The Song Fight Bulletin Board

We've arrived at the final competitive round of SpinTunes 20. As a reminder, the rankings in this round are determined by the votes of your fellow SpinTunes 20 contestants. For this 20th tournament, the Final Round challenge is a throwback to an old SpinTunes tradition last seen in SpinTunes 11.

Here it is:
Photo Finish: Write and record a song inspired by the below photo by Clairellyn Sommersmith. If it's not displaying well on your device, you can also view or download the photo in full resolution here.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1btjWGa ... sp=sharing

Submitting Entries:
Your entry must be received by Sunday, April 30, 2023 @ 11:59 PM EDT. Otherwise it'll be posted as a shadow. Received means that it has to appear in my e-mail inbox (spintunescontest@gmail.com) by the given deadline. I will be going by the time stamp on the e-mail. One minute late is too late.
You are allowed and encouraged to submit a draft of your song early just in case something horrible happens and you miss the deadline. Then you can add polish to your song and send in a better version closer to the deadline. The last version received prior to the deadline is your official entry.
Lyrics are mandatory. No instrumentals. Having no lyrics will get you disqualified.

SUBMITTING BY EMAIL: Send your file in a format that BandCamp accepts. (.wav or .flac) (at least 16-bit/44.1kHz) Do not send MP3s.
Name your file the song's title + your band name, without punctuation.
The subject line of the e-mail should identify the challenge and your band's name. Something like this would be fine: "ST20R4 - All the Robots".
Include the song lyrics in the body of the e-mail.
Include information on anyone that needs credited if you collaborated with someone.

ALTERNATE FILE SHARING OPTIONS: If your file is too big for an email attachment, you may email me a link to where I can download the song. The email still needs to land in my inbox by the deadline.
If you have a Bandcamp account you can just send me a link to your song if you include all the info I mentioned for emails. Info such as lyrics and song credits can be included in the email or on the song's Bandcamp page. Make sure you have it set as a free download, and have it set so that I don't have to put in an e-mail to download it if you pick this option.
You may also use a file sharing service such as DropBox, WeTransfer, Google Drive, etc. Include in the email any required information (such as lyrics) that you couldn't include in the file. Make sure I have permission to download the file, and please follow directions so your file doesn't wind up in my spam or trash folder accidentally.

SONG BIOS: In addition to lyrics and any necessary credits, you are welcome to include a "song bio", with any information you feel is useful. This could include your inspiration for the song, citations for any obscure references within the lyrics, an explanation of how your song met the challenge, etc. Some challenges may require you to supply certain info in your song bio. Since the judges are volunteers with lives outside of SpinTunes, song bios can help them zero in on aspects of the song you feel are important. However, if your song requires a multi-paragraph explanation in order to understand and appreciate it, this is probably a sign that it doesn't stand up well on its own, and its ranking may reflect that.

Side Notes:
You can send in an entry to SpinTunes 20 without competing. Just tell me it's a "Shadow Song". It will be played at the listening party, but won't be ranked and you might not receive feedback from the judges. Check the FAQ if you don't know what that means. You can even complete past challenges from previous contests. It's a nice way of playing along if you can't commit to the schedule or you just want to get your feet wet.
The only other way to get your music played at the listening party is to cover "Today's The Day" by Inverse T. Clown or "Right Again" by Mandibles.

Feel free to leave any questions in the comments.

ST20.4 Listening Party and Deadline News

The Round 4 deadline has passed. Congratulations to our four finalists, who all made it by the deadline. After tonight's Listening Party, their fates will be in the hands of their fellow SpinTunes 20 contestants. More information about voting as well as submitting Bonus Round covers will be coming in a later blog post.

In the meantime, please join us tonight for the Listening Party hosted by Tommy G, where we'll hear the four competing Final Round songs as well as as five shadow entries. Tommy G expects to be able to begin at 10 pm EDT; any updates will be posted on Twitter.

Join us for the Listening Party on YouTube or watch in the embedded player below. If you're on YouTube, be sure to switch the chat option from "Top Chat" to "Live Chat" to join in on the conversation as we hear these songs for the first time!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9Fw71Vr5TU

Notes!

The Pannacotta Army: It would be so easy to make a low-effort gesture in the direction of this genre and fail terribly. As I said in the listening party though, you clearly studied! The little percussion details, the incredible sense of space - this is a master class in doing your homework and executing a genre. I don't really have production notes, other than perhaps letting your ringout ring out for longer than needed, but I messed up my own ringout this round, so . This is impressive.

Ironbark: You do stripped-down in a way that I often set out to do, but end up piling loads of shit on, inevitably landing at my same signature (?) cacophony. I'm impressed that I can't hear any click bleeding through on these naked vocal lines. I just love every bit of this. Stellar work once again.

The Alleviators: I feel that the mix balance could use some tweaking. Drums feel a little dry and up front, and the piano feels like it's right about where the vocals ought to be. Love the rotary effect thing on the second verse. I feel that the drums could be decluttered a little - the rest of the track isn't aggressive enough to justify the busy kick in my opinion - just give us pocket and let the rest of the instruments carry the rhythmic details. The guitars sit right where they ought to - really feels right compared to last round. Love the ending, has a Deathcab kind of pop sensibility to it. Great work - best of ST20 from y'all!

Sober: Maybe it's obvious that I saw Nickel Creek in concert last week? I had to use a cheap mandolin on this, because the frets on my main mandolin are so bad that these particular riffs come out super buzzy. Also made myself give the fiddle another try, and I'm much happier with how it sounded on this track compared to the R3 effort. Changes I'd make: the gap between the minor iv bridge and the choir chorus is too long. Maybe I'd do more work on the choir audio to make its in/out points not so apparent. I have RX8, why didn't I do that? Mix could be punched up, too.

Phlub [SHADOW]: Linking the John Prine song for posterity. Love that you're giving the mandolin some love - I can give you some style tips to get you closer the sound you're going for . Bass feels like it could use some bottom-end oomph. There's a funny sound in the right channel at ~2:39, like maybe a mandolin track didn't get its tail trimmed, and we hear you hitting the space bar to stop recording? Anyway, this is great, and I appreciate that ST20 has been country Phlub

Cavedwellers [SHADOW]: Catchy as all hell. Love the different guitar tones. Lots of interesting melodic movement in here. I appreciate when each instrument could stand alone as its own centerpiece, without distracting from the main vocal melody. Not easy to execute, and you've done it here. Love all the tube burn. Great work as always.

Mandrake [SHADOW]: So great to hear you start to come out of your shell vocal performance-wise. You have such a sense of identity where your tracks are concerned, and once you really nail down your vocal delivery, you'll be unstoppable. The meter stuff is seamless, and the microtonal stuff is charming and unobtrusive. You're working way outside my genre space, so I can't really offer production tips, but I look forward to hearing you continue to develop.

See-Man-Ski feat. Sam Hemsworth [SHADOW]: Your pronunciation of "lie-berry" is unbelievably charming. It does seem that you've written a trademark Seemanski power-funk song here, but kept it stripped down. I would very much like to hear the sexy version with drums, pls. As always, you're a font of interesting writing concepts and stellar execution.

Hot Pink Halo [SHADOW]: Love the Casio bossanova vibe. Are we doing pedal point challenge again? You've settled into a sound that feels honest and authentic to you, and that's a lovely thing to have been able to witness over the past couple of years. Great work!

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Just wow. This Spintunes has been incredible. So much amazing music, and a real joy to see individual artists grow so much in a matter of weeks from round to round. Suffice it to say that I am very happy that I do not have to vote. Love you all