PSRSotwNotes03.11-23

Peter's Song of the Week Club!

11/23/03

House in My Head

Peter's Comments:
My first entry in the SongFight weekly songwriting contest. People seemed to like it okay, but I have a lot to learn about production. :)

[Here are the [results.]

SongFight Reviews:

Ethan:
Nice one! Really nice vocals -- reminds me of some kind of British Invasion psychedelia.
The drums feel like they were recorded after the rest of the song. The high-hat is mixed too high. Well, let's just say that the drums and drum mix need help. But the horns, oh man, love the horns (even if they are synthetic.) Sitar is fun too. Nice variation. Best part is the vocals -- nice and in-key, good melody, well-recorded. The backwards stuff at the end is a bit superfluous.

Josh Woodward:
No, my ears are back, plenty of treble on this one (perhaps a bit too much). This one should be 160kbps, or VBR - there are a lot of artifacts on this. Oh yeah, the song - good tune. It's nice and unique, but still catchy. Great sense of melody. The percussion sequencing (or lack thereof) is the weak point. It sounds real-time. Nice speedup at the end. I like the bell. Good tune!

Yaruss:
This is pretty cool. Definitely a very Magical Mystery Tour era Beatles feel, which I like. I like the vocals and harmony. I like the songwriting. I like the instrumental track a lot. Scitar. Nice. This is great, but there's a problem: You're getting a lot of pumping from the compression. Sounds like that kick drum was so loud that when you compressed it, every time it hit, the whole mix got pushed down. It makes it hard to hear what's going on the instrumental track. And I want to. This song is worthy of a remix.

BlindMime:
I really like this. The arrangement is just great. The mix is rough around the edges, but if you got this far you can easily smooth those out just a bit. Great track.

Chucky:
The mix disagrees with me; but you've got a totally kickass song, here. The drums are what hurts it the most, I think. Also, I don't really care for that reverse thing at the end.

Abecedarian:
That hi-hat is killing me.

The UnDesirable:
Really like this song. Like the production alot. Kind of reminds me of the beatles. Cool tune.

Humbert:
apparently there are strawberries on the musical field hujhax are ploughing. nice big purple ones. then along come several men with large moustaches and wide ties playing a sitar and flute. good song and i really enjoyed it.

bzl:
This is a really solid song. I don't care for some of the trickeration, like the fake fade at the end, it kind of takes attention away from all the good stuff in the middle. That one splashy cymbal sounds terrible: very fake-ish, it clashes with the rest of the sounds.

Jon Eric:
How do you pronounce that? Alright, the song. This is nice. The mix is thick enough to carry itself, but maybe the cymbals are too compressed. They come off way too loud. I like the "picture of a picture of a picture of a..." thingy. "Bubble in a bubble in a bubble..." Great! This is very cute, but again, it hurts my ears to listen to it because the hats are too compressed. They don't even sound real, so that's even more of a reason to push them further back - that way people are less inclined to note that they're fake. Nice fake sitar sound towards the end. I like this, but once again... ouch. Sort of Wonka-esque ending.

Jim of Seattle:
Has a nice psychedelic 60's feel to it. Have you heard of the Dukes of Stratosphear (actually XTC under a pseudonym)? You sound a lot like them, and should check them out. I love your vocals. Love the tune and the changes and the arrangement. Excellent work. Sounds uncomfortably close to "Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis, though.

VinylBoy:
Nice! Goin' the Beatles route. I would've liked this to be shorter. But maybe that's just because I'm pressed for time. Like the speed-up at the end. Possible vote!

The Sober Irishman:
You've got some good chord changes here. Your voice is cool. Oasis. The multi tracking is well done throughout. After 2:00 it feels very untogether. The horn solo is cool. I couldn't really tell if it was fake or not, so good job. Haha, nice fake sitar, or banjo. The speedup is pretty well-done. Crazy ending. Very unique.

Heuristics, Inc.:
beatles! sounds good tho. the ending is very beatles-ish but it fits a lot.

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