Give this tune a listen and critique it for me. It's still in the building stages. This is version number two of "Obligatory Sex Ballad" and I think this one is much better than the first, which was pretty much thrown together and left for dead. There's still a bunch of stuff that needs to be redone - new lead guitar, real drums, better keys, new vocals. What I have in there is basically a few scratch vox that I threw down and some other stuff. Let me have your suggestions, please! Thanks!

http://www.soundclick.com...ID=3051221

ps - my assignment was a 'nasty seduction jam' and I really needed to rework this song anyway (cuz some peeps were actually diggin' it...lol)

Yes this is better than the first version... check your orgnotes...

thanks, psyko...you're the man, though!

Nice!

Flashpointe said:

Thanks, JD!

Good God Tim, this is awesome!

This is my new personal favorite from you. Fun ending there too. I'm diggin this one a lot.

Sounds like a Prince song...

mmmmm 8 this song is all covered in SEX. It's dripping.
Well done...even if it is imitation. I love it!

beret1022 said:

Well, if it didn't I don't think anybody would like to hear it...lol. It's for a project called Wannabees

yamomma said:

Hey, thanks, Kelly. There's still a bunch of stuff that needs fixing. This is the rough(er) version.

Red said:

so nasty

I thought Beau had a critique for this song...



Probably too busy counting his iTunes money...

I like this version much more than the first. I'd never be able to put something like this together, chapeau!

funkaholic1972 said:

Thanks!

Obligatory Sex Ballad

THIS SONG IS AWESOME. Because it is so awesome, I’m going to get waaay nit-picky on the review… pushing you to “take it to the next level”. This is an awesome demo. If you want this to be the real thing, (IF IT WERE ME) there are some improvements that could be made.

When I listen to a song to review it – here’s the things I hear, in this order:
- guitar
- voices
- drums
- bass

Notice that lyrics aren’t on the list. I blame my A.D.D… I just don’t retain lyrical content so well. That’s all I’m sayin.

The voices sound great, but the backing vocal that’s right behind the lead vocal – I wish it was either panned to the right slightly (even just 1 or 2 o’clock) so it would stand out a little better, or pull the highs and lows so it's that phone-voice style. There’s very little mids in the vocals that I’m hearing – it’s bottom and top heavy but not enough in the middle, but that’s just me I think… and the booom on the lower notes when you’re talking – it overtakes the whole song. Compression or EQ might help. Re-doing the thing farther away from the mic, in a tiny room (closet bathroom) would help to balance it out.

I LOVE the ending where you just hold the note. That takes guts to let it ride. I would take out/turn down the spaceship sound – just let the damn song hold that note out on a ledge for a little while.

Here’s the hard part. The guitar solos. There are some flat notes. Dunno if it’s out of tune or if you’re just not bending it far enough, but there’s enough of them to stand out. (my opinion, in a solo, one sour note is “jazz”, three sour notes is “out of tune”.) Remember here – I’m being nit-picky as hell on the song because it is a great song for the most part. You’ve got some very interesting stuff going on – it’s enough to keep my attention thruout.

The doo-doo-doo-doos at about 2:10 – drop out the noodling solo guitar. It’s starting to sound like you’re trying to fill every hole in the song. By pulling the solos from that spot, it gives that lead guitar more purpose in the rest of the song, as opposed to sounding like you’re just jamming along to the song. In fact – maybe go back and try pulling that lead guitar from more spots as well; overplay, and then go back and edit, edit, edit. Leave in the important parts, but take out parts where you yourself feel, “okay, this is just noodling here…”

The song jumps at 3:09. Maybe it’s the player. Who knows.

Bass guitar – this is a trick I pulled in “LOVIN” and learned from god only knows where – when the bass has a line that’s just redundant forever and ever, at some spot in the song, completely deviate from the stock pattern… either start walking down/up or play an octave above the original line, even just for 8 bars, to say “HAY! The bass is alive! It’s a person playing!” and it adds dynamics to the song that the general listener can’t readily identify, but again, keeps the song engaging.

Drums are good. But I want some kind of monumental blabadablabada BAM! Somewhere. Just one… placed right at the spot where the listeners are starting to get it on… so, if there’s a spot in the lyrics that pertain to that – throw in one of those “falling down stairs with luggage” drum fills that ends on a dead stop.

Just my take on it all. Awesome song – I wouldn’t have written so much if I thought it was crap, I would have just said “oh this is good” or whatev.

You sir are a star. You know you are. Go on with your bad self.

beauhall said:

Beau -

Thanks for your honest review. I always look forward to what you have to say because it's always designed to help to make the song/me better. As I posted the song I did make sure to say that this version was still 'rough.' I had some real problems re-recording it from the original. The new Zoom definitely sounds a lot better than the old Zoom. And I just used one of the generic mixdown settings that they had on there - the one that gives everything the big boost.

I actually had to go back and listen to the old version to figure out exactly what the hell I originally did if you can believe that. It was centered around the keyboard chord/riff patterns. The first section of the song is like a half time feel (holding out the Gm-Cm chords half as long as in the next two verses). I don't know why I originally did it in the first place it's just kinda how it turned out, but I liked it. Unfortunately, the timing of the whole thing was really throwing me off so I actually recorded the guitar first this time. I had wanted guitar in there anyway. After that I added the electric piano sound and redid the guitar and added scratch vox so I knew what I was doing.

The lead guitar sound was supposed to be like the "When I get my hands on U" (or whatever it's called from the NPGMC series) all sexy and dirty like a Kobe Bryant love session. The actual guitar solo that you hear before the last chorus was me sorta noodling around trying to stay in key and what not. I'm like the Andrew Ridgely of lead guitar and I knew that a) this was going to be recorded again by Steve from my band (and would be awesome) and b) there was definitely some bad notes in it. But, I was excited about the way it was coming together so I wanted everyone to hear it anyways.

I was planning on redoing this orignally because I wanted my band to record the song and Steve likes for me to record the format on my Zoom and dump all the tracks in Sonar to be replaced by everyone elses parts. So there will be real drums and I want some breaks, fills and sexy syncopation...


to be continued

Cont'

The vocals have to be redone for sure - all of them. For the bridge I was just mumbling over the doo-doo-doos because I do want something over them, but haven't written words yet. I used a different mic for the vocals just because I wanted to hurry up and get them down Anyway, thanks for the advice and, believe me, it will sound much better. Oh yeah, and I have to at least mix down again because there was some kind of computer clitch that caused it to skip in the middle of the song!

Great track... makes me wanna **** ** ***** ***... I love the intro, great guitar sound and your vocals kinda remind me of Lenny Kravitz a bit. Can't wait to hear the finished version with the "falling down stairs with luggage” drum fills.

VinaBlue said:

What's the missing words?? Let's see.... puke up green goo? I'm gonna give my guitar/keyboard player the tracks at his studio so he can do some work on them soon. We've got busy gigging/holiday feasting week coming up!

Thanks, Vina!

I can imagine Prince gettin out the Purple Satin Laces ..sittin Mani on a Piano stool..and singin to her....

I love the fingersnaps added in with the drum. And your vocals and hott.
Call the law baby. Call the Law...and I cant wait to hear this REALLY on the project.

I would only add....turn up the sexual talk..it kinda goes out.
[Edited 11/23/05 0:17am]

paisleypark4 said:

Thanks, Isaiah. Those were just scratch vox. I was kinda just ad-libbing to experiment. I was messing with this song on Garage Band last night and came up with some interesting stuff. I'll get to work on this some more over the holidays!