Nur Ein IV Round Six "Hit Record"

frankie big face · Post by **frankie big face** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:03 am

melvin wrote:Frankie: This is good. The lyrics are enjoyable (ah, noble artist), the recording is very nicely polished (the genre hops are super-slick), and the main vocal hook goes from being just kind of catchy to being a third-degree ear worm after only two listens. “I don’t want a hit reee-cooord”... AH! Make it stop!! My whole head is surfing on the emotive ripple of your Bowie-esque slow-vibrato as I hear that line again and again and again. Ack! One other complaint: the (simulated) tape saturation seems a bit overdone on the mix. Other than that, another (maddeningly) memorable entry from the Big Face.

Sorry for the earworm thing. Imagine how I feel having heard it like 150 times! I like my lyrics too (except the bridge), even though I don't exactly feel that sentiment in real life. Mixing, mixing, mixing. I think I'm getting better at big (i.e. lots of instruments) mixes, but I still find that when I change one thing, it leads to a chain of "fixes" that ultimately make it worse and there's no way to get back to where it was in the first place (which wasn't quite right either!). Glad the genre changes are being received okay--I was really hesitant about doing it, but I had limited time and talent.

frankie big face · Post by **frankie big face** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:07 am

Lunkhead wrote:... does anybody else feel like judge reviews showing up before the results are announced kind of takes some of the suspense out of things?

My only concern about that would be the potential to influence the other judges' decisions, but I think this particular group of judges is communicating behind the scenes anyway (at least as far whether the challenges are met, etc.--maybe not about opinions and ranking). I'd rather have early reviews than no reviews at all, but I see your point.

glennny · Post by **glennny** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:40 am

I think Niveous is not on the ball, I submitted pre result reviews for Sleep Tight that were yanked from the boards. I was scolded. We never did discuss that rule.

Don't worry everyone. One judges take on 4 awesome songs is hardly a window into the results. I expect the votes to be all over the place.

melvin · Post by **melvin** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:02 am

frankie big face wrote:Sorry for the earworm thing.

My complaint was, of course, a compliment.

Sorry about posting reviews early, everyone! As Glen said, my opinion is not indicative of how the scores will end up.

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 12:40 pm

glennny wrote:I think Niveous is not on the ball.

Niv is stuck in crazy ass divorceland today. He saw the infraction but was too busy to eradicate it.

ujnhunter · Post by **ujnhunter** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:19 am

Niveous wrote:
glennny wrote:I think Niveous is not on the ball.
Niv is stuck in crazy ass divorceland today. He saw the infraction but was too busy to eradicate it.

That doesn't sound fun... I'm right there with you man. Hope it works out for you.

frankie big face · Post by **frankie big face** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 2:19 pm

Who's ready for some results?!

Post by **Lunkhead** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 2:36 pm

ujnhunter wrote:
Niveous wrote:
glennny wrote:I think Niveous is not on the ball.
Niv is stuck in crazy ass divorceland today. He saw the infraction but was too busy to eradicate it.
That doesn't sound fun... I'm right there with you man. Hope it works out for you.

Yeah, that sucks, Niv. Hope you're doing OK.

I don't know about results, but I'm ready to have my life back.

Song Fight! is going to seem so easy now.

frankie big face · Post by **frankie big face** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 2:39 pm

Lunkhead wrote:Song Fight! is going to seem to easy now.

What's Song Fight?

Post by **Lunkhead** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 2:52 pm

Oh, I was meaning to mention this earlier, too. Could one of you judges please post a quick recap of the policy for handling ties, just in case? I think it's nicer, personally, when that kind of stuff is explained in advance. (It's possible not everyone followed the tie handling in NE3 and NE1.)

glennny · Post by **glennny** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 3:33 pm

Any ties where there are not 2 clear leaders will result in more than 2 advancements:

A- 16
B- 14
C- 14
D- 6

A,B,C advance

A-17
B- 11
C- 11
D- 11

A,B,C, D advance

Post by **Lunkhead** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 4:10 pm

Not to beat this subject to death, but ... if there is 2-4 way tie for first, everyone who ties for first advances to the final round, right? Or if there is a 2-3 way tie for second, everyone who ties for second advances, along with the first place finisher?

Conversely, if there is a 2-way tie for first, and also a 2-way tie for second, only the people who tied for first would advance, right?

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:04 pm

Reist - Your verse vocals are tough to hear. Catchy verse melody. The claps in the bridge are a little off. I don't hear a genre change.

Frankie - The mix is back to being a bit oversaturated, but I just know I'm going to have "I don't want a hit REEEEE-CORD" stuck in my head for the rest of the month. Very nice genre hops. I'd love to hear this remixed and remastered a little cleaner, to make those shifts stand out a little more. Your use of the challenge ties into the challenge really well, but I think that in doing so, you've made the lyrics come off a bit too heavy-handed.

Tiny Robots - Very nice flamenco sound. A couple of the handclaps are off, but for some reason, where the exact same flaw in Reist's track bugged me, it just endears me to yours more. Weird how subjective music can be, right? Your genre change is easily the best use of the challenge. In fact, this is my favorite song of this round. I'd have liked to hear a little bit more punch to the lead vocals in the chorus; sounds a little bit restrained, but the two genres feel so organic together here... Which is crazy for a flamenco/disco song, right?

Todd McHatton - I like the second part a lot better than the first. It's important to end strong, isn't it? I'm not sure I hear a genre shift... it goes from sounding like a Todd McHatton song to sounding like a different Todd McHatton song... To sounding like yet another Todd McHatton song... There's sections, for sure, I'm just not convinced that any of these is a distinct genre change. The song as a whole is pretty good, though it does run a bit long.

I'm guessing it'll be Frankie vs. the Tiny Robots in the final round, and Frankie to take it all, as he should have in Nur Ein II. (Not that I won't change my mind when we hear the songs, but hey...

)

glennny · Post by **glennny** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:12 pm

Not to beat this subject to death, but ... if there is 2-4 way tie for first, everyone who ties for first advances to the final round, right? Or if there is a 2-3 way tie for second, everyone who ties for second advances, along with the first place finisher?

Conversely, if there is a 2-way tie for first, and also a 2-way tie for second, only the people who tied for first would advance, right?

If everyone ties for 1st they all advance

if one places first and 3 tie for 2nd (like last year) they all advance

if there's a tie for 1st there is no 2nd place, there could possibly be a tie for 3rd place but not 2nd. In a 2 way tie for 1st, those 2 advance, the 3rd and 4th or tied for 3rd placers do not advance.

if there's a 3 way tie for 1st, only those 3 advance.

frankie big face · Post by **frankie big face** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 9:01 pm

*sigh*

I stayed up until midnight but now I must sleep.

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 9:20 pm

I'm about to post the results.

Todd McHatton · Post by **Todd McHatton** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 9:57 pm

Congratulations Andrew and Frankie!
That was really fun.

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 10:08 pm

Billy's Little Trip · Tue Jun 02, 2009 11:34 pm

Andrew m**ther f**king Reist! It's about time people recognize the heart of rock and roll! No matter what happens at this point you have my respect, Canadian.

By the way, the rest of you kicked major ass!

Frank, damn, I was moved. Your voice is sex (no homo)

Tiny Robots, the clapping destroyed a perfect song. Let the audience clap, not the band. Other than that, pure win. OK, chastise me now for my opinion. j/k.

Todd. I love tHe Todd. He has a sweet voice. He doubles vocals great. He has a fun style. He has my favorite musical arrangements. He has EVERYTHING! But the Todd sounds like the YES and the Beatles. The Todd is not on my play list, but is on my friend list. (no homo)

You know I'm just playing with alz yuh alz (no Britney). Awesome music you guys and girl.

Ross · Post by **Ross** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 12:23 am

Damn! Reist Makes the Finals!!!!

Seems like a long time since this post

http://songfight.net/forums/viewtopic.p ... 689#p47689

PS - back then he was known as Jolly Roger

congrats to all four semifinalists - great battle

Looking forward to the finals

EVERYBODY VOTE!

Post by **Lunkhead** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 12:37 am

Congrats and good luck to Reist and Frankie! I look forward to hearing your final entries, and to having the week off. (Man, I'm tired.) It will be nice to just vote, or at least decide 1/3rd of a vote. Thanks to the judges and good job to all the contestants. We accomplished my own personal goal, which was to do at least as well as Erin and I did two years ago.

Don't forget to vote in the final round everyone! NUR EIN!

furrypedro · Post by **furrypedro** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 2:45 am

Bloody good job everyone. Very enjoyable fight

Andreist: This has pace, balls (but not overly testosteroned) and hooks. And it just gets better and better, is that a uke? and crazy rhythmless handclaps, I love that kind of stuff and it's good here cos it nicely offsets the slickness of the rest of the track. I really dig your songs when you get to the point to the straight away, though that probably has more to do with the fact that my attention span is about 2 minutes shorter with internet music than live/cd music, but either way kudos for having a super catchy chorus bit within the first 20 seconds (the falsetto part that is). You're definitely not holding back and I think you deserve points for that. I've only just remembered that there's a challenge here, I think my reaction to you middle section proves that you've done a good job with it.

Facial Frankie: As far as I'm concerned this is my validation for criticising you a bit in earlier rounds, you're not resorting to gimmicky stuff like your Disney track (which was awesome btw), just plain good-ass songwiting. Even the opening bars of this have an energy that was occasionally missing from your songs of earlier rounds. I wish you'd stayed on the 80's part for a few bars longer at least, you do it so well, and I like how the lyrics and music connect in that part. As it is it feels like you didn't want to do it and crowbarred it in with a few other genres for the purposes of challenge fulfillment when it should be a cheeky payoff at the end of the song. One extra genre with a bit of a development would have been better than 2 bars of 4 genres to me, which sucks cos this is a great song.

Tiny Robots: Argh, ooh, erm...mmmm. Shall I start with the good or the bad? Technically super, I love the clapping rhythm and Nouvelle Vague stylings, the disco part is very accomplished and the transition is smooth enough, but......I'm just not getting a visceral enjoyment of this song that I've got from the others, I can be as analytical as possible but at the end of the day it doesn't make me go "yeah!". I can't even attribute it to genre bias, cos this is more my kind of thing than Andrew's song but he totally grabs you by the scruff of the neck and won't let go (and I don't mean cos his song is aggresive, I mean cos it's catchy) but you guys seem to try your hardest to make music that won't offend. If I was having dinner with my parents then I'd put Tiny Robots on in the background, but since I'm giving you the full on headphone treatment you just don't cut it. After listening to the other songs 2 or 3 times I could sing the main parts back to you, but I've spun this at least 5 times in a row and can't get a hook into my brain. A lot of it has to do with Erin's voice, it hits all the notes, got control, and it's female which always makes me take notice, but there's no edge, no (dare I say it) emotion, no....je ne sais quoi.

Todd McHatton: Very nice sounding. I've gotta admit I've kind of got you pegged as a conventional songwriter type which isn't exactly fair as your songs do take unexpected turns fairly regularly, I'd even go so far as to say that you could benefit from losing a section or two here. I used to be all about a constantly changing structure and ephemeral songs but they do make songs seem a lot longer than they actually are (see Biffy Clyro, they make 3 minutes songs feel like 5 minute ones, and certainly not because they're shit). So although I like this a bunch, I keep expecting it to end but it just keeps going and going even though it's only 3 and a bit minutes long, and I start to tire slightly even when, say, that section at 2.28 starts, which is one of my favourite parts but my brain is thinking "is this thing ever gonna end?". I think you suffer from losing momentum at too many points in this song, rather than 2 massive choruses you've got about 4 that pass me by, it starts to feel like it's losing it's focus at the 1 minute mark. There is a really great song in here but it needs a lot of editing, and I think at this late stage you've shown a lack of discipline which could harm you.

Once more unto the breach!

Nur Ein IV Round Six "Hit Record"

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