’t my mommy. There are some things, however, that are easily shown to be completely statistically invalid without the numbers: the judging process.

Look at how things are judged in the art world. Are movies, books, sculptures, paintings, magazine articles or any other media judged on 8 percent of their content? Do book reviewers only read 8 percent of a book? Do movie reviewers only watch 8 percent of the movies? Of course not. That, however, is how OS judges their songs. Fifteen seconds is 8 percent of a three-minute song. Most songs are longer that that, so 8 percent is close to a maximum. You may say, “but Harrison, I listen to all the songs when I judge.” That’s great, but unfortunately the people who vote the most are certainly the ones who listen the least. Consequently the judging is skewed toward the preferences of the “quick listeners.” This would be bad enough, but OS actually encourages people to vote as much as possible by giving out awards for judging quantity. It is crazy. The result is that the OS system delivers the songs with the most popular (not, “best”, just “popular”) first fifteen seconds. The least discerning people have the most pull as to where a song ends up on the charts. It is totally bogus. It may occasionally get a great song at the top, but that is a happy coincidence. The bottom line is that the song rankings tell you something, as do all such measuring tools, but it may not be anything you are interested in knowing. OS is showing you the songs with the most popular beginnings as decided by people with way too much time on their hands, but get a rise out of winning a meaningless monkey-clicking contest. I’d be willing to bet that the top judging winner just stacks the songs as quickly as he can and moves on. It is a bogus system. If it weren’t OS would not hide 80 percent of the rankings from view.

So that said, I still like the site. It is great to get people to listen to my songs, get advice and so forth. The people I’ve met from around the world are fantastic! I really try not to get hung up on the rankings. This site is run by good people who simply just don’t know what they are doing. More accurately, they want to do the right thing, but don’t know how. They are trying, but it is harder than it looks. They really, really need someone who knows how to put contests together to help them out. OK, I’m done!

I’ve been thinking about the latest changes that OurStage is making, namely the move to just display the top 100 songs on the charts. This is an interesting development in that they are making the classic mistake of equating “most popular” with “best.” They claim the new system will help fans and artists find the “best” songs more easily. In fact, it will only find the most popular songs which has nothing to do with the best. “Best” is so subjective that it varies with every person; it cannot be quantified. “Most popular” on the other hand, is easy to quantify. I don’t think I’d ever confuse Lucinda Williams with Celine Dion or Tom Waits with Michael Bolton. Williams and Waits are national treasures while Dion and Bolton are packaged products designed to appeal to the masses. There is nothing wrong, however, with wanting to be popular. It is just that it often comes with consequences: it is hard to be artistically true if you are concentrating on crafting songs that will appeal to other persons.

By profession, I am a designer. The definition of my occupation is “art with constraints.” The main constraint is that I need to create objects (in my case museum exhibitions) that will appeal to a wide audience. The artist, on the other hand, need only be true to himself. If other people like it, that is great, but the true artist is compelled to create what he feels is a valid statement from his heart. And this is where I think OurStage is a bit misguided in its passion for charts and lists. It (and all of us participating) need to make sure we do not slide into road of craving popularity. This most often leads to diluted artistic work. If you pin all your perceived success on the whims of others you will be disappointed. Remember, only one out of perhaps 1000 on this Web site will ever achieve stardom. Statistics demand that only 10 percent or so will even be popular on OurStage. So what is the best path? I say be true to your art. You are successful if you create what appeals to you; be an artist, not a craftsman. Be Lucinda Williams or Tom Waits and you can always say you are successful. If you want to shoot for popularity, that’s fine, too. Just remember that that road allows total strangers to determine your value. Is that what you want?

Now I realize that some people will say that I’m just whining because I don’t have the commitment, the talent, or the intense desire to give it my all. I suppose that may be true. I’d only say in my defense that I’ve always wanted to play music. I think this need for expression is quite widespread in the population. There are too many people, in fact, to have everyone make a career at it. As a result, most of us are destined to always be amatuers in the sense that we’ll never make money at it. Some of us know this, some of us deny this until the bitter end, but most will come to terms with it and move on. But I think it is a mistake to ever stop because of my earlier premise: to be successful you only need to be true to yourself.

In closing, this is what I think OurStage is for (although its owners are probably unaware of it} to be a place for anyone to express himself to an audience, perhaps even find some kindred spirits. The charting numbers is really a tiny part of what makes this site tick. In fact, I think it would be pretty much the same with or without the charts. That is how communities of artists work, whether it is Paris at the turn of the 20th century or OurStage. It is not about competition, it is about the art.

I’ve posted three new songs for March. I hope everyone gives them a listen. As usual, they are not perfect, but I’m not really trying for that. If I get too bogged down in getting every single note just right I’ll lose the “feel” of the tune. Anyway, these days a recording is not the “etched in stone” version it used to be. In the digital age songs can continue to morph and change. It is no longer a static medium. I’m sure I’ll revisit all these songs again…someday. Right now I’m anxious to move on to new stuff.