Thanks for the compliments, F-Love! Here are some penetrating production insights: I don't think the kick is over-compressed, but it does have a big, fat, flabby resonance problem, which I have since learned to tame by adding a bit of a noise gate. You are correct that the drums were multi-tracked. It's very tedious, but especially for a dance track, it made them tighter than I can actually play. As for the vocal production, I use a relatively cheap Apex460 large condenser mic, then add pretty heavy compression and slap on a free tape saturation plug-in that I heard about from Des, the JS Magneto V 1.1:
seamuscollective - nice indie-hindu style, that I'm lovin' vocals are difficult to handle at first, but soon become quite endearing, this is my favourite so far.
Danceability Factor: 8.5
Song Factor: 8.8
sheail - nice cheezy groove, slightly cabaret feel (not a bad thing!)
is that a harpsichord??? cool sound nonetheless.
Danceability Factor: 6.9
Song Factor: 8.1
thestatesidemenace - Drops nicely between PUSA and Metallica, good rock... nope bloody good rock, like this a lot, vocals are well cool!
Danceability Factor: 7.5
Song Factor: 8.7
stevedurand - Yeah! the latin king is back from his exile in Nur Ein land, you know Steve, I'd probably vote for you just because your songs always make me smile, not the strongest song here, but definately the most enjoyable.
Danceability Factor: 7.9
Song Factor: 7.8
theweakestsuit - crude lyrics, but I'm not offended! good head boppin' track, like the retro sixties feel (slightly beach boys in places), pretty damn cool... well done!
Danceability Factor: 8.0
Song Factor: 8.0
wesdavis - eerything about this track is pretty damned good, but for some reason it's just not happening for me, vaguely remeniscent of King Arthur, not keen on the "Oh Oh Oh's", good track that I should like more.... (hmmm!).
Danceability Factor: 6.9
Song Factor: 7.9
thewhitehat - Reminds me of trains and train journeys for some reason, would probably fit rather nicely with one of those hobo travelling via box cars across america telling stories etc... type films, that disney used to do so well.
Danceability Factor: 6.2
Song Factor: 7.7
zipline - sorry guys i'm finding this just a little too left of centre even for me, there are parts that I like (those that remind me of PIL), but it's a bit too disjointed in other places.
Danceability Factor: 6.3
Song Factor: 6.9
I tried reviewing some of these songs earlier, while I was in a horrible mood and ended up hating a lot of them. I’m over all my preconceived notions of what these songs “should be”, and I’m listening to them with new ears. This is a much stronger lot than I initially though. If I’ve chopped up your name, it’s because that’s all that was displayed in my mp3 player.
Adam Adament – mp3 does not play.
The Big Dumb Jerks – Nice percussion and groove to this one. This one would be right at home on a Cowboy Bebop soundtrack. (Yes, that’s a compliment. Yoko Kanno is one of my favorite artists.)
The Bondi Cigar – Great production, and a nice sounding song here. The vocals add to the dancy trippiness of it all. I wouldn’t change a thing.
calc0s – Another nice dancy number. The monotonousness of the vocal delivery is odd. I assume it’s a synthesized voice. Robot voices talking about being moved by emotion is creepy in a great way. I like.
Caravan Ray – Wild percussion. Chorus is catchy and great. The slightly off-key vocals of the first few lines are initially off-putting, but by the forth line, I’m over it and enjoying this song all the way to the repeat button.
Cynthia Size and the @eclectic spOOns – Dance, dance, dance! Cyn’s voice is perfect for this kind o’ thing. Again, robots singing about letting loose makes me wish I lived about 200 years from now when there will be robots on the dance floor to get down with. This song makes me hopeful for the future. I also hit repeat a couple times.
Diamond Geezer – Great vocals here and the meandering melody moves over the music like sail boat over the waves. Very, very good.
Eddie Lance – For ripping off Axel F and the goddamn Jeopardy theme, you get no review from me. This is ridiculous. Write something original or don’t even bother. If you are going to write an “homage”, go check out chack’s “king me” (which I personally really liked). That’s about as close to acceptable as it gets. What you did does not count as original.
Electro Martyr – It’s nice and dancy, but what’s the point? The song is less than 1:30. If you’re going to do a dance song, do a dance song, not a sketch of a dance song. By the time I’ve asked someone to dance and get on the floor, the next song would be playing.
Flvxxvm Florvm – I’m picturing the crypt-keeper singing this one in-between segments of some movie he’s hosting. Nice, evil, sounding dance number. There should be half-naked women in the video…well, every video, but this one specifically.
The Giant Snail – I don’t like 80’s music at all, but I liked this one a lot. Nice production and professional sound all around. Easy on the ears. The vocals are also nice and smooth. The more times I hear it, the more I like it.
Ham No Burger – I love the build to the chorus, and how the whole sound of the song changes for the chorus, and it becomes this glorious piano-laden dance number. This song has it going on in all the right places. I like the way your songs sound so different from week to week.
Hostess Mostess – This is one song I didn’t initially like, but now I’m in love with it. In fact, I think this one should have won. Great vocals and hook and dance beat. The whole thing is like a great chorus. This is my favorite songfight song I’ve heard so far. Again, I hear a bit of Huey Lewis in this, which is completely awesome. Thank you so much for this song!!!
i.p. – ok, everyone has commented about the breathing, and I didn’t hear it in you funeral or she said songs, so I guess that’s been taken care of. Otherwise, I really like this track. The harmonies are sweet, and the melodies are salty. The whole thing is like a “Take5”, which is one of my favorite candy bars. There is a bit of everything in this track.
Jeffrey Davis – This track was not in the initial batch I downloaded. I noticed it later. Why is this track even here? I can warble into a mic for 40 seconds with a bit of a real song inserted in the middle of it too, but I restrained myself. If this was a serious entry, I’m sorry.
KABUTO – bad words like “ben affleck”, funny. Actually there are a lot of good lines in this that are backed by a grooving beat. The vocal sparring between the two voices is kind of cliché, and the falsetto is grating, but this track is all right.
King Arthur – I can picture the exact girl you’re talking about. This is another awesome song. Super-professional in every way. I’d love to hear you and Hostess Mostess collaborate on something. This song, though, is hook filled and wonderful to listen to.
Level Nivelo – This song achieves exactly what it sets out to achieve. Actually, this song may be better than the recording it got. Except the bridge, which seemed to momentarily kill the song. Other than that, it’s a nice sweet number with a nice low-fi recording, but deserving more.
MC Eric B – Nerdcore doesn’t exactly scream “sexy dance music” to me. That said, this track is exactly what I was picturing it would be. You can take that as good or bad, but I like your songs best when they defy my expectations, not reinforce them. I know you had a baby on the way at the point you recorded this, which seem like it’s kind of mc-erib-b-autopilot. I hope everyone is happy and healthy with your family and you’re able to get back to songfight soon.
MC Paul Deyner – Dirty, dirty song. Your songs are beginning to grow on me. I originally didn’t care for this one at all, but now I get it. I like it. I’m glad I gave it another chance.
Measle – This is another one that wasn’t in my original download of these songs. What’s with all these one minute dance songs? It’s a dance song, for pete’s sake, just loop it 4 or 5 times. It’s a nice dance number but way to short to be taken seriously as a song. It’s like the other one, a sketch at best.
Melvin – You know you’re technically one of the best songfighters here. Production is always great, instruments are all played really well, and vocals (especially melodies) are always perfect. But I don’t hear an original sound in your music. It all sounds like what Weezer would be if they still had their original line up.
Micky Finn – I still don’t like this one. Not one lick. The chorus is inane. The whole thing reeks of “fakeness”, or Dave Matthews (which is the same thing). I would say, “write something genuine next time”, but I don’t even care.
Paul Rey – I don’t have much to say about this. I liked it, but not for any real reason other than it wasn’t sonically offensive to my ears. Lots of nice little parts, but not much coherence.
Project-D – This song has a nice flow. I like everything about it. Not much else to say.
Satin Tails – Nice instrumental, but this is songfight.
The Seamus Collective – This is like a hard-rock early-Liz Phair. I love this song and everything about it. Very professional production as well. Wow!
Sheail – this seems to fall in the same mold as Hostess Mostess’s and King Arthur’s entries. Great song. Nice and dancy. These three songs together would make a great mini e.p. On it’s own, though, this song is fun and filled with well thought-out changes with interesting sounds peppered all over. If I remember right, your stuff usually falls into the “Not my thing” category. Not this one.
The Stateside – Another great song. This one is dominated by strong rock and roll vocals and an even stronger rock and roll melody. It kind of reminds me of Local H in a lot of good ways. One of my favorites this time. Actually, this one will be added to my real mp3 collection.
Steve Durand – This song makes me Horney, baby. Seriously, it’s sultry and sleek. I like it. Great job!!!
The Weakest Suit – Fucking dreamy song! This song makes me want to dreamy the first dreamy I see and dreamy her until she’s good and fucking dreamy.
Wes Davis – Wonderful gem of a song. Production, song writing, and performance are all top notch. Not much else to say here. Yowza!
The White Hat – That’s mighty fine picking and singing. People throw around the g+g thing like it’s always bad. It’s not. This is very nice. It compliments the song before it nicely too.
Zipline – This song sounds like kind of a mess. There are definitely good ideas here, but the whole production is just very muddled sounding. The vocals are a little grating for my taste also.
