Song Contest 133 (Results posted!)

[Parama]

My legacy?

[Parama]

Is it Billie Eilish

If hito is playing maybe I'll send some crap too so I can downrate his song but I don't actually have anything song contest-wards atm

[Parama]

definitely giving billie eilish 0 points on principle.

why tho

[Parama]

anyways submitted billie eilish
tool i was too lazy to resize the image to 400x400 but it's a perfect square so just do that idc

[Parama]

i'm only entering this one because i'm off this next week so i'll have enough time to listen to these without feeling like i'm wasting precious free time

[Parama]

fair i guess but those are all like, household names and juggernauts of like entire decades of popular music
vs. some girl who got one big song in the past few months
but okay

[Parama]

i kind of liked billie eilishs album ^_^

it's alright. the low-key stuff i really like but the weirder, noisier stuff i don't care for

if i were to enter i'd probably sent when the party's over or i love you, though listen before i go is probably my fave

[Parama]

i guess it's time to rabble

[Parama]

"i've been listening to this recently and this song might do pretty good i guess"

actually the song i sent isn't my favorite off the album but it's close & it's been a universal constant that both music critics I follow & friends I've shown it to all like it. last place. right side

[Parama]

Costa Rica – Oh no, this is the gross 90’s. This is just like a bargain bin ripoff of RHCP. I don’t know why I wouldn’t just listen to RHCP if I ever wanted to listen to this sound, which I don’t. (MEDIOCRE)

Sweden – Oh, yeah, this is definitely a pretty solid power ballad right here. Doesn’t really mean anything to me since I don’t understand the lyrics but there’s also a chance knowing what the lyrics mean could make it worse too. We’ll settle at “I didn’t find it especially noteworthy but I did enjoy it.” (DECENT)

Hungary – With how many little things and samples going on in this song that there are, it’s amazing how completely generic it ends up coming out sounding. Like it’s vaguely pleasant. A lot of the samples are actually kind of intrusive and annoying which pushes this slightly more to the negative side of average than positive, but it remains average all the same. (AVERAGE)

Libya – Honestly I like the backing vocals on the chorus more than I like the actual singer here. I think he’s the real letdown of this one, that and the fact that the music is really pretty standard for the genre, but it’s… y’know, s’alright. (DECENT)

Bolivia – Covers are a risky entry at any point in time because if you tell me it’s a cover then it’s got to both be good on its own and feel like it deserves to exist in comparison to the original. I can tell you for certain this is incredibly bland and safe on its own, would work better if it dropped the percussion and only had one voice, make it more of a singer-songwriter thing, but then I listened to the original and it’s just way more striking and unique than this generic indie folk song they turned it into here. So I don’t really see any reason this needs to exist, thus I don’t feel like it’s worth rating.

Latvia – NF’s entire career is like doing the reverse of that “take a song and make it a slow dramatic movie trailer” thing, he takes movie trailer songs and raps over them about how woke he is or how emotional he’s feeling. There’s this veneer of fakeness to all this stuff that I can’t really get on board with but at the same time I have to admit I prefer what he’s doing with rap to the two hundredth generic trap rapper. Genre still isn’t really my thing in general though, so. (AVERAGE)

Japan – I think this has the same chords as Kesha’s Die Young, which I’m only thinking about because I heard it again yesterday. I’m actually pretty sure the whole K-pop phenomenon is generated by nostalgia for the late 00’s/early 10’s style of dance-pop that these bands have basically brought through the entire generation and there’s probably some research paper out there about this. Anyways I just have never been partial to this specific sound and while they do it well enough I don’t get much out of it. (AVERAGE)

Norway – I just don’t understand people who listen to dance music like this outside of, like, clubs or dance floors. I don’t understand what value it has on its own or what musical enjoyment you get out of it. It’s not like it particularly sounds awful, it’s less egregious and obnoxious than plenty of other similar tracks I’ve heard, but it isn’t particularly distinct or meaningful in any way either. (MEDIOCRE)

Macedonia – Welcome back hito! Turns out I’m still not a huge fan of most of your music :V I dunno, songs with this level of twang are rarely gonna do a lot for me, and while I dig some of the swell this gets towards the end, I don’t really find it gripping enough to outweigh the stuff I’m not really much a fan of. It’s probably the best thing in the average tier so far though, at least. (AVERAGE)

Bhutan – They’re all pretty decent performers but I don’t find the melodies that sticky and I’m never really a fan of percussion-heavy beats like this one either. It mostly just ends up sounding a bit meandering and repetitive, I don’t really get any sense of movement from this track between the disjointed melodies and lack of any notable beat change. (MEDIOCRE)


this is the only reason you want me here right

[Parama]

it's free to make a spotify account

[Parama]

Portugal – It’s like if an indie rock song forgot to have any flavor or personality to it. I’m sitting here trying to think of things to say about this featureless nothing and I just don’t have any. It’s absolutely “fine” in the sense that it doesn’t offend in any way but that’s the closest to a compliment I can scrounge up for it. (AVERAGE)

Macau – I dig the jazz touches around the edges of this and the generally chill vibe. I dig a bit less the incredibly washed-out sound of her voice, it sounds too distant from the sound of the instruments and mutes her performance. It’s like her voice is coming from an old gramophone while the rest of the song plays on modern speakers. I also think sometimes there’s a bit too much going, like dropping a guitar line would enhance the overall atmosphere. Despite the gripes I still did enjoy this a fair bit, but I suspect it won’t hold up as well on relisten. (DECENT)

Poland – Oh god this dead meme. Or apparently there are several brothers and this is the one not in Ylvis. Anyways this is a comedy song that can’t be listened to in a serious context, so. It -sounds- fine enough I guess, if not a bit generic, but I don’t see any reason to listen to this as, well, a song. I didn’t really watch more than scattered moments of the video either, if that’s supposed to help give it context. (MEDIOCRE)

Brazil – Like I understand that this song is over 50 years old but that electric guitar sound is friggin’ disgusting. And besides that, well, this just isn’t a style I care for. I’m not going to subject myself to the entirety of this when less than 2 minutes can tell me it won’t be anywhere close to getting points.

Switzerland – Mario Odyssey was a pretty great game and in context this song works really well! I wouldn’t listen to it on its own, for any reason. Like, it’s a video game theme song, and one crafted specifically for the game. Sure, it’s a fine enough song on its own but how referential the lyrics are is pretty distracting and it’s intentionally going for a very standard interpretation of big band music (w/ the donkey kong theme in there to make it more Mario-esque) but like. I just get frustrated with submissions like this and worry y’all don’t listen to enough music outside of games. (AVERAGE)

Sealand – This is very 90’s too but not, like, the lame 90’s that aged about as well as roadkill. Nothing about this is especially noteworthy, but it’s all just solid. Solid vocal performance and kinda sticky melodies to accompany it, decent guitar work, especially in some of the melodic lines. The sound quality is garbage but I think that’s the fault of whoever decided to pick out a 480p video for this. But yeah, wasn’t thrilled by this but it’s better than a lot of stuff in this contest. (DECENT)

Iceland – I dunno, there’s something about the chill guitar line mixed with the loose yet somehow still tense drums. I’m generally not too into the rambling, spoken-word style of vocals here either but he mixes it up on this one with some more melodic lines and something approaching a hook. The horns that come in towards the middle and the buildup at the end, too, for a relatively short song it moves well within its runtime and has the kind of emotional pathos I really like. This isn’t even the best song on the album, IMO, but the louder ones I figure would do even worse in song contests than this one. Honestly I totally forgot there were even harsher vocals in this one lol because they’re such a small part of this and totally justified by the rising intensity.

Liechtenstein – Nice meme. Take a wild guess as to how much of this I listened to.

USA – I think the general sound of the cleaner parts of this is a maybe a touch too sterile (or that I’m just not that keen on his voice) and it feels a bit lacking in dynamics too. It does get louder towards the end and I dig that part a fair bit even if I’m not sold on the harsh vox either, nor the djenty riff. But there’s some power there regardless I can’t really explain. I can do way better in the genre, though, I feel, but this is likely to get decent points regardless. (DECENT)

Egypt – Oh dear, it’s a live performance. Oh god, it’s 8 minutes long. I tried listening to this album last year (the rerelease) but the super low-fi sound of it was a pretty big dealbreaker for me so I’m honestly surprised this sounds as clean as it does. Granted, I don’t think I made it past the 13-minute opener (what the heck) so. I’m not really sure where the song split here is or if there is one at all though it just seems like one (definitely overlong) song. But I mean, it’s decently pleasant enough and there’s at least minor changes going on throughout. I think it’s maybe lacking the level of emotional intensity I’d like it to have, but, it’s nice. (DECENT)


i guess there's enough stuff here for me to put together a top 10

[Parama]

one thing you need to realize is that it's pointless to worry about the results of the songs contests because they're completely meaningless. just send music you like & don't worry too much how you place because half the contest is gonna hate whatever you send no matter what

[Parama]

[Parama]

i am now legally allowed to rabble

[Parama]

Woop boop not entering the next one cause I don't have a week off this time lol