Hello, everyone. I bid you all Dark Greetings!
Somehow or other I ended up at the top of the happy unhappy songs pile with a cheerful tune about the nuclear bomb. Now we move ahead to something a little more... overtly depressing? Perhaps?
One of my things in Songtest for a long time has been submitting Goth music to secure the worst score of a round. Traditional Goth music just has not done well in songtest, no matter how much I dig it, and that's fine! This songtest isn't about traditional Goth music.
It is, rather, about
fake Goth music. That is to say, for this songest what I'm asking you to submit is things people might call Goth, but that are not actually in the Goth musical genre. I'm not gonna be too picky here—your submission can have a Goth aesthetic, or spooky vibes, or be beloved by people who call themselves Goth. It just should not actually be in the Goth genre itself, as defined by Wikipedia or Rate Your Music or whatever.
Don't know much about Goth music? That's fine! You're probably better-equipped for this than people who do like traditional Goth stuff.
Anyways, with that out of the way, the rules:
- [+] The Rules
- You can send me stuff by board PM, Discord, telephone call, whatever. Upon receipt, I will enter your votes in a spreadsheet and then let you know I received them. If I do not reply that I got your stuff, I do not yet have it! If more than a day passes without confirmation, please check in because it probably got lost in the shuffle.
- There will be one round if there are 15 or fewer entrants and two rounds if there are 16 or more. Rounds will last ~4 days if we're doing two plus finals or ~a week if it's just one. If we do two rounds, there will be a final round as well, with a number of songs remaining announced when voting for the first round starts. I'm expecting one round, but hey, surprises happen! A final is works the same as normal rounds.
- Listen to every song in the round and rank favorite to unfavorite, 12 at the top, then 10, then 8, and then down by one per until you're out of songs or points. Do not vote for your own song.
- If your song is in a round, you must listen and vote or you get DQed and I sob into my spreadsheets. If your song is not in a round, or you're not even playing, you can still listen and vote! These votes are public and count for half.
- You can jump in after the first round if it's multi-round (but don't count on this) and you can change your song at any time before the round it's in is posted.
- Music's personal to people and putting stuff up for contest/discussion can be kinda scary and make people feel vulnerable. Please be nice in chat! It's totally cool to not like something and to talk about that and to dig into why at length, but please don't totally dunk on stuff. Everyone is here to share cool things with friends (or to fight tooth and nail for the crown but you know, same dif).
- Your song should have some claim to being Goth, but should not actually be Goth as defined by Wikipedia/RateYourMusic. If you have something that does show up as Goth but you think it's not feel free to make that argument and I'll give it to you if your argument is solid.
- No submitting songs that have already been in Songtest. I know we typically ban Eurovision and reality TV covers and such but I don't personally care, submit them if you want as long as they otherwise fit the prompt.
- If your song is over ten minutes nobody is obligated to listen beyond ten minutes (but it'd be nice if they did!)
- In the interests of total fairness I'll be completing my own vote either before each round starts or within the first two hours of the round so there's no possible temptation to put my finger on the scales. I probably won't be talking about song placements during the rounds.
- I'm pretty busy so do not count on reminders. I may PM people/post reminders/whatever or I may not. I probably won't. We'll see.
- No extensions unless something really dire happens IRL. There are more or less no stakes for getting DQed from Songtest anyways.
- Winner gets to host the next songtest. If they decline, that passes to second place, and so on.
- I reserve the right to add anything blazingly obvious that I forgot.
For those who don't wanna read everything, the highlights: submit stuff that people think is Goth or that sorta feels Goth but is not actually officially Goth. No songs that people have submitted before, but if you wanna do Eurovision or Reality TV stuff that otherwise fits the prompt then you do you.
Sign-ups will run for a bit over seven days. They close at roughly 4:00 Pacific on Tuesday, June 25.
Baby Bats:
1. Me
2. Dogs231
3. Irene
4. Kermit
5. Fiori
6. Laurels
7. Carlisle
8. DerArknight
9. AlmostInhuman
10. Slam
11. Polybius
12. Rugga
13. RetroVenus
14. Pancapples
15. You?
16.
etc.
If you have any questions about the contest or theme, feel free to hit me up wherever!
