425’s Second Short Roulette v. R1 Hangman

[425]

Welcome to my second ever short-format roulette!

The motivation here is basically that I’ve realized I’m not able to take in new music in high enough quantities to sustain a long roulette. I get tired of constantly going through unfamiliar material after a few rounds of it, to say nothing of the effort that then goes into scoring the songs and doing writeups. So the goal here is to stick to the part where I find things most fun: the first few rounds, and the culminating EP round. Planning to keep it short, keep it easy, and keep it fun!

The format is simple: Three open rounds for individual songs, and one EP round.

I’m going to go against the grain a bit here and set the maximum EP length at 30 minutes. And you can have no more than 15 minutes of music by any one artist. So you can do just two artists if it’s something like 14 + 14, or you can do more than two artists. Up to you.

I’m also going to cap the maximum length for a song round submission at 15 minutes. If everyone sends 13 minute songs round 1, I might tighten that up. But as I don’t expect those longer submissions to be common, I think this will work.

I’m also going to have a hard cap at 10 participants. The people who expressed interest in the tracker thread have spots if they want them; the rest will be first come, first served.

Exact scoring system is TBA depending on the number of participants I have, but it will be similar to Jamesman’s system. There will be a set distribution of scores for each round, and songs will be assigned those scores based on how they rank relative to each other. For example, if I set it so that there’s one 10 each round, my favorite song (and only my favorite) from each round will get a 10, regardless of how it compares to songs from previous rounds or how close my second favorite is.

On banned artists: There are two lists in the second post. One is a list of artists; all those artists are banned entirely. One is a much shorter list of albums. These albums are banned, but other material by these artists is legal. This list represents albums that I know quite well, but where I’m unsure if I’m interested in exploring the further discography. That could be either because I listened to the one album and just never bothered with any others, or because I received that album in my album roulette and feel that I got to know it quite well through that. (Some albums from the album roulette remain legal, where I feel that I don’t have much remaining familiarity with each of the individual songs.)

Also banned: Any song I have previously scored in a song roulette. I will add a Google Doc link here soon with a full list of these, but it might be easier just to keep a backup in mind in case I reject your first submission.

An artist being banned does not necessarily mean that I like that artist. In most cases it does, but there are artists on the banned list that I don’t much care for anymore, and there a few that I put on there because I am very confident that I do not like them and don’t want to hear any more from them. If you want to know my opinion on a particular artist, just ask either in the thread or PM and I’ll be happy to share!

Links:
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
EP Round

Participants:
1. Litho
2. Puppies
3. jingle.boy
4. Crow
5. lonestar
6. Luke
7. Kinger
8. senecadawg
9. romdrums
10. faizoff

(People in brackets are those who expressed at least some interest in the tracker thread; if you confirm here that you’re in I’ll remove the brackets.)


Alright, I think that takes care of all the preliminary stuff. Looking forward to hearing what y’all send!

[425]

Banned artists:
Amaranthe
Amorphis
Anabasis
Anathema
Angra
Arcane
Arch/Matheos
Avantasia
Ayreon
Bent Knee
Beyond the Bridge
Big Big Train
Blaze Bayley
Blind Guardian
Bon Iver
Bruce Dickinson
Caligula's Horse
Circus Maximus
Coheed and Cambria
Coldplay
The Dear Hunter
Death Cab for Cutie
Delain
Devin Townsend (Project)
Dio
Dream Theater
Epica
Evergrey
Fates Warning
The Flower Kings
Flying Colors
Frost*
The Gentle Storm
Green Carnation
Haken
Headspace
Helloween
IQ
Iron Maiden
Judas Priest
Kamelot
Leprous
Liquid Tension Experiment
Lorde
Marketa Irglova
The Mars Volta
Megadeth
Metallica
Mystery
Neal Morse
The Neal Morse Band/NMB
Nightwish
Opeth
Orphaned Land
Pain of Salvation
Pink Floyd
Porcupine Tree
Pure Reason Revolution
Pyramaze
Redemption
Rush
Seventh Wonder
Sonata Arctica
Sons of Apollo
Spock's Beard
Steve Harris
Steven Wilson
Sunburst
Symphony X
Taylor Swift
Teramaze
Tesseract
Threshold
Thrice
Theocracy
Transatlantic
Tuomas Holopainen
Unleash the Archers
Vanden Plas
Voices from the Fuselage
The Warning
The Who
Yes

Banned albums:
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell
Led Zeppelin - IV
Marillion - Marbles
The Ocean - Phanerozoic II
Oceans of Slumber - Winter
Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime
Riverside - Anno Domini High Definition
Riverside - Love, Fear and the Time Machine
Sieges Even - The Art of Navigating by the Stars
Thank You Scientist - Maps of Non-Existent Places
Voyager - Ghost Mile
Voyager - Colours in the Sun
Witherfall - A Prelude to Sorrow

[jingle.boy]

Most of that banned list is right up my alley. Put me in coach, I'm ready.

[425]

Nice! Happy to have you.

[Crow]

in to kill 425 with bad music as per usual

[LithoJazzoSphere]

The timing for this makes me really nostalgic.  Something about August it seems.  Two years ago in August is when I rejoined here after a decade+ absence.  A year ago in August for your last one is when I finally decided to dive in the deep end and figure out what these roulettes I had been seeing were all about.  What do they say about never forgetting your first?      It didn't take long for me to decide that I should run my own at some point, which is now nearing completion. 

So now we're in August again, and am I in?  Absolutely. 

[lonestar]

Fuck it, why not? Put me in coach.

[Crow]

which is now nearing completion. 

tempting fate

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Worst case scenario we just proceed without the last few EPs and make it through slightly faster.   

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Super duper in!

[twosuitsluke]

I guess if I keep entering the law of averages says I'll win my second soon enough. I'm in!

[jingle.boy]

The timing for this makes me really nostalgic.  Something about August it seems.  Two years ago in August is when I rejoined here after a decade+ absence.  A year ago in August for your last one is when I finally decided to dive in the deep end and figure out what these roulettes I had been seeing were all about.  What do they say about never forgetting your first?      It didn't take long for me to decide that I should run my own at some point, which is now nearing completion. 

So now we're in August again, and am I in?  Absolutely.

Didn't your roulette start last August as well?? 

[King Postwhore]

I'm in if you'll have me!

[senecadawg2]

I want in, if there are open spots

[TAC]

425, gonna sit this one out, sorry.

[romdrums]

I'm in.

[faizoff]

I'm in if you have space. Plus get ready for super boring submissions lol. Looking at your banned lists, there's a lot of crossover with what I listen to. Should be interesting.

[425]

Alright, that was quick, we've filled the ten spots! Everyone who has requested so far is in. Glad there turned out to be strong interest here!

Feel free to send for round 1 anytime, although no rush at this point.

I see that I've received some questions in PMs; I'll reply to those by the end of the day. I'll also finish the Google Doc listing songs I've received in past roulettes (which are thus ineligible) by the end of the day.

425, gonna sit this one out, sorry.

No worries at all! It'll be a bit odd doing a roulette without you as a contestant, but I understand.

[lonestar]

Sweet... I'll try to dig something up before day's end.


Two quick questions, how are you with growl vocals, and how are you with foreign language vox?

[faizoff]

Awesome! sent for round 1. I may have all the rounds queued up and send them all at one go if that's ok.

[425]

Sweet... I'll try to dig something up before day's end.


Two quick questions, how are you with growl vocals, and how are you with foreign language vox?

Harsh vocals are hit or miss for me and it's hard to predict exactly when it will be each. I would consider a submission that's mostly harsh vocals to be a high-risk option, as I usually find that to be excessive, and a submission that's majority clean vocals with some growls in select parts to be a low-risk option. There are also just some people whose sound I like and some I don't. And it matters how melodic the music is on the whole. If it helps, I think the shining best-case scenario of me having a positive response to a music with a lot of growls is later Amorphis, both because their sound is really melodic and because I like the sound of Tomi Joutsen's growl.

Foreign language is no issue.

[lonestar]

Excellent.... I promise it won't be all Japanese, but your EP might have a song or two....

[Stadler]

Dammit.  Missed again! 

[jingle.boy]

Might take me a bit to get my submission in. I'm challenging myself to send from bands I've never sent before. The EP could be challenging.

Speaking of which, any guidelines/rules for the EP round other than what you've indicated?  Seems pretty minimalist ... which I like.

[lonestar]

Sent!!

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Sent.  I have a pretty good idea of what to send for the other rounds as well, which is a combination of things I was already planning on sending before, with one new thing that I'm fascinated what the reaction to will be. 

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

I won't be able to send until Saturday at the earliest. I'm out of town at a trade show which is taking up all my time.

[King Postwhore]

Seeeeeeennt!

[LithoJazzoSphere]

I love how this at a glance looks like a whole different set of participants from the last one.  Four people who weren't in it last time, and three more that have changed their handles. 

[425]

Dammit.  Missed again! 

Sorry! 

Might take me a bit to get my submission in. I'm challenging myself to send from bands I've never sent before. The EP could be challenging.

Speaking of which, any guidelines/rules for the EP round other than what you've indicated?  Seems pretty minimalist ... which I like.

No rules besides what I already mentioned. I want to keep things pretty simple for this one.

I'm interested to see what will come out of all the un-sent bands policy.

And no worries if it takes a few days to submit for you or Puppies (or anyone else who needs it).

[King Postwhore]

Man up Chad. You know RJ has a flow chart on what to send. Shit, only 2 endings is non J-Rock. 

[lonestar]

Man up Chad. You know RJ has a flow chart on what to send. Shit, only 2 endings is non J-Rock. 

You know I can't resist, especially not after Monday's show...

[King Postwhore]

Man up Chad. You know RJ has a flow chart on what to send. Shit, only 2 endings is non J-Rock. 

You know I can't resist, especially not after Monday's show...

It's like building a menu, I'd surmise. Lol

[jingle.boy]

I was just going thru my roulette tracking sheet to make sure I don't send a band I've used before, and noticed that I finished 2nd to Evermind in a past roulette of yours (v3) - which had the exact same format.

I'd also forgotten you were a guest judge in the 2nd Champions Roulette.

[ReaperKK]

Not playing but following along