As many of you may have noticed by my not-so-subtle requests for money, I’ve been looking for some easy cash lately. Rather than sell organs or pictures of my boobs, I went searching for websites which reward you for simple things such as playing Candy Crush knockoffs or taking the same survey about what TV shows you watch over and over for different sketchy companies. One thing I was looking forward to in particular was the review websites. If there’s one thing I love, it’s complaining about things for money. So here I am, gracing you all with a very long complaint free of charge.
Slice the Pie is a website made to help new bands claw and scrape their way to pseudo-stardom by paying a fee to have nasty vultures like me review the music they put their heart, soul and grocery money into. It works two ways, paying the reviewers for their opinions. In theory, it sounds like a win-win. Young bands have a way to receive feedback from someone other than family members who give half-hearted nods and smiles as they watch what that guitar they bought their nephew for his twelfth birthday has resulted in, while lazy people without real jobs (much like yours truly) get to shit all over the dreams of those starry-eyed musicians in exchange for pocket change.
No, seriously. I’ve found more money in the back pockets of my middle school skinny jeans than what this website payed me. Of course, you get paid more the higher your rank is, but good luck building up a rep. It took over a week for there to even be anything available for me to review, and I know there’s no shortage of new bands out there. By the time it finally did let me review something, I had forgotten I had even signed up and had already moved on to gambling as my next moneymaking scheme. It was only by chance that I just happened to type in the letter “s” in my search bar and noticed the saved link.
I was excited to finally get to review something. They put me through the standard survey to get started- “What race are you, how much do you make ect. ect.”. After that, I got my first song. I wasn’t expecting any masterpiece and I didn’t get any masterpiece, but as long as I got my 14 cents I would listen to five minutes of white middle school boys trying to rap against acoustic guitar. I listened through, gave an honest and professional review and hit submit. I get this notification saying something along the lines of I wasn’t specific enough. I thought, “That’s fair.” This was my first review after all, let’s try again. I tried again, and again, and again, and again. If I put this much effort into school papers, I wouldn’t be taking surveys online for money.
No matter what I wrote, they wouldn’t accept it. It would take all of 0.35 seconds for that same notification to pop up. I started out with a paragraph which boiled down to “Good instrumental, iffy vocals”- not enough. I wrote about each part of the song separately- not enough. I added in little reviews about individual instruments- not enough.
What’s worse is, it only lets you play the song once so I had to refresh each time to listen again for little details I could write about. After getting frustrated and submitting the same unedited review about 15 times, I closed the tab. I don’t plan to go back.
All in all we have a good idea with a few flaws that could be overlooked if it weren’t for the horrible execution. Stick to your 50 cent fashion surveys, people. If you need me, I’ll be at the race track.