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Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Mon May 15, 2017 9:18 pm
by Chumpy
Thanks Tommy for hosting the listening parties. I have a great time hanging out with Nur Ein folks and talking about the songs every time!

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Mon May 15, 2017 9:36 pm
by BoffoYux
Chumpy wrote:Thanks Tommy for hosting the listening parties. I have a great time hanging out with Nur Ein folks and talking about the songs every time!
Thanks. I've been having fun doing them. Also, it's a good excuse to pull out the 'oldies' I've got from various collections that haven't seen the light of day for years on the net. I'm averaging 4 hours on the air with the post show parties. So it's a fun Monday night, and I get to play DJ again, like I used to on the 50kw stations.

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Mon May 15, 2017 9:53 pm
by Lunkhead
73 Keep It Beautiful - I really like this style from you. Awesome lush thick harmony vocals, those are so great, particularly the close and dissonant moments. Combined with the your voice, it's very haunting. I'm curious what that instrument is playing the slide part, it's got such a sharp percussive attack.

Balance Lost - Very cool intro. Your drum machine sounds great too (and/or drum loops or whatever you're using), particularly right after the first chorus. I like your mondegreens. Good half time feel switch in the second half of the second verse.

Cavedwellers - Good energy and singing. I like all the guitar sounds, too.

Jerkatorium - Led Zeppelin, yeah! I think you did the Pink Floyd tribute moment better though.

Glenn Case - Wow, I like the thick wall of rock sound. Got a little Weezer vibe in there methinks. I'm enjoying the melodies, and the chorus harmonies. We need to work on your distorted electric guitar tone though. :P Back to the positives, good la la's, they could have started way earlier in the song even.

Nick Soma - You managed to rock out in spite of whatever issues you were having with your voice. I liked the melodies and the energy.

Micah Sommersmith - I like the sentiment of the song as expressed in the "I know for you it’s quite important ... " and the "... And let her sing the words wrong" parts.

strangelove - Another good style choice. I like the breakdown after the chorus.

Mondegreen roundup:
- thank you/for curing: maybe my favorite made up mondegreen of the round
- kool-aid/dukes of hazzard: second/third favorites
- each hidden die: good mondegreen, though it felt out of place with the song for me

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 2:14 am
by glennny
- each hidden die: good mondegreen, though it felt out of place with the song for me
Thanks for the review and acknowledgment!
I'm confused how it felt out of place for you. To me, the literal words are a pretty good love song metaphor. Then the whole point of the song is how tragically that last line sounds like something else.

"You shape my life
With tools sublime
I’m molded by
Each hidden die"

Truth wrote the lyrics, and I think they are brilliant. To me, they work on the 2 levels they were going for.

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 2:21 am
by furrypedro
I didn't have my filter on when I wrote these, so some are a little bit mean. Sorry! Hopefully they're not too bad.


Jerkatorium: It’s a good song. I feel like in the beginning it promises a lot, and it nearly delivers, but there’s a feeling that it hasn’t quite hit all the sweet spots in just the right way. That said, the arrangement is tasteful and the singing and playing is all on point. The middle solo section leave me a bit cold, everything else I would happily listen to again. On repeated listens I find it a lot more satisfying so my initial fears are allayed and I would bump you up the rankings accordingly (were I a judge). The lyrics are cute and I appreciate the biographical angle.

Cavedwellers: Sounds a little bit messy, perhaps just a few too many notes. I like the different sections though, with the jazzy acoustic chords and the polyrhythms. I’d be interested to hear this if it was just a bit more relaxed. It suffers a little bit from not having a really strong hook. I reckon that if we had to listen 10 or 20 times before passing judgement instead of 2 or 3 this would fare better as the layers and subtleties would emerge more.

Glenn Case: I like this. All the bits are in the right places and you push it into slightly edgier territory with the fuzzy guitars. Nice oohs. I’m in two minds about the chorus – my overriding feeling is that it’s a great chorus that sticks in the mind the way a good chorus should. On the flipside you have fallen into the CCR/Jimi trap, and the lines feel disconnected from each other. It’s like they’re just lines you had to use because the challenge dictated such. But I’m more of a “sound” rather than “meaning” kind of person anyway, so in that respect I like it.

Micah Sommersmith: Saying that the ending is my favourite part is never a good start to a review, but that little run you do right at the end is really cool, I wish it was more prevalent in the song. The rest of the song is incredibly bouncy and holds my interest. It kind of reminds me of theme park music, y’know, relentlessly happy. Some cool lines, except refs to CCR and Jimi are starting to grate a little now. Do you guys have the show Pointless in the Americas? Those songs would get rubbish scores if that show had a ‘Mondegreen Round’. I apologise to you because I didn’t call out the earlier songs for the same reason – I’ll go back and ding them now out of my sense of fairness. This song also demonstrates quite nicely a problem I’m experiencing right now – many people enjoy a story song like this, and I’ve always found it difficult sticking to one subject in a lyric. With this track I get the idea after the first verse and then you go on and on making the point, so on repeated listens it feels laboured. It may be that others feel this is a perfect set of lyrics, it’s just a matter of taste.

Strangelove: I like the echoey synths in the background during intro. I nearly rolled my eyes at the concept of an Aussie writing about cricket, but what can I say, nobody else has done it and how could I begrudge you for giving us such a debauched tale of romance in the crease. I just hope the pitch wasn’t made of astroturf or they’d have a case of carpet burn they’d never forget.

Merisan: The way the twinkly synth just bursts into the song is cool. The verses were in danger of sounding a bit meat and potatoes except the melody takes enough cool unexpected turns to keep it sounding fresh. The choruses and middle are great with the dual vocals, the combination of ah-ah-ahs and ooohs is really nice. The dynamic changes always feel like they take the song where it needs to go.

73 Keep It Beautiful: This is really sunny and lush, I like it a lot. It reminds me of this band called the Twin Atlas, totally gentle and sweet melodies in an indie stylee. I think the layering of the acoustics and vocals really help to soften the arrangement. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t care about the lyric, it’s totally fine, but in the context of the fight/challenge I feel this isn’t a particularly creative approach, a break-up song which references one of the most famous mondegreens in pop culture. That doesn’t actually detract from my enjoyment of the song in real life though.

Nick Soma: Sounds like you’re recording from behind a duvet. Apart from that I dig it, or what I can hear. I like the c-86 style chords and guitar, although some guitar notes are way louder than the others which is weird. The relentless drums start to wear a little bit after a couple of minutes. I feel like you can do a better recording of this, and I think it’d be worth it. I think I like it but the muddy recording hurts it slightly. I’m almost curious to know how you got it to sound like that.

BSS: Loving that intro with the synth and the slightly dirty drums, I think that’s a great drum sound actually. Forget what anyone else says. I don’t find it distracting, the mix seems perfect to my ears. Your lyrical approach is more similar to my own. I like the random weird lines, maybe I was interpreting the challenge wrong but I thought this was the whole point of it. Not sure what the “ooh yeahs” are all about. I think you could’ve got away with it once, but 4 seems overkill. Not to worry, great song this.

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 4:21 am
by noma
furrypedro wrote:Nick Soma: Sounds like you’re recording from behind a duvet. Apart from that I dig it, or what I can hear. I like the c-86 style chords and guitar, although some guitar notes are way louder than the others which is weird. The relentless drums start to wear a little bit after a couple of minutes. I feel like you can do a better recording of this, and I think it’d be worth it. I think I like it but the muddy recording hurts it slightly. I’m almost curious to know how you got it to sound like that.
I can happily explain that. I mean, out of all my SF/Ein songs, this is one of the worst recording-wise. The drums (those are samples) were programmed before anything else, and there were no problems with the bass either. Still, I'm kind of amazed I submitted anything; I've been annoingly sick since about round one of this thing, at times feeling better and then, not so. Most of the time I'm too weak to go make me some toast, water the flowers, and so on, which should say enough. :(
As for my voice, it's almost completely gone. I managed to do one single take, then I noticed I had been way too close to the mike. Still better than an instrumental track, I thought, so I submitted it this way. I can only urge everyone to listen to the lyric (even if it's cringeworthy - I'm used to that :D) and the composition underneath. Once I have fully recovered, I'll prove this is really not such a bad song, by uploading a better recording. :)

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 4:35 am
by furrypedro
Ah, i'm sorry to know that you've been suffering so much, Nick. I hope you pull through soon!
Taking that into account, kudos for your efforts so far in spite of the struggles. It'd be good to hear the song with a recording it deserves.

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 6:45 am
by Caravan Ray
j$ wrote: And that little squinty synth towards the end is very welcome.
Weird. That is quite similar to what the lady on the cricket pitch said.

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 6:59 am
by Caravan Ray
furrypedro wrote: I just hope the pitch wasn’t made of astroturf or they’d have a case of carpet burn they’d never forget.
WTF?!?!? An astroturf pitch?!?!? Fucking philistine.

Though - not saying this is a true story or anything - but if it were, I do actually really recall being slightly bothered that it was turf and we were possibly affecting the bowlers footprints just outside the popping crease - not that that bothered me at the time, obviously - but, you know....I would hate to think that someone got one the next day that kept a bit low because of...well...you know..

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 8:09 am
by furrypedro
Caravan Ray wrote:
furrypedro wrote: I just hope the pitch wasn’t made of astroturf or they’d have a case of carpet burn they’d never forget.
WTF?!?!? An astroturf pitch?!?!? Fucking philistine.

Though - not saying this is a true story or anything - but if it were, I do actually really recall being slightly bothered that it was turf and we were possibly affecting the bowlers footprints just outside the popping crease - not that that bothered me at the time, obviously - but, you know....I would hate to think that someone got one the next day that kept a bit low because of...well...you know..
You may well be appalled by astroturf. I grew up in a deprived neighbourhood and it was all that was available to us aspiring lower-middle class cricketers.

As for your shenanigans, at least it wasn't a golf bunker. The indelible marks would have scarred the sand, scorecard and more than a few minds.

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 8:28 am
by Caravan Ray
furrypedro wrote:
Caravan Ray wrote:
furrypedro wrote: I just hope the pitch wasn’t made of astroturf or they’d have a case of carpet burn they’d never forget.
WTF?!?!? An astroturf pitch?!?!? Fucking philistine.

Though - not saying this is a true story or anything - but if it were, I do actually really recall being slightly bothered that it was turf and we were possibly affecting the bowlers footprints just outside the popping crease - not that that bothered me at the time, obviously - but, you know....I would hate to think that someone got one the next day that kept a bit low because of...well...you know..
You may well be appalled by astroturf. I grew up in a deprived neighbourhood and it was all that was available to us aspiring lower-middle class cricketers.
Thank goodness our scheme to keep lower-middle class people out of cricket is now working.

The Shane Warne Experiment taught us that.

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 10:20 am
by Manhattan Glutton
73 Keep It Beautiful - Sugar Ray wants his intro back. Nice work but very repetitious without much dynamics.

Balance Lost - Great production on top of your typical thang. I wonder what would happen if you slowed down or went half-time on the beats for once, cause it comes off a bit spastic sometimes. Oh here you do that a little in the middle of the song - nice. :) God damn, you deserve a medal for the drum changes. And the lyrics are funny.

Berkeley Social Scene - Your drums sound significantly more trashcan this week, and I like that. Intro too long. Nice verse singing. Really cool change-up at the chorus. The ambience and guitar lick give it a very distinct 90s feel, until the crazy chorus. Good stuff. Neat lyrics - I, too, like cheese and electric boobies.

Cavedwellers - Poor mastering/compression strikes again - very much earhurt. I am glad you are pulling out a different drumbeat. Pleasant singing, but the melody leaves me a little lost. And it devolves into mostly the typical Cavedwellers drum beat, with some neat alterations here and there. Yes you get a point for the vibraslap.

Glenn Case - I like instrumentation and effects to emphasize absurd. Good chorus and harmonies as usual. Nice stop. Getting slightly jaded of your stock drums... but not enough to complain too much. Very familiar song without being able to put my finger on it - Semisonic, maybe, mixed with Soundgarden?

Jerkatorium - Very on-the-nose lyrics - still clever at parts. I think this is getting closer to the farcical line that I am more comfortable with. Musically, it's a nice song but doesn't stand out of the pack, despite your usual clever electronic sprinkles on top of punk.

Merisan - I like that you're doing different stuff all the time. Great harmonizing and production. Great melody. Cool bass tone. Praise etc.

Micah Sommersmith - Good change-ups at each section - I like that. Pleasant series of different sounds and instruments. The mixing leaves a little to be desired. Not a fan of these songs about douches but I guess that's a mondegreen thing. Pretty good singing too.

Nick Soma - This is like a bristly loofa after Micah's song. Very jarring for a variety of reasons - engineering, flat vocals, off-beat playing, harsh drum decisions. I hear the rough outline of a good song that I'd like to praise, but the rendition makes it incredibly difficult to be persuaded.

strangelove - Wacky cool instrumentation. Man, what happened to the penis songs? Very tasteful, cute little dongles to appreciate strewn about in this one. Nice work. You need to get louder to compete with these other folks - you've got good work but it's easy to be less impressed when it's mastered so quiet! And I hate to accidentally ding points for that!

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 12:17 pm
by Spintown
Micah Sommersmith - Love the idea, and it’s something that I probably would be overly annoyed with if a girlfriend constantly sang the wrong words to songs I knew. Great job with all the examples. Musically I wasn’t blown away by anything, but lyrically it kept me entertained.

Berkeley Social Scene - You had me early on with the cheesy first verse. Creative mondegreens in there. I do feel like you peeked in the first verse, but that’s not to say the rest of the song wasn’t good. But the most memorable part for me came early. Nice work getting the Kool-Aid Man to do the “Oh Yeah” parts.

Merisan - Story kinda bored me, but the performances were great. Musically it was very cheerful & entertaining right from the start. You’ve set the bar pretty damn high so far, so even though I’m ranking you high, I was honestly a little disappointed just based on your other entries.

Cavedwellers - Lyrically I was kinda tuned out pretty fast, but musically it was an enjoyable experience. Hate to admit it took me longer than it should have to get “Each Hidden Die”. I had to say it out loud a dozen times first.

Glenn Case - Forgive me for not knowing the terminology I should probably use, but the music made the hair on my arms stand up...in a bad way. I’m not a fan of distorted instruments or whatever effects you were using. Lyrically I thought you did fine, and it’s fun to see how some of you all are using the same examples here and there at times. But I can’t really say I’m ever going to want to listen to this again.

Jerkatorium - I’ve liked most of your work thus far, but this one missed the mark for me. Nothing sit well with me, the music was ok...but the change of pace just felt out of place. Lyrics bored me, and the only positive was your vocals.

Balance Lost - Didn’t care for the instrumental section towards the end, but enjoyed the music otherwise. Thought the performance was solid and sold the lyrics in places.

Strangelove - As an ignorant American who knows nothing of cricket, I’m sure some things were lost on me here. Nothing here really held my attention.

73 Keep It Beautiful - The story is from the POV of someone who is stressing out about his girl possibly kissing another guy...but the music is so slow & chill. To me this just doesn’t sit right. The song idea wasn’t bad, but there’s no real conclusion or payoff. Throw in the fact slow songs usually aren’t my thing and you’re looking at a lower ranking from me this round.

Nick Soma - Vocals killed this one for me. Not sure I’d have been ok with the lyrics anyways. Even reading along with the lyrics I got lost in the first verse at 1 point.

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 12:54 pm
by noma
Spintown wrote:Not sure I’d have been ok with the lyrics anyways. Even reading along with the lyrics I got lost in the first verse at 1 point.
Hopefully you and everyone else, uh, "got" the lyric of my song. Maybe I wasn't being clear enough, I wouldn't lay the blame on you. So, if any of you have no clue what it's about, I'll gladly explain. ;)

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 2:12 pm
by Spintown
Wasn't that I didn't "get" it, I had trouble following along cause the vocals were muddled a bit. Also mix in a line or 2 like, "Your guitar, I have to listen, I got no choice" that just flows awkwardly & it causes me to lose were I'm at breifly because I'm double checking to see if I misheard something. (especially with this challenge)

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 4:42 am
by j$
Sorry in delay for results, folks. We're waiting on one more judge, who has a knock-on delay from the slightly late posting of the songs. Should be today some time.

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 10:15 am
by Lunkhead
Congrats BSS!

I would be super curious to hear from the judge who thought that Merisan should have been eliminated this round, about why he thought that. If you don't want to discuss it publicly, feel free to PM me.

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 10:33 am
by j$
I was surprised by the voting patterns of the judges this time round. I thought I'd figured out a fair few of the variants (geographical, genre bias etc) but these scores wrong-footed me. Anyway, that's the rub of the (monde)green, I guess.

Just wanted to say that I'm really disappointed personally and particularly, to see Cavedwellers go with what I thought was a fantastic song and their best of the contest so far. I was really looking forward to seeing how they dealt with repetition so I hope the finished song will turn up in some place in the not-too-distant ...

j5

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 10:40 am
by Lunkhead
Yeah, strong entries from everybody, and definitely sad to see folks go.

Here is how much each judge was "off" by, compared to the final results:

J1: 0 0 4 5 5 2 1 0 6 5 = 23
J2: 0 5 2 2 1 2 4 2 1 1 = 20
J3: 1 1 1 1 2 4 1 3 1 1 = 16
J4: 4 1 1 1 1 3 3 0 2 4 = 20
J5: 0 8 2 2 3 3 1 4 0 3 = 26

I assumed the judge that dissed Merisan was going to be the most off, but I was wrong. It was judge 5. The biggest discrepancy in the round is Judge 5 ranking Cavedwellers 10, second biggest discrepancy is Judge 1 ranking Merisan 3. Interestingly (or not), Judge 3's rankings were overall the most accurate, even though every single ranking was inaccurate, although mostly by only one place.

You just never know how things are going to play out. Except when Skub is in the round, then Skub wins. :P

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 10:42 am
by Lunkhead
Also, the images in the results post are not working for me. Not sure if anybody else is having that issue or not? When I try to view the images themselves, I get an error that I am not authorized to download the attachments...?

https://www.songfight.net/forums/downlo ... hp?id=1020
https://www.songfight.net/forums/downlo ... hp?id=1022

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 10:43 am
by Manhattan Glutton
Could you post algorithm used or how to read that grid? Should I put that on the website? :)

Re: Nur Ein XII - Round Four

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 10:55 am
by HeuristicsInc
Lunkhead wrote:Also, the images in the results post are not working for me. Not sure if anybody else is having that issue or not? When I try to view the images themselves, I get an error that I am not authorized to download the attachments...?

https://www.songfight.net/forums/downlo ... hp?id=1020
https://www.songfight.net/forums/downlo ... hp?id=1022
Ah, I think I know what went wrong. Try them again, I think it should be fixed.
-bill