Why is this song getting a better audience response?

If it's right you shouldn't notice. There are brain effs in pop music that make people feel good and of course that's not a good song, and there's ones that are just bad that everyone notices.

In Hold You, as a drummer of 20+ years, 5 professionally, the drums are just awkward. The shuffle fits in time but he needs to tighten it up or move it around. I'd like to see more color in it too.

Kid Yourself is very clean and peppy. Slide by Goo Goo Dolls is clean and peppy, and about self destruction, drug use and suicide. But it made the pop charts as a sad love song. There's a long history of why it's possible to play 129 pop songs with 3 chords but you'll have to just deal with the issue that you may be dealing with a niche market.

Being "rude" or making a "crude structure" means to do it very basically and generally. A crude house would be some plywood held up. A crude joke would be a dirty one or something very horrible and very tense to make sure everyone laughs. No one laughs at Furries because most people aren't tense about that, most have felt uncomfortable about being attracted to a younger person (16-17). So pedophilia jokes are a big hitter. "What;s the deal with cheap cigar cutters" is a niche market in terms of jokes because only people who have that particular tension about things will laugh at it.

Music works the same way. You chunk away on G-D-C most people will be into it. But when you try to do cut time and odd meter and dissonant chords or even use a simple shuffle, you have to be aware of who you are playing for and if they will jam to a 17/9 post neo industrial song or if they would enjoy, and pay for, a 4/4 generic rock and roll.

This shows up all the time. What do you think of when you think Bob Dylan? Sad hippie songs? I know him by his dirty blues, which simply never got on the radio.

It's difficult for a musician to predict what people are going to like.

The key to guessing is to remember one simple fact: Most people who listen to music are not musicians themselves.

What I mean by that is, most people who don't play an instrument will not appreciate time signaure changes and complex polyrhythmic parts. The fact that you played an E Phrygian solo over an A minor chord progression in 7/8 time and made it work is lost on them. They just hear a weird sounding guitar part and don't appreciate what you did.

Non-musicians latch onto beats they can tap their foot or dance to and catchy melodies that don't do anything unexpected. I'm a guitarist, so I think Tosin Abasi is an amazing guitar player. Non-musicians that listen to something like "CAFO" hear a song that starts out with a bunch of atonal noise.

It's the same reason people will go to a gourmet restaurant and order a cheeseburger instead of a really creative dish. They want something that is easily understood. It's also the same reason that generic throwaway pop music is so popular while progressive metal is a niche genre. The complexities of progressive music are lost on people that just want something to bob their head to.

In listening to both tracks, the second song has more of a classic song arrangement. Where the beat falls in the song is clear to even the most rhythmically challenged person, while the first song has a beat that it takes some knowledge of music to follow. I liked the first one better (even though neither song is to my taste in music), mostly because I'm a musician myself and have an appreciation for when people try something a little different. It has a bit of a surf rock vibe to it, while the second one has a bit more of a Top 40 pop feel to it.