Nur Ein XIV Round Four "No Memory"

[Niveous]

We are midway through the competition. Can you handle this challenge?

Submit an original song by May 27th at 12:01 AM (EDT) that fits the following criteria

Title: No Memory
Challenge: Elements of chiptune/ computer sounds

This time around we want you to incorporate computer sounds into your song. Find a way to use bleeps and bloops and all sorts of computer and video game sounds in your songs.

Send your MP3 to nurein.sidefight@gmail.com

Good luck!

[ariskofrain]

i have been feeling weirdly prophetic about all of these challenges, yknow, writing a diss track before the diss track challenge, sampling a previous entry before the sample challenge, and last round's entry had this little chiptune synth line... very curious, niv, very curious

[Niveous]

[grumpymike]

Title: F. This is a song called "Heaven is a place on earth" with the words "Video Games" shoehorned in.
Challenge: F. This is a lovely piano song that someone ruined with synths for the sake of meeting the challenge. Could have found a more tasteful way of working it in, but it's a last minute rush job to appease the judges.

Grumpy Mike stirs the pot, then leans back, kicks his feet up, and lights his corncob pipe in smug satisfaction.

[BoffoYux]

Listening Party link for Round 4!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dfsMemOkU

[glennny]

This is the first song that popped into my head for this challenge.

How do you rate it Grumpy Mike?




There's also this Shadow entry for Video Land that fits the bill. (I think)
https://soundcloud.com/glenartrock/glennny-videoland

btw Mike, are you going to back fill Shadow entries in the archive on nurein.songlander?

[vowlvom]

I saw Jason from Grandaddy do a piano solo show last Friday! It was great, he's definitely one of the best singers I've ever heard live! He didn't play this song.

I've never really considered their stuff to be chiptuney but I guess the lo-fi synths are close enough to count.

Title: F. This song is clearly called "Whatever Together".
Challenge: C. Pretty sure that sound comes from some old Yamaha synth because I have similar sounds on some of my keyboards, but it definitely has video-gamey qualities.

P.S. I am not Grumpy Mike.

Oh, and the challenge made me think of this (hopefully this is the right version, I'm at work):



And also a friend's band, who FAWM regulars may recognise:
https://sonicthecomic.bandcamp.com/

[grumpymike]

I'm torn on whether I want to try to make something clever or phone-in a song about not having enough memory to save a video game, because clearly that's what we're being asked for with this combo.

How do you rate it Grumpy Mike?

6/8, pretty guitar tones, good hook. It's designed for me. I give it A-. Vocals could be a bit shinier. Timing slows down at some choruses. This sounds like "Spiraling" if the singer were on valium and they didn't have a producer.

Title: who cares?
Challenge: A+

are you going to back fill Shadow entries in the archive on nurein.songlander?

It's at the bottom of a very long to-do list. A problem is that a lot of them are not in the shadowing thread and/or hosted elsewhere, and might not be there anymore, and not in MP3 format or downloadable in the case of Soundcloud (I specifically recall you uploaded a WAV I had to figure out how to 'pirate' from Soundcloud once... too much work).

If you'd like to be the official shadow entry librarian and collect all the songs in MP3 format, and then send them my way in zips for each round, I'll gladly do it more quickly.

P.S. I am not Grumpy Mike.

He's lying! Don't believe anything he says!

[grumpymike]

Speaking of Spiraling, this song has some good chippy-synths. I think I was turned on to this band last year by... was it Arby?

[glennny]

https://asaurus.bandcamp.com/album/the-32-bit-handhelds

These guys were my brothers friends, mine too, but through my brother.
Pretty much the whole album is this challenge, "Flight of the Veritech Fighters" especially.

They used to play the demolition parties. Headlined by Demolitions Ho!

[Chumpy]

I'm torn on whether I want to try to make something clever or phone-in a song about not having enough memory to save a video game, because clearly that's what we're being asked for with this combo.

[owl]

I'm torn on whether I want to try to make something clever or phone-in a song about not having enough memory to save a video game, because clearly that's what we're being asked for with this combo.

You and your tricky domain. No alternate AWS download link for your reaction image?!

[Chumpy]

You and your tricky domain. No alternate AWS download link for your reaction image?!

Sigh, sorry Owl. I was about to blame your ISP for this, but I have a feeling it's something subtly misconfigured on our end. You're not missing much, it's Admiral Ackbar with a caption in impact font that reads "TOO ON THE NOSE". Not that I necessarily think that Grumpy Mike's idea was terrible -- I'm just trolling him. I think a lesson folks could take from Rain Watt's victory is that judges are moved by songs with substance.

[grumpymike]

"Too on the nose"

Like doing a rap song for a diss track. Nice try! I'm not falling for that trick again, judges!

I think a lesson folks could take from Rain Watt's victory is that judges are moved by songs with substance.

Unless that substance involves literary devices that potentially obscure the surface meaning. Then, you're probably going to get cut. So try to be on the nose, but not too much!

I'm not angry. This is the game. But let's dispel with this notion that the judges know what they're looking for beforehand. They know it when they hear it.

[glennny]

Rain can't win immunity for winning round 4. Nobody can. So why won't her song be ranked in round 4? Obviously she has the luxury of not submitting without consequence, but if she does submit, why not rank that song?

[ariskofrain]

if i'm reading back on the nur ein website right, weren't all the songs ranked in previous competitions regardless of immunity? and then it only impacted the knockouts? i could definitely be wrong

[glennny]

No, if you have immunity the judges don't rank the song. You are passed on to the next round automatically. Which has a weird Nur Ein quirk ( weird for a survival contest like Project Runway or Top Chef), that the winner is immune from winning.

[arby]

Speaking of Spiraling, this song has some good chippy-synths. I think I was turned on to this band last year by... was it Arby?

You are correct, sir! At least, I'm pretty sure it was me, as I am a huge fan of that band and no one else has ever heard of them! And yes, that song definitely has chippy sounding synths. <heart eyes emoji>

[Niveous]

The songs are up:

https://nurein.songlander.com/titles/0F ... C1EAC8669A

[vowlvom]

Assorted whingings after 3/4 listens, sorry again if these skew towards negativity, I do like most of them quite a bit!

Agony Sauce - I love how you've made the chiptune synths fit your desired sound / genre, it works really well. Excellently catchy chorus, too. I can't figure out whether I like the stop-start rhythms, especially in the pre-chorus - it's certainly different and does pay off nicely into the chorus, but it doesn't quite click with me each time. I’m also not totally won over by the lead guitar / layers of fuzz. But some of it is definitely working, because this is one of my favourites of the round despite my nitpicks.

Berkeley Social Scene - the chiptune synths sound good but the rest of this is very Straightforward Rock Song which is a bit of a comedown for me after last week’s excellent song. I've enjoyed Geech's voice on his solo Song Fight submissions but the strained quality to it here isn't my cup of tea at all; the layered vocals on the chorus sound great but the “repeat the title four times” lyrics don’t particularly grab me (although I guess it allows for the call and response stuff later on which is cool).

Faster Jackalope - I like lots of the individual parts of this but I'm not sure any of them fit together particularly well. The verses are cute and catchy with excellent 8-bit melodies, the shift into the loud, messy pre-chorus feels a little too extreme to me and the chorus doesn't quite get me back on board. The lyrics are interesting, an unusual take on the challenge, but this kinda feels less than the sum of its parts to me overall.

Frankie Big Face - hehe, I considered using the Pac-Man death sound. Not crazy about this one, it didn't immediately get me on board like your Pump the Brakes and repeat listens haven't won me over as much as your Color Me song did. Not really sure why, the vibe of this one just doesn't quite work for me. Chiptune elements don't feel as well integrated as a lot of the other songs.

Grumpy Mike - good chiptune stuff at the start and I love the bleepy self-censorship, but when this kicks in it kinda sounds like Offspring to me, and I'm not a huge fan of that kinda angry / sneery end of pop-punk. Good energy, though. The doubled / wide panned vocals are a bit much on headphones. Not crazy about the lyrics, I can kinda see the link to the title but this is definitely called "Click Here".

Max Bombast - damn, that pitchbend reminds me of Ski or Die! Again I love the chiptune elements but the rest of the song leaves me a little cold, I’m generally genre-biased against your stuff I think but this has all the same strengths in performance etc. that I can still admire. I don't really get why this turns into Bohemian Rhapsody at the end but it’s an interesting development!

Merisan - Merisan + synths is a perfect recipe for me. This is super catchy, super chiptuney, and definitely my favourite of the songs in competition. There a couple of melodic bits that give me ABBA vibes ("I can't remember" especially). My only critique is that I don't really understand why the guitar comes in for the solo / breakdown bit - it feels really out of place to me.

Nick Soma - fuzz guitars and chiptunes sound great together! I don't love the mix but I really like the song - really good hooks. My only real complaint is that there's a weird splashy bleepy sound in the left speaker in the later choruses that doesn't seem to fit rhythmically at all, it's just a bit distracting. I guess I also feel like maybe this could do with one less verse / chorus repeat, but that’s probably just listening-to-these-songs-a-lot fatigue - it's still up there with my favourites.

Rachael Layne - this is a really pretty song and it’s nice to hear something mellower in a mostly fairly in-your-face round. The chiptunes feel a little odd for the genre to me, but in a way that I don't mind - this isn't my favourite genre, and despite the skilful songwriting I feel like it might have been a bit forgettable for me IF it didn't have the cool chiptune drums and synths in there to make it stand out.

The Sunday Colors - oh no, it's a Mars Rover song. My emotional achilles heel! Lyrics are mostly great, although you lose me a bit on the "piano room" verse - references I'm not getting? Harmonies are really lovely, I think you should have deployed them earlier in the song too although I can see why you might have wanted to hold them back to give this a good build.

Vowl Sounds - we've been doing lots of guitar-heavy songs lately so I really enjoyed playing with some classic videogame synths! I particularly love that fuzzy organ at the end (which is from Earthbound!) and I think owl's voice sounds so good here.

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Rain Watt - after hearing Old Kid I knew you'd nail this round and this doesn’t disappoint, this is absolutely superb. I love that skittering drumbeat and the way the chip synths fit so well alongside the guitar riffing. Memorable melodies, solid lyrics, my favourite song from this round, kudos for going all in despite immunity!

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Inflatable Vegetables - gorgeous, catchy, sad synth melodies. I didn't really pay attention to the lyric on first listen, on second listen I did and aaargh you punched me in the heart. I don’t think this is your best vocal work, it’s a little pitchy, but at the same time the imperfect vocal maybe helps get the emotion over. Either way this is really good.

Lichen Throat - this feels like one of your most confident vocals, there's some real power to your voice here. Unfortunately still some significant timing issues, but the tone is good and full of feeling. I like the arrangement well enough, you've done a good job fitting in both challenges and titles, but vocals aside this doesn't really grab me like your best stuff does.

Mandibles - this is cleverly written in a way I can admire but not actually enjoy, I think I'm experiencing some fairly extreme genre bias here because I found this really hard work. There are parts later in the song that I like quite a bit, the section that includes the title especially. But I think the genre pool that Mandibles pull from is like 50% stuff that I like and 50% that I don't and this one is mostly pulling from the side I can't get on board with.

[grumpymike]

I can kinda see the link to the title

I'll take it!

The wording "no memory", to me, feels like the result of an I/O operation (like the cover art); not an "I don't recall". Along with the video game sounds, it made me think of what a descriptive "blue screen of death" would say if It were for a human. It's what you would say if you finally exploded at someone trying to fill your brain with junk (junk that you might otherwise accept if you had the space). In other words, the "click here" refrain is sarcasm in a response to a failed I/O operation. Ya'll can say my brain is wired weird or that I was avoiding the title, but that's where I was coming from. I had many song ideas, and felt this one was the most doable to an acceptable standard in a week.

[mo]

I forgot what we were talking about