Where has the magic gone?

Rob keeps reminding me that the music business sucks. Well, I had a nasty taste of that last weekend. As some of you know, our music is on Reverbnation available for streaming. They have something called Crowd Reviews, where you can get your music rated and criticized by music fans. Not our music fans, just fans of music in general. I'm not sure where they get these people from, but I figured we could get a feeling for what people actually hear when they listen to our music.

First I submitted "Cold Day In Hell" for review. It got a 5/10 score. If you get a 7, it's considered radio ready. I felt pretty good about the score and the reviews seem to reflect it. About half of them were good and positive. The negative ones weren't as bad and I was able to take them in without much issue. It isn't perfect but the song has potential.

Then Rob said that he was surprised I didn't submit "Inner Voice" for review. He seems to favor that song, as it was the first one that had that distinct Lucia sound. A little Latin/metal/rock mixture that took a while to be born, because it was a challenge to try to blend both of our styles into something cohesive. So I decided to give it a shot. I really thought it would do better than Cold Day. Maybe not a 7/10 but closer.

I waited the five days that it takes to process the reviews. It was a Saturday, we were having dinner at Black Angus for Rob's birthday. I got on my phone and opened the link to the Crowd Review. To my surprise, the song received a whooping 3.7/10. "What?! WHAT?!!" I opened up the actual reviews and we started reading them. I could feel my soul sinking into my chair. Out of 20 reviews, 19 of them said that they hated my vocals!! I was stunned and hurt, I can't lie. How can I possibly suck that badly? I started to question my abilities. I wondered if there was any point in singing anymore. I was so upset that I got teary eyed and was in a sad mood the rest of the night. It's been four days since I read those reviews and I still can't even sing to the radio.

How do I recuperate from such a blow? I guess with time my mojo will come back. I still have to go to rehearsal tomorrow and try to be excited like I was before. Fake it until you make it? I hated when they used to tell me that at church. I don't want to do that anymore. But what else can I do? I'm supposed to pick myself up and don't  be discouraged, but I don't know how.

They say that whenever you're creating something new, there will be opposition. Being unique is very difficult. Not everyone will understand what you're doing. We got a few who do, I'll have to hang on to that.

The magic is not really gone. It's hibernating. Gotta wake it up...