The Song Fight Bulletin Board

this is great, thanks Crumpart!

crumpart wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 13, 2021 12:38 pm

mo wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 13, 2021 12:04 pm

that would be awesome!

586D676B-1567-4772-AB48-59E48218E2D8.jpeg

That is lovely!!

Also coming here to say I've also got a song in progress

ooooooh everyone wants more Heid to listen to, so this is great news!

Stink submitted. Looking forward to the songs!

mo wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 13, 2021 1:39 pm

ooooooh everyone wants more Heid to listen to, so this is great news!

Aww that's very sweet to hear, thank you! Excited to hear some more music soon!

Sent something in and heading to bed. Are we starting a lyric thread?

Sent mine in and put up a lyric thread! Hope I did it right...

heid wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 14, 2021 10:36 pm

and put up a lyric thread! Hope I did it right...

Looks good to me. Thanks.

ok guys I have the entries and they'll be up when Fightmasters have the chance to put them up

I'm gonna be late, but I have a song. Blue said it was okay with him, so you gotta let me in.

ok but I'm docking you like 2938 cool points

the first sonofgearfight is live! Songs here http://songfight.org/sonofgearfight/01- ... the-jokes/

That's a good batch of songs, and I am proud to bring up the rear in this fight. Nice job, everyone. I'll place my winner prediction into a sealed envelope.

Hey guys, we haven't forgotten about you, btw, just a lot of life stuff going on, and giving reviewers ample time to, um, review. Overall I think it's a pretty good group of songs, with a bunch of different takes on the title idea, so I was really happy to hear such a variety of concepts!

Let me know if you want to make a deadline - I'll schedule a Listening Party for the tunes, or can add it to one of the upcoming Song Fight LPs.

The deadline was July 14, 2021 (Bastille Day) and all the songs are here: http://songfight.org/sonofgearfight/01- ... the-jokes/

I've been combing through the somesongs archives looking through Blue's reviews, and there are some zingers in there.

So, I'm picking some classic Blue Lang reviews to include here.


Heid

Classic Blue Lang review that fits: "this is a pretty song. i like it."

My thoughts: Good vocal. Percussion is a bit distracting when it kicks in, and is possibly a bit high in the mix. I heard this one first, and it set a high standard.



Ken's Super Duper Band 'n Stuff

Classic Blue Lang review that fits: "wait.. is this about my wang?"

My thoughts: The heartfelt, genuine tribute is precisely what I would have expected from you here, but it is welcomed. Gets in, does the job, doesn't overstay its welcome.



Paco del Stinko

Classic Blue Lang review that fits: "freaks. the bass is my favorite part."

My thoughts: I like the bass. Seriously, great groove and a good, tasty arrangement. I like the bridge better than the chorus. Don't really like the chorus at all, and it drags the song down for me. I do feel like Blue would have enjoyed this one.



Pigfarmer Jr

Classic Blue Lang review that fits: "it should be faster. and rock more."

My thoughts: You're getting better! Probably my favorite song I have heard from you thus far. Still some rhythm and vocal pitch issues, but improved over previous ones I have heard from you. Nice solo. Blue was known to hate most solos. Blue was a tough critic, and while I can't pretend to know for sure - I feel like he would be telling you to put some more energy in your vocal, 'though he defintely would have worded it more bluntly.


Seemanski

Classic Blue Lang review that fits: "i probably won't listen to it again, but i can't actually say it's bad, even tho i hate this kind of electronica. five points for fighting."

My thoughts: I want to like this more than I do. It isn't really doing anything for me. I hear effort, but it doesn't seem cohesive. Parts sound like they're thrown in for the sake of having layers.



Vom Vorton

Classic Blue Lang review that fits: "i'll rate this after a bottle of whiskey. i kinda like the chorus."

My thoughts: Solid lyrics, naturally. Good composition. I like the chorus.

Glenn: Thanks for the comments. I'm glad that you enjoyed parts or pieces of the song, but the idea that Blue might've liked it was really, somehow, what I was hoping for. Thanks again.

Going to post these piece-wise because they're long...

Heid
Lyrics
Nice use of alliteration in your lyrics. This is a very creative interpretation of the title. "I lost my place and found a little bit of booze" love the figurative uses of both "lost" and "found" in quick succession.


Songwriting
There's something about the chorus that doesn't do it for me. It needs something more. In fact, the whole song needs a little more. Minimalism has worked for you in the past, but minimalism means every part of the song needs to carry more weight to support the song. Something notably lacking is the rhythm section, you have only some sparse percussion. Consider listening to Bonobo's Black Sands to hear how much some subtle drums and a bassline can support instrumentation like you've chosen. The double chorus at end doesn't make any variation on its second go-round and kind of leaves me waiting for it to be over.


Performance
The performance on the instrumentation is a little spotty. The percussion is rough, like at 2:51. Timing is spotty in places with accordion too. There's a stray note at 1:51. On the other hand, your vocal delivery is great, very expressive. I imagine you smiling as you describe the group you meet.


Sound Design
The choice of instruments is nice, helps support the feeling of a song being played by a band of vagabonds. Not sure if this is intentional, or why the drum section is missing. If you were looking to further support the concept of the song with your instrument choice, I would suggest folk percussion like bucket drums, handclaps, hambone, etc. to help buffer the rhythm section.


Production
Guitar sound is a little dark, could use some high end lift. Scrapey sound of pick suggests poor picking technique or mic technique. Combined with the dark guitar sound, I'd wager you have your mic pointed directly at the sound hole of your guitar, which will pick up a lot of pick noise and boom from the cavity of the guitar. Try pointing the mic at somewhere around the 12th-15th fret of the guitar instead.
Musette / accordion is very soft.
There's some noise on your vocal recording. I can hear it at the ending, especially as it shuts off. I don't know if you used a noise gate, but if you didn't you should consider one, and if you did you need to tweak the settings.
Percussion is very inconsistent in volume, shaker and tambourine could probably use some compression / limiting / layering to get them more consistent.


Subjective Enjoyment
A good song but the sparseness doesn't work that well on this one. I think it needs more to support it, especially in the chorus.

Vom Vorton
Lyrics
The lyrics come out strong right out of the gate: "I shrug my shoulders, and say that I've been better / Wait for the Nobel Prize for understatement to reach me in a letter". Great way to set the tone for the song.
Unfortunately, this great first stanza is immediately followed up by stressing the unstressed syllable in heartBREAK and awkward phrasing on "not sure how much comfort in that I'm supposed to take", a lyrical inversion like "down the stairs he did fall" that forces the rhyme.
Verse 2 and prechorus 2 seem like a re-write of verse 1 and prechorus 1, down to the Nobel Prize line. They express the same ideas in a very similar way, but with different wording. This totally works for a chorus because it's supposed to be repetitious but some part of the song needs to explore new ideas.


Songwriting
The rising and falling guitar notes in the second chorus are a great foreshadowing to the solo. I like the bridge / solo section a lot! The vocal melodies are really well done too.


Performance
Pretty clean performance mostly, but the song seems to stumble around the line "hi love you alright?", like things were kind of cut and pasted to be on rhythm at that point.


Sound Design
Some cool little synthy things happening in the background. The "wow" synth sounds nice. Good guitar tones.


Production
Seems pretty clean, everything has its place carved out for it and the levels are good.


Subjective Enjoyment
A good song overall. One of the best of the bunch, though I wish the second verse explored a new idea.

Ken's Super Duper Band and Stuff
Lyrics
Some of the rhymes seem a little forced, like "hoped it was just a feeling, the truth would be more appealing, my heart fell from the ceiling, the reality left me reeling". When you start to pick this apart, it doesn't make a lot of sense. The truth would be more appealing than what? Your heart was on the ceiling?
I'm glad that you wrote about Blue.


Songwriting
By about two minutes in the shaker gets annoying, it's present from start to finish and doesn't change. Maybe just for the choruses?
The rhythm is one of the strong points of the song.


Performance
Vocal delivery is a little off at times.


Sound Design
Doubled acoustic guitars sound really nice, I like that they're kind of percussive and help to hold the rhythm well. The tone of the solo guitar is nice. I like what you did with it.


Production
Distorted guitar doesn't come forward enough in the chorus. The shaker is way too loud.


Subjective Enjoyment
I'm trying to listen to a good song honoring a person I miss dearly and someone won't stop shaking a shaker in my face. I want to grab the shaker and throw it out the window. TATJ.

See-man-ski
Lyrics
The song concept is good! It has something to say that I can relate to from both sides of the situation.
This is a fantastic use of lyrics that don't rhyme. The strongest rhyme in the song is jokes/knows, which sets you up in the chorus to think you're going to get some rhyming, but the second half of the chorus doesn't deliver. Never resolving a rhyme tends to make the listener uncomfortable, as they're always waiting for the rhyme, and this meshes beautifully with the awkward situation described in the song, where you keep waiting for the subject of the song to actually say the part that makes their jokes funny. Not sure if this was an intentional choice, but it sure as hell works.

Songwriting
There's plenty of tension created in the songwriting too, which further supports the concept. The song is upbeat and makes me want to move. I like that there's enough energy in the song that you can slow down a little for the chorus and it still works. I like that the song just kinda drops.


Performance
Singing seems a bit off key in the bridge? Otherwise, cool vocal delivery. A lot of character in it and I prefer a vocal with character in it to one that's perfectly on time and pitch.


Sound Design
Buzzy background synths are tasty, spooky background guitar is good.
Saturated filtered vocals are a cool effect but maybe not for the whole song? I think a different treatment in the bridge could have helped its impact and given my ear a break.

Production
Buzzy little guitar solo at the end of chorus 1 is buried and could pop out a little more for its solo
Vocals are slightly buried, it's hard to make out the lyrics. I wasn't really able to tell what the words are until I read the lyric sheet. Might be some masking going on, maybe some EQ boosts for clarity would help, or some EQ cuts in the other instruments to unmask.
Production seems to be the weakest point of this song. The elements of the song seem to get in each others' way and they don't pop out as much as they could.


Subjective Enjoyment
This is the song I'd be most likely to go back and listen to again.