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===TIER: POINTS!
(12) ARGENTINA -- GALNERYUS {ANGEL OF SALVATION}
-- That was quite a shift.
This is by far the entry I'm most excited about. I wish I could have as much fun doing anything as the electric guitar soloist does working that axe.
(10) COTE D'IVOIRE -- Dirt Poor Robins {Leviathan}
-- Here comes the funk.
I would rather have something with a harder edge,
but this is put together well and flows smoothly. Very much a vibe song and I vibe this. (in re: strikeout - this was a bad opinion, nvm, this song is completely fine as is)
===TIER: POINTS
(8) BELGIUM -- Bastille {Things We Lost In The Fire}
-- In a contest full of pop songs, this one's my favorite. I don't think I'd rate this higher in an ordinary contest.
(7) ICELAND -- Foxy Shazam {Killin' It}
-- Fabulosity has entered the building! It has a good drive, and while this isn't my usual vocal style, it's fun, and that means points from me.
(6) SOUTH KOREA -- 원어스 {개와 늑대의 시간}
-- This is better than your average boy band owing to its vocal range but I think I've finally reached the point where I've heard enough creative K-pop that my mind isn't being blown. It occurs to me that in terms of badbutt I feel like I would rather listen to some Sonic the Hedgehog vocals. There's no way I'm going to give heavy points to lyrics like "bing, bing bing
bing
bing - bing"... is what I
want
to say, but here we are. C'mon people. Excepting the IU entry from the previous contest, it seems like K-pop entries always seem to get 4-6 points from me...
(5) GREECE -- Meg Myers {Adelaide}
-- I like the style this has. Good lyrics. It's this high for how straightforward it is and would be higher if it were more so.
(4) AZERBAIJAN -- Within Temptation {The Reckoning feat. Jacoby Shaddix}
-- This may be a minority opinion born from not listening to the radio growing up, but I appreciate some properly intense butt rock. It's probably too heavy on the ibex screaming though.
(3) IRAN -- Mae {Night/Day}
-- It's okay. Sounds euphonic enough. I appreciate how the beat and structure keep the listener off-balance.
===TIER: POINTS?
(2) USA -- SycAmour {The Measure}
-- Hah, I should have expected 1:36. I'm reminded of why this band got my 12 in SC140 - I'm still not a convert to post-hardcore but these people weave in enough other influences that there's something for me. Actually pretty pretentious.
(1) DJIBOUTI -- Jason Richardson & Luke Holland {Retrograde ft. Spencer Sotelo}
-- A mainstream Djibouti entry. It has a bunch of things I usually give points to - in fact I would give this middling points in an average contest - but the impression I get from this is that it's a little unfocused and repetitive. It doesn't seem like it has a lot of variety in chords but the ones it uses make for a good mood IMO.
NORWAY -- Lana Del Rey {Young and Beautiful}
-- This is me being a sucker for the orchestral backing. It's not a very adventurous song in terms of the vocals, but the mood hits my favoritism. I thought I got the point of this 45 seconds before it ended.
PANAMA -- My Chemical Romance {Na Na Na}
-- Who is this video trying to appeal to? This is... kinda dumb, ngl. Still, I can do dumb. There's probably a place for this.
SCOTLAND -- Kasabian {Ill Ray}
-- This is the appropriate level of percussion and bass. This is not really my style but the attitude sort of translates to me.
DENMARK -- OWEL {Death in the Snow}
-- I liked this better on the second listen. It's good background ambience.
NICARAGUA -- Owen Pallett {The Great Elsewhere}
-- I appreciate the sound effects. It just kind of drifts aimlessly and it takes way too long for it to get somewhere interesting. It ends so strongly, and yet it takes so long to get there
TAIWAN -- Mitski {Your Best American Girl}
-- This is very much a lyrics song, and I respect them. The song itself is muddy and mostly just okay. Puberty 2 seems like the best hellish album name in the Contest.
===TIER: NO POINTS
GABON -- Clean Bandit {Solo (ft. Demi Lovato)}
-- What the heck is that volume effect. Don't treat that vase like that :< Not sure how much this is intended to appeal to the male gaze. This chorus is really, really cheesy. There's too much autotune in this for me to get into, and I feel like I mostly like this ironically. quack quack quack
PORTUGAL -- Ricky Montgomery {Cabo}
-- Standard Portugal entry. This is not my preferred artist in the Portugal lineup.
BELARUS -- Matthew Good {A Silent Army In The Trees}
-- Standard Belarus entry.
AUSTRALIA -- Arctic Monkeys {R U Mine?}
-- Generic rock music.
ITALY -- Sia {Chandelier}
-- Things do not appear to be all right. The autotune is distracting, but Sia knows how to do soaring choruses, and that's this entry's strongest point.
===TIER: NO POINTS. (I'm reaching the point where I piss off a lot of people who used to like me
)
ARMENIA -- Sigur Ros {(Untitled)}
-- I can't say I'm into minimalism, and not six and a half minutes of it.
EGYPT -- Hop Along {Sister Cities}
-- I don't think I could hear her abuse her poor vocal cords for much longer. I kind of mind this. Might be better if the lyrics are present.
GERMANY -- Depeche Mode {Wrong}
-- Not sure if meme song. There's only so much wrongness I can take in one song, and listening to this gives me the same vibes as being attacked with a hammer.
eSWATINI -- Mumford & Sons {White Blank Page}
-- True story: My manager, who's in his 50s, taunts one of the other managers (closer to my age) for his preference for this band and Modest Mouse. I'm not nearly as much of a live-jazz hipster as him but on this point I'm going to agree with him. Those sustained high notes are all obnoxious and don't need to be repeated every time. This style almost seems more hillbilly than actual hillbilly. It has its moments but I'm not convinced the rest of the song is worth it.
CANADA -- Camille {Seeds}
-- It's okay. I get the impression this song is about seeds, rather aggressively so. I don't think I've done enough drugs to appreciate this.
BHUTAN -- トクマルシューゴ {parachute}
-- This is far outside all the other entries... but I'm not sure if that's a good thing here. It's okay, but it's not really anything that's grabbing me.
SPAIN -- Patrick Wolf {Accident & Emergency}
-- This wins the "what did I just watch" award. This kind of happened, but with distinction.
HUNGARY -- AnnenMayKantereit {Hurra die Welt geht unter}
-- I literally asked if this was Gansta's Paradise at 0:42. This is very much something that only really lands if you understand the lyrics, I think. Without that, the vocals come across as very harsh for four minutes.
===TIER: NO
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC -- King Crimson {Fallen Angel}
-- The vocals are incredibly British. While I appreciate the oboe feature this just kind of plods along and provides generic rock background music to me. There's a lot of blatting in the background and after so many minutes it gets tiring and borderline harmful.
===TIER: N/A
SUDAN -- LIM KIM {YELLOW}
-- I was not ready for this. From what the comments are saying, it's fairly close to my original impression - dirrty "oriental" rap more heavily inspired by America than any single other nation - but flipped on its head and done with pointed deliberation. I still don't think I'm ready for this. It makes me uncomfortable in more ways than I would like to discuss here. Perhaps that's the point. I kind of want to stare at a blank wall now.
Divorcing it from the message, in terms of the music itself I didn't like it.
MEXICO -- Ghost {Zenith}
-- I suggested "that
other
Ghost" in SC139, Ffish submitted it, and he won. Given how many contests I've won so far (i.e. not just zero but not particularly close) it's bothered me ever since.
Although truthfully if I was trying to win I would have submitted Square Hammer or Rats. Still, my entry, my mood music. Y'all don't need more pop music in this contest anyway.
Answering Cyril - it was a bonus track associated with Meliora. W.R.T. quality I don't know what you're expecting from vinyl; some of the uploads seem to have been taken down and the other ones currently on offer really are much worse.
Mexico because it's the home of Santa Muerte.
"Don't be afraid of losing people. Be afraid of losing yourself by trying to please everyone."
