7th placeNominator: Elite
Artist: dredg
Song: Stamp of Origin: Take a Look Around
Being one of the few participants who took the BITSOW challenge seriously, Elite's song runs just under a minute long. What we've got here is a musical interlude, and a pleasant-sounding one at that, but by virtue of its length, the song just didn't go anywhere. It was effectively a verse, but verses aren't really anything without the rest of the song, you know?
1 point, but at least you got the bonus.
6th placeNominator: jingle.boy
Artist: Roswell Six
Song: Ishalem
In case you didn't gather from jingle's "finger", this song is very long. Eleven minutes, in fact, making it the longest song I've gotten thus far.
More standard prog, I guess. Unfortunately, the song just couldn't keep my attention, which is the absolute worst thing for a song of this length. I see no reason it had to be this long, and I couldn't remember a single musical idea from the piece when it ended (a curse when you're ranking seven songs based more or less on your first impression of them).
2 points, but don't give up hope, jingle.
5th placeNominator: lonestar
Artist: Stargate
Song: Save the World
A good prog metal tune, if not an overly standard one. The symphonic bits were a nice touch, and the vocalist and bassist were great. The chorus ("re-ACT-ion") is probably the highlight here, particularly the "whoa-whoa-whoa". The last minute or so was also great. Didn't reach the heights of 4th place and above, though.
3 points.
4th placeNominator: kingshmegland
Artist: Moe Tar
Song: Friction
shmeg said he "went out on a limb" with this one, and that resulted in his worst score of the entire roulette, so maybe he should stay off those limbs.
In all seriousness, this song was fine. Very, very unusual, but the problem actually isn't in the song's strangeness; I dug the off-kilter groove, and I suppose I enjoyed the music all the way through, but the problem was in the presentation. The music was so unusual and intense (many measures of 3/4 and 7/8, usually with eighth- and sixteenth-notes) that it actually became a little frustrating. And it didn't help that the singer's nearly always singing, from the very beginning of the track. I guess you could say the song left no room to breathe, which is a big deal if you're going to write a song that's this crazy. It just gets kind of samey (never a good thing). If the song were ~2 minutes longer, with a not-so-involved instrumental in the middle, I might place this one a couple spots higher. In any case, his highness gets a not-too-shabby
4 points.
3rd placeNominator: Nekov
Artist: Marco Minnemann
Song: Waiting for Boys and Girls
I'd never heard any of Minnemann's solo material, as a matter of fact. I learned about him for the first time when I found out he had auditioned for DT, and I quickly decided he was the guy for the job. I admit I was wrong.
Anyway, this song was great. Very ambient, very jazzy (two strictly good adjectives, in my book). I'm particularly impressed by how much musical ground is covered over the course of the piece; a lot of thought is put into the phrasing and rhythm of each measure, with the tiny segments at 0:50 and 1:20 being particularly unlike the groove of the remainder of the piece. The piano is the star here, and its melodies are beautiful and powerful. If there are any faults, it's that it's too short; Marco left me wanting so much more.
5 points.
2nd placeNominator: MasterShakezula
Artist: Phish
Song: Squirming Coil
Wonderful. I'd heard some Phish before, and none of it caught my ear, but this is something special, here. The first minute or so evokes a classic rock chorus, but it quickly becomes a different beast altogether. That motif fades into the light strumming of an acoustic guitar, hinting at a jazzier direction for the coming minutes. After some time, uptempo drums give way, and we launch into one of the more pleasant jams I've ever heard. Of particular note is the piano solo at 2:43 or so, leading into a verse featuring some rather silly lyrics. Around 3:40, we've got a final instrumental interlude, which is suitably majestic for its purposes. This leads, naturally, into a reprise of the chorus.
Structurally, this song is really something else. It's a good thing to listen to a song and not quite know where it intends to go next. On the whole, the music was groovy, jazzy, and pleasant, and the musicianship was great. Have
6 points for your trouble.
1st placeNominator: WindMaster
Artist: Mumford and Sons
Song: Dust Bowl Dance
An incredibly great song. I'd never heard anything by this band before. I knew they were a new group with a folksy vibe, but I'm definitely going to have to check out more, because this was a fantastic tune. It rocks hard, and is yet classic; the songwriting is fantastic - the chorus is quite the earworm - and the execution is perfect. From practically nothing, the piece escalates to a startling intensity, but yet it doesn't feel out of place.
Great musicianship, by the way. Props to the drummer; the syncopated rhythm at 3:05 was one of my favorite moments of the song. The solo banjo also added quite a bit, and I loved the vocalist.
7 points.
BONUSES!BITSOW: Elite got
2 points for submitting a song that was 0:59 in length. He also took my advice by getting last place. Yay!
The King is Dead: WindMaster and MasterShakezula, being our top 2 for today, each get
1 point. I'm also taking 2 points from kingshmegland because I assume they both want to steal from him.
Wind and Shake, if I guessed incorrectly and you wanted to steal from someone that wasn't kingshmegland, then tell me and I'll correct that right away.1. kingshmegland - 25 + 4 - 2 = 27
2. Nekov - 18 + 5 = 23
3. MasterShakezula - 15 + 6 + 1 = 22
4. Elite - 17 + 1 + 2 = 20
4. WindMaster - 12 + 7 + 1 = 20
6. lonestar - 14 + 3 = 17
7. jingle.boy - 14 + 2 = 16
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ROUND 6 - THE MODERNBonuses: Rumpelstiltskin (2 points/participant), ESP2 (Up to 7 points/participant) Deadline: Wednesday, July 18 @ 9:00 PM Central time (~48 hours from now)Rumpelstiltskin (2 points/participant) : It's time for a true test of friendship. With your song submission, tell me my first and last name. Shouldn't be too difficult if you know where to look. (1 point for only one name. No points lost for guesses.)
ESP2 (Up to 7 points/participant) : Battle of the psychics! With your song submission, bet me any number of points N between 1 and 7. If I give your song N points or higher, you'll get N points as a bonus; if the score I give your song is lower than that number, you'll lose N points. Here's how that works:
If you bet 1 point, you'll get 1 bonus point.
If you bet 2 points, you'll get 2 bonus points unless you get last place, in which case you lose 2 points.
If you bet 3 points, you'll get 3 bonus points if you get 5th place or higher; otherwise, you lose 3 points.
If you bet 4 points, you'll get 4 bonus points if you get 4th place or higher; otherwise, you lose 4 points.
If you bet 5 points, you'll get 5 bonus points if you get 3rd place or higher; otherwise, you lose 5 points.
If you bet 6 points, you'll get 6 bonus points if you get 2nd place or higher; otherwise, you lose 6 points.
If you bet 7 points, you'll get 7 bonus points if you get 1st place; otherwise, you lose 7 points.
These are organized such that the risks and rewards increase as you go down the list. If you bet 1 point, there's no risk but little reward; if you bet 7 points, there's a great possibility for reward but high risk. If you have any questions about this bonus, feel free to ask; I'm sure this is confusing.
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Topic: theseoafs' song roulette v. unbelievable. (Read 36079 times)
