Mega-Fight Album

Post by jb » Thu Aug 10, 2006 6:53 am

Kelly Clarkson recently said in an interview that she has written 40 songs for her next album. I hate when people say that. I heard Dave Grohl say it once too, and he sure wasn't the first. I mean, come on, what are you trying to prove by telling us how many terrible songs you have to write in order to come up with 11 that don't suck? And I think Mr. Grohl said that about the Foo album that I absolutely can't stand, and which he has subsequently admitted is less than stsellar.

Anyway, to the point of this thread:

If you were going to take the 130+ songs in this week's mega-fight and choose 11 of them to be on an album, which would you choose, and in which order? Sequence is very important you know.

This can be just a list of the songs you voted for, but it doesn't HAVE to be, and in fact would probably be more interesting if it weren't. We're going for the perfect *album* here, not just a box of Now This Is Song F Fight hits. Perhaps make a note of the songs you've included that you *didn't* vote for.

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:03 am

I'd rather hear them tell the truth and reveal a bit about their process then say every song they write is album-worthy. On the other hand if they wrote that many songs during the time they were working on the new album, but know damn well they're going to sell lots of them to other artists, agencies, etc. then it means nothing and they shouldn't attribute them to the album at hand. But on the other hand, any one of us who puts out an album only puts a sub-set of our songs on it, so what's the diff?

But what do I know? I ran out of other hands long ago.

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:22 am

...on the other hand, I've written about 40 songs for Songfight! - so I reckon with imaginative re-packaging, "Best Of..." sets and Christmas Specials etc - that could easily stretch to about 10 or 12 albums worth of stuff. And that's not counting the Fatboy Slim remixes or the "Caravan Ray for Pan Flute" releases. Or a CD of all my songs done by barking dogs - that would rock!

Paco Del Stinko · Post by **Paco Del Stinko** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 12:59 pm

Here's a list of some I voted for, some I didn't, some faves and others not. I did go from S to !, not necessarily the "best ones" of each fight, but to represent each letter and to put a guide of some kind in there. Kind of a peaks and valleys, sweet and salty approach mostly. I didn't repeat artists and left off so many that I'd like, but here's one to maybe spark things up a bit.

Switch Hitter - Abominominous
Onomatopoeia - Mr. Man and Dr. Funk
No Relation - Fish Sausage
Give It To Me - Melvin
Blank Stare - Seamus
For The Time Being - Creeping Foam
It's Just Not Right - Roymond
Gone Phishing - King Arthur
High Time - Tam Lin Music
Terror In Tiny Town - ?
Exclamation Point - Hostess Mostess

So many possibilities - Good tunes all!

king_arthur · Post by **king_arthur** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 11:53 am

To JB's first point - I think that "writing a lot and selecting the best" is a valid techique for getting better stuff. I'd sure hope that if I went through all the songs I've submitted to songfight! and picked the best 12, that they would make a better album than just going with the first 12. And in doing eleven songs for the megafight (I really did do all eleven songs, and still have hopes that my "Tiny Town" will be posted, even if it's not 'til after the fight results are announced), I found that I felt more comfortable taking some musical risks (the bass on IJNR, the use of the orchestral drum kit on Gone Phishing) when I felt like, "well, this may work and it may not, but I'll try it on this one song."

In the case of somebody like Kelly Clarkson - writing 40 songs to come up with a good 12-song CD works because it gives her producer more things to choose from - maybe she wrote 20 uptempo songs and 20 ballads and the producer decides that this should be an all uptempo album... options.

I haven't listened to all the fights yet, so I'm not ready to put together a list of songs - since the original premise here was about Kelly Clarkson writing 40 songs, I'm thinking I'll focus on the songwriting aspect, and look at this like... if I was going to pick eleven songs from the megafight to record myself as an album, what would they be?

To the degree that this question may be a referrendum on people being in multiple fights in the same week... what I'm hearing from the six fights I've listened to so far this week is that the megasubmitters' songs aren't notably worse than what I'd expect from the same people if they had only done one fight this week. Many of the megasubmitters went with shorter songs (around 2 minutes rather than around 3 minutes), and I suppose many of us used fewer tracks / instruments than we might have otherwise. In some cases, that may not be a bad thing. While I realize that there are people who just don't like my stuff very much - when I compare these 11 songs to the previous 11 songfight-inspired songs I did (some of which didn't get submitted), I feel like these are as good or better.

As I said in one of the other threads, I do understand that letting people submit multiple songs makes more administrative work for the FMs and uses up more disk space / bandwidth, and I think that's a totally valid reason for a "one fight a week" limit. But in terms of being able to hear songs I like, I think all of Hostess' and Paco's songs so far have been "keepers" for me, and with a one song a week limit, that means I'd have five less good songs (I've reviewed six fights so far) from each of them than I do. Abom and WreckdoM, there's stuff I like and stuff I don't, but, still, more than one keeper from each. UDAHL's songs haven't wowed me personally, but there may be people who loved 'em all.

So: I accept the "one fight a week" limit for logistical reasons, but I would love to see something like this done right before SFL every year - I'm guessing that at least part of the plan here is that the FMs get a little break from having to set up new fights while they get ready for SFL.

Anyway, when I'm done reviewing, I'll get back atcha with a songlist or two...

Charles (KA)

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 2:21 pm

I've only listened to a couple of fights this week so I am in no way prepared to make an album arrangement, but I just wanted to agree with King Arthur. When the Beatles were together, Paul McCartney wrote a hell of a lot of music, but George Martin acted as a filter to select only the best of it for album production. When they broke up, McCartney went and recorded a lot of those songs under the auspices of Wings, and continued to basically release every single song he wrote after that point (he still wrote good songs at about the same rate but they were WAY overshadowed by all the crap he released).

This is why everyone thinks McCartney was a better songwriter when he was with the Beatles. He wasn't really any better, he just had a filter in place.

Post by jb » Sat Aug 12, 2006 3:44 pm

I dunno you guys, I think that's a bunch of crap. I know I know, I mean, do you really think I haven't heard those stories or read a shitload of "songwriting" books that say you should be writing a song a week? Really. What I think is that saying you've written 40 songs for your next album is a way to make yourself sound prolific and just brimming with artistic creativity. Even though 29 of those songs are complete shit.

I don't consider my songwriting abortions to be "songs," and I'm not going to tell you they are. Maybe I'm just being curmudgeonly, but it smacks, to ME, of insecurity or something worse.

From all reports Kelly Clarkson is a nice girl, but it wouldn't surprise me to find that she's insecure about her image in the public as a creative person-- she came from American Idol after all. I dunno why Dave Grohl does it though, although he lives in the shadow of Kurt Cobain, so maybe that's it.

I remember watching an old episode of American Bandstand with Robby Benson on it. Yes, *the* Robby Benson, and he mentioned that he and his writing partner had written about 100 songs so far (at that time). I remember going "wow! 100 songs!" at the time and being sort of impressed, even though the song he played on the air "Adios, Yesterday" was very terrible.

I'm just sayin'. They make it sound like the more the merrier blah blah blah.

This is all beside the point. If nobody's (other than Paco) listening to enough of the megafight to come up with 11 songs to list, I'll move this thread to Monkey Business and you guys can continue arguing with me.

king_arthur · Post by **king_arthur** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 4:41 pm

Yeah, I suppose that the various Idolists do feel some amount of pressure to convince the public that, "hey, I'm really working hard at this, I'm not where I am just because I won some contest." And maybe Kelly wrote 40 songs that she's pleased with, plus seventeen pieces of crap that she's not admitting to. Maybe she hasn't actually written any... Lou Reed, in the song "Work" from "Songs for Drella" tells about a discussion he had with Andy Warhol:

No matter what I did it never seemed enough,
He said I was lazy, I said I was young.
He said, "how many songs did you write?"
I'd written none, I lied and said "ten."
He said, "you won't be young forever,
You should have written fifteen,
It's work, the most important thing is work."

So, yeah, okay a music star who feels insecure. That's never happened before.

As far as reviews and such, it seems to me like the megafight songs are getting at least as many reviews as many of the songs in three-fight weeks do, maybe more. "Proud" got five actual reviews, most of the songs this time have at least that many. I probably won't be finished reviewing all the fights by the time the new titles are announced next Monday, but I'm working at them.

I'd like to see this thread stay in the reviews forum, I think this is an important discussion. You're asking us to sift through 130 songs to pick 11 winners... heck, Kelly Clarkson's producer only has to go through 40

So, yeah, maybe announcing to the world that you've written 40 songs for your next album is a bit of insecurity... or a bit of promotional hype intended to make Kelly Clarkson's fans think that an album is coming soon and it's gonna be really, really good. Isn't that how this business works???

Charles (KA)

Post by jb » Sat Aug 12, 2006 4:53 pm

Oh totally. That's how the business works. It could just be a marketing ploy. But I dunno.

I saw Lou Reed on the Charlie Rose show once, talking about his "writing" process. Seems he writes things down and never revises (according to him). So he'll have a piece done in five minutes.

Then he proceeded to go sit down with an electric guitar and play the rambliest piece of shit I've ever heard in my life.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 5:37 pm

Well my point was that McCartney in particular didn't consider any of his songs to be crap, or at least thought they were worth recording/producing/releasing, so his huge song output actually *was* output, eventually. The artists just might not realize most of their stuff sucks and should be trash scraps.

Mostess · Post by **Mostess** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 9:14 pm

I think I'm with JB on this. I'd never claim I'd written a song unless I'd actually written, rehearsed and recorded it. I'd never claim I'd written a song for a specific album unless I did so with a good idea how it would fit among other songs, and relate to the album concept. I'd never claim I'd written 40 songs for an album because it would mean I was a hit-or-miss songwriter with no vision for my albums.

Prince did the real thing: record every damn thing you can until you have (what was it, 4? 5?) a bunch of albums, call your label and tell 'em you're done with that contract. And Chris Isaak is painfully cavalier about his writing process (though he says it's constant). Paul Simon is frustrating with all his "those lyrics just came to me, don't mean anything really" schtick. But it takes a real punk to think that "I wrote 40 songs recently" is impressive on its face. Even a-song-a-day They Might Be Giants only has a few "hits", and (arguably) the biggest ("Istanbul (Not Constantinople)") was a cover.

pegor · Post by **pegor** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 9:38 pm

... an interesting thread. I'd just like to pipe up to ask when do song
writers consider scribbleing words and strumming chords valuable to
thier craft and when do they/you consider it a waste of time?

Marathon runners talk about junk miles. short slow runs that don't stress
thier bodys enough to cause them to become better runners.... are you guys
talking about junk song writting? analogous ... yes/no ?

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 9:39 pm

"Istanbul" was not a cover, though it did pay "homage" to Puttin' On The Ritz and whatever the original song was which everyone knows the melody to but nobody knows the name of and which is often used in cartoons for snake charmers' songs and whatnot.

"Why Does The Sun Shine," however, was an out-and-out cover, and most of their fans don't even realize it.

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 10:58 pm

I like hearing things like what Dave Grohl said, for the same reasons that JB doesn't like it. I find it comforting to know that not everything these super-artists do is solid gold, espicially when your talking about the pop genre. It helps break down that mystique, and it sounds honest. I'd be much more offended if they lied (about writing crap that got tossed aside) in an effort to make themselves seem like better musicians.

Now, if a band wrote 40 songs for an album and it STILL sucks, then they deserve ire.

john m · Post by **john m** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 11:59 pm

fluffy wrote:"Istanbul" was not a cover

Yes, it is. The original is by The Four Lads.

Denyer · Post by **Denyer** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 12:54 am

anal cunt must write like a thousand songs per album.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 1:28 am

john m wrote:
fluffy wrote:"Istanbul" was not a cover
Yes, it is. The original is by The Four Lads.

I stand corrected. Obviously they didn't do a lot to call attention to this fact. (Though as a nitpick, The Four Lads only performed it first; it was written by Jimmy Kennedy and Nat Simon.)

Serves me right for not checking up on this, as usual.

anti-m · Post by **anti-m** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 11:18 pm

fluffy wrote:the original song was which everyone knows the melody to but nobody knows the name of and which is often used in cartoons for snake charmers' songs and whatnot.

Woo! Interesting fact time!

The cartoon snake charming song -- (AKA "There's a place in France") was originally "written" for the Chicago World Fair.

The band that was hired to play for the belly dancers had no idea what sort of music would make for an appropriate accompaniment. So, Sol Bloom, the music promoter who developed the midway for the fair, improvised this tune on the spot as an approximation of middle eastern music.

Talk about your throw-away song writing! Amazing that that song is so cemented into our culture now!

(Thanks to Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City for providing me with that wee digression)

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 11:24 pm

Wow, cool! (And yeah that's exactly the one I was thinking of)

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 2:58 pm

Puce wrote:I like hearing things like what Dave Grohl said, for the same reasons that JB doesn't like it. I find it comforting to know that not everything these super-artists do is solid gold, espicially when your talking about the pop genre. It helps break down that mystique, and it sounds honest. I'd be much more offended if they lied (about writing crap that got tossed aside) in an effort to make themselves seem like better musicians.

I'm with jb, I don't put a notch in the guitar case for every song that I start writing and abort because I realize it's crap. Like, why bother even finishing all the songs that fricking blow? Or even bother finishing songs that are just average, like C+ student type songs, the ones that aren't exactly bad, but they're not exactly good either. Do we need more songs in the world like that?

It's like buying shoes that you know don't fit. Yeah, you can take them all home and bask in the glow of 1,000 pairs of shoes, but you're still at the same place as the guy who only buys shoes that fit him. He's got 12, you've got 1000, but you've both only got 12 that are any use.

I am going to try and come up with an album's worth of songs from the megafightlist when I get home: it sounds like a good idea.

frankie big face · Post by **frankie big face** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 4:17 pm

Puce wrote:Now, if a band wrote 40 songs for an album and it STILL sucks, then they deserve ire.

I think that was one of JB's point. That Foo Fighters album where DG wrote "forty songs" did suck. Big time.

I try not to let a bad song even get past first base, but I often wonder (to continue the baseball analogy) if I should run those out just in case the shortstop throws the ball into right field. What I'm saying is I think I know pretty fast when a song is not worth continuing and stop right there. But on the other hand, songs I've finished which I thought were just okay invariably ending up as someone's favorite FBF track. Go figure.

Who knows how much pressure some of these artists get from the label as well? Maybe Dave Grohl only wrote 12 songs and then was told "you better write some more because we're not paying you to write stuff that won't sell." That certainly was Prince's problem with Warner Bros. and Prince doesn't write a whole lot of bad songs. I find it hard to believe that Dave Grohl has a lot of unrecorded or unreleased songs sitting around because it would be so easy to release them as an "B-sides record" which would easily sell enough copies to be profitable.

I wish some artists would be more selective with their recorded material. I don't care if you can fit 80 minutes of music on a CD. Just give me 40 minutes of the best shit you got. I remember a Soundgarden album that just seemed ungodly long every time I listened to it. There were great songs on the record, but just too damn many of them. On the other hand, a record like My Aim is True by Elvis Costello clocks in around 36 minutes and is just perfect. (Then Ryko re-released it with nine additional tracks and they're good too, but I usually stop after Watching the Detectives.) Certainly, if I ever make another full-length LP, I promise to stop after 36 minutes just like the first one!

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 4:49 pm

frankie big face wrote:I wish some artists would be more selective with their recorded material. I don't care if you can fit 80 minutes of music on a CD. Just give me 40 minutes of the best shit you got.

XTC used to release "demos" of songs (I heard "Dear God" as a demo long before it was officially released), some of which would appear on albums, others never heard from again. I thought that was cool and I think this is an area that labels are missing big time...artists releasing demos or live versions of new songs that they can post to a website or release through podcasts, giving insight to the songwriting/thought/production processes. Maybe I'm just a geek about it but I find this tremendously intriguing. I hope one day to release a "real" album and hear people say "wow, the songfight version was cool but this really blossomed." Or the opposite of course, or "this song sucked on songfight and it will always suck", but still...

I agree, though. The album should rock and be solid all the way through.