Nur Ein VII Round One "Architect"

[Alvis]

Contradictory feedback is the nature of reality, isn't it? Everyone has different opinions on what is good and what is bad. In Round 0 I got a 2nd place ranking from one judge and dead last from another. You can't get much more contradictory than that. But that's just how it is, it's generally impossible to please everyone (although I guess bgm did in round 0) ... and if it's a choice of having everyone go "meh, it's OK" or having some people love (and some hate) what I'm doing than I'll take the latter.

The idea (at least for me) is to try to find an audience that enjoys what I do (and to improve what I do of course, I want to get much better) ... so it's better in that case to have some people love what you do (even if it means putting off a lot of other people) than to have everyone just say it's OK - because people never become real fans of something they think is just OK.

Another point: No matter how well you do whatever it is you are trying to do, some people aren't going to get it. You could make the best hip hop in the world and a lot of people aren't going to give a damn. Same goes for any other kind of music... especially these days. So many people are into their own little subgenres of music and have little patience for anything else.

Very well stated. Always good to keep perspective with these things.

[Manhattan Glutton]

(wiki links)

For whatever reason, phpbb chokes on the last closing paren. Using the wiki syntax JB added (button above the text box) will work better.

[supremeedible]

Reviews! Phew!

Adam Adamant I really like the "we were laid out stone by stone" stanza -- it is somewhat annoying that it doesn't come back again after the beginning. The single note ukulele stuff is a little sloppily timed.

Add This feels much more coherent than Breaking the Ice. The Cake-esque spoken lines are cool, but they don't seem as natural when they start getting longer -- "right where it's supposed to be". This doesn't feel nearly as long as it actually is, which is a good sign I suppose.

BGM Fantastic. I love how you go all in on the challenges. The long wait for the last word of each line does seem a little weird until you get to the punchline, but when I first heard the song I was tricked into thinking it was just a kind of interesting stylistic choice.

Boffo Yux Dudes Really don't get the start and the end. I'm not feeling compelled to say anything about this. It's just super average, and is not my cup of tea.

Chocolate Chips I find your stuff really hard to get into, but this is probably the most accessible one of yours I've heard. The heavily effected vocals work well with this one. The guitar is played well and with restraint. I think the main thing with the round challenge is to convince me that the round is an organic part of the song that hasn't just been dropped in. I'm not sure about this one.

Chris Cogott Channeling R.E.M. in the round parts. I find this song just a little boring (like most R.E.M. songs, in fact), but the performance is great, and the round is certainly a natural part of the song.

DJ Ranger Den Yeah. So, I like this one a lot more than last week's. I am not appreciating the laxity in the timing of the vocals.

Frankie Big Face This is a great song. I somehow missed the frère Jacques theme on the first listen, and I don't really want to join the argument about whether you followed the letter and not the spirit of the challenge here, but it does seem like you made a bit of an odd choice.

Genevieve Johnson and the Something Something An interesting take on the title. I thought I would absolutely hate this on reading the lyrics, but somehow I am willingly listening to your "hardcore pornography dance mix" and quite enjoying it. Don't think you've technically got a round here but I would let it slide if my opinion meant anything. Tag your bloody mp3.

Gooey Caramel Centaur This is lots of firsts in one for me: (1) using GarageBand (2) "programming" "drums" (3) electric guitar solo (maybe I've done one of these in a Songfight! entry, but I can't think where). Also, I am a fish out of water without my acoustic guitar, and I like how this turned out despite.

JoAnn Abbott This is nice. The line "built on solid ground, heaven bound" is beautiful.

Jon Eric Love it when you kick in to the electrics and drums. The electric guitar and mouth organ solo is fun, but you come into it a bit too sloppily. I think the song is one beat too long.

Ligers with Attitude This one has some style. However, repeating one line does not a round make.

Manhattan Glutton I absolutely love the background vocals in the first part. The round is solid too. I'm having to adjust to style of this one, but there is no doubt that it's done really well.

Merisan This is a really nice listen until the transition into the round part, which is awkward and makes me feel like you just have two completely different songs duct taped together.

Oystercatcher This sounds a bit too much like last week's song. It goes on too long without much change. The vocal performance is also not good at times.

Rabid Garfunkel I still don't know quite what to make of you, sir. However, this definitely made me smile.

Ross Durand This is a good song. The round works well.

Sausage I don't think anyone could start a song with that line and make it sound good. I don't care for the rest of the lyric either. Sadly I feel the chorus might get stuck in my head. That round really doesn't work.

Snappy + Floyd (or Snappy & Floyd? be consistent!) You've got some balls sending this in. I actually quite enjoyed it on the first listen. I like me a few hip hop artists, but I hate it when hip hop sings about hip hop. It's like how people who speak Esperanto only ever talk about Esperanto. It's pointless. Jon is right: the singing is abysmal, and only one of you can rap. "Somebody feels it if it's real, nobody feels it if it ain't." -- I like this line, but there are precious few lines here that are actually saying anything, which is unacceptable for a ten minute song. I love it when you adjust your rap gloves, but it's CPR performed on a dead man. The round is hardly significant, and utterly intolerable. The guitar solo is cool.

The Idiot Kings This is a cute little song. However, you really need to put some effort into, you know, doing the challenges.

WreckdoM Good on you for jumping right into the round thing. It's a really weird collection of voices you're putting together, and the main voice can't really sing. I don't really like it.

The WSA That chorus ticks all the boxes. The vocals are great (Ok, most of the time -- "burning bright" fail) and that bass is really nice. I'm not too fussed with the rest of it.

[BenKrieger]

LWA's name alone should be a tip off to hip hop influence. Nothing like a good diss track!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diss_track

[BenKrieger]

Oystercatcher This sounds a bit too much like last week's song. It goes on too long without much change. The vocal performance is also not good at times.

The nice thing about having a SongFight back catalog as varied as mine is that I can paraphrase the immortal Scott Miller and it holds some weight: everything in this recording is on purpose.

[Alvis]

Reviews! Phew!

Boffo Yux Dudes Really don't get the start and the end. I'm not feeling compelled to say anything about this. It's just super average, and is not my cup of tea.

Well, I'll take "super average" over "utter crap", so that's something. And we're not many folks' cup of tea (more like Kool-Aid with an absinthe kick), but if we can occasionally amuse anyone other than ourselves I'm reasonably content.

[supremeedible]

The nice thing about having a SongFight back catalog as varied as mine is that I can paraphrase the immortal Scott Miller and it holds some weight: everything in this recording is on purpose.

Well I'm glad you know how to take a reviewer that completely misses the point . But if the song only sounds good to those with the gnosis, it's a failure imo.

[BenKrieger]

imo.

What? No humble? Bastard.

[supremeedible]

There's no H in NUR EIN!!!!!!!

[Caravan Ray]

Don't think you've technically got a round here

I think I do. Two voices singing exactly the same melody and words starting at different times and over-lapping. Maybe someone with more knowledge of these things can clarify - but I thought that was what I was doing

Tag your bloody mp3.

Tag your own bloody mp3 arseface.

But actually - I thought I did. I even put a street map of Canberra as an album cover. I don't know what happened. Maybe ASIO has been hacking into my computer.

[BoffoYux]

H) NO IT'S NOT. THE BARRAGE OF CONTRADICTORY FEEDBACK SUCKS!
....had to be done.

Too true. You need a thicker skin around here, I've found out. Eventually when you know the players, you can gauge if you trust the actual feedback from people, or they're just talking out their Ace Ventura.

Actually, I was pleasantly surprised on the constructive feedback this Nur Ein. It's not - 'You Suck' - it's 'You Suck because the drums are too high/monotone in the mix'. I can respect those comments.

Not many people get BYD. And that's fine. We can get validation for our work other places. But it's fun to mix it up with new faces, and frankly, people more accomplished at their craft than we are - and I've been at this over 30 years. That's how you grow and learn. We've done over a few dozen songs together by now, and it's interesting how each one comes together.

By the end, we'll be kicking all your asses. Batter up!

Tom

[the idiot king]

The Idiot Kings This is a cute little song. However, you really need to put some effort into, you know, doing the challenges.

good idea! i think i'll start by doing the challenges for both songs i've already completed. there's a round in this, and the yelling in my last one was a sample that i built and offered other people as a download for their own use of a crazy woman screaming.

[Geoff WreckdoM]

(I think WreckdoM is a duo; if I'm wrong about that, then feel free to correct my math accordingly).

The past couple Nur Eins we've been a 4 piece, this year it's 3. This track had two guest vox to make the round more authentic, and it's a boy-girl-boy-girl too.

[Geoff WreckdoM]

the main voice can't really sing.

I know I can't sing, I try to work around it, and some days I pull it off better than others. Usually depends on the flowing of the ideas, and I fully admit this week the cup did not runith over. I was stunted, and if we manage to get into round 2 I will do all I can to step it up in the energy and fun departments. However, to be as abrasively frank about it as possible, one songfighter telling another he can't sing is like one Cardinal accusing another of dressing too garishly.

[roymond]

The Idiot Kings This is a cute little song. However, you really need to put some effort into, you know, doing the challenges.

good idea! i think i'll start by doing the challenges for both songs i've already completed. there's a round in this, and the yelling in my last one was a sample that i built and offered other people as a download for their own use of a crazy woman screaming.

Look at that! So accommodating! Some people around here are not only responsive, but also responsible.

[supremeedible]

However, to be as abrasively frank about it as possible, one songfighter telling another he can't sing is like one Cardinal accusing another of dressing too garishly.

Fair enough. I'm not the best at the ol' reviews, but I think writing them is an important part of the Songfight! experience and I hope that if I keep doing them I'll eventually come up with constructive things to say.

That said, there are lots of Songfight! songs that are great other than that the singing is dreadful, and if we're here to make good music we should be trying to get better at singing. Not that me telling you "you can't sing" effects anything constructive in that regard.

[JonPorobil]

H) NO IT'S NOT. THE BARRAGE OF CONTRADICTORY FEEDBACK SUCKS!
....had to be done.

Too true. You need a thicker skin around here, I've found out. Eventually when you know the players, you can gauge if you trust the actual feedback from people, or they're just talking out their Ace Ventura.

Actually, I was pleasantly surprised on the constructive feedback this Nur Ein. It's not - 'You Suck' - it's 'You Suck because the drums are too high/monotone in the mix'. I can respect those comments.

Not many people get BYD. And that's fine. We can get validation for our work other places. But it's fun to mix it up with new faces, and frankly, people more accomplished at their craft than we are - and I've been at this over 30 years. That's how you grow and learn. We've done over a few dozen songs together by now, and it's interesting how each one comes together.

By the end, we'll be kicking all your asses. Batter up!

Tom

Well, I was being intentionally contrarian for the sake of a joke. I actually don't mind all the "contradictory" feedback because I don't find contradiction in the fact that different people can hold conflicting opinions about the same minutae. It's all about determining whose feedback is important to you, and whose isn't.

[JoAnn Abbott]

I'd like to thank everyone who has given me feedback thus far. I am still trying to learn, and admit I have been a bit spoiled in some of the Spintunes rounds I participated in by having some really great accompanists. Right now I am pretty much going it all solo ( a little help from Dave Leigh from Dr Lindyke on my round doing vocals though). My biggest handicap is that I don't actually PLAY anything well. I have lots of instruments and doodle on them, kind of like a musical form of doodling with a pencil. Playing them for real though- nope. I also have a ProTools program- but only understand a teeny bit of it. Tech stuff spooks me.
Anyway, unless it is forbidden, I will shadow rounds once I get eliminated. With will probably be before round 2, knowing my usual track record...
Thanks again for the feedback!

[Rabid Garfunkel]

This is magic results time, isn't it? Tenterhooks, and pins & needles.

@JoAnn: playing well ain't that important. Playing with heart is.

[BenKrieger]

As a final appeal to the judges, I would like to add that while complex rounds are one way to go about this challenge, another way is to write a round that people can actually pick up on immediately and participate in. One of the problems I had with my Nur Ein material in 2010 is that, while I felt that it was good material if this site was called StudioFight, the songs themselves were not very playable for my solo sets. With this Nur Ein contest, I'm trying to be careful and write actual, playable songs that don't require a band. When I performed "Architect" the other night, I mentioned that there had been a round challenge and that the last line of the song was where the round started. That's all I said, but the 10-odd people there picked up on it without prompting (a communal aspect of music that couldn't be pulled off as easily with, say, BGM's awesomely complex round).

Food for voting!

[JonPorobil]

As a final appeal to the judges, I would like to add that while complex rounds are one way to go about this challenge, another way is to write a round that people can actually pick up on immediately and participate in. One of the problems I had with my Nur Ein material in 2010 is that, while I felt that it was good material if this site was called StudioFight, the songs themselves were not very playable for my solo sets. With this Nur Ein contest, I'm trying to be careful and write actual, playable songs that don't require a band. When I performed "Architect" the other night, I mentioned that there had been a round challenge and that the last line of the song was where the round started. That's all I said, but the 10-odd people there picked up on it without prompting (a communal aspect of music that couldn't be pulled off as easily with, say, BGM's awesomely complex round).

Food for voting!

To be fair, you rocked an awesome version of "Not in This Lifetime" in New York last summer.

[BenKrieger]

But even on that song, I wasn't able to pull off (ha) the round in the middle and end of the song.

The only song from Nur Ein last time that I think would work well was "Stranded," but I need to memorize the Spanish.