What happens in Song Fight, stays in Song Fight (Nevada reviews)

[Lunkhead]

Reviews go here!

Lyrics go here:

viewtopic.php?t=12636

[Lunkhead]

Songs posted!

[fluffy]

RedRock5_KG.jpg (335.5 KiB) Viewed 917 times

(just had to get that out of the way)

[fluffy]

Wow, short fight. Shuffle order as usual.

Sockpuppet: This hastily-assembled entry was phoned in and crappy, just like everything else I did in the early 2000s, so, that fits the optional challenge. I'm glad this shuffled to the start so I could get it out of the way.

State Shirt: Love hearing you back here. This has a great 80s synthwave sound to it. Also makes me think of early Iris/late The Alpha Conspiracy. The backing track for this would be a perfect soundtrack to car reviews. If only we knew someone who did those. Anyway yeah I like this a lot. Bridge section feels a bit out-of-place somehow though? I can't put my finger on why.

Frankie Big Face: That slapback reverb on some of the vocals makes the vocals pretty incomprehensible to me. But this has a great jammy vibe to it and I'm liking it overall.

Glenn Case: Good clean recording on a song that sounds unmistakably like you. The lyrics are pretty relatable to me, and sounds like the sort of sentiment I feel when things are getting super overwhelming and I need to bug out for a bit when everything's falling apart and things are too intense.

Add: As the person responsible for this whole meme in the first place I can't help but hear what you have to say on this subject, song-wise. I love this weird doodly jammy vibe you have going on, musically. My toes are tapping for this. There's also something super familiar with this particular style of call-and-response, like maybe it's evocative of your and JB's "Stuck down a Mineshaft" sort of? Also loving the return of your early-00s backmasked guitar weirdness (or whatever those weird reversed-sounding noises are 2/3 of the way through).

Starfinger: Oh man this is just like, such good groove going on, great weird noises, love this nonsense.

The Everfree Forest: I don't recognize your name or voice but this is 100% perfectly spot-on for the feeling of early-00s Song Fight!. My only complaint is that it's a bit short.

R. Mosquito: Ooh nice blip-blop glitchy percussion, oh gosh such a perfect vocal treatment, this is just like, so much like goth-industrial music that I always wanted to be into but never really got into for some reason. Such a great chaotic buildup and release at around a minute in too. Perfect level of sloppiness in it too. Gosh I love it.

Pigfarmer Jr.: Early 2000s Bob Dylan, is that you? The mix on this is a bit thin and midrange-heavy but the song itself is fine. I think if you'd leaned further into being explicitly lo-fi this would have worked a lot better. The song's pretty simple and it feels a lot shorter than it actually is. I guess it's still pretty okay.

Gosh I'm having a hard time deciding which ones to vote for, because everything is so good and nothing really stands out as exceptionally at the top, and in particular I didn't hate anything. This fight definitely recaptures what I loved so much about Song Fight! in the early 00s, so, yeah, great job everyone. You're all winners in my book. Maybe I'll just vote for everyone.

[jack]

RedRock5_KG.jpg

(just had to get that out of the way)

Is that the original Dumbrella Nevada photo?

[fluffy]

RedRock5_KG.jpg

(just had to get that out of the way)

Is that the original Dumbrella Nevada photo?

Nope, just an image search result for "scenic Nevada." I'm sure Jefff has the original though!

[fluffy]

Although I did just find this alternate one:

nevada.jpg (242.78 KiB) Viewed 706 times

[Jefff]

I think it was a GIF version of this one -- which is only remotely interesting because I took it on my way to the first Song Fight Live.

DSC00052.JPG (61.19 KiB) Viewed 700 times

[fluffy]

That looks familiar! The W on the mountain in particular.

[jack]

I think it was a GIF version of this one -- which is only remotely interesting because I took it on my way to the first Song Fight Live.

DSC00052.JPG

ha that's it!

[ujnhunter]

I tried crawling the web for that photo pre-deadline. I was going to enter as "iamagif" and was hoping to just submit the image file renamed: "iamagif_nevada.mp3

[frankie big face]

I think it was a GIF version of this one -- which is only remotely interesting because I took it on my way to the first Song Fight Live.

DSC00052.JPG

Ah, the first SongFight Live. Good times.

Will forever be remembered as the time I told a very talented Mr. Mo to play "A" on the bass for my "Been to China."

"A Major?" he asked.

"No, just A."

[irwin]

No Lightning Ear Fart entry? This is bullshit.

[fluffy]

Be the lightning ear fart you want to see in the world.

Or better yet, don't.

[frankie big face]

Add! Frankie Big Face! Glenn Case! State Shirt! Starfinger! Fluffy Porcupine! (er...Sockpuppet!) What year is this??!!

Add:
The opening reminded me a little "Havana" by Camila Cabello. I know that makes no sense at all, but that's what my brain did. I like that fake oboe or English horn melody. Nice stereo separation between these two guitars. This is super creative in terms of arrangement and color. A textbook example of how to take a song that is perhaps not the most, shall we say, developed(?) and make it great. I know that's kind of a backhanded compliment, but I mean it in a positive way. This is a clear VOTE for me.

The Everfree Forest:
This is a fun synth pop song snippet, but seems unfinished and could probably use a more confident vocal.

Glenn Case:
Two weeks ago, I thought your mix was too hot and maybe it's a little true here as well. But oddly, this sounds brilliant on headphones and only distorted in my monitors, so maybe it's just me. Anyway, who cares about that. I like this song, but I think I like the arrangement even more. The acoustic guitar strumming pattern really stands out for me as a nice way to have that color but also maintain a good amount of open space. For reasons that aren't quite clear to me, this reminds me of Todd Rundgren. This gets one of my VOTEs. Nice job.

Pigfarmer Jr:
I appreciate the effort you put into the lyrics. You have a nice rhyme scheme going there and you executed it well. This is not a bad song at all, but I wish that a) you had sung it in a lower key and b) made more interesting choices in the arrangement. There are a lot of things going on, but there's not a lot of variation and there are some spaces to fill. Some backing vocals would be great, for example. It's good, though - nice work!

R. Mosquito:
I think this could be good (and by good, I mean that I would like it more, so take that for what it's worth) if the arrangement was a little more cohesive. I like all the synthy bleeps and bloops and I like the vocals, but they sound like they are in two very different spaces. So much reverb on the vox, while everything else is dry. But I like the dark tone of your voice and think this could be really good with a remix.

Sockpuppet:
I hesitate to make this comment because it seems like a backhanded compliment, but your singing has improved so much since the early days. So congrats on that. (Mine has gotten worse, sadly) I'm not really digging the song so much. I think it could be more effective if the couplets were interspersed with very interesting musical interludes. But as it is, it's not doing it for me.

Starfinger:
Is that real bass? It sounds great. This is so odd and unique. I want to like it more, but the chorus turns me off. A+ lyrics though.

State Shirt:
A lot of ear candy in this song. The switch to 3/4 is cool. And those golden pipes up around G#! Jealous. Nice synth palette - the colors are perfectly complementary. Expertly produced as well. All that being said, the song doesn't resonate with me. A lot of the words ("nationalist garbage," "tribalist nonsense") seem shoe-horned into their allotted spaces.

I vote for Add and Glenn Case. Good collection of songs this week!

[fluffy]

I’m not sure how it’s at all backhanded to be told I’m getting better - I’ve been working hard at that all this time and I’m glad it’s showing! Heck, I sing in a choir now. And yeah there’s a lot more I wanted to do with the song but I made it in a hurry after the deadline and just wanted to get something in. If I’d spent more time on it, I’d have made something like “Tomorrow Never Knows” by the Beatles which has been stuck in my head a lot lately for some reason. What I made is like a disappointing La Croix version of that.

[starfinger]

Is that real bass? It sounds great. This is so odd and unique. I want to like it more, but the chorus turns me off. A+ lyrics though.

thanks, it is real bass! i agree the chorus is not good.
i got lots of excuses if anybody wants to hear them.

craig

[frankie big face]

I’m not sure how it’s at all backhanded to be told I’m getting better - I’ve been working hard at that all this time and I’m glad it’s showing!

Oh, I don’t know. People are sensitive. You are getting better and it’s showing. Twenty years ago, I wasn’t nice in reviews. I’m trying to be more positive. But, of course, if you only say positive things, you’re probably not being honest. My way of dealing with that over time was to simply stop doing reviews. So now I’m overdoing it by prefacing a positive thing with an upfront apology. It doesn’t make any sense.

[stateshirt]

I'm not good at reviewing songs so I'll just say that I really enjoyed Glenn and Frankie's songs the most this time around. But I think my vote goes to Glenn, really loving the chords and harmonies in the bridge

Also kinda good to hear that the criticisms of my song so far are the same things I was thinking when I submitted it!

[frankie big face]

I'm not good at reviewing songs so I'll just say that I really enjoyed Glenn and Frankie's songs the most this time around. But I think my vote goes to Glenn, really loving the chords and harmonies in the bridge

Also kinda good to hear that the criticisms of my song so far are the same things I was thinking when I submitted it!

You can vote for more than one. Just saying. ;D

[stateshirt]

You can vote for more than one. Just saying. ;D

Haha I guess I haven't done a songfight in a while. Also I guess you just got a vote!

[Lunkhead]

In fact, you actually must vote for at least two, even.