It's a stuff ton of fun. It's pretty chaotic during more intense parts of the song, but if you've got good hand-eye coordination you can avoid most enemies. Also you learn after a bit how to find your ship in all the chaos, it just kind of comes naturally.
The only times I loose my ship is when I defeat a boss and the debris from the boss are all over the screen and I rush in to pick up the powerups from his defeat.