The Song Fight Bulletin Board

rdurand wrote:PigPEN - Oh, yeah, chicks can't wait to have sex with rappers. I forgot. This makes me want to put on a MosDef record. 1.

I know you meant that as a cheap shot but really....how can i deny that stereotype?

Jim of Seattle wrote:Oh, OK but isn't it "Rock and Roll Part 2"? That's the only Gary Glitter song I know, and that's the drum beat, I think. Maybe it's both.

No, they are similiar, but that's the one. My mistake! PS the bangles reference is to bangles, not The Bangles

rdurand wrote:Note to J$: Please be sure to have your neice and nephew vote this week

And to Dan-O: I appreciate your daughter's review. Noggin is a preschool channel that features little music videos by some of the curren top names in children's music, so her comments were much appreciated.

Thanks to everyone for their comments - it sounds like I accomplished my goal.

Today is Sydney's 5th birthday and we went to, you guessed it, Disneyland (which was, by the way, an improv on her part; As was the "I want to do it all over again line.").


Ross

I hope you win - I'll try to dig up a sound-byte of the International Olympic Commission's Juan Antonio Samaranche from 1993 when announcing the host city for 2000:

"... and da winna izzz....SYD-DEEEEEEEEE!"


...

hey - I just realised while typing this - if today is Sydney's 5th birthday - she must have been born just a few weeks after the Olympics finished - am I right?

Happy Birthday Sydney - from a former Sydney-sider - I'm sure you must be as beautiful as a bright October afternoon sailing on the Harbour...ahhh - I'm getting homesick...

Jim of Seattle wrote:The big leap up in the verse is most satisfying, but then in (I think) the bridge, you do a very similar leap, and the two cancel each other out a little. Just take the big leap out of the bridge and keep it in the verse.

You should have heard the original chorus. Leap++. Thanks to all the reviewers.

In general, I find the main difficulty of songwriting is contrast. It's hard to get that real Mozarty happy vs. sad, or Beatlesy Lenon vs. McCartney going on without really working at it. Once I have a good idea for a hook/lyric/progression, the last thing I want to do is figure out what it isn't and add a little of that.

Caravan Ray wrote:I'm getting homesick...

Hug?

This thread has been a beast! Thanks for all the reviews and good tunes.
I figured I'd come back and list my favs after alot more listening...

Generally I'm a sucker for emotionally charged voices (esp. female) and while I try not to judge a "song" based on production, I do like nice tones...

It's so tough to say, I mean there are little parts of Brainpipe's song that rock my soul, Mostess and Bax's songs are so catchy and professional sounding, Luke had a great sounding piece that was just so short, Phunt had some great moments and I love that it defies the common 3-minute-format tunes. Puce had some catchy lines and a ripping bass line, Tiny Paws also had some great vocal moments, but in the end, starting with my favorites...

Merisan the song just moves along nicely and I love the break to half time, and the singer.
the BeWells this is smooth catchy, just relaxing and enjoyable. Mellow, but sitting so nicely in a comfy chair.
Dr. Water this tune just reminds me of lonely bar room, the singer somewhere in between Tracy Chapman and the singer for Concrete Blonde (don't know her name).
Cow Exchange the fast moving ultra catchy vocal really rules this piece.
Jim of Seattle despite all I've said, and even without any lyrics, if I can get past my loathing of the computer sounds, and now that it's been explained, I can understand the creativity behind it.

It's hard to pick favorites

puce - i like the monty python sample, although i'm not sure if i should really be admitting it that is an awesome bass sound. catchy, and great as usual. the end bass starts sounding a little farty... oops.

luke h - amusing, but too short to have much to it.

klownhole - now i like this. the guitars... er basses haha are excellent. the wailing is cool. i'm not convinced this should be 5:28. the talky vocals aren't as fitting... brings it down a bit. are you saying "crusades" too? i'd make a radio edit that cuts off the ending part, but it is kinda cool on its own merit too.

taco - interesting. a compelling rhythm. oh, hey, this is the dude from remixfight, eh? welcome, to you. anyway, the "welcome" part might be too repetitious. the yells are a little distracting, but that's ok.

tpof - great bassline there. definitely no vocal rhythm problems in here! (haha songlove) ok, i like this. good guitar there, neat solo around 1:40. i know goldfrapp. good stuff here.

corn - don't know about the vocals - they seem not into the song that much. the guitar line is interfering with them. what's "forty-to-many"? background "welcomes" are cooly effected. pretty cool song. work on the vox clarity - they need to jump out here and they don't.

cowex - pleasant. reminds me of elvis costello. it doesn't grab me, although it's good. i think it needs something catchier.

hostess - there needs to be more music. the vocals are generally good although there are some bits i'm not into, specifically when you go up notes. this is pleasant, too, in a sort of half-of-the-beatles way. add the rest of the band!

jbb - catchy. this is cool, although i feel like it's a bit repetitive. the harmonica intro should overlap with the rest of the song, it feels a bit tacked on. good vox! the backing keyboardy sounds sound good in there; they should be empasized more. i especially like the "well i won't" section of vox.

brainpipe - i dig what craig did here. i did some sound mangling in audiomulch; you can hear it in the beginning of the song. i like his faith no more vocal stylings here. the organ swell is brilliant. some of my drum sounds became not-drum sounds, which is very cool.

bewells - good vox. this song makes me not do any work, just look at the lyrics and sit. hmmmmmm. it's good. the sound is very apropos to the lyrics.

wreckdom - tough to find the at-work sweet spot of the volume knob here. it feels either too loud or too quiet. this has some interesting stuff in it, but honestly i don't think i'd want to listen to it again. lyrics in the end are pretty amusing.

hnid - i think these drums are interesting. the "everything is alive in your eyes" sung parts are great. odd ending.

steved - good horns, as always. good false ending. funny contrast between the happy sounding song and the LYRICS OF DOOM. good lyric ending.

jos - yeah, i like how the piano and windows sound work together. i'm definitely glad you didn't repeat that sound through the whole song, though. this is very cool and i can definitely see how it's relevant to the title. good playing, even if you said it was recorded in bits, it still sounds great. when you bring in the other sounds, it kicks up a notch.

merisan - nice music. i like that guitar. nice vox.

en passant - this is interesting. the vox aren't up to the rest. instrumentation is interesting, but the whole song feels kind of muddy and undirected. where do you want to go? what do you want to do?

excuse - the part at 3:00 is cool. the higher strings there sound cool. pretty good.

phunt - i listened to this the other day. it's too long to listen to again now, but let's see - some noises annoying like the scraping. some good sound near the end. too samey to be this long.

rxw - this is odd in a good way. neurotic, weird stuff. digging it. inspired.

bax - this isn't quite making it. the vox sound like they're trying but need some more character... generally good. the backing vox add something good. use them more. fade-out is a cop-out.

sausage - neat effect on the whistling. getting a bit repetitive... i think the whistling is overused by the end. it's pretty cool.

jimt - i like your guitar sound. also the vox. i'd like to hear it with a full band... nice song.

pigpen - i'm so sick of rap "i'm better than you" songs. boring! not much happening here, and don't like the lyrics. ok then...

neptunian - it's always suspicious when the id3 tags say something besides the name of the song. looks like this might actually be the name of a drum kit in some software. so why is this called "welcome to"? it's interesting for a while but it gets repetitive... right around 3:00 i think.

rossd - think the guitar should be louder. this is pretty silly. children's songs on songfight! cute. this is cute and fun and good but i don't think i'd listen to it much!

drwater - another one where the music is too far under the vox. sounds good, though. i like the vox. good tune. kind of an interlude... not enough here for a whole thing itself!

posyden - what, record that off a cheap stereo? oh, .... oh, look, another rap "i'm better than you" song. bleh. ok, that loop was interesting for about 30secs but now it's getting annoying. change up your loop a little. wow, the whole song and that thing is still doing the same exact thing.

favorites: puce, klownhole, taco, tpof, brainpipe, jos, merisan, rxw, drwater
runnersups: corn, cowex, hostess, jbb, bewells, hnid, steved, excuse, bax, sausage, jimt, neptunian, rossd

vote possibilities: puce, tpof, rxw, merisan, brainpipe, jos

well... for the record, since the brainpipe song is more "the starfinger show" i wouldn't have to feel conflicted about voting for something i worked on. however, my vote's between that one and j$ ttpof. listen a couple of times! again! man, that's hard to decide; i may have to flip a coin.
-bill

ps boltoph - jeannette napolitano.

ok, my wife says "when in doubt vote not for yourself" so mr. cashpoint is the proud recipient of my vote. i hope we get some votes from other people!
-bill

so many songs, and I'm not a very skilled reviewer. I could list my favorites but I won't, because there were too many to choose from.

I did want to take a moment to thank Ross Durand for his children's song entry.

I'm a very poor musician but the one thing I LOVE to do is spend "song time" with my kids and improv kid's songs on my guitar or banjo with them and get them to interact. On a whole I dislike children's music as I have to listen to it in the minivan for long trips until my brain melts.... but I love that my kids love it.

I have been waiting for a children's song entry for a while. I like your song, and it rang slightly of Pete Seeger. I enjoyed it in a different way than all the other songs.... I enjoyed it on a personal level moreso than a technical level.

Technically I'd say perhaps shorten it a bit, but on a personal level, I loved it and will be playing it for my daughter who shares the same name as your'n.

thanks for the song..

Thank you, Puce.

gimpel wrote:
I have been waiting for a children's song entry for a while. I like your song, and it rang slightly of Pete Seeger. I enjoyed it in a different way than all the other songs....on a personal level, I loved it and will be playing it for my daughter who shares the same name as your'n.

thanks for the song..

and thanks for the kind words. My daughter and I are still enjoying it together, too. Whether I get votes or not, it's pretty cool to know that someone else out there will be sharing it with their own little Sydney.

Mostess wrote:

Jim of Seattle wrote:The big leap up in the verse is most satisfying, but then in (I think) the bridge, you do a very similar leap, and the two cancel each other out a little. Just take the big leap out of the bridge and keep it in the verse.

You should have heard the original chorus. Leap++. Thanks to all the reviewers.

In general, I find the main difficulty of songwriting is contrast. It's hard to get that real Mozarty happy vs. sad, or Beatlesy Lenon vs. McCartney going on without really working at it. Once I have a good idea for a hook/lyric/progression, the last thing I want to do is figure out what it isn't and add a little of that.

Yeah, that can be especially hard when you're really fond of the verse, then you have to go and add something else to it that's different that is as good as you think the verse is. It's like your great verse is bowling three strikes in the first three frames of your game, and now you have to try to keep up that level of play, whereas if you'd started your game normally, you'd continue on and probably enjoy yourself much more than you would having to measure up to three initial strikes.

Just do whatever the guy did who wrote Anne Murray's "Snowbird". He wrote a killer 8-bar tune, then just repeated it over & over, then when it was time for the chorus....... well he just added some backup vocals and kept on doing the exact same tune. So it's this whole big hit song that consists essentially of the same 8-bars repeated over & over & over. Or how about "Day By Day", same story. Or "Mack the Knife".

Congrats JoS. Nice work!

i think i'm giving up my religion today.

Congratulations Jim. First instrumental winner in the history of Songfight, and deservedly so. Nice job.

Thanks! Apparently not the first instrumental to win. Down With Gender's "Chaos vs. Order", which I haven't heard, it being during my SF hiatus, holds that honor. Still, I'm very proud to have won such a huge fight with so many "names" in it.

Thanks everyone who listened!

Well if it's any consolation, Jim, your instrumental is better than their instrumental.

Also, It's widely presumed that those guys cheated on that one, as they had been disqualified a few weeks earlier for cloned voting or something, so Congradulations Jim, on the first honest instrumental win, it was well deserved. My reviews are 80% finished and will be posted soon. I voted for Klownhole, cause they friggin' rocked it out.

Geoff WreckdoM wrote:Congradulations Jim, on the first honest instrumental win, it was well deserved.

Jim has a long history of shirking the rules as well. Why do you think this one is honest?

HAHAHA! Good Point! Now I want a recount for ABCD Puppies! Recount! The ballot was confusing!

The votes have been reviewed, and there is scant evidence of vote tampering by Jim. It is true that there are more than your average number of votes from the Seattle area, but then Windows is more popular here that in some parts of the world, and there is a pretty good songfight representation as well. God know, some of OUR fans might have voted for him.

Although I have neither reviewed nor even listened to ALL of the entries yet, I do have these observations about the JOS tune:

You know how you sometimes judge a movie by whether you see the actors or the characters? In a good movie, or in a good performance, the actor fades and the character takes over. You want to see Truman, not Jim Carrey. In this piece, I never felt that the Windows system sounds became characters in the piece. Every time they appeared, you recognized them for what they were. They never become one with the composition, surrendering their origins to the new role. Because of this, I personally judge the work a failure, if only by the standards that I imposed on it. I assumed that Jim was going for an integration of the system sounds into a composition, or the extension of the sounds into a composition, one or the other. If one were to judge it as a jazz "call and response" number, rather than a singular composition, somewhat different standards might apply. As a response to the title, very clever, but not a winner, in my book.

as a long time Mac user, i didn't even know it was the Windows theme until people started talking about it. and when i learned the connection, i voted for it. i'd call it a success. apparently others thought so too.

jesus. get over it. he won fair and square. worse shit has won with less uproar, but i know certain people just love to pull jim's chain.

for what it's worth, i'd rather listen to a JoS instrumental over another piece of crap, poorly produced, poorly played, guy and guitar micfartfest anyday of the week.