I finally got around to typing out these final results. This final round was quite consistent and it eventually came down to just two players’ songs. Even though most of the tracks I received this round I enjoyed a lot.. let’s just say two of you had sent your best song in this roulette in an earlier round. Without a lot of extra information, I’m bringing you the results. Excuse the sober fashion, but it seems quite fitting to end this roulette in this way. Ranked from third to first place, with the songs themselves ranked from favourite to least favourite, here are the results:
Third place!Participant: senecadawg2
#1: Band – Song: Angra – Spread Your Fire
Congratulations, you did it! You sent the best song of this round and this song will surely prompt me to check out this band’s discography more. Some excellent power metal (which, as I pointed out earlier is not exactly a genre I can listen to all the time), but this song had some extras that made it differ from your usual regular power metal stuff. I enjoyed this one a lot, thanks.
# 7: Band – Song: Need – Mother Madness
And then you sent this.. Were it not for the two instrumental tracks I received, this song would be by far the worst song I got in this round. I’m sorry to say that this track did absolutely nothing to me. The guitars sound terrible, the singer has a monotone voice I absolutely cannot relate to and the whole song through everything sounds the same. Top that of with a not-so-good guitar solo and this song is a recipe for dislike from my part. Not feeling this one at all.
# 9: Band – Song: Gordian Knot – Muttersprache
I don’t really like instrumental rock music. I either find dit boring, overly pretentious, or just plain annoying to listen to. This one is a combination of all three. Having listen to this one as extesively as the rest of tracks, I find myself remembering barely anything from this track, apart from the high sustained guitar notes. I must say the production on this track isn’t that good either. I know how you said this was like your favourite instrumental track, so I’m sorry not to like it, but I fail to see why this track is good.
Overall:I enjoyed almost every track you sent to me in this roulette. Just in the finals some things went wrong with your song choices. Where we’ll see that it got very close between the winner and the runner-up, you had the bad luck of sending me two songs I didn’t like at all. That said, I want to thank you for participating, staying until the end and for sending me lots of good music throughout. Thanks
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Second place!Participant: lonestar
#3: Band – Song: The Deadstation – Hunderd Foot Drop & Subsistence Defined
This is without a doubt one of the best progressive metal songs I received in the entire roulette. The first track (Hunderd Foot Drop) merely serves as a short interlude of less than 2 minutes and is therefore completely forgettable, but the second one is awesome on all levels. It;s a shame these guys are not on Spotify, since that means I’ll have to go back to bandcamp to listen to this album. Amazing stuff, thanks!
# 6: Band – Song: Maestrick – H.U.C.
As with the previous track, I don’t really have much to say about this one. It’s a solid track, but nothing much more than that. This band doesn’t really do anything I’ve never heard before, but they are good at what they do. Just kind of average I suppose, but in a very good way.
# 8: Band – Song: Pomegranate Tiger – Stars
Another instrumental that, sadly, didn’t really do a whole lot to me. A couple of years ago, I might actually have enjoyed this, but now it sounds like a collection of (good) riff, interspersed with guitar solos and it become rather tiring to listen to all of this for the entire length of the song. Although this song was definitely more interesting than the other instrumental, it still pretty much failed to grab my attention.
Overall:You have been very consistent in the songs you sent me and I liked almost every single track. Some killer tunes here and there. If I held this roulette at a different point in my life, you actually might have won with the same set of songs. I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I think sometimes I get a little tired of the progressive metal madness all the time. This is of course hypocritical, as I play in a progressive metal band myself, but I can;t seem to listen to the genre at all times anymore. That said, this last set of songs was really good, but I have to give the edge to our final contestant, who sent just a slightly better one.
AND THE WINNER IS!Participant: Nihil-Morari
#2: Band – Song: Gary Clark Jr. – When My Train Pulls In (Live)
This is a genre I have never really delved into. That’s weird. Despite being a guitarist, I have never really looked into blues. You said in your message that I might have played along to blues backingtracks and practised my minor pentatonic scales. Yes, I can fake playing blues for a musically illiterate audience, but honestly, I don’t really have an idea what I’m doing
(I shouldn’t say this). However, this song changed the way I look at the music genre. You’re right, that guitar sound is huge. Almost perfect cleans and the fuzz and overdrives are astounding. That solo at the end is gorgeous and overall this song is so damn good, I don’t really know what else to say about it.
#4: Band – Song: Supertramp – Crime of the Century
This is a band I know a couple of songs from. Actually, I think I only know ‘School’ and I might have heard ‘Fool’s Overture’ some times, but never though anything about it. I guess this song is a little comparable to ‘School’ in the sense that it features the majority of the vocals in the first half while exploding into instrumental madness in the second half. (I just checked Wikipedia and found out both can be found on the same album.. Oops.) Anyway, this song rocked my train ride from Eindhoven to Utrecht and I will check out the rest of this band’s workm starting off with this album. Really liked this one, thanks.
#5: Band – Song: Volcano Choir – Still
I’ve listened to Bon Iver before (my girlfriend likes his music, so I’ve had him in the car sometimes) and this sounds a little like him (yes, I know it’s the same dude), but in a very different way. I have actually also heard the hiphop remix with Kanye West and didn’t think a lot of it, but hearing where it came from made me appreciate that one a little more as well. This is a very relaxing track, with indeed post-rock like instrumentation. Very nice and soothing, a nice departure from the other stuff I got this round.
Overall:I said in my writeup for lonestar that I have gotten a little tired of progressive metal in general. This has reflected throughout the entire roulette. Some songs that I think I would have liked a lot a couple of years back, got sent out in favour of the tracks you sent me – which didn’t belong to this genre at all. You were without a doubt the most inconsistent person in the entire roulette in terms of song choices, as you were all over the place, but you sent me beautiful stuff from genres I never really looked into before. This last batch you sent me was amazing and so diverse that I can not do anything else than crown you the winner. Thanks for enlightening me to new music – not so much new bands, as other players have done - but whole new genres I never thought of exploring myself. Thanks.
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And thus I end my third and (for the moment) final roulette. I know I’ve taken too long and I would be willing to sign up for one again, but not before I get ymy life back on track so that I can work on this at a steady pace. I’m sorry if I’ve kept you waiting, but it’s all over now.
Thanks to all participants for the music you have sent me.