The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Okay I want there to be more than 1.5 reviews on this fight so I'd might as well put up or shut up even if i don't really have anything to say, let's see how well my wrists hold out. as usual in order of frontpage shuffle

phlebia I love the weird fucking tonality on this, please keep screwing around with alternate tunings and also just being you, this is so good I love it despite (or maybe because of) the dissonance that works so good

see-man-ski Loved this in the live fight, still love it in the full fight. The way that you get so much out of just a simple ukulele part which somehow sounds like a full band? hell yes. maybe it's a little long for me but I'm also feeling very impatient right now

gizo this is so lush. not much a fan of the delay/echo on the vocals, but it does add to the lushness. also I'm a huge sucker for 3/4 time (sorry if this opens up yet another iteration of the tiresome debate of 3/4 vs 6/8).

summer sloane this is very nicely-produced but the vocals kind of feel a bit too tinny to me, and the song itself fails to make any real impression on me, although I do catch myself tapping my toes while listening anyway, so I think this would be really nice to be hearing from the house band at a bar while I have a deeply casual conversation about coffee or jobs or something

add Love the minimalism at the beginning, love the way it builds up, I'm really coming to dig this as the song progresses. on the other hand I am very much team "please don't feel it necessary to put the title into the lyrics so prominently"

my social uniform oh man am i watching a late-80s cop movie or what

night sky if I didn't know better I'd complain about how fake the saxophone sounds but I do know better, so I think maybe this would benefit a lot from a little bit of reverb to really tie the sounds together. I feel like this is the sort of music you'd hear from a band playing in an airport or something

mandibles i'd love this if I were listening to it as part of an album that it was part of, but for some reason I don't really like listening to it right now as part of a fight. The use of 'cooties' feels like this song is trying to be comedic but that doesn't fit in with the rest of the song which seems like... trying to be profound? gah I don't even know anymore. anyway I more or less enjoyed it but it just doesn't sit right with me. maybe I've had too much caffeine, idk

sockpuppet god i am so sick of hearing this song. anyway for anyone who is reading this and wanted to know, the song is all about how much social media has fucked us up especially in These Unprecedented Times, anyone who follows me on twitter etc. might notice how little I post there anymore anyway there's reasons for that. the mix for my new album is way better. this song is what got me to finally finish the album in teh first placde. blaaaaaah words word words

future boy this song goes places while being stuck at home

pigfarmer jr this is the Freebirdiest song I"v eheard in a while

miscellaneous owl I liked this in the livefight because of the video giving me something to look at, but I kind of find this hard to listen to without the visual interest. the words just sorta blur together for me. but 3/8 at least gives it some nicer texture than the endless 4/4 songs. I both love and hate how the chord progression makes it clear that it's 3/8 and not 6/8 because things are just like... charmingly off-kilter in a way which makes me feel unbalanced

sweeney toad + synth lads this is charming and goofy fun even if it's yet another pandemic song. it's like something that'd be on a kiddie show on PBS in the early 90s

boffo yux I guess I can't give you crap anymore for only ever entering a single actual songfight fight. makes me think of what would have happened if Pete Seeger got his start with a casio keyboard. it also feels kind of repetitive for me. also it's yet another pandemic song ugh i'm so boooooored

sly eli hello 6/8 maybe this doesn't make a song stand out so much anymore after all, oh well. I hope this song is about SCUBA diving gone wrong and not COVID, because I really like it musically. I am choosing to interpret it as a song about SCUBA. I like it. Don't disillusion me.

lichen throat you are very consistent and I would like to challenge you to be a bit less consistently awful

swampy nethers This was fun during the live fight due to your antics on screen. The song itself is pretty okay I guess. Raccoons are awesome. I have a family of them that visit my basement security camera on occasion. They engage in antics. Also I'm glad someone wants to eat the vegetables in my garden, because god I am so tired of zucchini and tomatoes

duncan martin I always enjoy songs which make pop culture references to movies I haven't seen becasue it helps me to imagine the movie as being a lot more goofy fun than it probably actually is. this one sort of ends with a bit of a plop though.

hot pink halo this song would probably benefit from having a bit more rhythmic interest rather than it being straight strums on every beat. maybe that's what I like about songs in 6/8. anyway I think there's a seed of a very good song here but I'm not into this specific recording, but my brain is too mushy for me to really articulate why.

berkeley social scene I feel like your mix process was "make every channel red." this hurts my ears.

paco del stinko chill jazz is a good sound for you, do more of this please

jeff desantis this song makes me want to sit on a porch in a rocking chair while I smoke a joint. wish the drums were a bit less mechanical. or maybe less of them. this'd make a great acoustic song.

max bombast anyways here it goes: love it. I want to hear what you'd do with your usual over-the-top pop production on this song. I think I have a good idea of what it'd sound like. but I'd also enjoy being surprised by being wrong.

vom vorton toe-tapping fun song which reminds me of like a dozen other songs, and I think this would be right at home in the soundtrack of a John Hughes movie. this is a good song to end my listening session on, sorry for anyone I didn't get to

Round 2, FIGHT:

Night Sky - I can’t not picture your walls now every time I hear your tunes. I’m trying to figure out a good way to criticize this that’s kind of productive. The guitars sound kind of muffled? And you could probably benefit from holding some of your notes just a *little* bit longer. I guess just experiment. The “here’s some saxophone!” bit in the pretend live setting made me giggle a lot and I really enjoyed it in the live fight. Plus you’re really good at that so even better!

Paco del Stinko - You sound like you’re on the verge of falling over while doing the vocals. Or at least when you’re doing the low notes. Nah, you just sound like you’re gonna fall over. Something about this makes me wanna watch the Muppets. But I like the Muppets so even though I can’t explain why I think that it’s not an insult. I like this slow jazzy thing. And the fuzz on that guitar solo rips...and comes out of nowhere! Which is the best way for a guitar solo to be. For some reason my stream randomly cut off near the end, so I had a bit of a continuity interruption. Anyway, I liked this, it was fun

Phlebia - C’est moi. I already explained the weird quarter tone tuning I enlisted on this in a previous post so I won’t touch on it again. Anyway, lyrically this was inspired by a conversation I had with my friend Rachel the sign language interpreter about a year ago -- turns out being deaf during a time period where everyone is wearing facemasks REALLY SUCKS cause it basically cuts off your ability to read lips. So it’s basically from the perspective of a passive aggressive deaf person who sincerely wishes people would try harder to communicate with them. Which I guess makes me a hypocrite in two ways, in that 1) I said I didn’t want a COVID song and this is one, at least indirectly (of course I HAD that stupid virus bastard from Aug 31 until Sep 8, which makes me even more sick of most COVID songs) and 2) I really suck at sign language. But at least I’m spreading awareness for the couple dozen listeners this had lol.

Pigfarmer Jr. - This sounds like a PFJR song, down to your signature ascending hammer-on guitar licks. Which do sound good. The drums sound kind of muffled? I’d bring out the treble a bit more in the snare, it’s all muted! The idea of writing a tune about an executioner is a cool approach, so lyrically this gets some cred. The “tactic I’d employ” feels a bit forced but I kind of like it.

See-Man-Ski - It’s still so funny to me that I like this song cause I usually hate ukes. Any of my reviews over the past couple years make that readily apparent in most cases. But you pull it off and I think it’s your more-than-competent singing voice, chord selection, and high quality recording. “Watchingggg” is cool the way you sing it, like you go slightly flat on the 7th but it makes it sound even better. I have a hard time criticizing this cause it’s really good.

Sly Eli - Lots of 6/8 this fight but I’m also feeling this one. The panning is nice. All it all this is kind of going in one ear out the other, but it’s triggering the pleasure centers in my brain, even though I can’t really definitively ID anything in particular that makes it memorable. The “breaaaaaaathe” part sounds rad. I DO like that and I can tell you. This gives me The Bends vibes, only it’s not super depressing.

Sockpuppet - I wish the guitars were slightly louder. Or maybe more compressed. The descending piano lines are a nice touch. This reminds me of...something? But I don’t remember precisely what. Pretty strong chorus though! Is the slight distortion on your vocals during the chorus deliberate or clipping somewhere in the recording chain? I mean it’s a nice effect, I like little bits of vocal fuzz. Are my ears broken or is it more defined every go-round? Anyway, very strong chorus.

Summer Sloane - This segues so smoothly from Sockpuppet’s song. I swear I’ve heard this chord progression in 5 million songs before, and this...just generally sounds like a whole like of other songs. But I can’t think of what those other songs are? Songfightcore? I’d have used a slightly less punchy kick drum on this, like there isn’t really a whole lot of strong attack on any of the instrumental tracks but the kick is like WHOMP and it seems a bit extreme for the mix. Probably some slight tweaks to its envelope if possible. This is pleasant sounding but way too normal.

Swampy Nethers - I giggled at this in the live fight. Seeing your faces performing the tune with your raccoon garb was memorable as charming. If the lyrics weren’t about trash pandas this would probably have not stuck in my head but the delivery and subject matter won me over, albeit begrudgingly. I don’t know why I feel conflicted about this song, like my brain tells me I don’t like it but there’s some kind of subconscious part of me that can’t resist its general silliness. It’s like my complaint about Summer Sloane’s sounding too normal for me, but the fact that’s it’s about trash pandas makes it impossible for me to not like, even though under normal circumstances this would not fit my tastes at all...It’s just charming.

Sweeney Toad and the Synth Lads - Ahh, yes, the blatant COVID song. Man, that disease sucks. It was like...having a weird flu where the symptoms presented in the wrong order, but with a bad hangover on top of it. And it just went on...and on...and on...like come on, stupid fever. Anyway, this is about BEING the virus? So that’s kind of clever? And I like the backing track.

Vom Vorton - This has some like C86 vibes, but I’m not entirely sure why I think that. Like if this was recorded differently it would have that 80s indie jangle vibe but it doesn’t but structurally it does, it just doesn’t sound like it what on earth am I even saying. There’s some really fun abuse of the pitch bend wheel going on and I like that. I don’t hate it. It’s catchy. Didn’t stick with me. Could be review fatigue though. Or maybe not? Who knows? Anyway, this is competently done just maybe not something I’m really feeling?

sleepysilverdoor wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 16, 2021 7:04 pm

Sockpuppet - I wish the guitars were slightly louder. Or maybe more compressed. The descending piano lines are a nice touch. This reminds me of...something? But I don’t remember precisely what. Pretty strong chorus though! Is the slight distortion on your vocals during the chorus deliberate or clipping somewhere in the recording chain? I mean it’s a nice effect, I like little bits of vocal fuzz. Are my ears broken or is it more defined every go-round? Anyway, very strong chorus.

Thanks! The familiar stuff is probably me ripping off earlyish Radiohead, as I was going for a Karma Police vibe with that. The distortion is absolutely intended and carefully-tuned. I think I did tweak the effect automation throughout the course of the song but I'm too lazy to check right now. I agree about the guitar loudness, which is a thing I've changed in the album mix.

Paco Del Stinko wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 10, 2021 4:21 pm

Sockpuppet - This is almost like classic rock. I love the change to major key at the end of the chorus. Great piano touches to add just enough to the verse sections, keepin' it lively. Great bridge, good dynamics. This'll be our SF! Live song. Rocks with just a bit of Baroqueness.

Thanks, those are all things I was hoping would hit folks. I don't normally do bridges but when I do I hope they're awesome.

sleepysilverdoor wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 16, 2021 7:04 pm

The drums sound kind of muffled? I’d bring out the treble a bit more in the snare, it’s all muted! ... “tactic I’d employ” feels a bit forced but I kind of like it.

I purposefully used less prominent drum sounds but I agree maybe too far to the other side. When I tried to mic a drum set (and also play drums which was horrific) I had very poor results but at least they sounded real. Drums are my Achille's heel. (On a side note, I thought about signing up to the instaband thing for programming drums as I heard they were short but... read the previous sentence.)

I debated using "tactic I'd employ". It says what I want to say but maybe isn't perfect. But I assuage my concerns by pretended it's said by Doc Holliday from the movie Tombstone.

Gizo - Vocal comments were regarding the delivery of the first couple of lines. Not cringey by any means, but I felt like maybe it wouldn't sit well for the entire song that way. And then they opened up or flourished, if you will, and I said ahh. The cowboy cousin refers to a distant relation to Western/Spaghetti Western vibes. Someone else called them surf, I believe. S'all good, man.

Fluffy - I'll take your suggestion into consideration. This track was a slop-fest, but I enjoyed the openess of it. I do tend to pack in any ideas that come to me, often to a fault. So yeah, good nudge towards what I was thinking. Thanks!

miscellaneous owl wins!

Yay owl!!!!

thanks! Sorry I didn’t have time to write reviews this time around, add’s was my favorite in the end but there was so much good stuff in the fight overall.
Funnily enough I think this same thing happened last year… Swampy Nethers won the live fight and I won the site version?

Well hey, I tied for 4th. Not bad in such a huge, hotly-contested fight!

I do hope folks will eventually post reviews though. The silence is deafening. Maybe if you feel that Top Chat was too short to review you could spend some extra time over here.

fluffy wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 19, 2021 2:10 pm

Well hey, I tied for 4th. Not bad in such a huge, hotly-contested fight!

I do hope folks will eventually post reviews though. The silence is deafening. Maybe if you feel that Top Chat was too short to review you could spend some extra time over here.

Maybe I'll give everyone overlong eyesores of reviews for Top Chat. But I mean I get being intimidated by the huge volume over here. I've definitely flaked on big fights I've entered before and it feels like bad karma so I had to chip in with some thoughts, even if they aren't always helpful...some people here I just don't know how to review.