Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Discuss upcoming, current, and previous song fights.
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king_arthur
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by king_arthur »

Well, there is that part over on the main SF page, on the right, where it says "got news of interest to songfighters? playing a gig? got a new cd out? send your song news here." with a mailto link for songnews@songfight.org

And, yeah, I share your difficulty with doing reviews. I know that "I don't like metal, or know anything about it, so anything I said about this song would be of no use to you..." is an option, but, yeah. I will admit that I looked pretty quickly to see if you'd said anything about MY song, and if you hadn't I'd be all snarky too.

Then again, the two or three times I've quit doing songfights, it's been 'cause JB started reviewing again :-) So you're not the only attitude around here :-) Good to have you back.

Lunk, you'd better get the new songs posted pretty soon, this space is getting hot...
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by Lunkhead »

I'll be updating the site tonight. But don't let that stop you all from bickering on the boards, we could use some lively flame wars around here these days. :)
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jb
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by jb »

It's all relative. I think you nailed the bit I was reacting strongly to, Jim.

If someone declines to review my song, that's totally fine. If they decline to review it and lump it in with everything else they chose not to review, saying they've heard it a thousand times-- well, my reaction will depend on whether I agree. Regarding my "Young Blood" entry, I don't agree with that conclusion, so in this case I returned what I perceive as a high-handed non-review with high-handed snark in kind. My "Young Blood" entry has flaws, for sure, but I'm going to push back on it being called run-of-the-mill.

It's your choice how to take the shit I fling, and I'm glad that you didn't stay away after I pissed you off.

I find reviews hard to take, as a songwriter. No matter how many good reviews there are, it's never enough to feed the need for acknowledgement that what I was trying to say was heard, and that in the hearing someone else understood and in turn felt understood or enriched. Never enough. And bad reviews-- well, it depends. If I can understand and observe the criticism with a critical eye, I can use that information in future work. And if it's "I just don't like this" well then shit happens-- I've been doing this long enough to take it in stride when my stuff just isn't *for* somebody. I can deal with that, though if it goes on long enough one begins to wonder if one will ever get gotten... heh.

This struggle has been part of the experience for me since very close to the beginning of my songwriting life. Here is a song I wrote about songwriting and dealing with people reaction (or not) to my work:
http://johnorama.com/songs/sensitive_pop/left_for_dead.mp3

King Arthur-- I hope my reviews of your work have been thoughtful and constructive, even if they have been sometimes snarky. Sometimes I'm a dick.

For the record, I think it's totally fine for a participating Song Fighter to promote their work in this community, and I'll jump down the throat of anybody who said otherwise even of an artist who hasn't participated in a while. (If somebody's never entered a fight and drops their latest hot Soundcloud track on us, they can shove off.)

We can add it to the Things JB Says Are Fine Not That Anybody Cares:
1. Friend flooding is fine. Nobody should be penalized for having fans.
2. Instrumentals are fine, but you should expect to take some crap on the forum.
3. Self-promotion of non-SongFight work is fine, we should all be excited to see what other fighters are up to.

JB
blippity blop ya don’t stop heyyyyyyyyy
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dirgetheband
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by dirgetheband »

Since we are defining what can and cannot be shared, I've got the engine block from a '72 C10 available for sale. Can I post that here?
DT
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by Jim of Seattle »

You know, listening to that fine song you linked got me to thinking about something else. And that is the difference between reviews where the chops are in question vs those where they aren't. I used to care a lot more about singing, playing, and recording in people's SF entries than I likely will now. With something like guitar playing, for example, it's not like a review is going to make someone think "Oh! You mean I should play better? Hmm, good advice." So what's the point of calling it out? Such reviews may serve to hasten that improvement, I suppose, but I'd guess that in most cases, the song submitted is a snapshot partway through their journey of honing the skill. Same for singing and recording, more or less. What I think a SF review CAN do though is point out things that the artist may not have heard that can adjust their ship's coordinates pretty much immediately. Such as "This song is too long and boring" or "I can't make heads or tails or your lyrics". Someone can take that advice and improve upon it the very next week, by making a shorter song, or by paying closer attention to what might be boring to people, or my enunciating better, or by writing lyrics that make more sense, or whatever.

And people like you and KA get graded on an "I know you can do better"-like curve. When someone who's usually awful submits something non-awful, it's cause for celebration, even if it's still semi-awful. At the same time, I expect a pretty high bar out of the gate for a song from someone like you, so it better be good, dammit.

You can be a dick sometimes I suppose, but I still remember a cover fight entry of mine that you reviewed that got right to the heart of what I was going for with it that I hadn't even realized, so there's that too.
Here's my record label page thingie with stuff about me if you are so interested: https://greenmonkeyrecords.com/jim-of-seattle/
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by jb »

dirgetheband wrote:Since we are defining what can and cannot be shared, I've got the engine block from a '72 C10 available for sale. Can I post that here?
There's a for sale forum, knock yerself out.

JB
blippity blop ya don’t stop heyyyyyyyyy
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PepperJane
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by PepperJane »

I'm pretty much on the opposite side to JB. I really like receiving scathing reviews.
Sometimes I feel like reviews of my SF entries (which are frequently pretty lazily realised seeds of an idea) are a bit too kind. Ha! That's why Caravan Ray suggested I'd get a lot out of joining SF. And when I did, it was for Nur Ein, so the review mood was harsher, and I relished it! (they also overlooked my even-worse-then phone recordings)

Do continue to remind me that a track was mundane, do chastise my flavour repetition (glennny! Tho I think what you thought was the same riff wasn't quite but it's poor execution would have given rise to that observation- I mean to ask you about that) and you can leave out telling me anything nice about my voice, unless it's very particular and songwriting related. It's like a prized show pony that you know could be exceptional if you spent more time with it, but still wins competitions even on an off day so it just gets left loose in the paddock, so I have my own harsh criticism about that, and like JoS says, it's the less important part of this exercise. Which is why I don't say anything about how much your vocal performance might be ruining my receival of your offering... ;) Though OF COURSE I appreciate the love - I came here to be stretched.

All the mundanity that surrounds me applauds me in real life constantly, even sometimes the prodigies I know, and they mean well but I want/need to be pushed. I respect 'blunt', also because I give it, which of course does not NEED to be derisive. :?

I don't, however, believe 'unique' is as important or as possible as 'brilliant'. I don't say that as an endorsement of laziness at all, either, but I also don't believe in the concept of 'boring' - you can blame my mother, since she railed on "only boring people get bored" - but truly there is a more useful way to point out what it is about a track that made you want to use that lazy term ;)

Dsclmr: 'You' refers to the reader, or in such case as offence is taken, everyone other than.

dirge you cracked me the hell up with the 4sale post, and YES I have heard your dulcet tones, and your singing (was actually pretty good in Young Blood ok?!) but PERSONALISATION is the best bit of any romantic tape making... whatevers. I'm straight ace so that's my goal-less observation! Now I want to hear you cover it! ;)

Let's all do Jeff Buckley covers!! (Insert emoticon with smiley face and heart shaped eyes) (repeatedly).

Gosh, who let a girl in here...

*goes hunting for 'Honey Molasses'*
Everything is about perspective. :shock:
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Chumpy
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by Chumpy »

Nice to see you back Jim. I remember a quip from you over on songstuff, where after I had posted an updated version of one of our songs with pitch corrected vocals your response was: "Still kinda pitchy dawg." I laugh about it often while pitch correcting.

PS: If you enter the next fight I'll buy your album.
"I don't recommend ending on a bad joke." --ken
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by MicahSommer »

Dd BSS's two songs really get the exact same number of votes? Did everyone who voted for one also vote for the other? Or did votes for one get counted for both? Or did the total votes get split between them? No accusations, just curious...
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by PepperJane »

Nope, cos I voted for only 1 BSS, but I'm also pretty sure I flicked a vote to the Calico educators, as Dirge said he did too, but their count says zero? :? Curious...
Everything is about perspective. :shock:
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by Chumpy »

I also voted for Calico, I think the special characters in her name screwed things up a bit. Same sort of problem with the BSS entries. The fightmaster will likely deal with both issues soon.
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by Lunkhead »

The < and > in <Something>Calico exposed one set of bugs in the current Song Fight code, and BSS's two entries exposed another set. It turns out the voting is based solely on artist name, and also it barfs on the < and > (and probably also &). That resulted in all votes for either BSS song going to BSS the artist (there's no way to vote independently for just one song or the other even though the UI makes it look like you can) and the votes for <Something>Calico didn't get counted. I'm not really very good with PHP but I suppose I will have to get my hands wet in the SF code again to try to deal with those bugs when I have a chance. Fun! As if my day job didn't already involve too much time spent fixing other peoples' bugs. :)
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king_arthur
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by king_arthur »

While you're poking around, on the "archive" page for the song, Calico's name is now printing with ampersand lt semicolon stuff.

http://www.songfight.org/songpage.php?key=young_blood
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by Jim of Seattle »

Wouldn't it be a hoot if we all submitted entries with band names consisting of snippets of HTML code? We could really mess with things.
Here's my record label page thingie with stuff about me if you are so interested: https://greenmonkeyrecords.com/jim-of-seattle/
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by Lunkhead »

king_arthur wrote:While you're poking around, on the "archive" page for the song, Calico's name is now printing with ampersand lt semicolon stuff.

http://www.songfight.org/songpage.php?key=young_blood
Yes I know. One of the most awesome parts of it is that every different piece of Song Fight is broken about that in a totally different way. Good times! :(
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by Lunkhead »

Jim of Seattle wrote:Wouldn't it be a hoot if we all submitted entries with band names consisting of snippets of HTML code? We could really mess with things.
Go ahead and all enter with HTML in your names, just don't expect to ever see songfight.org updated again if you do. :P

"Fun" fact: An undefined subset of HTML tags are allowed in artist names. For example, when someone wanted to submit as "X0" with the zero as a subscript, that was allowed. Pretty bad precedent in my opinion but it's been set.

The good news is that since no clear position was published about it I have the discretion to continue the tradition of randomly allowing or rejecting different HTML tags, lol. So forget trying to enter as "<script>window.close()</script>" etc.
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by dirgetheband »

PepperJane wrote:dirge you cracked me the hell up with the 4sale post, and YES I have heard your dulcet tones, and your singing (was actually pretty good in Young Blood ok?!) but PERSONALISATION is the best bit of any romantic tape making... whatevers. I'm straight ace so that's my goal-less observation! Now I want to hear you cover it! ;)

Let's all do Jeff Buckley covers!! (Insert emoticon with smiley face and heart shaped eyes) (repeatedly).
I would do it, but it will have to be all heavy and sludgy, like Crowbar-style. Actually, that might be pretty damn cool. I've been working on a cover of Nirvana's Aneurysm that sounds remarkably like the original, just with me on guitar, so maybe I'll throw this tune in and see if I can't metal-ize the hell out of it. I've had a heavy version of Tori Amos' "Take To The Sky" in the works for years but have never finished it.

Let's see-eee-eee-eee-eee-eee [takes out list of things to do]... Number 4,234,276: write sludge metal cover of "Everybody Here Wants You".
DT
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Re: Are You There God? It's (Young Blood Reviews)

Post by PepperJane »

dirgetheband wrote: Let's see-eee-eee-eee-eee-eee [takes out list of things to do]... Number 4,234,276: write sludge metal cover of "Everybody Here Wants You".
I know, right?!
Everything is about perspective. :shock:
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