"Goodbye." (What A Horrible Thing To Say reviews)

[Stubby Phillips]

These would have been the last words in my entry, had I actually come up with anything besides one lame riff. Someday...

[Niveous]

Reviews later. Short version:

Got my vote: Philipso

Lost by a hair: Lonbobby

That other song which wasn't as funny as he thinks it is: Super Steve

There is no award for most entries in a week: The Sidewalkers

[JonPorobil]

At last some songs!

Lonbobby - Good to see you back, man. Nice keys as always. Turn the bass down, please. The vocal delivery is okay, though I wish it were more forceful.... and some of the lyrics don't fit right where you emphsize the wrong syllable or the wrong word in the phrase. I think this melody might wind up getting stuck in my head. Strong entry.

Phillipso - This vocal tone disturbs the hell out of me. The lyrics scan well, and are therefore appealing, but this mix is too loud. I love what the drums are doing around 1:30. Unfortunately, the drums are mixed too loud, and they overpower everything else. I'm not digging the transition from the solo to the last chorus, either.

Sidewalkers - Does your trombone need, like, help or something? It sounds like it's dying. The vocals are mixed so low that I don't think I'd be able to understand them even if they were delivered intelligibly. Then the trombone clips the whole recording at 1:06, and I get the feeling that if I manage it make it through this track, I'll be deleting it immediately afterwards. Seriously, did you spend more than 3:42 on this, total? Next time you feel like farting into a microphone, find some other venue for it, please.

Super Steve - After all the overly-hot mixes in this fight, I had to pump yours way up to be able to hear it. This sounds pleasant enough, though I suspect you're using loops. There's not too much original here... maybe the lyrics, but I can't hear them, as they're mixed even lower than anything else. The change to 5/4 for the chorus is admirable, at least, but is it enough to save the track? I'm not sure. What lyrics I'm hearing are pretty stupid.

It looks like, barring late postings, Lon gets my vote.

[jb]

Super Steve- Takes a while to get started. The vocals need to be processed, and there's a good deal of hiss that I interpret as your having a cheap microphone. Please see what I wrote to Michael Mass on his "Had it Up To Here" entry regarding vocals. The "niceness" of the sounds in your arrangement gets tiresome after a while. It needs to change at some point. The lyrics are a little offensive.

Phillipso- Those aren't harmonies. It's very loud. I like the rhythm, it's got a nice groove. If only the vocals weren't clipping and out of tune, I'd really like this, especially that pre-chorus with the female vocal. The male vocal needs EQ to remove muddiness so that I can understand the words. I like the melodies a lot, and there are a lot of good ideas flitting around in the arrangement. This is a pretty good attempt, please enter again.

Lonbobby- Lovely chord progression, nicely recorded. I love the pseudo-vocoder vocal style you use. Nice.

[king_arthur]

Generic (from your link in the QC thread):

Wow, recording quality has jumped upward since two years ago!
Piano part staggers rhythmically here and there a little bit
(I noticed it in the intro) It's probably sacrilege around here
to suggest recording it as a MIDI track and quantizing, but you
might try that sometime, just see if you like it or not. I do like
the N'Arleans feel in the piano part. Vocals are good. Melody
is kinda repetitive, changing it up for the chorus might have added
a little interest... or changing the chords behind the melody, it's
basically 1-4 all the way through, all at pretty much the same
dynamic level.

Lonbobby:

End of the first verse, it sounds like you're adding some sort of
delay to one of the parts, acoustic guitar or something, and it's
not in sync with the rhythm of the song. MIDI sounds didn't bother
me; pitch correction... well, I guess it's considered an "effect"
these days, so, okay. I liked the sorta "held back" mellow sound
of this piece.

Phillipso:

Wish the mix was cleaner - it sounds like you're pushing the levels
to hard in order to compete in the volume wars. I like the girl
singer. The drum part seems a little to busy for this tempo, I'm
guessing this is a machine playing a pattern that wasn't meant to
be played quite this fast. I like the song, the performance and the
recording are a bit ragged for my tastes.

The Sidewalkers:

Guess I don't feel obligated to take this seriously...

Super Steve:

Sounds like the drum machine migrated over to one channel... might be
okay if you moved the fingerpicking guitar over to the other side and
put the organ thing in the middle so that it's more balanced - something
rhythmic happening on each side. Then the piano could come in somewhere
near the center... 5/4 on the chorus is cool, though it would be cooler
if the vocal nailed the rhythm. Lyric seeems like it maybe took longer
to get where it was going than it needed to. "Singer" is too short in
v1, too well dressed in v2, too fat in v3... I had a little bit of a
hard time believing it was the same central character all the way
through... whole thing could have used more dynamic variation as well,
it just kinda went along at the same level all the way through.


Keepers: Generic and Lonbobby, vote Lonbobby on behalf of the laid-back
feel and the presence of more variation in melody and dynamic levels.

[JonPorobil]

Fightmasters: thanks for putting up my song.

Since it wasn't up when I did my reviews, and I normally do my little self-explanatory thing in my review of myself, here's a couple of bullet points:

I tried to improve upon a criticism of my "Stairway to the Moon" in which one of my opponents said it sounded like I was trying to hold back, like I was afraid of waking a housemate. So I belted this week. I also used harmonies a lot more heavily than ever before; I think they might be mixed too high again, which actually changes the melody in the chorus, but that might not be a bad change.

King Arthur is right, there's only two chords... three if you count the occasional F7 I peppered throughout the song in place of the F. When I came up with the piano lick, I figured it would be fun to let the playing carry the song in a way I've never done before... and I finally got to bring my laptop into the practice rooms here on campus and try it out with a piano.

And finally, the lyrics. It will likely be said at some point before voting is over that they're nonsense, but I decided to let them fly on this song, seeing how it's not particularly serious. And I think they make just a bit more sense than they would have had I sung them as originally written: with the verses in the opposite order.

Okay, I'll stop typing now and let the reviewers tear me apart regardless.

Oh, and thanks for the review, Charles. Glad you liked it.

[Lonbobby]

Super Steve: I like the chord progression, but the voice is out of tune. The instrumentation is fun, especially the keyboard. And the lyrics are fun too.... I can relate because I'm vertically challenged.

Sidewalkers: Voice is horrible, way out of tune. And the trombone could be a fun element if it were also in tune.

Phillipso: Chorus at the beginning is cool. The electronic drums are really cool too. Could use crisper and cleaner production, because it sounds a little muddy, but overall very good.

Jon Eric: Piano is excellent, and I like the vocal style, with a great live vibe. The harmony in the chorus is great. A capella drums are done well. A little repetitive.

[DELETED]

DELETED

[beatlebrent]

Jon Eric – The piano was either really played by you (whether it’s a real piano or not) or you need to turn down the error percentage on the midi playback… cuz timing on some things were a little sloppy sometimes… which became a moot point when your vocal drums percussion kicked in. I’m not a fan of this style at all… but something you did kept me listening…so whatever that might have been, keep it up.

Lonbobby – The instrumentation of this song wins me over, but I kept waiting for it to explode into some heavy drums or something.... it's just the rocker in me. Mellow’s cool though… I dig mellow. The pitch correction on the voice is a bit overdone in popular media, but it works for your style very well. Good job. You got my vote

Phillipso – Woa….I don’t know if your voice is meant for a 4 part harmony a cappella part. Was very happy when it jumped away from that. I like that your style is very power pop-ish… but still very unique style wise. The mastering is a bit sophomoric at times, but the varying mix of style and instrumentation forced me to keep listening… wondering what was hangin’ out right around the corner. Backwards guitar, harmony…. Cool stuff.

The Sidewalkers – Like I mentioned in the other forum… the only thing I like about you is your band name. Although my posts are few and only started recently, I’ve been tuning into songfight for awhile. And since you’re not the first kids to submit crap intended to be funny, I’ve just lost all patience for it. It makes me kinda biased… but I’d rather have painful bloody constipation then listen to another attempt by the sidewalkers.

Super Steve – Jewel must be your muse... Vocals are a bit quiet in the mix… but I didn’t mind at all. The 5/4 chorus timing switch seemed a bit forced. But unfortunately that happens when a computer is playing all the instruments. Still, since not all of us have rich parents who buy us professional studios fully stocked with every instrument we wanted …it’s totally understandable. The lyrics didn’t really hold my attention, but certainly miles above the Sidewalkers. Good for you for not having your song sound like them.

[JonPorobil]

Jon Eric – The piano was either really played by you (whether it’s a real piano or not) or you need to turn down the error percentage on the midi playback… cuz timing on some things were a little sloppy sometimes… which became a moot point when your vocal drums percussion kicked in. I’m not a fan of this style at all… but something you did kept me listening…so whatever that might have been, keep it up.

Yep, that's me playing a real piano. The biggest mistake I was aware of leaving in was the one in the second bar, before the vocal kicks in, and I left it in because it didn't disrupt anything else (since it was before anything else came in), and I was feeling too lazy to punch in a correction.

And I don't know what I did either, but thanks for listening!

[glennny]

John Eric- I like the singing, melody is good. Music is too repetitive and that hesitation thing in the main riff drives me a bit nuts. However I really like the piano solo. The Be-box percussion I don’t really care for, good ole drums would’ve sounded a lot nicer. It’s a cool tune.

Lon Bobby- This is fantastic! This is one of the reasons I love Songfight. My wife and I (Plum Plum Plum) streamed all the Lonbobby entries and had a few listens, great stuff! I’m excited to check out all the collaborations. Anyway this song, nice orchestration, nice structure, no complaints, although I’d be curious to hear the vocals straight rather than vocoded, but I’m not sure if that would be an improvement or detriment, just curious.

The Sidewalkers- If this was 30 seconds long it would be 100 times stronger, when I 1st heard it I laughed at the beginning then quickly started to get angry and wish it was over, forcing myself to finish listening to it.

Super Steve- I really like this a lot. The weak vocals add to the character for me. It’s sweet and charming. I think the 5/4 chorus is brilliant. I like the little piano licks in between lines. Good stuff.

Phillipso- This is my entry this week. Lots of issues most have pointed out. Yeah, we’re not very good singers. Unfortunately I really have fun singing, and I’m trying to improve. The a cappella bit in the intro was too ambitious for my abilities. What’s worse is I accidentally recorded over the 3rd when laying guitar down. In the 11th hour before the song was due I just threw down silly vocal parts to make it sound rounder. When I have my record deal, I’ll just write songs and play guitar, maybe some bass, and a backing vocal bit here and there. So I apologize to all the real singers out there for that. For that matter I should apologize for the sophomoric production, I went too far with loudness, I never heard the clipping at my home studio, but here at work I sure do, weird. So Plum was a great sport and sang the silly lyrics, even tolerating the maybe awkward 1-2-3-,1-2-3,1-2,1-2 syncopation part. So for the solo I just grabbed a couple of the melodies with one guitar, and then that’s E-bow on the other guitar for texture. I ran out of time to really make the last chorus strong. I was trying to come up with a big finish, but alas I didn’t. So I like the tune, but it has my usual problems of poor vocal abilities and poor production (actually I’ve graduated from poor to sophomoric?). I’ll keep working on vox and produx.

Nice fight people!

[furrypedro]

Jon Eric: another old skool geezer who I've only heard for the first time. This is really great. It's got a great hook for all those people who can't handle structures and melodies they've not heard before, but at the same time the arrangement has thrown out the rule book. It's all about the beatboxing for me here, and the enthusiastic vocals - not note-perfect all the way - but they have the right vibe. cool. another listen for that one.

Super Stevsie: This doesn't seem to be sure which groove it wants to settle on. The guitar sets it up, then the beat comes in a little bit of, and then the guitar gets a bit more upbeat and I'm not sure which one I'm supposed to be following. It makes me think there are some interesting syncopating rhythms, but I worry that if this was recorded professionally that would be lost in order to get a coherent tune which would leave this a bit bland. The lyrics sound like you made them up on the spot, some are okay and amusing, but some scan terribly and detract from the flow of the song. bits of this are nice

Philipso: I like the way this is shifting all over the place. all the bits sound pretty good, I like the guitars and the electronic drums, and that you never know where the song will go next. The dual vocals is cool, sometimes they get a bit lost, understandably, it's fine but non-indie types would complain like bastards about it. is glennny in philipso, I've forgotten [edit] oops, didn't read the previous review, hi! [/edit]
. I like this but it doesn't have the feel good factor of Jon eric's track.
Lonbobby: you usually deliver the goods. As soon as the beat comes in I love that shuffly sounding bass drum. Good minimalist stuff and it's got a solid hook; I'll remember this once it's over. I'd like the vibraphone a bit softer or further away. that's about as much criticism as you'll get from me.

Sidewalkers: I'm glad you guys had a good time

[j$]

So just listening to this fight, way after voting closure, and like others, I am enjoying Lonbobby's song, except I'm thinking 'There is no God' isn't that horrible a thing to say ... Jon Eric, slighty sloppy rhythms two weeks in a row? Sheesh. Still, double-tracked vocals sounding good and the rhythm does seem to settle a little. The problem here for me is the 'honky tonk' piano - a little too loud in the mix, big on the 'heard it before' needle, but ti's a good tune. You should maybe turn it into a gentle garage punk number - that would be cool. The Sidewalkers - is annoying. i want to listen to it but I can't. Potentially average. Philipso - there are moments in this when it veers far too close to electro-Tull for my tastes. All it needs is a flute solo. Still a nice imaginative gallop through the title. i actually think this might be improved by losing the percussion entirely - it might sound a bit more organic, and that would make it (more) fun. Super Steve - fair and there? I hope that rhyme is post-modern. The arpeggiated guitar line becomes very dull very quickly - it sounds like its looped, which is a bad thing, whether it is or not. The voice is character-ful but kind of dragging down the song. Mix issue maybe. Ah no this is sliding from cute into indulgent for me, sorry. Not making it to the end of this one, sadly.

[glennny]

Philipso - there are moments in this when it veers far too close to electro-Tull for my tastes. All it needs is a flute solo.

LOL you are so right! I am not in the least bit offended and actually flattered, maybe J Tull isn't cool but I LOVE them! It's that 2nd part of the verse where on the open D major I pull off and hammer-on the A and the F#, just like Ian Anderson in Thick as a Brick and a half dozen other tunes. That bit at the beginning if pulled off correctly might have been somewhat like "Songs from the Wood", I wish you had written this a week ago, my favorite collaborator was in town and plays a mean flute solo (we used to cover Mother Goose). It would be nice to have real drums on all my tracks, but programming is so much easier and quick (and takes up fewer tracks). Anyway, nice ear, good call, cheers! thanks for the review!

glennny

[roymond]

Jon Eric: another old skool geezer who I've only heard for the first time.

HAHAHA

Jon - liken this, btw

[jack]

been awhile since i reviewed anything. this one seemed easy enough to do.

the sidewalkers
going for the tard intro isn't endearing me. oh wait, that wasn't just the intro. yeah, this was really worth submitting. crap. hope you're proud of yourself. the laughs on you fool.

generic
well jon eric, it's been awhile. piano is maybe mixed a bit loud. otherwise, this is pretty decent. singing's improved, less pitchy. percussive section and harmony vocals are spot on. good lord, i might actually vote for this.

phillipso
this is ok. girl singer sounds pitchy in parts, but pretty decent overall. guy singer seems mixed a bit hot. mix is very good behind them. yeah, this is a bit busy in the arrangement for my taste, but it's well put together. the guitar lead break/bridge was real nice. good hooky chorus on this too.

lonbob
production is typically flawless lonbobby. i'm so glad you didn't vocode those vocals on this, i'm curious if you were tempted. nice basic arrangement that you make sound really lush, and your excellent vocal work really compliments this alot.

super steve
the is pleasant and harmless enough, but the singing sounds slightly off/late in the mix. they could be louder too. the whole mix could be louder. and spread out. way too repetitive and long. lyrics seem pretty dumb too.

[JonPorobil]

Congratulations to Lonbobby for a hauntingly catchy winner!

[Lonbobby]

Thanks everyone for the positive reviews and votes! I really appreciate it.

[hank freid news]

Not a horrible thing and she has only cut my hair and is not a friend. but i was getting in the shower at the gym and i saw her half naked getting in the shower. she has red hair anyway i did not recoginse her. anyway so i shaved my legs and when i got out she was half maked getting dry. she was upset. she is in love with me!

[Lord of Oats]

Not a horrible thing and she has only cut my hair and is not a friend. but i was getting in the shower at the gym and i saw her half naked getting in the shower. she has red hair anyway i did not recoginse her. anyway so i shaved my legs and when i got out she was half maked getting dry. she was upset. she is in love with me!

Thanks!

[Billy's Little Trip]

when i got out she was half maked getting dry.

oOooO! Half maked? You know just what to say to get my motor Rone'ing.

[rone rivendale]

Should I be offended by that?