Leviticus 11:12 (God Hates Penguins Reviews)

[Reggie Dallas]

Wait a minute... I have mojo???

No.

[Rabid Garfunkel]

At least he's submitted music here, señor. Cheers on doing reviews though. Them's bonus points for sure.

[EightLeggedOedipus]

Whoops, I'll get back to youse. I do this EVERY time!

[Steve Durand]

8LO,
I think you're reviewing the wrong song here.

Steve

[Dan-O from Five-O]

8LO,
I think you're reviewing the wrong song here.

Steve

He is, but he's got something right. I got as far as the last review in this list and ran out of steam. I'll have to come back and finish. Here's what I got to gripe about so far:

Army of One: Welcome to multi-track recording. With practice it will get better, that applies to music in general by the way. It’s not so much the style of music, which I would be the first to say, is not my thing really, it’s all the cliches. The band goofing around at the start being included in the recording. The group “Penguins must die!â€

[EightLeggedOedipus]

<b>Army of One</b>
/// The guitar sounds like you were learning the song as you played it. Some of the changes mid-measure. ///
+++ Butt ROCK! +++
--- The power-pop-punk thing is contagion now ---

<b>Ben Foxworthy</b>
--- Sloppy. And the use of DM Guide keys me in that it's some sort of subconscious Weezer rip. Intonation of vocals and guitar is unfortunate in a few places ---
+++ It's a cute narrative. I would expect that from the title, though. +++

<b>Big Mountain Fudge Cake</b>
+++ Bonus points +++

<b>Bjam</b>
--- Hello, is anyone there? I'm hanging up now ---
+++ OK, but aside from the mix issues, it's a decent tune. +++
/// Doesn't really move me. You've done better before ///

<b>Buxtahoota</b>
--- Scientists the other day were astonished to find a 78% correlation between pretentious garage rock and the phenomenon known as suckage. ---

<b>Carlos Wendell</b>
--- Are we gonna have this for two more minutes? ---
+++ How I'm embarrassing that I'm digging this at 1:48 +++
/// 2005 Guilty Pleasure Award ///

<b>Dark Liberty</b>
+++ OMG my little cousin made this! And he's only six. How did he know how to drop in that eighth note kick drum? It so makes the song. Way to go my little hypothetical cousin. +++

<b>Fluffy</b>
--- Perhaps the worst recitative I've heard. Listen to Shudder to Think's "Ride that Sexy Horse," or Crass' "Reality Asylum" ---

<b>Humboldt Head</b>
+++ How did I know I'd like this? I must be psychic. Go me! +++
/// I hear Billy Gould on that bass too. What's with the FNM this week? ///
+++ Awesome drums. +++

<b>Jim Tyrrell</b>
/// This is pretty good by all counts but not my cup of tea. ///

<b>Johnny Cashpoint</b>
/// Actually I don't even drink tea, so this isn't my cup either ///

<b>LMNOP</b>
+++ This is a cool gospel motown groove +++
--- Piano sounds too MIDI. Backing vocals are a little off ---

<b>Melvin</b>
/// I know a Melvin from "Rattle." Are you related? You sound a lot like him. Maybe you can share his review. ///

<b>MyVirtualBand.Com</b>
+++ Holy crap that synth is wicked! What is it? bible /libel. Calculus. Haha. +++
--- The cheesy production makes me not want to ever visit that site ---
+++ But I do look forward to your future contributions on my playlist +++

<b>On Cassette</b>
--- In Spanish, you say "suckage" as "chupon".

<b>Sausage Boy</b>
+++ I think I've liked most of your entries. It's no surprise I dig that Prodigy Experience style hyper vocal loop. +++
--- I still wish you could use a better microphone and sing a bit more forcefully. ---

<b>Shovel Sitting Down</b>
/// On the seven-day suck factor, I'm still divided. ///
+++ I like the keyboards, the parable about my brother-in-law and his girlfriend, some parts of the melody, and the little anticipations +++
--- Something about the mix, though, and the pieces of poo. I should have left the pieces of poo out. Cameron did the beat, but yeah I'd have liked the rimshot to be a little less insistent. ---

<b>The Special Relatives</b>
/// You can have all my poo. It seems like you might find a use for it ///

[Reggie Dallas]

Reggie, you are killin' me brother! I'm laughing my ass off over here.

Right on, man, you comin' to the tryouts?

Maybe you should just get:

1) Syd Barret
2) Los Lobos
3) Buckethead
4) Bootsy
5) Sesame Street
6) Big Bird
7) God

to come to the "tryouts".

Name drop enough? #'s 5 & 6 look really impressive on a resume.

Look man, I'm sorry but we told you when you tried to audition: we don't need a fuckin' tromboner fuckin' up the vibe.

[j$]

J$: I really hate the religion bashing I’m hearing here at the start. Listen, if you have issues with how you were raised take it up with Mum, Dad and a therapist. Religion isn't so bad, at least the morality part,

Johnny Cashpoint - What you thought I was being serious?

ps you know as well as I do that you are not my target audience. Not that I don't appreciate your criticism, but writing a song you're gonna like is not high on my list of priorities!

[sberryreal]

Maybe you’ll fair better with God.

It's "fare", not "fair". And it's highly unlikely.

J$: I really hate the religion bashing I’m hearing here at the start.

J$ - please continue bashing religion. Particularly if it upsets Dan-O. LOL

[hockinfinger]

I am primarily responsible for the myvirtualband.com entry. I appreciate the comments and constructive criticism. Yes, I will agree it has a high degree of cheese, it was intended to sound loungy and "shoehorny" (love that word!). I've been a closet admirer of the band 15-16 Puzzle, although I'm not sure it's a good name for a band. I hope my disco mix of one of Erik's songs didn't influence his review of this song.
The drums were straight out of Sonar's session drummer presets. The bass was done by my musical accomplice, brudley5, along with my attempt at a preset-sounding piano. Everything was pretty much copy/paste throughout the song. The synth was done using the free VST plugin "Minimogue VA", and that's me on vocals throughout.
I now have a profound respect for how much effort it takes to come up with something in a week that doesn't sound forced. I do some drum programming, but it usually takes me longer than a week to do something that doesn't sound as if it's a preset.
Anyway I hope to provoke enough myvirtualband members into submitting more songs here soon.

[erik]

I hope my disco mix of one of Erik's songs didn't influence his review of this song.

Nawww, I don't let stuff like that affect what I think of a song.

[Future Boy]

Cashpoint: Are those real drums?? If not, I thought they were sequenced really well.

[tonetripper]

Nice return by Big Mountain Fudge Cake........ Humboholdt Head just plain rocked.....

Those were the ones that really stood out.

[erik]

Congrats mvb.com! (Melvin, check your wallet.)

[hockinfinger]

Thanks Erik. To be honest, my money was on Humboldt Head.

[fluffy]

0 votes! AWESOME!

[Dan-O from Five-O]

Maybe you’ll fair better with God.

It's "fare", not "fair". And it's highly unlikely.

Asc Eric about my speeling abilitie sometyme. Iam shure heel agrie itz pritty suspekt.

J$: I really hate the religion bashing I’m hearing here at the start.

J$ - please continue bashing religion. Particularly if it upsets Dan-O. LOL

I don’t recall saying it upset me, but it didn’t add anything to the song and I thought it was unnecessary.

What you thought I was being serious?

Apparently. But on further listening you did hit on the Nun / Penguin theme I expected a lot more out of this fight, so kudos for that. And on that further listening I'm liking this a lot more than my intial review might suggest.

ps you know as well as I do that you are not my target audience. Not that I don't appreciate your criticism, but writing a song you're gonna like is not high on my list of priorities!

I’m not saying I want you to make me your target audience, or write a song just for me for that matter. (By the way, what is your target audience?) What I’m saying is one of these days your either going to write a song that makes me go “Man that was great. I can’t wait for his next entry. And while I wait I’m going to give his whole catalogue another listen because I’m afraid I wrote something off before I did", OR I’m going to eventually lose interest and not wait anymore. But that’s me, obviously others may not have that reaction. Also, I’m not trying to say that I hate everything you do, I don’t. I like a lot of your stuff believe it or not, I just think you have it in you to do better. And I seriously want you to do that, do better. And you are, I said that. Don't forget the short timeline applies to reviewing as well. Sometimes you'll get a kneejerk reaction. Sometimes you'll catch someone on the wrong day. You might have been the victim of both.

And this goes for everyone I beat up in my reviews. I don’t always do it to be senselessly mean and cruel. I do it to make you better, stronger, faster than you were before! (Stupid Bionic Man reference) Look, those who can’t do criticize. Those who can’t criticize start web-sites for others to do it. (Kidding again) My point is I have a whopping 2 fucking entries after a year or so of hanging out here that garnered about 3 or 4 votes total.. It still amazes me week after week how a lot of folks can be so regular in their entries, and produce some amazing stuff in such a short amount of time. My hat is off to all of you that do that.

BUT….if I beat you up in my reviews there is one of two reasons. I either really hate what you did, which is a distinct possibility by the way, OR I’m just challenging you to better. Because the better you do, the better it is for me. Yes it’s completely self serving, the way free music ought to be.

Now as promised, I will finish my reviews:

Melvin: Pretty good guitar sound, although I can tell it's a processor and not an actual amp, it doesn't bother me as much as that usually does. Pretty good chord changes, nice little Pop thing you got going on. Just to be a dick though, I think the platypus has a lot more room to complain about being the butt of a joke from God than the penguin, let alone "God's favorite joke". I do like the "Marching like Soldiers" line though because it's so true, nice observation. Overall this song is pretty rockin', and solidly built. Maybe I'm just a stupid Pop song fan, and this is just another one.

MyVirtualBand.Com: My first impression would be to ask how much of the actual playing you did. Hell your name makes me ask that. I like the little Moog thing though, so extra points for that. If you added that, then maybe you did the whole thing, only you know for sure. I like the vocals more when they're sung, the spoken parts kind of suck. Not the lyrics so much but just, well, why weren't they sung? The "Penguins in Love" part at the end is complete cheese, which is why I love it, but I wish the vocals sounded more realistic instead of layered processing.

On Cassette: Nice "Porta One" sound, is that real? This sucks. You know it, I know it, and now, we all know it.

Sausage Boy: My first impression is the whole thing is way too busy. Forget the fact that this isn't my style of song, it's just too busy. It just sounds like you had a lot of tracks to record with, and decided to use them all. Aside from that, the decernable lyrics are not all that good. Yep, that's not doing a thing for me but your sound is better than the cassette guy.

Shovel Sitting Down: Well, it's well recorded and produced, as a lot of computer generated music is. The lyrics aren't making a lot of sense to me though. I'm just not understanding why "God hates Penguins and the Bunny that loves him". Your song isn't explaining that. So let's review. You've got a computer generated song that the software appears to be carrying the lion's share of the load on and non-descript lyrics. Yeah, that about sums it up. NEXT.

The Special Relatives: You're "special" alright. Just not very talented. Oh and your song sucks too.