Can a Cuckoo Land in the Clouds? (Cloud-Cuckoo-Land reviews)

[Jim of Seattle]

Oh, and regarding instrumentals, somehow I seem to have earned the right to not get crap for submitting them, and so in retrospect I'd like to bring back a very old entry that was like the third or fourth song I submitted, and I got no votes and a lot of people complaining about an instrumental and crying foul that it wasn't written in the allotted time frame (which was unusually short that fight). Anyway, I've always been proud of it, and dammit, I DID follow the rules by writing in the allotted time, and now that it seems I'm "allowed", I'm plugging it here, cuz I still really like it: http://www.songfight.org/music/stepup/wman_stepup.mp3

[j$]

Can someone delete this "Jim of Seattle" spam-bot? He keeps linking to crappy irrelevant instrumentals in the review thread


I keep trying to review this fight but it may not be before the next song deadline. Sorry, folks.

I would quickly say those who thought the introduction to my song is too long, though I did consider cutting it out completely for SF, I reminded myself it's not an introduction, it's a vital part of the song.

[Pigfarmer Jr]

Berkley Social Scene: I liked most of the drumming, the bass run I hear repeated and most of the melody. It seems to work especially well at the end. I didn't like the vox being muffled by the guitars and some of the vocals toward the beginning. A pretty good song, but it went on just a hair for me. Didn't get into the lyric at all because of the already stated hard to hear factor.

But I did like the song overall.

[Tibor]

Hew! Just had a very busy and exhausting weak.
I just finished my reviews. Here they are:

James Owens
- Lovely, playfull lyrics. I was imagining myself a singing ruberduck while listening. Funny, nice song.

Big Clucker
- This made me feel like I was in the middle of a cartoon, or comedy. Very well put together. I'd love to hear it in a comedy action movie, like a funny car chase or something like this. Loved it. Does not need any lyrics. It's just perfect the way it is.

Daring Front
- Very technical, and seems very well built. However could not catch my attention. It is not the kind of music you listen and than find yourself singing it after. But very very well done. Good voices. Good instrumentals. Too bad is not that catchy.

Ecks Acksis
- Interesting start with the piano. I had the feeling you were using a pre-made loop for the rest. This music I believe could work ie. in an action movie when the good guys catch the bad guys, or a bank robbery scene. Nice work.

EggNoggAdam
- Nice start and melody. However I was waiting from the song to develop and to have some more. A little too short for me. Missed a punchy chorus. But very nice voices and instruments.

Folk You
- You have that healthy unplugged, natural sound. It is just lovely. At some points (ie. arround 0:15-0:22) seemed to be false music. But you seemed to find your way back to the right sounds from time to time. So we could say you wanted this for the sake of the cuckoo feeling. Your song made me feel like I was at a "cuckoo" ranch at the end of the world, and I loved it.

Graham Perry
- Very serious and grown up. Nice instrumental melody. Too much distort for my taste, but still nice. Beautiful love song. The best parts are the parts with no distort synth - so lovely and so nice lyrics. A good song, good voices, and good instrumentals. It got me at the first 10 secs.

Dj Ranger Den
- Very nice piano. The birds were too loud for my taste. I has that jazzy feeling like sitting by the piano and singing what comes in your mind at that moment. Very artistic. And you have a nice lovely warm voice - please do not use silly effects on it. I believe there is no need for that. Very nice lyrics (loved the "shiny things to swallow") - I loved the way you built the whole song. It really had that lonely creepy place feeling.

Johnny Cashpoint
- You have such a unique voice, i was already waiting for it. This gives to your song such a unique aura. Answer to your chorus: I am happy you made this song, and I could hear it. Not the kind of catchy melody people will sing - but very thoughtfully composed. Very nice song.

King Arthur
- Real rock feeling. Got me at the first 3 seconds. Your voice really fits the song. Everything just in place where should be. Loved every second of it. Good guitar solo, nice lyrics. I closed my eyes and imagined myself at a concert where this song was playing - and it felt like much FUN. You rock!

lalabrookie
- Simple yet effective. Those chimes felt a little weird to me. And the "yee-haa" was a little bit held back, like you was afraid someone will hear you out if you'll yell a healthy "yee-haa". I would use a little very-soft background synth (or harmonica / violin / chello if you wanna use real instruments only) from around 1:20 to make the instrumentals sound reacher (not so strong like at 2:08 - that works more like a good instrumental part). I loved the lyrics, and that playing with the words "smo-o-oke" and "chee-ee-ee-eap". Funny and lovely song.
(not related to the song: I would be curious how your voice would sound like a few notes lower)

Pigfarmer Jr.
- Very catchy. Loved the guitars. The rhythm of the song got me at the first beats. You have a nice voice. It is a lovely song. Cant and don't want to find weak points on this song. I believe it's just right and good the way it is. Nice start, nice finish and everything right there in it's place. Good work.

Schlimminy Cricket
- Pleae don't get me wrong but your song's style reminds me of Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats song used for the Sony Bravia add. Very clean and very nice. I mean it in a good way. Your calm voice and the relaxed song it just works like a charm. And the crash at the end, just brings you back to reality. Well done. Sound quality lacks a bit, but hey - who can afford professional tools? The idea and everything came through. Good song.

Jim of Seatle
- OMG. Just like a pro soundtrack. I would love to hear this back in a love story or a romantic movie. Very sophisticated. Amazing for my level of music knowledge. But sorry for saying this I cannot find no trace of the "cuckoo land" thing in it, just the "cloud". Still a very very nice piece of instrumental.

[Tibor]

Tibor

Like the sound of that guitar near the start. Nice voice. There are a
couple spots where the grammar is a little bit off, but I get what you're
saying, mostly. Not sure the echo biz on 'state - state - state' adds
anything. Like that lead guitar when it comes in, though by about 3:10
I'm starting to hope it goes away before the song is over. Nicely put
together, keeper. (As I mentioned in my other post, I like the guitar
sound, even though it's MIDI). I mentioned some of the English issues in
an earlier post, not sure if you saw that or not.

Yapp. I know my English sucks and needs some adjustments. And more other things too are in need of correction - like my accent, the production, the drums and so on . The "state-state" echo was supposed to psychologically enforce the "frozen state". I guess it did not work Thank you for your honest words and review. Helped me a lot. It cheered up my day.

[Tibor]

Voting for 7 songs, in order of preference:
1A. Graham Parry (because I'm more of melancholic nature)
1B. King Arthur
2. Big Clucker
3. James Owens
4. Pigfarmer Jr.
5. lalabrookie and Schlimminy Cricket

[AJOwens]

Yapp. I know my English sucks and needs some adjustments. And more other things too are in need of correction - like my accent, the production, the drums and so on . The "state-state" echo was supposed to psychologically enforce the "frozen state". I guess it did not work Thank you for your honest words and review. Helped me a lot. It cheered up my day.

In the spirit of helping you with your English, the expression is usually spelled "yep" or "yup." "Yapp" is too close to "yap," which in English refers to the barking of a very small dog, and can mean to talk in an excited but stupid way (as in, "Oh, stop yapping!")

[AJOwens]

Thanks for the reviews of my song. Let me explain the falsetto.

When the title was announced, I had just finished helping my wife with an office campaign in support of double-sided printing. She needed a copyright-safe riff on Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now." So when "Cloud Cuckoo Land" came up, Mitchell's ground-breaking but nevertheless somewhat ditzy early work sprang immediately to mind. The closing guitar chords originally underpinned the line, "I've got a song for every boyfriend -- that's where I get my ideas," but Joan wisely suggested I take it out.

EDIT: For fun, here's the English version of Paper Cuts. (There is a French version, not attached.)

Paper_Cuts_English.mp3

(1.01 MiB) Downloaded 208 times

Lyrics by Joan and her co-workers; music and backup band by yours truly; vocals by Joan's co-workers, led by our lovely daughter Emilie; piano stylings by guest artist Tony Dunn.

[RangerDenni]

When I'm running late I do:
TEN WORD REVIEWS:

SCHLIMMINY CRICKET:
Alberti-esque pattern's REALLY sleepy. CRASH! wtf? Wes Anderson movieish! Cool…

JAMES OWENS:
Cute, but you could squeeze just the same in LaLaLand.

[note. i do not look at lyrics when I go through, so the fact that I paid attention enough to care is kind of a thing. well done.]

JIM OF SEATTLE:
rain motif muchly-used. stylistically varied. I'll listen again. like.

FOLK YOU
clips, plods, but has ambience. voice grows on me. whohoo!

BIG CLUCKER
peaks, but mr. bungle-y sounds… love it! Must butt dance.

[disclaimer: I do not know what that means… we should probably just forget that review…. but I write what I think at the time… AHEM…]

GRAHAM PARRY
meters in red. has a profound feel though. i liked.

EGG NOG ADAM
entertainingly weird. nifty effects. lyrics!! loudness! monotone.. or cool?! hmm.

JOHNNY CASHPOINT
feels like my cerebrum hurled; then apologized with flowers. bravo.

[further explanation. i think it was the extreme disparity here. it was a good idea. no, mr. cashpoint. I am not happy in cloud-cuckoo-land. ]

DJ RANGER DEN
one of your better entries, production-wise. just my opinion.

DARING FRONT
you big tease! how groovy. but it's robot stripper music!

[hope that doesn't offend. i'm more outlining my inability to move to the frustration of your stop-starts. yet they remain effective, somehow…]

LALABROOKIE
i wanna be in the cuckoo-band! what's that frizzily thang??

[this review exploded, because it was eleven words long.]

ECKS ACKSIS
this frightens and intrigues me. modally evil. lucifers nintendo. peaking...

TIBOR
mystery is helped along by irresistible accent and mallet sounds.

BERKELEY SOCIAL SCENE
tone overpowers vocals some; also feels like a sound sandwich.

PIGFARMER JR
i was just about to listen to yours. and then the fight changed RIGHT THEN!!
I cannot get it to play in the archives either.

I will keep trying because you should get a review.
I'll be back with it if you would like it.

Thanks and sorry for the lateness. JUST in under the wire.

[Spud]

PIGFARMER JR
i was just about to listen to yours. and then the fight changed RIGHT THEN!!
I cannot get it to play in the archives either.

Don't know why this would be the case. Works for me. Have you tried since?

SPUD

[RangerDenni]

PIGFARMER JR

(here is your tenworder)

cute, LOUD, poetry-like & nice vox (which repeated.. did work).

(ACK! Elevenish words. I'm SOOOO TIRED)

I dragged the diamond thingy a little ways on the player and that fixed it up just fine. Happens sometimes. Thanks Spud. 'Twas my problem, prolly.

[GrahamParry]

Great first fight, thanks for the comments and votes, bring on the next one!

[eggnogadam]

Hey all! I just signed up. I hadn't even really noticed there was a forum before last week.

I totally agree that the harmonics on my song were ridiculous. That's why I liked it. Not a biggie. just something i was goofing around with. This was one of 2 versions of the song and this was the one that made me smile more so I went with it.

I liked some of these songs so much that I downloaded them. Especially the Big Clucker song. That's incredible! I wish I could solo like that!

Anyway, I noticed that the front page said something wonky about me needing to talk to someone about something.
If the reviews said I suck buy my song won then I guess I need to stop asking friends to check out the page and vote.

I read the title, make the song, submit it, link to the page and, when the fight starts, ask bout 45 people to listen to the songs and vote for their favorites.
For Beaten Man I hadn't even told them my Artist name. After that was over, lots of people were asking me which song was mine. I told them my
Artist name. Maybe now they're just voting for EggNogAdam.

I'll stop asking for support. No biggie. My plan was to submit 12 songs and try to win 3, be in the top 5 on 2 and to just "actually DO this."

If anybody was actually hurt then I'm sorry. I was hoping to give exposure to the site/contest. I know some of you have been submitting for YEARS and I'm pretty new. Maybe I'm not supposed to go outside the community for votes.
This site is how I was introduced to MC Front. I wouldn't wanna frak with the SF!

Anyway, I can't be near my computer very frequently but I'll try to check in with this thread a few times this week.

-EggNogAdam-

[lalabrookie]

DJRanger wrote:
LALABROOKIE
i wanna be in the cuckoo-band! what's that frizzily thang??

I think you would be a prime recruit for the cuckoo band! (If I Had One) Sorry, couldn't resist haha

I think by frizzily thang you probably mean my windchimes. I have a few different pitched ones that I brought in from my porch with the purpose of adding some mystery, or depth (or frizzily-ness, if you will) to the song.

And I am honored by the explosive 11 word review

[eggnogadam]

Ranger D - Thanks for the "entertainingly weird" review. That articulates what I was thinking when I smiled at this song and submitted it.

[big crouton]

Here's drum cam footage from andrew (Reist) recording drums for the Big Clucker entry. You can see his cymbal fastener go flying across the kit as he plays.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1TmQwAeMRQ

[glennny]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZG7s6Ujw1Q

New BSS visdeo.

This is our last video in this space. We moved to a new studio.

enjoy