You'll receive your reviews on Monday...

[inevitableguy]

...and then you'll be bitter.

[ken]

Bitter? I hardly knew her!

[Kevin Mellows]

Oh no, not this again, lol

[Kevin Mellows]

I just had my first listen- wow, the quality of most contestants is pretty high this round!

[fluffy]

I just had my first listen- wow, the quality of most contestants is pretty high this round!

I haven't listened yet but I'm pretty sure I know at least one exception.

By the way, your voice reminds me quite a lot of John S. Hall (King Missile).

[CordSmith]

Good stuff. Here are some notez, may have more later. Cheers.

naked philosphy
Not a fan of how the vocals are processed, especially with the classic vocals + acoustic guitar setup, let me hear those sweet sweet pipes how they sound naturally. Good tune.

state shirt
nice ambience and vocal melodies on this. The setup is sweetly simple and sounds great.

berkeley social scene
tight melodies and production. for a high energy song, could use some more bombastic drums.

nick soma
i dig it, I want to put this in an 80s movie soundtrack during a moment when the lonely protagonist (preferablly John Cusak) sadly drives around town.

kevin mellows
i want to do the twist to this. sweet lix on the guitar and piano. it sounds like you're not giving us your all, vocally--record your vocals in the car, or the closet where you can belt that shit out! we want to hear that mighty wind.

jeff desantis
like the overall mix. vocals sound warm n' buttery. sweet subtle keyboard action. might hear some influence from Wilco in this. good times.

sockpuppet
2 shrt

hostess mostess
great melody, songwriting and vocals. getting some distortion on the vocal, careful--the songwriting is too good to be betrayed by shoddy production! watch some youtube videos on how to master (that's what i did for garage band, and i think i got a pretty distortion-free mix this week.)

schlimminy cricket
love the autotune/vocoder vocals, i'd like to hear it cleaner, sometimes it's perfect, other times you can hear it hunting around. i'm a sucker for 3/4. good tune, i get nice n' mellow to this.

cody walker jr
great voice and harmonies. like dat melody. so many sad sounding songs this week! good stuff.

[Mostess]

hostess mostess
great melody, songwriting and vocals. getting some distortion on the vocal, careful--the songwriting is too good to be betrayed by shoddy production! watch some youtube videos on how to master (that's what i did for garage band, and i think i got a pretty distortion-free mix this week.)

Many thanks! Sadly our error was in the recording, not the mixing or the mastering. We did our best to smooth out the clipping with compression and reverb. Something about the clippy sound takes me back to 1990 and my old Tascam 4-track, though. But you're right that's no excuse to make a quaint melody and then treat it so rough. Thanks for the listen and the comment!

[codywalkerjr]

Holy shiz i just spent 2 hours reviewing and somehow got logged out and lost it all.

what a bummer

[codywalkerjr]

OK I'm going to do a quick review .. I had some really great in depth
reviews but lost them all and I'm not not interested in rewriting them now.
..




Berkeley Social Scene
Excellent sound quality.. EQ is great. Broad spectrum of sounds, big Fat
guitar sound... Nice synth playing triplets to the right....Excellent Harmonies..Drums doing a great job keeping the groove and keeping the song interesting
solo is melodic and pleasing to the ear
Solo is a bit Long... 2nd half (Different Guitarist?) sounds a bit muddier... overall great Mix and job well done....My favorite 'mix" this week



Cord Smith Rustic into.. vocals are a bit dry . Very creative composition.. at 2 :00 the song gets a little lost, but regains momentum.. snare sounds dumpy and detuned.....sizzle cymbal is a nice touch and adds a nice texture.. Acoustic guitar is EQ'd well and sits in the mix well...Slide guitar adds an eerie feel to the songs, though gets off track at times....Good job!


Hostess MostessI keep coming back to this song....This is my favorite song this week.. The track is obviously clipping at times, which is a damn shame because this is such a beautiful song.. You're taking me places with this song.. Simon and Garfunkel, CSNY.. ETC..... Harmonies aren't absolutely perfect but close enough and I will overlook that as this is a beautiful work of art as a whole. You get my vote and a big high 5!


Jeff DeSantisGreat production... Drums and Bass thumping along simply... vocal sounds a bit overexcited (I guess iI mean distorted in the highs). But again, the song is well done and well executed.
Mix is smooth..
Nice lyrics... Vocals could use a bit of pep and reverb...I like the swirly synth to the right...Good job..



Kevin Mellows
I have played in so many Lame-O cover bands that I have been I IV V'd
to death.......I don't really like this tune. Not because of lack of talent, but lack of creativity
It's just not really a 'Wow" song..
. Everything here is played boringly correct.. .

On top of that, The Guitar solo is just a simple minor pentatonic scale missing a tasty turnaround...Nothing wrong with keeping it simple, But the turnaround separates the Men from the Boys when it comes to soloing over a Blues Progression

541 ending is predictable,

A composition this simple must have an insanely fat groove to earn my appreciation. Just not digging this...Production is good ..Toms sounded a little over compressed but the balance was where it needed to be.. I apologize if this review seems rude.. You obviously have talent.. I want to hear something a little more original though.

Naked Philosophy
Vocals sound thin, far away and unnatural, guitar is very loud. simple chords played OK. Make a few adjustment and this song will be closer to where it needs to be..IMHO


Nick Soma
Spacey.. Very Cool.. OK, this reminds me of a cross between Muse, U2 and Coldplay. Loving the Fuzz Bass. Actually I dig all of the textures here..
Vocal seems to be lacking punch in some areas but overall pretty good
seems to be many parts of this song.. intro, Prechorus, chorus,, Very interesting. I like the I,V,VI,IV, part.. Even though its a pretty popular progression, You put your own spin on it..

Tell me more about the production of this song.. Programmed?


Paco del Stinko
HEY HEY HEY HEY! THATS WHAT I SAY!! That's what I want to sing upon hearing this opening riff!!! Bass and rhythm guitar seemed to have switched roles, As the bass is strolling in the park while the guitarist locks in with the drummer. cool approach..
Well Done.
Everything is sitting well in place, solo is shredding...Good Job Paco


Sasha P You have a cute little voice.. Sounds like some people having fun jamming in the garage! Keep on Rocking!!


Schlimminy CricketWow!!!
An eerie waltz, reminds me of the Doors.. Smooth Mix, ..Tell me more about the 'female part' .Is that a
male with a 'Gender Bender effect"? like a vocoder type? I had an ElectroHarmonix VoiceBox
pedal that had a similar effect...? drums could have been easily edited at the end to fade with the music... I
like your play on words.. One of my favorites this week.


Sockpuppet I enjoyed all 12
seconds of Bit Her Monday


State Shirt
I kept coming back to this one... Great song..
Spacey and rich
Originally I thought the vocal sounded a bit thin on the falsetto parts, but then i attempted to sing that note.... I really had to listen to this one a few times to realize how good it really is.. it is an amazing song.. Very Catchy.. Vocals could come up just a smidgett!!!!one of my Favorites this week


Toby Roktot At first
I really didn't like this song for a few reasons..

The vocals sound stuffy
The Vocals sound like you were singing quietly, as if not to disturb the neighbors...


could be bad mic placement...IDK..Anywhooo.. This song grew on me.. it's my favorite "Story' this week.. It may not be the best performance but it's definitely a good song, and isn't that what Songfight is about?

[Mostess]

Holy shiz i just spent 2 hours reviewing and somehow got logged out and lost it all.

what a bummer

Ack me too!

[Lunkhead]

Yeah, that happens to everybody. I eventually wound up writing my reviews in a text editor where I could safely save them instead. Then when I'm done I copy/paste them into a post here.

[fluffy]

It is the bitterest Monday when everyone learns that lesson at once.

Note that you can USUALLY hit the back button and copy-paste it out of the editor that way, but that's not guaranteed to work.

[chocolatechips]

Sometimes I use a text editor ... sometimes when I'm too lazy to open a text editor (and because then you have to usually redo some things) I'll just copy whatever I've written after every song so that if I accidentally close the tab somehow I can always just open it again and paste.

[ken]

I'll just copy whatever I've written after every song so that if I accidentally close the tab somehow I can always just open it again and paste.

Yep. Same here. Save early, save often.

[codywalkerjr]

it happened to me a few years ago, I just forgot about it and got lost in my reviews.. ..Oh well! I will do that next time

[jlampson]

Berkeley Social Scene*
Very reminiscent of Elvis Costello. I love that you get right down to it - that chorus has great harmonies and a great keyboard part in my right ear. Very fitting guitar solos with a nice transition. I think this could use some sort of breakdown after the solo but it's pretty great all on its own. Tighten up that ending a little, too; nicely done!

Cody Walker Jr.*
Who doesn't love a great-sounding twelve-string guitar with harmonies. And that lead line just gets me. I kept waiting for a rhythm section to come in, which I think is really all you're missing to make this even more fabulous. If Glen Phillips used a lot of 7th chords I think he'd write something like this. I think there's more you could do with this arrangement but you still get my vote.


Cord Smith*
Spooky and well-arranged. I love the desolation in the lyrics and the instrumentation and the droning of just another day. It's not just Monday that's bitter in this character's world. The bridge has a great use of the "telephone sound" for the background vocals. Even at over four minutes this has enough variety in it that it doesn't get boring in it.

Hostess Mostess*
I love this, despite the clipping. This is close to perfect and I would buy a well-recorded copy if one were made available.


Jeff DeSantis*
I haven't heard from you in a while and I'm glad you submitted something. That arpeggiated keyboard/organ thing gets off time here and there to my ear but this has a solid groove and things sound very warm and full. Nice lyrics, too! I can hear your vocals very well and everything seems very well-balanced. The only thing I would suggest is to look at cutting this down time-wise. As sonically wonderful as it is, you could stand to cut quite a bit and still keep it awesome. This is nice!

Kevin Mellows*
I love the doo-wop feel to this. I think the piano should be up quite a bit more in the mix just based on style of song. It's playing a pretty awesome part; let's not cover that up! Good use of dynamics. This seems a lot longer than only 2:30 and I think that's because you're packing so much into the time you've got. I wouldn't do anything to try to extend it, though. Short and sweet serves this song well!

Naked Philosophy*
The vocals are good, overall, and need the most work on this. First of all, you're burying them and covering them up with effects. It definitely fits the REM stylings of the song but I think resolving a few pitch issues here and there, particularly during the chorus would go a long way. Coming out of that breakdown would benefit most from having a drum track to assist in building things up and would fill this track out. That's about the only thing missing here.

Nick Soma*
This is wonderfully bleak. I'd suggest having the drums continue to play at that halftime feel until the "down" part to continue that and then really step things up into the next section of the song. The vocals start to get overwhelmed by the instrumentation midway through that last section. This piano section at the end is amazing.

Paco del Stinko*
This has all of your signature musical stylings: a tight rhythm, great guitar runs, a good stereo field. The vocals, however, do sound a bit nasally, which is not what I'm used to from you. Could be a result of cold season, of course. I'll focus on song structure. I love that breakdown/bridge just after the halfway point of the song and how it just jumps into the solo. Stellar playing, certainly. I commend your ability to fit all sorts of cool things into your song and then know exactly when and how to end it. Cheers!

Sasha P*
Tall Walkers! It's been nice to follow your progression here on SF. The primary criticism is the timing mismatch between the kick drums and everything else. The kick drum is mixed way down but it's still very distracting. This has many musical identities throughout and I think that settling on one or two in this one song would really help lend some cohesion. It's definitely a good song, but with a few tweaks (and one big one with the drum track) you can have something even better. The melody is also very memorable.


Schlimminy Cricket*
Hello? Hello?!?!? Why did no one answer the phone? Wow, I love the personification of Monday. I would bring up the rhythm tracks. The vocals are great upfront, which I love, but they need something underneath them for support. The lead synth sound you have is great. I do feel that there are several different vocal "characters" present and I think you'd have a more powerful presentation if you figured out who the characters were and stayed in character. Apart from those things, I dig it!


Sockpuppet
It's a nice interlude between songs, for sure, and seems to be about you biting some sort of person or creature. Although there's not much in the way of song development, I do appreciate your approach and things sound good!

State Shirt*
I implore you to turn up those vocals. Maybe it's more of an EQ thing. Either way, this definitely reminds me of something off of How Does Your Garden Grow, by Better Than Ezra, which I highly recommended. I somehow think you're already a fan from listening to this song. I think the vocals are a bit too wet but I really like hearing the progression of this song. If this was my song I would had a straight-four drum track start around :45 to have another option dynamically. The background vocals towards the end are very nice and I love the ending.

Toby Roktot
Definitely some mix issues as things sound out of balance. Start with more drums and bass and lower the vocals a bit. The vocals suffer from "it's late at night and I don't want to wake anyone up" syndrome, which can't be resolved in the mix. I like the lyrics a lot and I would like to hear you rerecord the vocals when you can just let it out. Clearly, there's a lot of despair that needs to be unleashed by the character in this song. LET IT OUT! And keep writing and submitting stuff, of course.

[noma]

Tell me more about the production of this song.. Programmed?

Yes, programmed indeed. I used the old school tracker software Jeskola Buzz, as I usually do when composing synth-heavy songs. The piano featured in this song is the wonderful Prova VST plugin, which you can actually download for free!

Thank you for your kind words on my song. And yeah, I know the vocals are my weak point here, as usual when I do ballads.
Apart from my voice sounding insecure, my vocal timbre probably does not fit that style very well, either. For this song, I'd prefer a female singer myself, I think.

[fluffy]

Lots of good stuff this week. Sorry I don't have the attention span to review everyone else's (which is usually the case lately) so I'll just skip to my usual "about my own song" crap that nobody cares about.

Sockpuppet: My original intention was to write a song from the POV of the protagonist of "Arizona Werewolf" (or just "Werewolf" for you Sci-Fi-channel-era MST3k fans), about what happens after the movie ends. I couldn't really come up with a full set of verses, though, but I liked the chorus enough that I still recorded it in a hurry. Of course the whole thing was just a stupid Octothorpe-style pun on the title in the first place and I'm surprised there weren't other songs with that treatment (given the same joke being made in the prefight thread, albeit about zombies and/or vampires).

Yes, programmed indeed. I used the old school tracker software Jeskola Buzz, as I usually do when composing synth-heavy songs. The piano featured in this song is the wonderful Prova VST plugin, which you can actually download for free!

Aw, sweet. I could never quite wrap my head around that but I did play with it a lot back when it was still being developed. I was more in the Impulse Tracker camp, myself. There's a lot to love about tracker concepts, and I miss a lot about that workflow.

I just wish Logic had a tracker-style note matrix entry.

[codywalkerjr]

Tell me more about the production of this song.. Programmed?

Yes, programmed indeed. I used the old school tracker software Jeskola Buzz, as I usually do when composing synth-heavy songs. The piano featured in this song is the wonderful Prova VST plugin, which you can actually download for free!

Thank you for your kind words on my song. And yeah, I know the vocals are my weak point here, as usual when I do ballads.
Apart from my voice sounding insecure, my vocal timbre probably does not fit that style very well, either. For this song, I'd prefer a female singer myself, I think.

Very Cool. Just started playing with midi stuff. Have.nt figured out how to program drums or keys, Could you point me in a direction? is there some free simple software out there capable of simple programming? or is it inevitably difficult? THX

[fluffy]

Very Cool. Just started playing with midi stuff. Have.nt figured out how to program drums or keys, Could you point me in a direction? is there some free simple software out there capable of simple programming? or is it inevitably difficult? THX

You should look around and/or post in the Help & How To forum. There's a lot of software out there that a lot of people here know how to use.

[Mostess]

Hi I'm Mostess and I haven't been here in a long time but SF and I go way back. I'm grumpy and I've had some wine so take your lumps like a man and don't complain that you intended for your song to be boring or ugly or dumb because I don't really give a crap. You are a good person and you wrote a fine song. Also it could be better. Me too.

The Winners:

Paco del Stinko

I miss the Violet Femmes! Your bridge is great. One, one, one 'cause you left me...

Why does this meter sound like an odd time to me? I keep counting it out as 8-bar patterns but my ear puts the downbeat in a weird place and I don't know why. The rhythm guitar keeps dragging me away into thinking it's a 6-bar pattern, maybe? It's probably just my tin ear. Or all this white wine. How are you counting it?

This has got a lot of spirit and spunk. I really like the tone of this. The chorus works against the verse the way it should and the bridge is a nice shift in mood.

The little guitar doodles support the song structure nicely. It's kind of symmetrical (verse-chorus ::doodle:: verse-chorus-bridge ::doodle:: verse-chorus) and I like it. Little instrumental breaks should have a grammatical function or else they shouldn't happen. Well done here.

I don't have a lot of suggestions here. It's my favorite. Nice job.




Berkeley Social Scene

Wash your mouths out with soap. Really: if you're going to go punk then go punk. If you're going to sound like Squeeze parties with Matchbox 20, then you should fracking cut the ship and keep it clean for mom.

Oh and -2 points for the prosidy fail on “weekend” in the first verse. I'd send the lyricist back to the drawing board.

The melodic phrasing here is pitch perfect. The chorus is catchy and clean and you can dance to it. The “why do you darken up my door” is a great hook and could use a little punch-up somehow to make it stand out: a little harmony or something on one repetition? Repeat the “darken up my door” in the background? That's the little thing that's going to make me want to hear this song again. Polish it up a bit.

The end could use a little flair. It sounds like the drum machine ran out of pattern so everyone had to stop playing.

This thing is crying for a bridge. Delete the guitar solos and write a bridge that takes us away from your home key for a few seconds, then dump us back into the main.


State Shirt

Simple and lovely. That last chord in the verse pattern is really sweet. I keep waiting for it to come around.

Some day I'll hear you do something without that long echo/reverb trail following you around.

You're really good at squeezing a lot of earnest emotional tension into small spaces: never yelling or crooning.

I could use a bridge or a contrasting section somewhere, but the song moves along and feels really short though 3:34 is actually a lot of song. The pensive mood makes it fly by, maybe?



Cody Walker Jr.

Pick up the tempo. Not a lot, just enough to kick this song in the ass and make it move along. It's like a donkey ride at the fair.

The Good Old I-I7-IV-iv is always great. It's a total cliché but you do a nice job of it by making the melody turn the iv into a ii-dim. That's sweetly sad and you're a genius for letting that weepy thing hang for a measure (except for some odd reason on the guitar solo where you just run over that lovely moment like a distracted soccer mom over a panicked squirrel). It's a great atonement for the next little cliché: the bass-line descent to the perfect cadence.

I like the simplicity of this. “The long days are hard but the hard days are longer” doesn't really mean anything, does it? Replace that with something less cryptic.

You can take that last little I-7 jazz-hands flourish and shove it where the sun don't shine. You don't get to turn your sweet little ditty into a joke just like that. You are not Frank Zappa. Don't be dumb.



Cord Smith

Who is this old man and what is he so sad about? There are new types of stores. His friends are dead and now he has lots (millions?!) of people who are only sort-of-friends but people aren't friendly anymore? He's in over 80 years old and still has to work. This all sucks but it doesn't paint a vivid picture. I'm betting he's a WalMart greeter! What do I win?

FWIW we tried our hand at this sort of theme for the “Hit By A Train” fight in 2006. Not an easy one to capture, I think.

I really like your bridge. That higher vocal with the band-pass filter really makes it pop. Hats off to you. But you waste a bunch of my time with that middle instrumental bit: that bridge catches my attention and it should bring me right back into the thick of the song.

Great job leaving out the last “what is today?” Nice drama there. Less is more. Make me fill in the blank.


Naked Philosophy

It took me a second listen to get what you were up to here. By the fourth time or so I got it. My trouble was that your 8-bar pattern is really solid and then your chorus is a 4-bar repeated pattern that starts the exact same way as the verse, so I kept thinking that your second verse got all wonky with a wrong chord. Delineate your chorus with something new: a new instrument or a different melody or something.

That bridge idea had some potential and then you threw it all away and jumped back into the strumming thing. That little bass line was my favorite part. Pity.

And then it just ended. Plop it's done.


Sasha P


What else rhymes with Monday? I don't have to run day? And what do I do if I see Thursday? I can't quite hear it.

There are some interesting counting problems here whenever the drummer stops.

But I'm being a jerk. After a bunch of listens I'm falling for this. It's cute and it's honest and it's fun. It has energy and it has heart.



The Pretty Goodies:

Schlimminy Cricket

I don't know what to do with this one. It makes me a little sad but mostly it kind of bugs me. The robotic, emotionless treatment of unrequited love is interesting and the circus tent calliope music gives it a kind of cynical edge that I like. But it plays out like something from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical—predictable and simple and not very engaging. I'm not sure why exactly.

The male response verse (bridge?) could be more of a contrast with the rest of the song maybe? It kind of sounds like you wanted to do something different but didn't know what.

“I haven't been yours since before you were mine.” Okay I get it now. That makes sense. It took me a minute.



Toby Roktot

This is boxy. But it's raw and ugly to me, which isn't a bad thing. “This day from hell” is a punch in the gut. The vocal fry is killing me. And you do your “knock me down” like you kind of mean it but you don't want to wake the cat. I don't have much to say about this.


The Losers:

Jeff DeSantis

Too boxy. The phrasing on the verses is like graph paper. The chorus has a nice little change up on “changing like the seasons” but everything else fits neatly in the lines. I really like the “ooooh it's lonely at the bottom” part: throw me more long phrases. And more short ones. Mix me up a bit.

That little electric piano riff needs to do something. It shows up like an annoying party guest who starts getting funny after a while, but then he just disappears after the second verse. Where did he go? I miss him. He should come back with his friends. The guitar should start mirroring him. He should go into inversion in the bass line.

Is that the end? We just kind of fell off a cliff. Oof.



Kevin Mellows

You just opened a Beach Boys songbook and copied a few things down didn't you. Obviously there's some love in this and you've taken the time to put this together. But it's basically transcription. I'd rather hear your song, not hungover Buddy Holly's.




Nick Soma

The instrumentation is well arranged. I really like that piano melody and it sits nicely against the vocal melody.

“I'm falling down” is great.

That said, it's monotonous and moderato. There's no change or contrast or evolution of ideas. The second verse is a little fuller than the first with some synth wash but otherwise it's a copy-paste job. It doesn't hold my attention for very long despite or maybe because of the careful construction. Maybe pull things out: that cool piano melody maybe shouldn't appear until the middle somewhere? Stuff like that. It needs to grow more over time.

And the ending is flat and sudden.

And my own:
Hostess Mostess

I'm pleased with the structure. The rhythm needs a lot of tightening, especially the harmonies. There are hints of triplets (tuples? I haven't counted it out carefully) in the descant on the bridge (the “I can't see...” part) that should be a lot tighter, and general sloppies around the backing vocals (the “we all know that's not what love is” is cringeworthy. Some of that is performance but most of it is just a lack of planning and forethought: you know, songwriting.

I'm not happy about the way the melody works against the chord progression on the last phrase of the verses (the “pass them all in pieces on the way” part). There some notes in the guitar arrangement that should be different; I need to pick through it a bunch of time and find a fingering that is less offensive.

The whole thing should be a hair faster, a lot tighter, and a little sparkier. It's not a sad song: it's wistful but it shouldn't plod as much as it does. Maybe it's worth a second try...

[codywalkerjr]

HEHE.. Just You Wait Until Next Week. ! I have something a bit more peppy in store! Ape City here we come........
I like to experiment with lots of genres. I didn't have a lot of time for this weeks title, Hence the lack of instrumentation..Thx for the review.