The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Reviews!

A few overall comments: Maybe it's fatigue from six straight weeks of songs and challenges (and arguments about challenges), or maybe it was something about the title "Fast Lane Junkies," but I felt like this wasn't a good week for most of you guys, lyrically. Some of you wrote about some stupid and or mundane stuff, and others left some sloppy word choices in the finished songs, which wound up hurting you in the rankings. The ones at the top of my list were the competitors with the fewest "unforced errors." Those of you who survive this round can just chalk it up to one "off" week and come back refreshed for "Videoland," I'm hoping. After all, inspiration wells sometimes dry up, but they usually come back!

As for the challenge... To be honest, I just wasn't a huge fan of this challenge. Before hearing the entries, I basically decided that if I could discern a "fast part," and if that part wasn't instrumental, I'd give it a pass. Nobody here failed by that standard. Ross and Ken excelled at it.

Now, on to the reviews!

Balance Lost
I love the light electronica intro, which reminds me of something from Bit.Trip.Runner. I'm not as crazy about the lyrics, particularly the bad scansion on "MaRIo Andretti." Lyrically, it sounds as though you may have stretched your conceit to its limit. Sometimes I feel like you go out of your way to include "British-English" words in your lyrics. I know that "petrol" is just what y'all call that inflammable liquid that makes cars do their car thing (here in the States we call it "fuel," "gasoline," or just "gas") and that there's nothing gimmicky about your use of the word here, but it seems to me like this comes up in most of your songs, when it would be perfectly possible (and, I'd think, likely) to write a whole song without using any words that require cross-cultural translation. I apologize for wasting so many words on an issue that really isn't that important or distracting in the song.

Ken Mahru
I wish you'd posted your lyrics to the lyrics thread, because they're a bit muffled and buried. I like that you flex your RAWK muscle this week, and I love how you integrated your challenge into the chorus. On paper I don't mind the switch to half-time for the bridge, but the unfortunate side effect is that that section drags a bit much. Proportionately, it feels like your song is half bridge. That's not enough of a flaw to keep you out of the top half of my rankings, though.

Krautkitten
You really nailed that hair-metal sound, for better or worse. Sounds like some of those high notes were a bit borderline for your range, though, and that works against this song. Your chorus is probably the one most likely to be stuck in my head after this week. The challenge may not have been your friend this week - by the time you launch into your double-time section, I thought the song was just about over. It was a little frustrating to realize there was still a minute and a half left, though the bridge did inject some more momentum into it. Especially that shredded solo - the guitar tone is a dead-ringer for some emblematic hair metal songs.

Merisan
Some people took this title/challenge as an excuse to break out the electric guitars, but you guys kicked it old school, turning out an old style swing tune. I love that. I especially love Sam echoing the last line of the chorus; it's reminiscent of Cab Calloway. This is another song that the challenge may not have helped - this would have been a perfectly fine song even if it had ended on that last normal-time chorus, and as fun as the double-time once-more of the chorus might be, it strikes me as kind of tacked-on and unnecessary.

Nick Soma
Something about this just screams out "They Might Be Giants" at me - possibly your choice of synths. Your lyrics aren't nearly as clever as you've trained us to expect from you. I mean, aside from being about dumb people doing dumb things, they're also a little awkward. I'm not sure what to make of "Nature was kind, fortunately," or "God hates me 'cuz I eat prawn." I'm also not sure the double-time chorus needs to be sung twice in a row, as it's already kind of wordy for a chorus. If you'd only sung the chorus once per time it appears, you could have made your song almost a full minute shorter, and I think that would have been a major improvement.

Paco del Stinko
You rocked out, and probably hewed closer than anyone else to the exact wording of the challenge, but why must your lyrics be so mundane and humdrum? I don't really care that slow grocery queues and traffic patterns. I like the "fuh fuh fuh fast" part at the end.

Ross Durand
Glad to see you returning to your comfort zone. I also like how your lyrics have an actual message to them. Not sure I have anything critical to say here. Easily my favorite this week.

Tydon Docks
Bold and obvious, but that's not necessarily a bad thing for the type of song you're trying to do. I wish you'd managed to coax a little more bite and menace into your guitar tones. These lyrics and arrangment combined with, say, Ken's guitar tone might have really added up to something special. Your panache for codas serves you well here, as it creates one final push of momentum into the ending. Well done. (Also, what's up with the nearly one full minute of silence at the end? I'm not penalizing you for it; just curious.)

And now... The shadow entries!

Cavedwellers
I like the guitar riff. It's a darn shame you "played it safe" after getting eliminated. Some of those harmonies sound a little too tight; maybe the autotune was set a little too strict? Or you could just lean into it by tightening it all the way and raising the background vox to the point where it's obvious what you did. Or vocoding, if you have one of those keyboard with a tube in it. Oh man, the drums in that double-time section rock! This would have been in my top three if you hadn't gotten cut last week.

Inflatable Vegetables
I love how you handled the challenge, though you stumbled a bit coming out of it. Like some of the other competitors this week, you succumbed to dull lyrics. So mundane, so boring. Okay, you don't like speed limits; so what? Within that constraint, I do think you managed to eke out some poetic structure with the progression of "fifty dollar fine" to "three points on your license" to "he'll suspend your license." Still, I'm not at all invested in your narrator's plight.

Generic wrote: Krautkitten
You really nailed that hair-metal sound, for better or worse. Sounds like some of those high notes were a bit borderline for your range, though, and that works against this song. Your chorus is probably the one most likely to be stuck in my head after this week. The challenge may not have been your friend this week - by the time you launch into your double-time section, I thought the song was just about over. It was a little frustrating to realize there was still a minute and a half left, though the bridge did inject some more momentum into it. Especially that shredded solo - the guitar tone is a dead-ringer for some emblematic hair metal songs.

Ha! Well, I know which judge YOU were! I'm glad you feel this way, because these were exactly the reasons I half-expected to get eliminated this week. My ranking was a bit of a surprise. Glam metal is one genre that I love and understand well-enough to approach, but often fall short of being able to execute with enough precision. I would have loved another day to mix and reattempt solos. This was about 5-6 hours of work, though I had the entire week to work it out in my head before sitting down.

Generic wrote:Tydon Docks
I wish you'd managed to coax a little more bite and menace into your guitar tones. .

Me too.

I don't do guitars very well. I had 4 guitar tracks, but they all became a bit muddy together and got buried in the mix. There were some pretty cool Sonic Youth style dischords going on in there somewhere - but it all got buried lost to make room for the bass and vocals.

Cavedwellers
I like the guitar riff. It's a darn shame you "played it safe" after getting eliminated. Some of those harmonies sound a little too tight; maybe the autotune was set a little too strict? Or you could just lean into it by tightening it all the way and raising the background vox to the point where it's obvious what you did. Or vocoding, if you have one of those keyboard with a tube in it. Oh man, the drums in that double-time section rock! This would have been in my top three if you hadn't gotten cut last week.

Thanks man!
If we were in I wouldn't have been the lead vocalist. Lee would have taken the lead vocals, I'd be on backing vocals and I'd get rid of the auto-tune effects. I intend on posting the version with proper vocals once I get the tracks from Lee. I just wanted to get in the conversation. This was my favorite song we wrote this season, I just wanted to share

Thanks for reviewing and listening!

I think Ben could have done a much better job at that song he wrote. I hear the potential, but the recording as is leaves a lot to be desired. I'm glad he moved on though! Looking forward the next entry!
BTW the shadow entry Ben did last year after elimination was among my favorites of NE8.

cheers!

Also, after giving the songs a few more spins, I need to update that I like the Merisan song completely now, I don't think Ken's song is incomplete, and while I still think it's catchy, after reading the lyrics, I'm not sure Nick's characters are actually doing anything literally or figuratively fast.

Also, Glen, I heard your song and dig it. Great guitar as always, and the lyrics in particular are strong. Especially "I wonder what it’s like to stop and smell the roses." I also figured out that your singing reminds me of Joe Pernice.

Glen, what was my shadow entry?

Firestorm!
Although looking it up on my phone (been listening to it all year) looks like you submitted it as "Dead Pony"

BTW Ben, the backing vocals on all of your metal tunes sound like Queen to me, on FLJ it especially reminds me of "Hammer to Fall" ...."....what the Hell we fighting for..."
( high praise, I LOVE Queen)

Jon, thank you for your review! That's kind of how I feel about my song, too. I believe the main weak points are in its length and in the lyrics. "Nature was kind, fortunately" means that instead of punishing the guy by breaking his neck or something, nature decided to only give him a little warning sign (which he obviously didn't take as such). "God hates me, 'cuz I eat prawn" basically just means "No matter what I do, I can't become a 'good person' anyway, so I'll just live it up to the fullest in the dumbest way possible".

To be honest, I did not like this challenge at all, maybe that's why I wasn't very inspired by it. "The New Ugly", on the other hand, that was my favorite challenge this year. Having browsed the boards a bit, I can tell you that the kind of challenge I like best is the one others seem to dislike the most: "No real instruments", "Metal", "Villanelle", "Significant use of cacophony" etc.

I actually enjoy having a lot of challenges to fulfill. I wouldn't mind a competition with, say, five optional and five non-optional challenges per round. Kind of a challenge freak here.
I even made two challenges for myself, which I passed in every round. If you want to know what they were, I'll tell you, but I don't want to impose on you, 'cause I think I've had enough self-indulgement for now.

noma - I'm curious as to what your personal challenges were?

and I agree about enjoying the challenges --- I kind of wish there were some included in the songfight proper from time to time ... I prefer the ones that are something to do with the music rather than lyric based or the collaboration thing (although in Nur Ein 7 .. my first one .. the collaboration thing lead to me working with Sausage and that was cool)

I look at all of this as practice and the challenges seem to make the process better practice as I have to figure out how to do it ... yes, I could do some self imposed challenges but it's not quite the same. ... but I might go ahead and do that..

actually. I just had an idea to go back and look at the old challenges from previous Nur Eins and pick out all of the musical focused ones and use them for my song fight entries.

I call all my self imposed challenges "ideas" for the song at hand.

any challenge that restricts you from playing guitar we call a "No glennnys" challenge in the BSS

chocolatechips wrote:noma - I'm curious as to what your personal challenges were?

You asked for it. My self-imposed challenges were of such character that each challenge applied to all the rounds. A general Nur Ein challenge, so to say, not just a challenge for one round.

The first one was that every week, the song had to shift one semitone upwards in key compared to the last song.
It started with G sharp / A flat for "Full of Courage", that gives us G#/Ab, A, A#/Bb, B, C, C#/Cb and, for the last two rounds, D and D#/Eb. I originally wanted to use a lot of diatonic instruments that play only in the key of C for the C song, but that was the percussion-only challenge, so I could not do that.
As for next week's shadow Videoland, that one will feature an altered sample of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata that plays in Bm (relative minor of D major) instead of the original C#m, in order to fit in with the challenge.

The other challenge was just for fun. I found a soundfont of a Sarrusophone somewhere on the internet, which makes a really... let's say, funny sound. I decided to use that one in EVERY round, albeit buried somewhere in the background, and I did:

Full of Courage: The sarrusophone follows the bassline; it's barely audible.

Your Light No Longer Shines: The rumbling thing in the third verse. It's very quiet and mixed with a bass trombone soundfont.

Stop (YKM): All over the song, except for the bridge, which is the only part where you could hear it if it was there.

Watertight: I think the sarrusophone sets in with the full rock instrumentation - hence, it's buried in the mix once again.

The New Ugly: In accord with the percussion-only challenge, the word "sarrusophone" appears in the first line of the song's lyric.

Fast Lane Junkies: In the chorus and the slow bridge. I think you can hear the sarrusophone in the very last chord of the song if you listen closely.

chocolatechips wrote: and I agree about enjoying the challenges --- I kind of wish there were some included in the songfight proper from time to time ... I prefer the ones that are something to do with the music rather than lyric based or the collaboration thing

Yes. I like the challenges - and I think all of this years have been pretty good. And yes - the music ones especially - the minor/major one and the double time ones were good - I get to learn something. They were both things I have probably done before, but it was always random - I had never really recognised them as, 'musical things to do", or something.

glennny wrote:Firestorm!
Although looking it up on my phone (been listening to it all year) looks like you submitted it as "Dead Pony"

I forgot about that song! Yeah, Dead Pony was a joke at submitting after I'd been eliminated ("beating a...").

I was so furious at myself for taking a different route with the "metal" challenge while everytone else went all Dio that I felt I had a rep to defend.