|
|
===TIER: The entries that actually came to compete
(12) GUINEA -- Димаш Кудайберген {Знай}
-- The prelude probably could have been cut entirely but the guy's voice is frigging hawt. I respect this song something fierce; this is an uncommon vocal talent. Thank you very much for showing me this. 5.1/6
(10) THE NETHERLANDS -- Weird Al Yankovic {Hardware Store}
-- Yes. Yes. This song has a fair amount of padding by repeating its chorus, but all things considered this is so far ahead of every entry below this in terms of raw musicianship. Anyone who doesn't give this song points has their head too far up their ass to know what good music is. 5/6
===TIER: Other entries that narrowly saved my faith in humanity
(8) NORWAY -- Secret Garden {Lament for a Frozen Flower}
-- The violin is probably overdoing it on the sob story material. Still, it's better than I was expecting from the first 20 seconds. I'm more the sort who would prefer a clear direction or more intensity in their instrumentals, but this acquitted itself pretty well. 4.1/6
(7) USA -- Spanish Love Songs {Beachfront Property}
-- In memory of iPie, who would totally have submitted this. Why is this guy singing the verses with vibrato. I'm getting a bit tired of hearing this genre in so many Song Contests, but at the same time it beats of a lot of the alternatives, so I keep giving it points. 4/6
(6) TURKEY -- Lupe Fiasco & Guy Sebastian {Battle Scars}
-- The two of them playing off each other is really distracting (and the primary reason that this is lower than the entry above), but in general I find this mostly pretty cool. I'm not blown away, but I can tell how another person would be. It's a good message too. 3.85/6
===TIER: They're okay I guess
(5) ICELAND -- The Protomen {The Hounds}
-- Why are the vocals buried
Honestly this song was a lot better when I didn't bother trying to understand the lyrics; it took a bath in anti-pretentiousness and came out cleaner. 3.65/6
(4) POLAND -- Billy Joel {Movin' Out}
-- Billy Joel has such an expansive catalog, and you picked this one in particular?? Mediocre song from someone I'd really rather rate highly; I feel kind of ill by giving this as many points as I am. 3.6/6
(3) EGYPT -- Melody's Echo Chamber {Breathe In, Breathe Out}
-- This sounds pretty good. It's too all-over-the-place for me to rate it very highly, but it's still sorta something I could put on in the background. I want to permanently borrow this art team. 3.3/6
(2) LIECHTENSTEIN -- While She Sleeps ft. Oli Sykes {Silence Speaks}
-- Rhinox
no
. Bad rhino. No throat-burning. They're wrecking a song I would have rated way higher. I appreciate these lyrics in this dire time, but WHY these voices though. 3.1/6
(1) NIGER -- Zed {Renegade Fighter}
-- Well, the chorus certainly has one thing to say. It's generally euphonic, but it's pretty close to white-dude-with-guitar-attempting-to-emote and I'm not really into this groove. The video really needs a strobe warning. 2.9/6
===TIER: and here comes the flood
IRAN -- Alyssa Edwards {Drop Dead Gorgeous (B. Ames Mix)}
-- Honestly this song makes me feel a LOT better about wanting to submit gag songs that I unironically like (which I nearly did in this contest). It's not a terrible mix tbh; this could be a lot worse but it could be a
lot
better. One day I want to get my hands on some time and some mashup tools, and then I can unleash my TRUE power on the Internet. 2.45/6
CHAD -- Wilson {Fuck Up My High (Remix) ft. Hyro The Hero}
-- This is... very forward. It's not in any way my kind of song, but it actually sounds kind of good tbh, so it's getting a much better rating than par for this sort of thing. This came damn close to getting points in this contest. 2.4/6
PORTUGAL -- IAMDYNAMITE {Bloom}
-- 2.3/6
URUGUAY -- Scraton {Wub a Dub Dub}
-- This really obnoxious effect on every beat is called pumping, right? I need to learn these things...
So true story. My random listening order put all of the songs I'm giving points to at the end. All of them. I wanted to die. But if the songs at the end didn't happen this was probably going to get multiple points purely for the moxie of submitting brony bait. 2.25/6
COSTA RICA -- eels {Climbing to the Moon}
-- 2.225/6
HUNGARY -- Root & Branch {Poor Old Soldier (The Rogue's March)}
-- 2.2/6
DJIBOUTI -- Denzel Curry & Kenny Beats {Take_it_Back_v2}
-- 2.1/6
===TIER: i'm beseeching you with tears in my eyes, cease this
BHUTAN -- Joyce Manor {Heart Tattoo}
-- 1.9/6
SPAIN -- Caroline Polachek {Door}
-- 1.75/6
SUDAN -- Teebs {Black Dove (feat. Sudan Archives)}
-- They could have made something really good with these ingredients, and instead they used one of the worst kick synths they could dredge up. I want to get something out of this, but it's trapped behind its attempt to twist my brain around its questionable choice of harmonies. The misophonia is seriously there. 1.4/6
ERITREA -- Streetlight Manifesto {Point / Counterpoint}
-- 1.3/6 (but also N/A)
ENGLAND -- Fearofdark {Next}
-- I have in at least one previous contest compared entries to DAW demo songs perjoratively (although I didn't publish the comments because obviously those entries didn't score well). Well, here's a DAW demo song that's probably best-in-class for OpenMPT, which is mostly good for chipsounds.
This is a link to Reddit because one of the most endearing and beloved features of Soundcloud is its mandatory autoplay.
Chiptune-adjacent is a genre that I expect to score quite poorly, but I hope a few of you have a very pleasant three minutes. As for me, this song reminds me of all the content creation I haven't done... and also how far I would have to go to be able to make something that sounds this good.
