Music with vocals?

I saw that some top sellers have music with vocals (full songs) and have just submitted my first song that includes real vocals. Anyone else been doing this?

I just did a track with yeahs yeahs and woo hoos…and what not …nothing serious yet. Tim McMorris is the man with regard to vocals.

The best example of success with music with vocals is Tim McMorris. I have a single song with vocals that has garnered a whopping 2 sales on AJ . I actually have one more in the works to test the waters some more, we’ll see how that goes. But I don’t see huge sales in the future for my style of vocal music – my best vocal songs (to my ear) are folksy and introspective, talky more than singy, and not entirely marketable.

My opinion is that vocal songs are problematic for most of us:

1. Lyrics are very hard to get right, and even more so because you’re not writing for yourself and your own emotional experiences but for a marketplace. You have to be especially careful to remember who the audience is, and be accessible and memorable without being insipid.

2. I’m sure some authors are amazing singers, but a lot of us composers don’t necessarily have the best kind of voice, or at least not the best kind of voice for a poppy, upbeat song that’s likely to sell.

3. Recording vocals can be tricky, and in my opinion you can tell for vocals more than other instruments whether an unsuitable mic/preamp were used. Even a casual listener may be able to (at least subconsciously) tell the difference between amateur and professional recording on a vocal track because the vocal track is what he or she is listening to the most.

EDIT – I just saw JC’s post, and I guess I should make a distinction between vocals with lyrics and vocal flavor (ooo’s or la la la’s, etc.). I was talking about the former – the latter I think is a cool way to flavor a song and can work very well in a variety of styles.

For the moment I keep doing vocals and my AJ activities seperated. Since I do my own stuff in German it’s not for AJ anyway. And my english recent vocal activities are a little more on the melancholic side : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlMbkf4tdGE

Edit: just found this “fun fact”: