[Bruce N]

The Winner of the May Collaboration Contest is:

But first I'd to say a job well done by all contestants, I've played the station for a few of my friends, and they were very impressed and had favorable comments on all the songs. The songs on this play list will get some frequent rotation from me this summer.

As always, a big thank you to all the non-contestants who voted, eight in total, who's critical ear is invaluable to the participants.

Thank you, Alistair S, Randy P Gendron, Kimberlyinnc, LYD, Jimski 123, Simple Simon, Mystery Mike and the man with the strategic vote RLD.

And now

"The Winner of the May Collaboration Contest"

"Summers By Your Side" by Decker and TamsNumber4 - 34.09%

Congratulations Tammy and John-Paul


Second place goes to.

"Until The Summer Ends" by NigeQ and Billy - 18.18%

Congratulations Billy and Nige


Third place goes to.

"Those Summer Days" by Fabkebab and GreyBeard -14.39%

Congratulations gentlemen


The Scorecard:
( % = 132- the number of points available for distribution.)

"Don't Trust That Summertime Smile" - Daddio/SatanInventedBras 0-2-1-0-2-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-1-0-0-0-0-3-2-2-2-0 = 15 -- 11.36%
"Dance The Nights Away (All Summer Long) - Neuroron/Jonie 0-0-2-1-1-0-2-0-0-0-1-1-0-2-0-0-0-0-0-1-0-1 = 12 -- 9.09%
"Summer Home" - FunkDaddy/No Future 0-0-0-0-0-1-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-1-1-0-1-0-0-0-1-0 = 5 -- 3.80%
"Until The Summer Ends" NigeQ/Billy 1-3-3-2-0-0-3-2-3-1-3-2-0-0-0-1-0-0-0-0-0-0 = 24 --18.18%
"Those Summer Days" - Fabkebab/Greybeard 2-0-0-0-0-2-1-1-2-0-0-0-0-3-2-0-2-1-1-0-0-2 = 19 -- 14.39%
"Just Like Summer" - Neal K/Starsinmyeyes 0-0-0-0-0-3-0-0-0-2-0-0-2-0-0=2-3-0-0-0-0-0 =12 -- 9.09%
"Summers By Your Side" - Decker/TamsNumber4 3-1-0-3-3-0-0-3-1-3-2-3-3-0-3-3-0-2-3-3-3-3 = 45 -- 34.09%

Well done everyone, and I'm sure everyone will appreciate comments and some feedback on their songs.

Cheers to summer everyone.
Bruce

[Alistair S]

I found this one particularly hard to vote on. "Summer" songs are very much a matter of taste but I tried to apply the guidelines, scoring songs with definite "summer" feel higher (even though I do admit that "summery" songs can sometimes be a little cheesy for me ). For some songs I liked the music, but wasn't keen on the lyric, some vice versa and for some songs I liked both.

I finally narrowed my list down to 4 and tried them all in different orders, trying to separate them. I even tried seeing who came closest to 3 minutes, but all of them were so close!

Eventually, I just had to make a decision. Nige and Billy got my top vote.

There is no arguing with that vote, though! Many congratulations to Decker and Tams (who were in my top 4, along with Ron and Daddio)! A clear winner, and to be voted first by 13 out of 22 voters is an amazing achievement! Well done!

Well done to everyone! This was a challenging competition (I was glad I wasn't in it!) and everyone rose to the challenge magnificently

[FunkDaddy]

Decker and Tams absolutely deserved this one, as soon as I heard it I was hoping it would win. Great job!

I liked the style of voting too. Was a bit more of a challenge, had to listen more critically.

[TamsNumber4]

A great swan song for me for contests on the Muse, always go out on top......

JP, I think you are wicked talented, I haven't had anyone who listened to this song that didn't want it on their i-pod. Some day I will stand amongst the swooning girls who are drooling all over your hit cd and I will know that "hey, I e-mailed this guy", how cool!! I love your voice and wish we could hear more of your songs on the Muse!! I was very worried that being partnered with me would hurt the song's chances in the voting, but I am glad that it was a clear winner!


Billy, what a great lyric! I kept thinking along the lines of Nickelback's "This Afternoon", you and Nige had a great song!

Neuroron and Jonie, I loved the whole "Dirty Dancing" idea of the lyric, a great summer idea!


To my dear friend Tracy (stars) - I am SO PROUD of you, your lyric is wonderful and I know that Neal helped you dig to a place you hadn't before and his mentoring brought out the best, what a great team, I'm so grateful to him for his influence and I hope that he has also been blown away by your amazing talents!! HUGS!!!!

I can now appreciate how difficult this contest is and I would like to say that I thought everyone did such an amazing job!!


NOW.............I've got lots of lyrics I wrote for this, watch out for lots of summer fluff songs from me on the song board!

Tammy

[daddio]

What a great bunch of songs! I really had trouble scoring this one and would not have been surprised by any song winning. I had lyd and Greybeard on top.
Congrats Tammy and Decker on a great job.
Thanks to all the non-contestant voters and to Bruce for a great comp.

[neuroron]

Congratulations to everyone, especially the winners - pretty much my ordering also - these cpllab contests continue to be the best contest here because they get everyone top get something new done probably out of their usual M.O. - Ron

[Billy]

Congratulations to Tammy and Decker. What a great sound! The minute I heard it, I thought it was going to win. It's very contemporary and modern sounding! Nicely done. I particularly liked the chorus. As I told Decker, I think it could soar even more but it sounds wonderful when sung!

Also, congratulations to everyone for a job well done and thank you for recognizing my song with Nige. He was terrific to work with and extremely helpful. Altlhough I can string a line or two together I still need a lot of guidance in terms of structure and song development. Fortunately for me, I've worked with very good musicians during thes collab contests who have helped me through the process, including Ian, Don and now Nige. It's still not fully clicking but I'm trying! I'm sure it's frustrating at times from a musicians perspective to have to spend extra time walking an inexperienced lyricist through the process but from my vantage point, it's invaluable and I'm very appreciative for the extra time and effort everyone makes on this board. Even you Don! Like Alistair said, the musicians have the tough job!

Thanks again to Nige and everyone else for making this such a wonderful experience. We got a lot of good songs out of the process. And most importantly, thanks to Bruce for a flawless effort. I commend anyone who's willing to take on such a thing. To me it seems daunting. I'm not the most organized or discipled person so coordinating something like this seems monumental to me. I also liked the scoring method. I found it very simple and effective.

Finally, I echo many of Alistair's sentiments and opinions about the process and the judging of these particular songs. Like he said, in some cases I was more fond of the music than the lyric and vise versa. It's tough to judge the whole product objectively!

Take care,
Billy

[SatanInventedBras]

Congrats Decker/Tams!

Great challenge - you were my top pick, as well. Nige/Billy were my second and Neuroron/Jonie were my third, but it was hard to place them... Its easier to rate them all individually!

Had a blast working with Don -- great collaborator, 4th place ain't so shabby partner This is my second time participating in this challenge, it's been so much fun, so yes, I'll do this again (hey hey Nige, you and me baby )

[lyD]

Congrats guys. I thought Summers By Your Side was quite brilliant, as strong and radio-ready a song as I've heard on here, and that's saying something. I listened to it repeatedly and will definitely be returning to it.

I also thought the whole field was top quality. I won't single any out, simply because I remember loving them all. As I said before, it was like buying a new CD. Really good stuff.

[Neal K]

Yup, I picked Decker and Tams for the number one spot. They deserved to win. I loved the idea of having a theme. It was interesting to see what everyone came up with.

Neal

[kimberlyinnc]

Much congrats to Tammy and Decker for their song getting first place...I loved it when I first heard it. It stuck in my head...especially that chorus!! I did choose it as my favorite, but wow...what a GREAT group of songs this time!!!


I had
"Until The Summer Ends" NigeQ/Billy -as my 2nd Choice--Loved the chorus, and the entire song...very fun..It stuck in my head as well, so something that stuck with me was part of the criteria of my voting process.

"Dance The Nights Away (All Summer Long) - Neuroron/Jonie 3rd Choice --It made me think of Dirty Dancing...I could see these folks working the tables, then party the nights away. What a fantastic fun sound as well as lyrics!

As I said, I hear things in each song that made me like them all!! After my first choice, it was VERY hard, one of the hardest choices I have had to make....Fantastic job guys!!!



Kimberly

[fabkebab]

Well done Tams/Decker -
I can honestly say I have caught myself humming your song a few times, which is as good a compliment as I could give -

Glad we placed 3rd, even though someone above mistook me for Lyd :-)

[MysteryMike]

These were my picks... I really didn't look much at the guidelines, except that it had to do with Summer...

1st pick - Summers By Your Side
2nd pick - Don't Trust That Summertime Smile
3rd pick - Those Summer Days

[starsinmyeyes]

Congratulations to the winners and place-getters, I chose them all in the correct order !

I'd just like to say that Neal did a wonderful job helping this newbie through the challenge, so my heartfelt thanks to him. Thanks also to Bruce N for all his efforts in running the competition, I am very glad to have taken part.

And as Hot Chocolate says "Everyone's a winner baby..."

[Randy P. Gendron]

Cool challenge... smart songs... made listening and voting a whole bunch of fun. Well Done Everyone !!

[Decker]

Hey Guys!

Thanks so much for your kind comments. The standard of songs in the contest was extremely high and the variation in styles kept things interesting from start to finish, to be honest there wasn't a song in there that you couldn't imagine being played at some level.

Twas great working with Tammy, the quality of her lyrical ideas, and ear for a melody, made it so much easier to come up with the music and subsequently get immersed in the song itself.

I just wanted to say a quick thanks to Bruce for organising the event too, these contests are a super way of developing as a songwriter and learning how best to collaborate with other people, and the quality of the ideas produced by the muses muse crew never ceases to amaze me.

Good times!

[No Future]

Yeah, congratulations to the winners. You were my first choice too. These were all great songs!

[Bruce N]

Being the designated driver of this contest I didn't submit a vote, although if I had the standings wouldn't have changed, as noted by other voters It was extremely difficult to pick the top song, and my picks wavered between Summers By Your Side and Until The Summer Ends.

John-Paul and Tammy's song was very contemporary and to my ears could make it to the airwaves, and Nige and Billy's song came across to me as an real fun lighthearted song that one could easily associate with summer time, in fact I couldn't help envisioning what a great video that could be made to go along with it, one that would pop up every summer.

third pick was equally as hard to choose, a nice verity of styles and subject matter, but the one I settled on was Don't Trust that Summertime Smile, it has a way of growing on you after repeated listening, good job Don and Sarah

Honorable mention goes out to Funkdaddy and No Future's Summer Home, great lyrics and great music, a fine job and performance, and Mark you really have nailed that Tragically Hip style and sound down to a T, I'm truly impressed.

Once again a great job by all participants, and the pleasure is mine in playing some small role in orchestrating the amazing pool of talented people that we have here at the Muse.

Thanks
Bruce

[NigeQ]

I would like to congratulate everyone. We had a good batch of songs here and I liked the theme, it gave us focus and freedom. It was very difficult to single out songs for points but I had (Don't Trust That) Summertime Smile as my top pick, an interesting take on the theme. Summers By Your Side – great sound and would sit very comfortably on the radio. Those Summer Days – I just knew fabkebab and Graybeard would be a dangerous combination and they didn’t disappoint. I enjoyed listening to all the songs and they would make a great ‘summer’ EP

Billy was a pleasure to work with. I think we have the longest email trail in the history Lots of ideas flying around and all very productive.

Thanks to Bruce for organising, these collab comps are always worthwhile and often produce very good songs.

Nige

[fabkebab]

We need another competition soon!! I had forgotten how much fun these collaboration competitions are!

[lyD]

I agree, especially as I had to miss this one. Surely it's about time for a Christmas theme?

[FunkDaddy]

Christmas collab would be fun!

Thanks for the compliment Bruce, I wouldn't mind knowing who gave us the 3rd place scores if they wanna come forward or PM me.

[jonie]

Great comp, deserving winners and, as usual, a lot of fun.

Congratulations to Decker and tamsnumber4 - What a great song! I had it third only because I felt the lyric wasn't quite as good as my first and second place picks but Decker did a wonderful job with it nonetheless.

Nige and Billy got my top score. As far as I was concerned, it was the only song that met all the voting criteria. Billy's lyric was outstanding and Nige, as always, gave it a great groove. And I don't think any lyric stood up as well to the 'summertime feel' requirement. Well done guys!

I gave my second highest score to Don and Sarah. I was quite blown away by everything about it, the melody, vocals and story. The only thing that kept me from giving it my top score was the the fact that it didn't give me the same summertime feel as Nige and Billy's.

If I could have scored a 4th place or even a tie for third, it would definitely have gone to Andrew and greybeard. Congrats on third place, guys.

I was glad to see so many newbie lyricists participating. I'd like to see more musicians (newbies and old hats) signing up for the next one.

Ron was great to collab with. He provided the rhythm, melody and theme up front. It only took an evening for us to hammer out a lyric. I would have liked to have seen it place higher but with such strong competition, I'm certainly not surprised.

Good job with this one, Bruce. You can go back to the kitchen now. I think cook needs help preparing the goose pate.

[Bruce N]

Quote

Good job with this one, Bruce. You can go back to the kitchen now. I think cook needs help preparing the goose pate.

I'm working on that right now, just don't confuse me with Fred.

[SatanInventedBras]

jonie, on 06 June 2010 - 02:28 PM, said:

I gave my second highest score to Don and Sarah. I was quite blown away by everything about it, the melody, vocals and story. The only thing that kept me from giving it my top score was the the fact that it didn't give me the same summertime feel as Nige and Billy's.

Thanks Jonie! I completely missed that part of the directions, but had a BOAT LOAD of fun tossing ideas back and forth with Don... so glad we "settled" on Becky's story.

Bruce N, on 06 June 2010 - 04:14 PM, said:

Quote

Good job with this one, Bruce. You can go back to the kitchen now. I think cook needs help preparing the goose pate.

I'm working on that right now, just don't confuse me with Fred.

Or Joey!!

[Alistair S]

Or.. oh.. wait .. that IS Bruce, in his off-duty clothes ...

[Bruce N]

Alistair S, on 06 June 2010 - 05:32 PM, said:

Or.. oh.. wait .. that IS Bruce, in his off-duty clothes ...

Yeah!!! in my favorite grey shirt.