Our House ... kicked to the curb ... now homeless

[chrishargrave]

https://www.taxi.com/members/QUr1BUJQR3 ... r-hargrave

Very nice version, too! I would have forwarded it.

Cheers CTWF

[chrishargrave]

I've listened to all the forwarded versions and am staggered that mine was declined. Poor decision Taxi.

[cassmcentee]

My money is on Eric Jackson's version... best mix I've heard of the bunch

[Ted]

I had a crack at this too, here's my version:

https://www.taxi.com/members/QUr1BUJQR3 ... r-hargrave

Got rejected with the following feedback:

The emotion and vibe in the song doesn't come close enough to the original which is crucial to setting the tone of the spot.

I was a bit miffed at the time but in hindsight I'm quite glad, apart from any legal issues that might arise I'm not sure of the morality of creating exact replicas of other people's work = surely it's just saving large corporations money on a sync licence of the original and denying the songwriter a decent fee?

I won't respond to a replica request again...interpretations yes, exact copies, no.

Damn, this one was excellent, Chris. I've now listened to all the forwarded entries and yours has the best vocals IMO. If I were to quibble, the only thing yours lacked for me... and it's very minor...but in the original I love the way the bass guitar enters the song like a Slip N' Slide and yours was a bit buried in the mix. But not a disqualifier by any means. After listening to every version multiple times, I still think your vocals are the strongest-- maybe a tie with the fifth forward. I see you're English... I think in the end, you kinda have to be to pull off this vocal style. You have a bit of a Damon Albarn quality to your voice. Thanks for making me glad that I didn't bother with this listing. Haha. Yours should have been forwarded. Perhaps your horns could have been a bit more real sounding and the mix could have had a touch more overall glue, but I think there were far bigger problems in some forwarded tracks than any slight shortcomings in yours.

OK, here's my take on the forwarded tracks in order that they appear on the blog. I offer my critique in the context of tracks that were returned, which is only fair.

First:-- The listing explicitly asks for MALE VOCALS, right? But here we have a male and FEMALE voice singing co-lead vocals through the entire song. It gets a bit much when Taxi constantly scolds people for submitting tracks sung by males for female listings and vice versa when they constantly break their own rules. Sure, technically this listing does have a male vocalist on it, but there have been plenty of times in forwards where I have seen songs sung only by a woman forwarded for a male listing and vice versa. Taxi should stop telling people not to do this if the screeners are just going to do what they want.

The actual performance is pretty good, though the vocals are mixed a bit too loud and you notice that right when they come in. I don't think the co-lead vocal approach works very well over the course of a song-- it quickly becomes fatiguing to listen to it. "Our House" is just a very busy song by its nature and I don't think this arrangement really works. I noticed there is some flat singing at the beginning of the third (?) verse at 1:24. Overall good effort though.

Second: Lacks the trademark reverse fade-in that the song really should have-- the original intro with that reverse fade just sets up so much energy that it doesn't sound right without it. Vocals are very good though I also detect a hint of some of the same "robotic/metallic/lack of emotion" timbre that some of the others got dinged for. I like the vocals on this one. Again, I think you need that reverse fade-in.

Third: I'm surprised this one got forwarded. The drums drag so badly on this... it's almost the rhythmic equivalent of a "Shepherd Tone"-- every measure seems to get slower and more drowsy sounding, while probably staying at a consistent tempo... I honestly don't how that's possible. The rest of the song is not a bad performance, but this track has none of the bounce and energy that the song needs. The ending is also a bit abrupt although the original had a fade-out-- but it could have been more crisp like some of the others. Again, a decent performance but subpar to some that were returned--primarily due to it being low energy. The mix seems to be lacking some glue overall. Decent vocals but they lack consistent presence in the mix compared to the others-- especially during the rapped portion.

Fourth: track has been removed

Fifth: This one is excellent. Great mix and vocals. Probably the best one overall IMO. Maybe the instrumental recreation is so good that it's a bit uncanny to me. Can't say anything bad about this one-- it's fantastic. Very nice ending too.

Sixth: Pretty good. The drums are a tad on the weak side-- maybe the second best forwarded version IMO. The singer's voice has a bit of sibilance to it--whilst also sounding fairly dark, but he's got an authentic sounding voice all the same.

I've always loved this song and have been a casual listener to Madness overall. Like I said, I think the particular vocal range of this song is deceptively hard to sing depending if you're a tenor/baritone. Since it's so close to speaking range, it's probably best to come from England and be a dude who rolls out of bed talking like Billy Bragg everyday.

Chris, good question about the listing possibly being an effort to try to effectively use the Madness song while cutting the band out of mechanical royalties. Could be.

I think all of these were great efforts--both the forwards and the returns, and I enjoyed listening to all of them-- good luck to the forwards. A very tough listing to nail. As usual, Taxi presents a very high bar and a few always manage to 'limbo" their way under it.

Tom says "The Forwards mostly feel 'organic and energetic. They seem to be louder and more present mix-wise."

Hmmm.... most of them kept sending my interface's meter well into the red, they were so loud. I'm too lazy too fire up my DAW and run metering software, but they are loud indeed. They're probably fine, and not actually clipping but I pulled up two versions of the Madness track for reference, and it's like a third of the loudness of some of these. I accept that in the Loudness Wars, there is no quarter for "Conscientious Objectors" but I don't have to like it.

[Robertj64]

First:-- The listing explicitly asks for MALE VOCALS, right? But here we have a male and FEMALE voice singing co-lead vocals through the entire song. It gets a bit much when Taxi constantly scolds people for submitting tracks sung by males for female listings and vice versa when they constantly break their own rules. Sure, technically this listing does have a male vocalist on it, but there have been plenty of times in forwards where I have seen songs sung only by a woman forwarded for a male listing and vice versa. Taxi should stop telling people not to do this if the screeners are just going to do what they want.

The actual performance is pretty good, though the vocals are mixed a bit too loud and you notice that right when they come in. I don't think the co-lead vocal approach works very well over the course of a song-- it quickly becomes fatiguing to listen to it. "Our House" is just a very busy song by its nature and I don't think this arrangement really works. I noticed there is some flat singing at the beginning of the third (?) verse at 1:24. Overall good effort

Fifth: This one is excellent. Great mix and vocals. Probably the best one overall IMO. Maybe the instrumental recreation is so good that it's a bit uncanny to me. Can't say anything bad about this one-- it's fantastic. Very nice

I agree with Ted....5 is the best hands down. I have no idea what the screener was thinking forwarding a duet on the listing.....seriously????

[chrishargrave]

Damn, this one was excellent, Chris. I've now listened to all the forwarded entries and yours has the best vocals IMO.

Cheers Ted. I'm pretty new to Taxi but this listing has been an illuminating experience that has really questioned my faith in the authenticity of Taxi's review and forward process.

It would be great if someone from Taxi jumped in to explain the reasoning behind their decisions....

[cosmicdolphin]

I've listened to all the forwarded versions and am staggered that mine was declined. Poor decision Taxi.

I've listened to them all now and listened to yours, vocally I thought you were far closer to Suggs than any of the others by quite some distance and yours was the only vocal that really worked for me.

I wasn't a massive fan of your backing track but having listened to the others it was no worse than some of the forwards. So if that's the bar, I'm also a bit puzzled as to why you wouldn't have been included.

My main issue is all the backing tracks sounded sub-par to me, they all have that "midi" like 90s Karoake backing track feel. Part of me wonders whether a bunch of folks grabbed the same midi files off the net to use but personally I wouldn't have been happy with any of the productions if I was the client. You could get some pretty kick ass musicians to produce a much better version with real instruments for a lot less than £20k and just put the best vocalist on the track ( such as yourself ).

But now the Library will never hear it.

Mark

[Robertj64]

I feel your pain on this one because I think you did a great job on the music. I have to agree with other comments on the vocals though. Some of the treatment (particularly in the fast bit), makes it sound robotic and spoils the show. On that alone I think the screener was right to return the track, but there's at least one of the forwards that I can't believe got through, so what do I know?

It would be unfair to label all screeners questionable but there is a great deal of inconsistencies with a lot of feedback and choices in forwarding. On the road rally panel, one of the screeners forwarded a cover song of Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" to the listing which asked for original material only. I don't know if this will be addressed to any satisfaction but you are rolling your dice when you submit and it looks like the house usually wins.

[Ted]

My main issue is all the backing tracks sounded sub-par to me, they all have that "midi" like 90s Karoake backing track feel. Part of me wonders whether a bunch of folks grabbed the same midi files off the net to use

I kinda wonder about that too. What would be stopping anyone from doing this? And how would the screener know? And since some people don't follow instructions--and instructions are often disregarded, it's likely statistically impossible that some of the submissions (not necessarily forwards, mind you) did not just use a karaoke track or some other prefab track/etc for the backing work.

[cosmicdolphin]

My main issue is all the backing tracks sounded sub-par to me, they all have that "midi" like 90s Karoake backing track feel. Part of me wonders whether a bunch of folks grabbed the same midi files off the net to use

I kinda wonder about that too. What would be stopping anyone from doing this? And how would the screener know? And since some people don't follow instructions--and instructions are often disregarded, it's likely statistically impossible that some of the submissions (not necessarily forwards, mind you) did not just use a karaoke track or some other prefab track/etc for the backing work.

Bound to have happened