The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Once again, reviews are pretty much based on one first listen
to each song...

Chekhov's Raygun

I'm generally okay with synth drums, but that buzzy synth bass
on this one gets pretty monotonous pretty soon... and in terms
of the rapping (?), I want there to be more feeling in the
speaking. And maybe something more happening in the arrangement
on the "chorus" part. I dunno, maybe I'm not getting the
genre here, but this just seems kinda... I dunno, monotonous?

Chopped Liver Meat God

Okay, not my fave style, but let's keep listening and see where
it goes... I do like the "siren" sound on the chorus. Nice take
on the title. Where Checkov's Raygun kinda bored me, this one
interests me because there's some changeup in the song.

Chthonic Youth

Okay, again, not my fave style, but I do like the singer(s),
and I can put up with the noise between musical bits if the
musical bits grab my interest. Hmm, I get to the end and I'm
not really sure what it was about, and I kept listening for a
really clever line or two that I'd want to hear again and
again... again, I liked the vocals, but I never caught on to
where the lyric was going... keeping this one in mind as I
listen to the rest of the songs, if there aren't a lot of
other keeper & vote songs then this one will join the group...

David Ritter

I think there's a good song in here, but the harmony vocs
are kinda uglying it up for me. I get what the story is,
I think I wish you'd been able to spend more time on the
lyrics, and then spent more time working out how to phrase
them when you were doing the vocals.

The Dinnertime Boys

Wishing there was more bass going on, I'm listening on some
bass-strong headphones and there's still nothing much down
there. The distorted, buried vocals aren't happying me
much. I like some of the stuff you're doing with the synth
sounds, especially when they play against each other
rhythmically, but not enough to put it on my playlist...

Lucky Spoon

Songfight songs about songfight tend to strike me as kinda
unimportant... (you can listen to my entry for "WTF" to
hear what I did). It's kinda like... the thing I dislike
most about a lot of rap stuff is that all it's about is
"I'm a better rapper than you," and I'm all, "so what?"

Manhattan Glutton

Yeah, finally, a SONG. Liked, "if you had come around
on your own dime," that's the kind of clever line I wasn't
hearing anywhere else. I'm not quite clear on the casting
of this one - is the singer on the chorus criticizing the
singer in the verses? If so, I'm thinking this might have
worked better all in first person, "I'm coming down, I'm
coming down..." Nonetheless, this one grabs me, keeps my
interest, makes me want to listen some more times to make
sense of it all... David Ritter, take note of how the
emphasized syllables in the lyric fall on the emphasized
beats in the music, this is how its done. Keeper & vote.

MC Sharks in the Swimming Pool

Liking the variety in the backing tracks at the start.
Not liking the main character here, but I'm liking the
performance. "like an orange in an apple bushel" - yeah!
This is how it's done! Keeper & vote.

New Result

So much reverb on the vocal I can't tell what that that
first word is... oh, okay, it's "hard." This one seems
like it spends too much time on the individual bits,
especially at the start. I'm 1:45 in and I'm already
looking at the next button, this just isn't adding enough
new stuff as it goes on... okay, 2:30, I'm outa here...

noah mclaughlin

Going up an octave (?) on the third line of the verse
seems like it's pushing the rest of the verse too low for
your voice, and the drums are mixed high enough that a
lot of the words are getting lost. Chord pattern is pretty
much the same throughout, just twice as fast on the chorus,
right? By the end, I'm wishing there was more variety
going on there...

Panna Cotta Army

Okay, this is a nice full mix, lots of bottom end, all the
instruments in tune 'n stuff... please sing well... yeah!
Sweet backing vocals. And the lyric grabs me from the
start and makes me want to keep listening. And it flows
well, keeps me attentive. Like that high guitar (?) that
comes in on verse 2, just enough variety to build. Definitely
a keeper and vote. Yeah, and you even did a nice little
fadeout to silence on the instruments at the end.

Pigfarmer Jr

Wishing those guitars at the start were stereo split more.
Is this whole thing in mono? Lead guitar isn't quite in
tune with the acoustic. Ouch, wish it (lead guitar) had
stayed out of the way on the bridge there... mixed feelings
on this one, if I get to the end and don't have a whole lot
of keepers, I might include this one.

Queef McBeef

Nah, this doesn't do it for me. I'm old, and not very
experimental... thanks for playing

Steve Durand

Hmm, that piano on the intro felt like it got lost rhythmically.
I take it this is a real piano, but I wonder if the song would
have actually sounded better if you'd played into a MIDI gizmo,
fixed it so it had a steady beat to it, and then sung with
that.

Wages

Would love to hear this with a well recorded, in-tune
guitar, this sorta reminds me of parts of Four Way Street
(that's a compliment). Wanted to like this, but I got to
the end and it hadn't grabbed me the way it needed to.


Okay, so: keeper & votes to Chtonic Youth for being interesting,
Manhattan Glutton for a good sound and some clever lyrics,
MC Sharks for being good at what you do, Panna Cotta Army for
being my favorite of the whole fight, Pigfarmer Jr. to make
five.

Ok king, taking note. Taking note right this very instant......

king_arthur wrote:I'm not quite clear on the casting of this one - is the singer on the chorus criticizing the singer in the verses? If so, I'm thinking this might have worked better all in first person, "I'm coming down, I'm coming down..."

Thanks for the kind words. If it's any consolation, it is all one narrator. I'll leave you to enjoy deciphering the rest for yourself with that in mind.

king_arthur wrote: sense of it all... David Ritter, take note of how the
emphasized syllables in the lyric fall on the emphasized
beats in the music, this is how its done. Keeper & vote.

I've finished taking note. All the gods of Jazz, Funk, Fusion, etc. gasped though. (kisses blown also)

Thanks for the reviews. I'll get to my reviews in the next day or two (been out of town for holiday.)
I just wanna thank you all for the positive comments. I had zero time to record this and it's not even half finished. (Not that my finished would be much better.) Thanks again.

http://spintown79.blogspot.com/2010/07/ ... ement.html

NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT:

An Unfair And One-Sided Review
by Sammy Kablam

Fight: Hard Landing

My back and my neck are in notable amounts of pain, there's sand in my shoe, and people are going to try to pressure me into going out tonight for fireworks. I am not in a great mood. But, who am I to waste a good bit of unhappiness? In fact, I can't think of anything better suited for my current state than sitting down with a pile of "Hard Landing".

The Dinnertime Boys

I do not accept the idea that you are serious. About half the arrangement isn't bad, but it sounds like an Atari parade. Now, whereas I love me some 8-bit synth, this music is 100% unrelated to the topic at hand. 100%. There is no arguing otherwise. A real person cannot tell me that, had they been unaware of the prompt and that horrid voice saying "hard landing" was stricken from the music, one would come to a conclusion anywhere near the notion of "hard landing". This music has nothing to do with anything, and I don't know why you did this.

Queef McBeef

At first glance, I dislike you because of your name. Nothing says "this will not be of good quality" like a name that appears to be thought up by stoned 6th graders. Then I played your entry.

At 1:04, I really wanted to shut this shit off. But I decided to suffer thru it. And suffer, I did. What the fuck is this? Is this something you're sincerely proud of? It's noise. Abrasive, aggravating noise. It holds no aesthetic value. This is not a song -- this isn't even art, and I have a VERY broad and structured concept of art. This is nothing but static and sound bytes, thrown together with no genuine effect whatsoever. It is failure; it is nothing.

David Ritter

Oh, look: a song. Looks like somebody actually tried. Your verses feel empty. Like the music is missing something. It's not bad, but the segments between chorus and verse feel fuller. As for the lyrics, I'm with you until the gargantuan monkey fist. I hope that's reference to something with which I'm not familiar, because otherwise...you're a nut. Also, why is there a camera in a "creepy doll" at a science lab? This all sounds like one of Jonathan Coulton's fever dreams. I guess that's not bad, but...it's certainly an odd concept.

Chekhov's Raygun

What is with these goofy fucking band names? Anyway...

This is a rap (I guess). You should not have such trouble with your lyrical rhythm in a rap song. It's astounding. And...wait...is this a rap song about orbit rent-a-cops? What the hell? The concept of mall cops rapping is kind of funny, but this doesn't even make sense. It just doesn't. Also, it's terrible.

New Result

The first thing in my mind was "Dear god, not another techno piece of crap." The second thing I thought of, when you started saying "Hard" over and over, was Strongbad. And, maybe it's just me, but when you started saying "Landing", I thought of Sesame Street. you know, the segments where a Muppet is trying to put a word together, and...well, I'll show you what I mean:

EXAMPLE

Anyway, as you can imagine, the most entertaining part of your song was looking up Sesame Street segments on YouTube. In fact, your song pretty much serves as a reminder of all the things in the world that really ARE entertaining. Your song is about as interesting as the color beige. There is nothing to it, and after a while I started to hear "Hard Blanding". There are no surprising twists or turns, and the only change-up is at the end, when the song gives up on itself and simply ceases to exist. Congratulations, you wrote a theme song for boredom.

Panna Cotta Army

Is that production value? I think my heart may have murmured with shock. This kind of thing blows my mind. It's like you're out walking your dog, and you happen to notice a it passing a diamond amongst the usual make. The frustrating part is, if I wasn't reviewing this stuff for Spintown, I'd never hear this song. Unless you're posting somewhere else. But if this is it, knowing what I know about the regular stock at Song Fight, I'd never be here without these reviews, and would most likely never come across this very high quality number. Please contribute more to Song Fight to make this gig easier to handle.

Manhattan Glutton

I'm not completely sold on the chorus, but everything else is pretty slick. And that's not to say the chorus is really even bad, I just think it's missing something. Unfortunately, I can't really say what. That's about all I can say in a negative way this time.

Pigfarmer Jr

Another very foreboding name...

But, there I go being proven wrong. I'd hesitate to call this the best song of the bunch, but it's definitely not bad. I don't really like having so little to say about the good songs, but in my case, you should take that as a good thing.

Noah McLaughlin

You sound like Eddie Vedder had a stroke. The music's not bad, but I can't get past your voice. Half of the things you say are words; half of it is Bob Dylan mumbling in his sleep. It's kind of funny, but it doesn't do your song any justice. Maybe rerecord it, and sing like a person.

Steve Durand

Not really a bad song, but more along the lines of something from a musical than I expected from a Durand. Then again, maybe the lesson there is not to expect anything and just enjoy the show. I thought the vocals were a bit shaky in the beginning, but seeing as how Steve's doing two competitions at once, I'm not going to be too critical. After all, that piece was rather complex, musically, and very well put together for a guy with such time constraints.

Lucky Spoon

Oh, man. Those sung hooks are cringe-worthy. Maybe that's supposed to be ironic? Since your entry is about how bad other Song Fighters are, I'm assuming your hooks are so awkward to make fun of the questionable singing of past entrants. Of course, a rapper making fun of people for not being able to sing doesn't make a WHOLE lot of sense. But, I also can't say that your general assessment is flawed, either.

Wages

This might be what Mr. Spoon was talking about. I keep getting about 2 minutes into your song, and realizing I haven't been listening. Let me try one more time.

Aw, sorry; there's paint drying on the wall across the room, and it keeps distracting me. This thing is just so damn musically redundant, not to mention slow and dull, that I sincerely can't focus on it. It's just...boring. Really, really boring.

Chopped Liver Meat God

"I wish I could avoid you, but you're still here". My sentiments, exactly.

The sounds don't seem to fit together at all, and that drum beat gets VERY annoying after two minutes. The tempo change at the chorus is interesting, but then we go right back into the incessant verses. And whereas the choruses seem to be creative with the topic at hand, the verses don't seem to be saying anything relevant at all. I really think this would have potential if another writer comes in and salvages what's left to work with. As is, though, it's clunky, muddled, and I'm never playing it again.

MC Sharks In The Swimming Pool

These fuckin' names. I need an aspirin.

Don't hear too many rappers backed up by a flock of robot geese. Interesting choice. I also love that after 30 seconds, you felt the need to remind the listeners that there really is a song coming. Good thinking, I'll bet a lot of people were wondering if they'd missed it.

As far as I can tell, the message of the song, itself, is that you aren't to blame for your hate crimes. That's quite remarkable. I don't even think I can make fun of this any worse than the fact that it exists already does.

Chthonic Youth

Interesting intro. And that's about it. There were drastically worse entries this round, but that's not supposed to be a complimentary argument. There's nothing catching or pleasing about the song once it starts. It happens, it sounds kinda like any given mid nineties sad band, and then it ends. Incredibly forgettable.

Well, that's that for "Hard Landing". I'm truly baffled that there were no songs about skydivers with the wrong backpack or professional wrestlers. Seems like easy material for such a prompt; but hey, at least we got a bunch of emo songs and two guys who didn't even BOTHER with ideas or lyrics. That's how you stand out in a competition, right? I mean, what do I know, anyway?

Until the next (dyslexic) Fight,
S. Kablam

hmm.........

We rarely enter any more, but we still write songs for the title.

Here's our hard landing:

http://bootyrocks.com/music/practices/2 ... -all-D.mp3

I've discovered that most everyone's song sounds better played slightly slowed down (both pitch and speed)... to about 80-90% of the original speed.


now this could be because i'm still a bit hung over from chugging nyquil at 2am because i couldn't sleep... but i think i'm on to something.

everything sounds fuller, and more chill... just like the dr ordered.

Lucky Spoon wrote:I've discovered that most everyone's song sounds better played slightly slowed down (both pitch and speed)... to about 80-90% of the original speed.


now this could be because i'm still a bit hung over from chugging nyquil at 2am because i couldn't sleep... but i think i'm on to something.

everything sounds fuller, and more chill... just like the dr ordered.

That is hilarious.

blue wrote:We rarely enter any more, but we still write songs for the title.

But... you're a legend. Seeing your name on the front page (more regularly) would bring us great joy.

I would have voted for blue too.

Congrats to MG... after all that work you put in on the song you deserve it. let's cover it!

yo spud, can i get some love for 2nd place?

Holy crap! I got 7 votes by myself!? I thought the reviews were going to put me at none or just a couple. Well, this is great news! Thanks all 7 of you!! I just found out the closing of my house/property is probably getting pushed back, but Hard Landing is making it a little softer of a blow.

Lucky Spoon wrote:yo spud, can i get some love for 2nd place?

Awww, Spoon, I didn't see you over there! Will see what I can do.

X0X0X0 SPUD

Since I'm on my new medicine for rage, I'm not going to say Screw You Guys that Didn't Vote for me. I'm just not going to say it.

Best regards,