Song Contest 203 (Results posted)

[ChannelDelibird]

I submitted, should I message to this account to let you know how many points I want to be given for free as part of a protection racket?

I will never bow to tyranny, although it sounds like I could be persuaded to snitch on toolenduso, if that helps.

[ChannelDelibird]

Spoiler: Reactions

Mount Celeste // Old Site (Black Moonrise Mix) - Ben Prunty

I often don't find video-game themes especially effective on me without context of the narrative or world, and I haven't played Celeste, so this is an uphill battle. But it's a battle that it more or less won! A really cool build to this one, with those charming ascending synth riffs really lending it a spooky atmosphere along with the drums. Neat.

Chad // I Am Waves - Emarosa

You were right!

Sweden // Chasmal Fires - Ethereal Shroud

As an admin, I would never rule out an entry on grounds of length; I think that is something for participants to self-police. As a player, I think this is kinda taking the piss, in terms of the demands that you're making on other people's time by submitting a 28-minute song. I would almost always try to listen to each entry once in full, but I'm going to break that rule for this one and skip around a bit. The guitars and drums are a little heavier than I'd like, but not by much, and they actually do create some very nice soundscapes here. The vocals are a definite no for me, though, such that there is absolutely no chance of me ever making it through the full runtime. (Also, for a 28-minute song, it's kind of bizarre to me how little variation there seemed to be while I skipped through - it basically just had two modes, quiet and loud, which otherwise sounded much the same whenever they took their turns.)

Peru // Try Again - Andy Shauf

I have not had a lot of exposure to Saskatchewan accents, so I don't know if it's a regional thing or specific to Shauf himself, but yikes. When he goes for a vowel sound, it sounds like he's got a small object in his mouth that he's trying not to bite or swallow. It was extraordinarily distracting from what might otherwise have been a very interesting song - some jaunty instrumentation and some kinda deft lyrical descriptions.

Wales // Black Mascara. - Raye

Some effectively stark descriptions of something seriously traumatic, which got and held my attention even though I wasn't wild about the vocal performance. The upbeat dance backing was a good contrast to the emotional bleakness, too. Probably not going to return to it, but I thought it was pretty solid.

Chile // This - OK Go

I have mostly found OK Go videos to be disproportionately interesting compared to OK Go songs. We're kinda there again - visually very cool, sonically yeah it's alright innit. The unshowy brass parts were the highlight for me, helping to give a bit of depth to what might otherwise have been a bit too one-note, guitar-wise.

eSwatini // The Foggy Dew - Sinéad O'Connor & The Chieftains

I definitely haven't listened to enough O'Connor but was moved by her passing nonetheless; what an inspiration for speaking up against injustice. This song is a great vehicle for an incredible voice, and it's powerful in its ruminations on its subject matter. I've always had a weakness for traditional Irish music and the pipes here really go straight to my soul. Strong stuff.

Scythia // Deep Silent Complete - Nightwish

I've heard a couple of Nightwish tracks before and they seem to very safely occupy 'not my thing, but harmless' territory. At least they're in and out before four minutes are up.

Uqbar // Spoiled Little Brat - Underscores

That little pitch-shift trick just before the chorus came in was a neat surprise in a song that had a fair few of them despite being stylistically not really my bag. It all got a bit too 100 gecs at the end for me to say I actually enjoyed it, but it was dripping with that manic Gen Z creativity that always impresses me even when I firmly don't Get It.

Wilber, Nebraska // Radio Song - Hardy ft. Jeremy McKinnon

This would probably work a little better on me if I spent any time at all listening to the radio in the USA - I feel like I've heard more parodies of this song's targets than the targets themselves. I do kind of like the route-one nature of just saying a long "FUCK" as soon as it becomes clear that that's what the joke is going to be, but otherwise I found this to be taking aim at some pretty low-hanging fruit and not doing all that much to make it worthwhile. The only real humour here is to be found in the juxtaposition of the hard guitars and dirty vocals with the typical country-radio style, because the 'meta lyrics that deconstruct what makes every song in our target genre sound the same' gag has been done a million times before by the likes of Bo Burnham and others, and I feel like the joke aged pretty quickly.

Vatican City // Nothing Left to Lose - Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure Cast

Has the classic show-tune problem of not really having any room for interesting lyrical imagery (or, nearly as often, anything instrumentally novel) because it's plot-critical that everyone's position here is stated incredibly explicitly as you can't have audience members failing to understand what's going on immediately, which always leaves me wishing they just spoke it in dialogue rather than put it to music. The vocal performances are fine, I guess.

Mali // Prioritise Pleasure - Self Esteem

(my entry!)

Over the last few months, Rebecca Lucy Taylor's second album as Self Esteem (for which this song is the title track) has gradually grown in my estimations to the point that I'm coming around to thinking of it as a full-on pop masterpiece. It's full of fascinating explorations of femininity in a world plagued by misogyny (I Do This All the Time, a track I almost entered instead, is particularly bracing when it gets to a section in which Taylor simply recounts verbatim a series of real comments she received over her decade in an indie band), all delivered with the kind of chutzpah and confidence that evokes peak Madonna.

This is my most-played song from the record 'cause it's a total fucking banger. The blend of the massive choral vocals with blasts of heavily distorted guitar feels like getting struck by lightning, and IMO it gets even better when the distortion disappears and the final chorus is delivered alongside those gorgeous strings and heartbeaty percussion.