Devil's in the Details (Clause 5, Sub-Paragraph d reviews)

[WesDavis]

I'm going to say right now that Spinlock's tune is brilliant. I haven't gotten a chance to listen to anything else right now, but I'm pretty damn sure they're getting my vote.

[doorite]

what i dont understand is why this song is under my name, when its not me. i placed it under the name urban mail due to the fact i am in the song for like 10 seconds and had nothing to do with most of anything else, and have the people who did make the song asking me why its under my name. im in it , but its not my song, not my production, and not me.

[Spud]

Simple, just explain it to them:

You sent in the file, probably with a band name.
You then sent in a second file, no band name.
Second email superseded first, band name lost.
No ID tags to go on.

We were left guessing, based on the email and the sig.

[jb]

If i recall correctly, the second email was blank and the file name was like "Version 1.mp3" or something similarly generic. So i guessed based on your email address.

Help us help you get your band name right, 'cause really I don't get paid enough to take more than a couple steps down the road to figuring things like this out.

If you think about it, the odds are that your song is terrible and the world would have been better had I just accidentally not posted the song in the first place.

Note that I haven't listened to your song. Maybe it's awesome and it's a shame that the name isn't right and your friends aren't getting the credit they deserve for their masterpiece.

And if there's an error, a polite message to fightmaster explaining what needs to be corrected will prevent you from having to endure sarcastic public replies like this one.

JB

[Mostess]

what i dont understand is why this song is under my name, when its not me. i placed it under the name urban mail due to the fact i am in the song for like 10 seconds and had nothing to do with most of anything else, and have the people who did make the song asking me why its under my name. im in it , but its not my song, not my production, and not me. :shock:

giventhele veloftho ughtyo useemtop utint oyourelectr oniccomm unica tionsidgu essthatyo urfriendswou ldntev enunderst anditwh enyouexpl aine dtoth emthatyoufor gottosi gntheirn amestothe irso ngsow hybot her.

[pegor]

I listen to a lot of hip-hop, and many modern hip-hop songs play around with wording/phrases, like I did with "my soul to you I'll be bearing". Yes, that would not fit well in a traditional song, but for hip-hop it seems perfectly normal to me.

yoda was a rapper ?

[Ross]

I listen to a lot of hip-hop, and many modern hip-hop songs play around with wording/phrases, like I did with "my soul to you I'll be bearing". Yes, that would not fit well in a traditional song, ...

Wouldn't be unusual in traditional-style folk.

[Albatross]

yoda was a rapper ?

You bet.

[Thanks For The Frisbee]

wow its really sad when hip hop and rap dominate the review thread two weeks in a row, but i suppose just by adding this comment i am contributing to the horror

[blue]

mirror: http://b-side.org/music/clause_5_sub-paragraph_d/

[Steve Durand]

Thanks Blue!


Steve

[SteveHandPuppet]

I apologize in advance that I usually come off sounding very negative and overly critical when I do these reviews. I'll admit that my personal aesthetics stray significantly from the mainstream, but I hope I give sufficient disclosure on my biases. I'll try to focus on strengths and weaknesses within the confines of the artist's intent and try to give useful feedback to help you make the crappy become less crappy, the OK become good and the good become great. And hopefully piss some of you off in the bargain.

Renwick: This starts off strong and sounds nice and thick without getting muddy. Once the vocals start, though, the lyrics/vocal/rhythm falls into a very static, rigid dull pattern and is really lacking melody. The chorus just gets yelly. Except for the vocals (which are perhaps intentionally overdriven and flat?) this is reasonable well recorded and mixed, although the composition doesn't leave a lot of negative space to "breathe" (but that's probably not what this style of song is trying for anyhow, so please disregard). Do the verses and chorus have anything to do with each other?

Urban Mail: uggh, programmed drums. Not interested.

Ken's Super Whatever: The recording seems highly oversaturated, which is making it hard to listen to. Normally I'm a fan of hard-panning, but everything is so up-front that it's a bit claustrophobic. I think this would benefit from getting more depth in the various elements to spread things around in space (back-to-front and not just left-to-right) by adding delay or reverb or something. The mix is too distracting, so I'm not really paying much attention to the actual performance or songwriting, which seems credible but nothing notable. I've tried listening to this on a couple of systems now and it pretty consistently oversaturated. Give it some air, dude.

Mr. Incredible: Unlike Ken's, this is all room noise and empty space. Average the two and you guys might have a passable mix. Performance ok if you can get past the tracking and mix. Composition not doing much for me, kinda formulaic.

Gamma Man: Hey, whatever happened to Alpha and Beta Mans? Electronica. Automatic DQ.

Into the Lab: Stop wasting everyone's time.

MC Wanna B: Yes, we get it. Next week I'm going to enter as MC Attention Whore so I can get some message board love. A lot of people put a nontrivial amount of time into producing their submissions, and it means fuckall compared to a clown with a Casiotone. Bitter, party of one!

Weakest Suit: The first time I listened to this I must have missed the electric guitar accents, and it just came off as HBoYaW. Now I hear a cymbal and some kind of wubbywubby bassy sound effect. I guess it's a step up from typical HBoYaW, but it would sound a whole lot better with real band backing. I would love to hear this ramped up a little bit ala Frank Black and the Catholics. Nothing spectacular but pleasant enough performance and tracking on the vocal and main guitar, not so much for the stray background elements, which are kind of orphaned in the mix and not really pulling their weight.

Ross Durand: Great recording on the acoustic. I'm just not a fan of this genre. Vocal is perhaps just a bit up close, and it could probably stand to be pulled down a bit in the mix and touched up with a little verb or something, backed off the mic a bit when recording or perhaps a room ambiance mic? I think I'm nitpicking here, since it's technically quite good. Genre just not for me, though.

MC Eric B: Same old, same old.

Monte Carlo: There's a fun, interesting song lurking here. It sounds like it's all recorded live, no double-tracking, right? Or maybe not, at least during the solo. I'd really like a more distinct signal from the bass and guitar, and I think it would benefit a lot from stereo panning of the elements. Everything sounds up the middle, and some good stuff is getting lost. I'm not such a fan of the distorted vocals. Definitely most interesting composition so far, by far.

Luke Henley: This is going to be loooonnnngggg.... The acoustic performance sounds a bit percussive. Maybe try a thinner pick or flatter angle of attack on the strum? Let the strings ring. Recording and mix OK but not nearly as clean as Ross'. HBoYaW, stopping early.

Klownhole: meh

Spinlock: This is certainly unique around these parts. Well tracked and mixed, and the performances are good on average. Mind you, I wouldn't actually want to listen to this more than once, but technically I'll give you a gold star.

Rabid Garfunkle: meh

Steve Durand: This is all pretty jejune. I've heard much better from you; sounds like you just sorta phoned it in this week. I won't get to the end of this. PM me if I'm missing some sort of genius twist ending.

DJ Fizzle and MC Schweaty: meh

signboy: Starts great. Nice distored/fuzz guitar; right up to the edge before the tone flubs out. Tracking is good and everything sits nicely in the mix. But then it turns into some sort of novelty number, what a disappointment. Vocals are alright, appropriate for the overall vibe going on here [minus the novelty bits] and thank you thank you thank you for not putting some stupid distortion unit or other gimmick on the vocal to hide behind. Could have been great.

Melvin: If I desperately cared about winning one of these, I'd demand that you notify me when you weren't entering, since you consistently nail this kind of indie/power-pop/Weezer sort of sound and will probably continue to school me in this genre. Fuckin' love it. Oh yeah, tracking, mix, performance, composition are spotless. I love the key changes and tight, tasteful compact solo. If it were biologically feasible for Rivers Cuomo and Adam Schelsinger to have a love-child (perhaps with help from a brilliant but unstable ex-Soviet Evil Genius with a state-of-the-art underground medical facility and Aspirations of World Domination), it would be Melvin.

Project D: Recording, performance and mix are good. Composition is by the numbers, and overall it veers too far into genre exercise territory for me.

She Ail: He ail, we all ail. Enough of this jibber-jabber.

Wreckdom: meh. Maybe I'm too new to the community, but has a Klownhole/Wreckdom supergroup (WreckHole? Clown Domme?) been proposed?

Caravan Ray: Sounds like you imported the guitar track from the Dead Kennedys "Police Truck". A bit too much of a genre exercise for me. Good tracking, and the mix is pretty clean. Nice stereo positioning to keep the elements distinct and not piling on top of each other. Composition is alright for the style. Makes me think of Girl Trouble.

Steve Hand Puppet and the Imp of the Perverse: This is the first submission that I've been particularly happy with. Maybe I'm kidding myself. Thanks to Lina Hand Puppet for the female vocals on the "It Belongs to Me" excerpt and the final chorus. Also, thanks to my bandies the Hand Puppets (Lina, synec, David) and JonM (Sutros) for invaluable advice refining the track. For those keeping score: 381v69, 360v64/12, 260/MWP, 4001.

Melvin takes this by a mile. I wish I could send Monte Carlo, signboy and maybe renwick or Weakest Suit back into the studio for another round of development.

[Caravan Ray]

Here is a brief list of what I liked and didn't like - in order of how I liked them - because if I don't at least do this - I won't do anything (I am still working on "Grey Rainbow" reviews - they are definitely coming)

VOTE:
1. Ken's Super Duper Band n' Stuff

HIGH DISTINCTION
2. Monte Carlo
3. Rabid Garfunkel
4. WreckdoM
5. Sheail

DISTINCTION:
6. Project D
7. Melvin
8. Luke Henley
9. MC Wanna B

CREDIT:
10. DJ Fizzle and MC Schweaty
11. Spinlock
12. Renwick

PASS:
13. Klownhole
14. Ross Durand
15. MC Eric B
16. signboy
17. Dr. Incredible
18. Steve Durand

MARGINAL PASS:
19. Steve Handpuppet
20. Weakest Suit
21. Gamma Man

FAIL:
22. Urban Mail
23. Into the Lab

[Caravan Ray]

Caravan Ray: Sounds like you imported the guitar track from the Dead Kennedys "Police Truck".

Yes, it does, doesn't it! I hadn't realised.

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Albatross & I leaned more towards their "Too Drunk to Fuck" for the DK comparisons.

[jackfrost]

This is a stronger batch of songs than “Ten Lies”, which had a lot of boring songs. Here, there is a lot of really good and really “not my thing” songs. It’s more fun to feel love or hate for a song than apathy.

Reviews, alphabetically:

Dr. Incredible – I like this one. Melody grabs you from the start. The vocals are a bit too distorted for my taste in parts, but that’s my only complaint. Well done.

Melvin – I like all the separate parts of this song, but together they don’t equal the knock out that your last two songs did. I like the harmonies and backgrounds and the chorus. The more I listen to it, the more I’ll like it. I still have your chorus to Ten Lies in my head once in awhile. Maybe this song will be the same.

MC Eric B – I like the country change-up. Not being afraid of stepping out of your comfort zone is great. To me, the rap parts sound out of place here because I am enjoying the melody of the parts that are sung. I’ve had the chorus in my head randomly, so you’ve achieved at creating a catchy hook.

Monte Carlo – This is much better than your Ten Lies song. This sounds very FB&theCs to me, which is always a compliment. The only problem is that the vocals are a bit deep in the mix and the distortion on them (which I like) lead to them not driving the song like it should be. They come off as background. I’d love a copy of this with louder vocals. I also like the wording of the chorus. Bonus points for putting the written lyrics in the mp3 file.

Project-D – Another country sounding song. I like this song. The instrumentation is good, the production is nice to listen to, and it’s catchy. Overall for this song, I’d say: mission accomplished.

Renwick – I like the rock that this song brings to the mix. This is a solid song. I wish the vocals in the chorus were a bit louder. You are singing harder than in the verses, but they sound softer in volume. It takes a bit of the punch out of the chorus.

Signboy – I really liked the two genre changes, but I was waiting for a really outrageous one to come after the “you play exactly what I tell you to play” break. The chorus there should have been in a “popular genre” like boy band or some such. It would have been a great punch line to end the song with. As it is though, I found it imaginative, original, and fun.

Steve Handpuppet – This is a catchy tune. I’m sure you’ll get a lot of votes. I enjoyed this one. One of the standouts for sure.

Weakest Suit – I like the melody. More variation in the electric guitar accents would have been nice. Good use of electric drum accents in that they don’t distract from the song. The end could have been stronger. Bonus points for including the chords and lyrics in the mp3 file.

To summarize (alphabetically within category):

Love It:
-Dr. Incredible
-Melvin
-Monte Carlo
-Signboy
-Steve Handpuppet

Like It:
-MC Eric B
-Project-D
-Renwick
-Weakest Suit

[MUMBLES-TheRedEyedSamurai]

THANK YOU EVERYBODY FOR YOUR COMMENTS. I AM ONE PART OF THE GROUP URBAN MAIL. I AM GLAD EVERYONE TOOK THE TIME TO CHECK OUT OUR SONG. AS A GROUP WE'VE BEEN MORE CONCERNED WITH COMPLETING A PROJECT, THAN WITH THE QUALITY OR CONTENT. HOPE WE CAN BRING A LITTLE MORE TO THE TABLE NEXT TIME.

[Rabid Garfunkel]

I'm going to start campaigning for the position of King of Not My Thing. Heh.

I usually don't post in any conceptual detail about my songs before posting reviews, but I just gotta chime in here. Albeit briefly.

I'm digging the reviews so far (yes all of them, from the highs of "Vote" to the lows of "meh"), and I'm very, very entertained that Bush = War in the public gestalt here, and that that's what many have gotten out of the song.

Considering the c**t got name-checked in the piece in the remotest possible of ways. I'm tickled that there's extra meaning found in it, 'tis a cool thing indeed. Thanks for sitting through it, y'all.

[doorite]

THANK YOU EVERYBODY FOR YOUR COMMENTS. I AM ONE PART OF THE GROUP URBAN MAIL. I AM GLAD EVERYONE TOOK THE TIME TO CHECK OUT OUR SONG. AS A GROUP WE'VE BEEN MORE CONCERNED WITH COMPLETING A PROJECT, THAN WITH THE QUALITY OR CONTENT. HOPE WE CAN BRING A LITTLE MORE TO THE TABLE NEXT TIME.

yes , as my buddy mumbles says, thanks for checkin it out, and im gonna start a diss song that disses the dissing of the disser of eric B....................... okay, maybe not,im weird , but even i think that was rude and a wasted effort

[Kill Me Sarah]

This song is about all those horrible self-promoting rappers, but this song is exactly that.

Isn't that called "irony"?

This song is just plain mean

I'm surprised people are bashing this so much. I don't know if people have noticed, but a lot of the reviews given songs are mean. Why would we expect something different from the songs themselves? But for some reason, people embrace the meanness on the boards and hate it in the songs? And in a rap song? The genre that practically invented insulting other artists?

[obscurity]

AS A GROUP WE'VE BEEN MORE CONCERNED WITH COMPLETING A PROJECT, THAN WITH THE QUALITY OR CONTENT. HOPE WE CAN BRING A LITTLE MORE TO THE TABLE NEXT TIME. :D

Well, then fuck you for submitting stuff that you don't care about.

And fuck you again for not knowing where your capslock key is.

Yeah, I'm in a bad mood.

[MUMBLES-TheRedEyedSamurai]

Thanks for the reply. I care about all my work. And I hit the caps for u.