The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Never really felt bad about it
As we drank deep from the lie
'Cause I felt melting magnets, babe
The second I saw you through half-shut eyes

Lyrics go here: viewtopic.php?t=12933

Songs posted!

I don't leave a lot of reviews, but I feel like I should be listening to Axel Mundi's tune on the radio instead of on SF. Good stuff.
Also loved Pigfarmer, Lunkhead, and the JB Band. I'll post more detailed reviews if I can find time away from my soul-sucking job.

Also, I know. "On the Radio" = "I'm old."

freff wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 19, 2025 3:50 am

I don't leave a lot of reviews, but I feel like I should be listening to Axel Mundi's tune on the radio instead of on SF. Good stuff.

Yes, I do expect that the radio will be full of AI music in the near future, if it isn't already.

Always rewarding when I go against my better judgment and post on this forum.

My point wasn't to attack you, it was to point out that the Axel Mundi song only sounds as good as it is because it was almost certainly made by AI.

It certainly has lots of, uh, curious-sounding artifacts...

Uh, it's...over 6 minutes long, that's an interesting choice. It does sound good, but it's not my thing. Sounding good is no longer notable in itself, luckily sounding shitty is something I can do.

Axel Mundi and the Field Lines:
Ok. All of this is pleasant-sounding enough, but overall really does nothing for me, and certainly doesn't do enough to justify the length. To be honest I had kind of checked out and hardly realized it was still playing, after about the first two minutes. I see some speculation here that this entry was AI-generated; while I have no direct evidence of this, the vocals have that annoying autotune-tinged vibe which I really do not enjoy.

Jeff DeSantis:
The playful vibe reminds me of the country-western-style songs they used to have on Sesame Street (complimentary). Voted.

The John Benjamin Band:
The string intro is fun, sort of reminiscent of "Beautiful Day" by U2, or that one Coldplay song whose title I can't remember at the moment. Like those two examples, I think this is also a little too upbeat and saccharine for my personal taste, but well-done nonetheless.

Johnny Cashpoint:
The guitar tone is a little bit grating, kind of right on that razor-thin edge between "so bad it actually sounds good" and just "so bad." What was that about Dean Cain? There's nothing in the lyric archive.

Lunkhead:
Sounds a little bit like a hyperspeed electropop "Bang the Drum All Day" at times. Why do all the vocals in all these songs sound autotuned or similarly effectified? I enjoyed the melody here and the song itself is fun, but the vocal effect has kind of turned me off (of all these songs, not just this one).

Mk:
EDIT: After a couple listens I think I've pinpointed what is bugging me about this one. The delivery seems too rushed, and I think a bit part of that is the way the lines were recorded and edited together. It sounds like each line has been recorded individually and then they were all pasted together OR like all the pauses/breaths between lines have been edited out. The finished product ends up sounding like one of those YouTube voiceovers where they've edited out all the natural pauses between sentences and phrases and the narration ends up sounding robotic and flat, and also too rushed. So... while there's nothing wrong with an a capella song, I feel like if the singing is going to sound stitched together like this, it needs some other element to cover up those edits.

Dave Gilmour in Guitar World February 1993: "'One of these Days' evolved from some of my experiments with the Binson [an Italian made delay unit], as did 'Echoes' [also from Meddle]. One day, Roger decided to take some of the techniques that I was developing and try them out himself on bass. And he came up with that basic riff that we all worked on and turned into 'One of These Days.' For the middle section, another piece of technology came into play: an H&H amp with vibrato. I set the vibrato to more or less the same tempo as the delay. But the delay was in 3/4 increments of the beat and the vibrato went with the beat. I just played the bass through it and made up that little section, which we then stuck on to a bit of tape and edited in. The tape splices were then camouflaged with cymbal crashes."

Pigfarmer Jr:
That change from 3/4 to 4/4 on the very first line of lyric was unexpected and the meter continuing to alternate similarly kept things interesting throughout. This one was my favorite of the fight. Voted.

Axel Mundi and the Field Lines:

Oops, this is pretty clearly fully AI generated. Per our FAQ we don't actually want to include songs like this. This one slipped by me though and it's a pain to take it down. So just to warn you, if you made this and you're reading here, I'll probably not count any votes this "song" gets. Sounds like you can actually make music yourself, so if you want to make a song for Song Fight the "old fashioned" way where you play the instruments and sing then we'd accept that.

Jeff DeSantis:

This sounds good! Good performances and recording and mix. Maybe the fiddle and drums sound a little too obviously fake for me. I like the chorus harmonies, although the very high voice also sounds a little weirdly off or fake or something to me. Your voice and the lyrics and genre remind me of Old '97s, who I love. Nice pedal steel solo, or whatever it is. Solid stuff.

The John Benjamin Band:

I enjoyed this one. This is pop music I can get into. Hearing it now after listening to the new David Byrne album a bunch lately I kinda hear some similar vibes, in the instruments and groove. The chorus is great, and the strings really work for me in spite of their "dubious" origin. I wish the backup vocal that comes in later was you (especially when it's on its own near the end), or if it is you, that it was you without whatever processing is on it. I like the glockenspiel after the bridge a lot, nice flavor in the mix. Good one!

Johnny Cashpoint:

Oof, that guitar tone is very harsh. I'm sort of into it till the chorus and then the autotune is pushing the main vocal to some out of key notes in a way that's pretty rough on my ears. I much prefer the verse vocals. This could very much use more syncopation, especially in the drums. Dean Cain

Lunkhead:

This is me! Seems like I am on a "streak" of entering one fight per year, since 2023. Hope I can keep this up! Anyway, I just had this goofy idea for the lyrics and the song being synth pop. I played around with drums and synths and managed to throw this together. The lyrics probably need more work and it'd be great to have a better vocalist, but otherwise I'm ok with how this turned out.

Mk:

I really appreciate that you're bringing something new and different to Song Fight. For a vocal-only take this works ok for me. I'd be curious to hear what it would sound like if you collaborated with someone here to have some backing music.

Pigfarmer Jr:

This is a fine song, the music is well composed and I like the instrumentation choices, and the instruments are performed/programmed well. The lyrics and vocals are ok, I think the vocal delivery maybe isn't feeling like it 100% suits the tone of the lyrics and the overall sound of the music though.

The results are in and the fight has been won by ... The John Benjamin Band!

Sweet! Woot!