I'll Crush You With My Crushing Reviews (Crush Reviews)

[JonPorobil]

Favorites:
Tuners Union
Manhattan Glutton
Jon Eric
I.P.

God bless your low standards, good sir!


Hey, Kapitano, did you download the whole batch before mine was posted, or are you postponing my review as a tardiness penalty?

[Kapitano]

Reviews, part two...

Jon Eric

The one that almost got away. A bouncy sing-along piano-led number - with occasional slow bits.

The drums could be louder, and 4:19 probably counts as an "extended mix". Try doubletracking the vocals, at least on the chorus - would make for a fuller sound.

Lord of Oats

Sounds like one of the very early demos by Human League - circa 1978 (complete with somewhat out of tune first verse). Now you just need a band member impersonating a cheesy local radio DJ introducing the track - yes, they really did that.

You have a rather belligerent singing voice, which goes nicely with the raw synth and drumbox sounds.

Lonbobby

I hereby christen this style: Antilectro. Or possibly Techno Skiffle.

Hyperautotuned vocals, high-q bass, robotic synth drums - so it should have turned out anodyne and disco-friendly, right? Instead we get...an acoustic ballad that's lost it's acoustics. Which is weird, but good.

Manhattan Glutton

One of the few entries that made me turn up the volume. Big and agressive, but not through being loud, overdistorted or frantic.

Okay it could use some variation after c2:30 - not sure what, maybe have the extra guitar at 4:00 come in earlier.

Medusa Oblongata

I think you want to be...Julie Cruise! For which you need (a) some pitch correction and (b) a lot of reverb.

Also drums down a bit and other instruments up a bit. It is difficult to mix synth drums well, especially filtered white noise ones like here.

But these are minor production criticisms - i.e the kind I always make. But as a demo of something that in the finished version would have compression, better mixing and reverb on everything, it's pretty good.

The atonal guitar at 3:30 was a nice surprise too.

MENBAH!

You do realise your name is anagram of "Meh. Ban!"? Which is not my comment.

Actually I can't think of anything to say. It's the kind of thing that's fun and energetic to see live, which translates into an mp3 on a laptop fairly well.

Octothorpe

I like big crashy drums. Reminds me of Holger Czukay, with the dominant voice ranting over the beat and random noises.

"I crush all her plants". Hmm. A deep meditation on the misdirected vindictive drives fulminated from a broken relationship, and therefore a subliminal critique of western ideological hegemony. Or possibly not.

The Original King Kong

I thought I might be the only one to rhyme "crush" with "rush", but no. But you go further - you rhyme "Crushity crush" with "the dogs went mush".

Nice synth sounds, good looped funky samples, okay beat...and vocals hard-limited and clipped far too much.

I'm still the only one to interpret "crush" as "bitcrushing" though .

Realist

I think you want to be...Joan Jett! Which is cool, 'cos she is.

This would be an excellent rockout if it were mixed with proper levels and at least some EQing. The voice, singing technique, guitar sound etc are all already there.

Rone Rivendale

Another one where everything's there and good, except the production which mixes them all together into...well, a piece of music instead of a collection of simultainious sounds.

Ross Durand

Mr Durand does only one thing and he does it well. Before you click "play" you know exactly what you're going to get - crisp acoustic guitar, soulful voice, subtle production, and a ballad with proper lyrics about pain and regret.

Scomber & Friends

It's a sultry smokey lounge-bar nightclub singer, with piano, understated drums and sax...after being bitten by a radioactive piano tuner.

Shatterfront

Well...it's more soulhurt boy-and-guitar...

...with tubular bells? And a slightly out-of-sync too-quiet drummer. And orchestral strings in the next room...

...and a rock band arrived late at the same venue. As rock bands tend to do.

A good genre-piece. Just not the genre I thought it was.

State Shirt

Everything just fits. It's a weird collection of sounds and influences, but they all mesh together.

I got no idea what the lyrics are about, but this is only the second song of the fight that I turned up and want to hear again.

Tuner's Union (Andrew Kazacoff)

Some songs are about war and against it. Some are about it and for it, though absolutely all of them are abysmal - just think of The Right Brothers. This seems to be just about war - or rather the psychology of war - which is a neat trick to pull off.

Very good instrumentation.

Wages

Sweet guitar tone, rough voice tone.

The lyrics are of the kind that make me think "What they're saying sounds deep, but I've no idea what it is".

The Weakest Suit

What I said about Tuner's Union and Wages - both go for The Weakest Suit.

Wreckdom

I like the beat, and the way it's cut up. Try bringing the guitar up and cutting an EQ hole in it for the vocals to sit in.

[AJOwens]

I can't take it any more! Here's a more fully realized version (still a long way to go before it sounds the way I want though.)

I don't want this replaced in the fight, but if there's any way to put up the proper version afterwards, for posterity, that would be awfully nice. I don't want this to go on my Permanent Record.

[Kapitano]

I can't take it any more! Here's a more fully realized version (still a long way to go before it sounds the way I want though.)

I'm not sure any of us wind up submitting (or even having) songs which are just the way we want them, or with things we wouldn't change. Sometimes I think no one finishes anything - they just stop working on it.

But this new version is rather good! The drums and rhythm guitar underpin the voice but don't dominate, and the jangly second guitar adds interest without distracting from the lyrics - which against that backdrop now seem to stand out more. It's as though previously listening to the words was something I had to remind myself to do, whereas here the instruments guide me to them. Plus it's looping in my head now, which the previous version would never have done.

[AJOwens]

I can't take it any more! Here's a more fully realized version (still a long way to go before it sounds the way I want though.)

I'm not sure any of us wind up submitting (or even having) songs which are just the way we want them, or with things we wouldn't change. Sometimes I think no one finishes anything - they just stop working on it.

Yeah, but a lot of people here have mastered that professional production sheen -- or so it seems to me. Mine sounds like some guy with a home studio. I want to learn how to get past that.

But this new version is rather good! The drums and rhythm guitar underpin the voice but don't dominate, and the jangly second guitar adds interest without distracting from the lyrics - which against that backdrop now seem to stand out more. It's as though previously listening to the words was something I had to remind myself to do, whereas here the instruments guide me to them. Plus it's looping in my head now, which the previous version would never have done.

Thanks for the extracurricular review! I'm glad you like it. But I think probably the vocals stand out better because they're sung and mixed more deliberately.

[Lord of Oats]

how bout me

[Caravan Ray]

Calm down Oats

[Kapitano]

how bout me

Did I miss you out, my lord? Fear not, for by the magic of editing, now I didn't.

[The Weakest Suit]

Boltoph - incredible song.

[jast]

Hopefully this is a good blend of brutally honest, encouraging and helpful.
CLFPM = composition, lyrics, subjective feeling, performance, mix/engineering. For details about how my reviews work, see my signature.

Benjamin Sturdevant -- 12/15
C:3 (Nice "instrumental" break. I don't know why I'm giving this one full marks, so sue me.) L:1 (I find the lyrics somewhat annoying and somewhat unconvincing.) F:3 (After turning the volume up on this quite a lot, this really engaged me.) P:2 (Convincing guitar playing. Pretty good vocals (not hitting all the pitches, though). The "uh, uh" thing can't decide on a note, can it? Falsetto doesn't fit there, I think. Vocal energy fluctuates too much for it to sound convincing to me.) M:2 (Vocals sound pretty thin. So does the guitar, but there it doesn't matter quite as much.)

Berkeley Social Scene -- 9/15
C:2 (This is pretty subjective, I suppose... your compositions are frequently just too random/ever-moving for me to enjoy. I also often get the impression that you use weird time signatures just to use weird time signatures. The chorus in 7/8 is pretty good. The verses (14/8? 15/8? I can't even tell) don't work nearly as well.) L:1 (Emo-y lyrics, heaps and heaps of weird metaphors, oblique for no reason that makes itself known to me... clearly not my thing.) F:2 P:2 (Vocals as weak as this don't really combine well with guitar as strong as that.) M:2 (Consider boosting the vocals a bit, and cut that guitar a bit. It really, really dominates the mix in a bad way.)

Blues Manufacturing Facility -- 10/15
C:1 (Generic blues.) L:* F:2 (you do weird background/ambience stuff there. Almost creepy. Gets a bit grating after a while.) P:2 (You don't sound as if your vocals are serious. If they weren't annoying that would be okay. Or do your vocals just suck? I don't know. All other instruments are actually pretty good.) M:3

Boltoph -- 14/15
C:3 (This is seriously great. I didn't really like the style but then you went and saved it with double time and energy and everything.) L:2 (Once again, I'm too stupid to get half of the lyrics. The parts that do make sense to me are pretty good.) F:3 (Right from the start the mood is there. I can even forgive the tremolo.) P:3 M:3

Cain/ Prosthetic Limp -- 11/15
C:3 (It sounds a bit like it's copied from a well-known band, but it's copied pretty well.) L:* F:2 (I like most of this pretty well. But really, don't do that solo singing thing.) P:2 (Don't sing without accompaniment if you can't hold the pitch on your own. Very pitchy.) M:2 (Vocals are buried. Nice and appropriate effects on them, though.)

Chopped Liver Meat God -- 11/15
C:2 (This is totally not my style, but I can somehow get into it anyway. The instrumental part is perhaps a bit long, but it fits the song. Minus point for brickwall ending.) L:* F:3 (I totally don't get why I like this, but I do.) P:2 (A fair portion of the vocals is pretty damn good. Some notes are horribly flat, though. Shame.) M:2 (The combination of canned drum machine and extremely reverby guitar doesn't gel for me. No complaints apart from that.)

Deja Vu featuring Vertigo -- 11/15
C:2 (Drums are boring whenever they (almost) solo. Great arrangement. The short square-y synth that does the chords rocks. The filter-sweeped lead synth thing less so. Cool, but gets repetitive.) L:* F:3 (Pretty likable.) P:2 (Those vocals are not very good (you get this verdict because I hear insufficiencies despite pitch mangling... they might not be quite that bad, but it's hard to be sure with the effects). Very uneven levels on vocals; use more compression.) M:2 (Clippy.)

EAandM -- 7/15
C:1 (Pretty generic musicing there.) L:* F:2 (The way I imagine this it's actually pretty cool. Extra point for concept.) P:1 (Vocals are booooring. And bad when you try to sing. Moaning (?) samples are boring, perhaps even pointless. And then you even start almost machinegunning it... bah.) M:1 (The vocals are way buried, and still slightly clippy.)

Explino! -- 12/15
C:3 (Cool arrangement.) L:* F:1 (As great as this all is, it really doesn't capture me. I have no idea why, sorry. I think it's because the lead(?) guitar is extremely busy and it gets annoying.) P:3 M:3 (Perhaps pan the backup vocals a little bit less further apart. Just a thought. I dunno.)

Give Our Regard's To The Earth's Core -- your credibility as an artiste is still on the line here... 11/15
C:2 (My main beef is that this feels way too fast and I get this feeling that it keeps speeding up, even if it probably doesn't. Apart from that I like it, I think. Great arrangement.) L:2 (I don't really like the lyrics, but there is something in them that made me give you two points anyway. Strange.) F:3 (Somehow this isn't boring despite being pretty simple musically. The drums are a big part of what makes this great, I think.) P:2 (The vocals are the weak point. They're pretty okay; mainly the verses don't work well.) M:2 (Vocals are buried. More compression! If I ignore that, great mix. Nice panning, nice roominess and everything. Things get a bit muddled together.)

The Interchangables -- 10/15
C:2 (I like this but it gets boring after a while. Changing to major chords is nice but it's sort of a cheap hack if you don't even really change the melody.) L:* F:2 (Compelling, somehow, whenever I manage to ignore the irritatingness of the vocals.) P:2 (Vocals are pretty flat and wobbly. It sounds even worse once you start doubling. The highest notes are actually best. Don't hold yourself back that much. Nice guitar playing, though.) M:2 (Nice guitar sound. Are those vocals panned to the right? Please keep them centered as long they are not doubled. Vocals sound a bit thin.)

i.p. -- 13/15
C:3 (The bridge clinched this one, plus you don't outstay your welcome.) L:* F:2 (Stylistically I can't get into this. It sort of works for me, but not amazingly well so.) P:3 (No surprise there...) M:3 (Pretty high noise floor there. Apart from that, cool mix with nice (and appropriate) gimmicks.)

James Owens -- 9/15
C:2 (Nice. Not ecstatic.) L:2 F:1 (If the vocals were significantly better this would be fairly good. This way... well.) P:2 (Vocals are the weak, wimpy kind of quiet. They're fairly accurate, so it's not all bad.) M:2 (I listened to this downmixed. It's okay that way. You know what the problem was, so I won't bother ranting. Vocals are a fairly quiet relative to the guitar, anyhow. I cut the guitar's level down to 50 %, that made it pretty decent.)
James Owens new version -- 12/15
C:2 (Much cooler arrangement.) L:2 F:3 (I can really get into this now. The verby guitar in the right field is nice.) P:2 (Vocals re-recorded, right? Definitely better now, but still not great.) M:3

Jon Eric -- 13/15
C:3 (Bouncy. Great arrangement. Wonderful ending.) L:2 (I file this kind of stuff under filler lyrics: they get the job done. They're not exciting. The best part is the chorus.) F:3 (All in all, I consider this one of your most enjoyable songs, at least among those I know.) P:2 (Vocals border on falsetto. I believe that's not the best way to go. Not to mention it sounds a bit dopey.) M:3 (A bit more compression on lead vocals, perhaps. It would be appropriate for this kind of music, at least in my opinion.)

Josef Frank -- 6/15
C:2 (This might work as background music for a computer game. On its own it fails to engage. Perhaps that's the way you intended it to be, or you just follow the techno idea that songs don't need to be interesting, I don't know. Anyway, takes pretty long to get to the place where it starts, uh, rocking out. Breaking expectations is sometimes good, but I tend to think here it isn't.) L:0 (Big surprise!) F:1 (The mechanic-sounding piano really hurts this. Might have been better if there had been some kind of other lead instrument or, you know, vocals.) P:1 (Ever heard the term "velocity"?) M:2 (Bit of clipping there.)

Kapitano -- I fast-forwarded through parts of it because I don't really have all that much time. 12/15
C:3 (Some parts are rather boring. Around 5:30, for instance. I love the rest you did there, though.) L:* F:2 (I'm very non-fond of spoken parts in music (not counting rap), especially if they are that long and right at the start. The mood on the rest of it saves it.) P:3 M:2 (the hi-hats are almost a bit too sharp-sounding. Vocals, especially sung ones, are hard to make out. Did you saw off all sibilance/transients? Some of the synth sounds seem to cut off in weird ways.)

Ken's Super Duper Band 'n Stuff -- 12/15
C:3 (The combination of guitars is awesome. The songwriting is interesting enough. I don't like how the bridge ends but oh well.) L:* F:2 (Sounds like any other pop song, I'm afraid. That's actually a compliment, I guess, but it doesn't mean I'm all excited about the song; just that I'd listen to it again.) P:2 (That could sound awesome if there was a lot more resonance in the vocals. They are actually good for Song Fight standards, though. Just iron out the wobbliness on assorted notes.) M:3 (The delay on the vocals that's clearly audible after everything's technically over is a bit stupid.)

Lonbobby -- 11/15
C:2 (Definitely cute. A bit chaotic. A bit devoid of real development.) L:* F:2 (I found this one a bit too busy to work for me.) P:2 (If I hear intonation weaknesses through the vocoder, I guess it's bad, right?) M:3 (The snare (or whatever) in the intro bugged me a bit, in its noisiness in the tail of the sound.)

Lord of Oats -- 11/15
C:3 (I like how all the things in the arrangement work together, though perhaps the organ is a bit loud in comparison to some of the other things.) L:* F:2 (A bit hectic.) P:2 (Please hit more notes. The notes that you do hit sound pretty good if they aren't wobbly. Doubling + bad pitch accuracy = bad.) M:2 (Whatever sets in together with the organ near the beginning is extremely annoying, especially on headphones. That it keeps on coming back doesn't make it better.)

Manhattan Glutton -- 12/15
C:2 (This is all nice but for me, raw energy rarely makes up for lack of interesting things happening structurally. To me this just crawls along forever. That it's very long doesn't make that much better, nor does the endless guitar almost-solo.) L:* F:3 (Great stuff in the background. I was kind of expecting you'd turn it down during verses but was let down in that. Oh well.) P:3 (Though I still wonder how much more potential there is in your voice.) M:2 (Vocals could use a slight boost, I think. Perhaps the drums could, too. Ah, scratch that, they do need one. The crunch on the rhythm guitar is pretty cool, but you already knew that.)

medusa oblongata -- 9/15
C:2 (Intro too long. Ending uninspired. Song okay.) L:1 (The language is weird in this, or is it just me?) F:2 (I would like this more if the drum machine didn't cut through it quite as much.) P:2 (Either the female vocals are pretty bad or you write seriously weird harmonies. The fact that I'm not sure is not a good sign about the vocals. Train pitch perception... apart from that, the vocals are pretty good.) M:2 (The contrast between smooth sounds and extremely crisp drums is a bit jarring. Try low-passing the drums a bit...)

MENBAH! -- 11/15
C:2 (Not that exciting. Sort of okay, even though not my kind of song... doesn't really go far enough, I suppose.) L:* F:2 (If everything was a bit more, uh, earnest, or something... it would be great. Sounds a bit half-hearted.) P:2 (That goes doubly for the vocals... I can tell what you were going for, but I think you only half got there.) M:3 (Saturating this a bit more might be cool.)

Octothorpe -- 6/15
C:1 (Uh. I don't know about this one.) L:1 (A little bit funny, admittedly, but most of the time I wondered who added the rhyming feature to Google Translate.) F:0 (I don't feel anything at all here, except for a slight sense of annoyance.) P:2 (Vocals are actually pretty cute. Minus points mainly for weird timing. Rest sounds decent) M:2 (It all seems to jumble together pretty badly. Noisy at the end.

The Original King Kong -- 9/15
C:2 (Not quite great.) L:* F:2 (Everything except the vocals works for me.) P:1 (Vocals sound stupid and wimpy. Bad timing. Chorus (?) sounds like a particularly bad copy of "Bad Boys". I can't even call this pitchy.) M:2 (Clippy vocals. Noisy.)

Realist -- 7/15
C:1 (Not much happening here. Unexciting guitar solo.) L:* F:1 (I'm like, eh.) P:1 (Guitar timing is not very good. I almost can't make out the melody.) M:2 (Vocals sound overemphasized in mid/high frequency range; cheap mic?)

Rone Rivendale -- 4/15
C:0 (If any melody could be made out or the arrangement wasn't quite as sparse, I might like something about it.) L:2 (A weird mix of horrible cliché and something interesting that I can't quite put my finger on.) F:0 (Not musicy enough for me.) P:* (I'm not going to explicitly rate you in this anymore since it's pretty obvious that you ignore all comments about it.) M:2 (The uneven panning is annoying on headphones.)

Ross Durand -- 12/15
C:2 (Yeah, well. Good, not great, and all that.) L:3 (I don't normally go for lyrics about the whole love and relationship thing. This is sort of touching, I must admit. Extra point for winning me over, then.) F:2 (I'm not excited. Everything is rock-solid about this, of course, but it lacks the certain something.) P:3 (Intonation is a bit lax sometimes.) M:2 (Heaps of silence at the end.)

Scomber & Friends -- 11/15
C:3 (When I say that everything in this is lacking, I think the composition is exempt. I'm not sure whether I like it. I'll make up my mind later.) L:* F:2 (This is sort of doing what I think it wants to do, but every part of it is missing something. ) P:2 (Vocals are a bit weak... the kind of way where I think I might like it but then I don't because it's pretty bland, though not actually bad. I'm missing proper drums.) M:2 (The piano sounds pretty horrible. Ringy, perhaps.)

Shatterfront -- 13/15
C:3 (I was going to rate this worse, but then you went and made it interesting again by going all distorted guitar on it. Nice.) L:* F:3 (The overall sound is great. Attention to details seems to have been part of the equation.) P:2 (Pretty cool vocals, but a bit nasal (and some of the higher parts sound strained; both are signs of suboptimal vocal technique). I find the shuffliness on the drums pretty weird.) M:3 (Sounds a little bit dampened or something.)

State Shirt -- 11/15
C:2 (Another of those I don't actually like at all but are actually quite good. I don't think it has a proper ending.) L:* F:2 (The whole mood is sort of cool but I find the samples in the background are a bit too regular. Makes it grinding rather than what I imagined might be the desired effect.) P:3 M:2 (Vocals are buried despite doubling... and I'm listening to this on headphones.)

Tuners Union -- 13/15
C:3 (Like. Lots.) L:* F:3 (This is part great and part great.) P:2 (Low vocals sound stupid; like a failed attempt at classical singing. Later vocals seem a bit held back and a bit wobbly.) M:3 (That noise stuff at the beginning and ending is weird. The rest of the mix is extremely good, though, so I'll forgive you.)

Wages -- 12/15
C:2 (Nice change in the chorus.) L:* F:3 (I like it better than I think I ought to. Oh well.) P:2 (Low vocals are horrible. Other vocals are somewhere between decent and good. More decent than good, I think. Guitar playing comes across as a bit unrefined.) M:3 (Nothing special here.)

The Weakest Suit -- 11/15
C:2 (I sort of like it. I wished it had something less predictable in it. Nice arrangement, though.) L:1 (I totally don't get the story.) F:3 (Extra point for making tremolo work even to my impossible standards.) P:2 (Stop whispering. Start singing. Doubling can't really fix that.) M:3

WreckdoM -- 9/15
C:1 (This isn't actually doing anything. Come on, do something now! Please? Nope. Still nothing.) L:* F:1 (The drum machine sound totally doesn't work for me. Neither do the vocals.) P:2 (Are you serious about those vocals? Yes? Because they suck. Accompaniment is a bit jerky occasionally.) M:3 (The whispering is cool.)

Spintown -- I see what you did there. It didn't make me a regular visitor of your blog, though.

Voting for Boltoph, i.p., Jon Eric, Shatterfront, Tuners Union.

[wages]

Wages -- 12/15
C:2 (Nice change in the chorus.) L:* F:3 (I like it better than I think I ought to. Oh well.) P:2 (Low vocals are horrible. Other vocals are somewhere between decent and good. More decent than good, I think. Guitar playing comes across as a bit unrefined.) M:3 (Nothing special here.)

Is "L:*" a nice way of saying zero? lol Or maybe it is a 2 because you gave me 12/15, but the total comes to 10+*=12/15?

Either way, thanks for the review!

[Ross]

Ross Durand -- 12/15
M:2 (Heaps of silence at the end.)

D'oh - I missed a vote because of silence??? Bummer man

Thanks for the review!

[jast]

Wages: It means I didn't bother trying to make out the lyrics (I have to concentrate a bit to do that) and they weren't in the lyrics forum, so I just went with a default rating of 2.

Ross: not because of that in particular. Your song simply didn't win me over. Remember that this is the Arbitrary Review System. If there hadn't been any silence I'd probably have subtracted a point for something else because I'm a big old meanie.

[Spud]

6? We are crushed, sir.

[wages]

Wages: It means I didn't bother trying to make out the lyrics (I have to concentrate a bit to do that) and they weren't in the lyrics forum, so I just went with a default rating of 2.

Sorry you missed it. The lyrics are here:
http://songfight.net/forums/viewtopic.p ... 70#p147570

Since it's come up 2 or 3 times now, I'll explain the meaning. I wrote the chorus first then the verse. Basically, the chorus is saying that buds on trees become leaves that fall to the ground (soil) and are dead. When you walk on them, they make sound (talking), but what are they saying? And then the verse proceeds to ask what the leaves are asking (quite poetically I might add). The bridge is sort of the response from us, which is of course, our oblivious nature to, well, nature. Of course, it's also implied that since the leaves are dead but still speaking, that nothing is truly dead, but man is unaware or unimpressed.

Whamo!

EDIT: But I don't blame you for not taking the time to concentrate. I rarely do myself.

[jast]

Well, I'll be damned. I actually saw the lyrics there but somehow the second time through, when I actually wrote the review, I forgot all about it. I see I missed other posts, too. Sorry, guys. Now I can choose between reviewing the lyrics and spending the same time working on my next entry. Hmm...

[rone rivendale]

6? We are crushed, sir.

You're crushed? I got a 4!

[blue]

Jon Eric, your song is really good.

Ken, yours is very Too Much Joy. Only minimal sadness. I like it.

Rone, still terrible.

[JonPorobil]

Dude!

Thank you to everyone who's reviewed so far (especially blue! I think I'm going to print that out and hang it on my cubicle to look at on rough days). My reviews will be posted later today. My song is the first that I recorded using new software, so the learning curve shows in a couple of places, but apparently I was correct to assume that the song is still listenable. Thanks, guys!

Nevertheless, today or tomorrow, I'll be posting a slightly tweaked version, now that I kind of have a better idea of what I'm doing on Cubase.

Oh, and though I'm not done with reviews yet... Boltoph, your song made me see God.

[Manhattan Glutton]

Ur song is kinda boring

Ya I know. I really needed an excellent progressive rock drummer to bring this one home, and maybe a few little production details I couldn't think of. I was going for Tool with a flavor of Alanis, but you just can't do Tool without at least a real percussionist. Still, no regrets for the bridge!

BTW: Did anyone notice I switch from 7/8 to 6/8 and then alternate with 5/8? If you didn't notice... I think I did my job.

[DuToVa]

Comments by Va of DuToVa:

Manhattan Glutton - Your song was the pick of the litter for me. I actually thought the verse sounded like Alanis Morissette before you mentioned it. I'm not real familiar with Tool, but would like to hear Soundgarden cover this song (2:21-2:25 especially sounds like them). Along this line, I couldn't help but compare your voice to Chris Cornell's. Your voice is good, but my impression is a stronger voice would be better. Not sure if bringing vocals up in the mix would help. Recommend adding the same vocal effect as you have around 1:48 to the verse and maybe other places (i.e., places where the vocals are not doubled/layered). The song is obviously long as compared to most... maybe look for places to cut without impacting the variation. That said, the length didn't make that much difference in overall appeal. Excellent SF entry!

James Owens - I like your updated version. My band has at least one song in the SF archive that I regret submitting! The bass seems a little too strong in my headphones. I really like the bass line though. I rank this as your 3rd best song (behind "Nothing is Everything" and "Sometimes It's Hard to Keep Yourself Moving"). I'm glad you updated it!

[Manhattan Glutton]

Thanks for the kind words. I agree with all of your criticism, and I could have definitely put in more vocal takes. But more importantly, thanks for prompting me to find out that Soundgarden has reunited. I only wish I had Cornell's vocal range. My band needs to finish its album before grunge is out of style again!