As I said, you can skip them if you’re not interested.

I tried to keep them interesting and informative.

Frankly I was personally attacked but I never responded to the direct personal attack, I just ignored it but if you look carefully you’ll find it.

Sorry if my joke about logical holes infuriated some. I was trying to add some levity to my serious comments.

Also, I never raised the issue of politics in music, this was raised by several people towards me, so I posted my heartfelt thoughts and some interesting other information to add to the dialog.

I thought discussing the merits of various approaches to music was part of the fun here. Certainly as several people said politics has no place in music, the issue was raised by the room. I posted my response.

Since I was the only one posting in favor of music in politics, I thought I should make as good an argument as I could, and share my deepest thoughts and feelings plus some objective info as well.

My posts have been good natured and ignored the personal attacks (saying my approach is “politics as a lifestyle choice” and contrasting me against those who live with politics as part of an “ethical considered life”)

How is it ok to say that my work is simplistic and pedantic, shallow, self-aggrandizing, and too many other negative words to recount, to say that my life’s work making mostly political music is the wrong way to write songs and that politics should not be explicit in songs, yet it is not ok for me to posit my personal opinion that artists have as much social responsibility as everyone else on earth? (if not more)

Again, I did not bring up the topic and I did not go on at length about it until many critical commenters had brought it up repeatedly as a criticism of my musical style.

This is a subject very close to my heart, yes I have a lot to say about it, but I thought deep discussions about music were part of the fun here.

Sorry some took it so seriously that they couldn’t enjoy the debate.

i’m excited. ;-D

1st – Berg & Jerry (231)
2nd – Perfect Place (199)
3rd – Tom Milson (181)
4th – Ian & Melissa (153)
5th – Sara Parsons (132)
6th – Gorbzilla (126)
7th – Caleb Lee (123)
8th – Edric Haleen (118)

I’ll almost feel disappointed if I don’t rank sixteenth in the other two rounds now. I do enjoy continuity…

I hope next round is less band camp and more 21st century.

so i’ve taken his hint and i’m not reading the posts because, well, they’re too long and i simply don’t care. all due respect, but i don’t think this board is the place to be prattling on about genres and politics. but i could be wrong, that’s just my opinion right?

anyway, no hard feelings and i don’t mean to be insulting in anything i’m saying.

Also… I’m not sure that what amounts to a lighthearted song showcase leaning heavily towards novelty songs is the best place to go throwing down the gauntlet and making grand, sweeping claims about The Ethical Responsibilities of All Artists. It’s a discussion I am interested in (probably in a college course called The Ethical Responsibilities of All Artists – 301) but not in a contest that previously sponsored a round in which “Dracula vs. High School Physics” was not only a possible song concept but a -likely- one.

Anyway, in about 5 hours this thread will most likely be deader than THAC0 and we can all get on with that writing/recording/listening/voting thing. Personally, I can’t wait. 😉

(And LOL about Godwin’s Law, I’d never actually heard of it before, but per the Wikipedia defintion it’s certainly true.)

As far as I can tell, riddle is not a contestant in Song Fu, he’s an observer and a FAN. From the detailed, informed and intelligent commentary he left during the voting kerfuffle of Round 1, my guess is that riddle may also work for quickstopentertainment.com, which would make him one of our HOSTS too!

At no pont have riddle’s comments degenerated into direct name calling. At one point he called the political bent of Andrew Thompson’s song “shallow and self-aggrandizing.” Andrew may have taken that personally. I know that I have trouble distancing myself from comments made about my songs. But that was riddle’s criticism of the song, not Andrew Thompson the man. I don’t think riddle’s main problem with Andrew’s song was it being political, I think he found the song simplistic and pedantic. Maybe I’m putting words in riddle’s mouth, and if that’s the case, I’m sorry.

But Andrew Thompson is very sure of himself. He has shown little doubt that he knows his positions are right. And he’s willing to go to great lengths argue and prove them all, all the way to invoking Godwin’s Law! (Seriously, why did Nazi death camps enter this conversation?) I don’t know if Andrew’s song in pedantic, but I found his comment, “I intentionally left several logical holes in my arguments, I’m surprised no one has picked up on that,” irritatingly pedantic. Don’t make what you think are stupid arguments just to see if people will pick up on their stupidity. That’s rude and condescending.

At another point riddle said that Perfect Place’s characterization of him as a troll was “more trollish.” But do we really need to debate whose comments are more trollish? It just doesn’t matter!

riddle’s a nice guy with strong opinions. riddle didn’t attack Andrew Thompson personally, so Perfect Place didn’t need to jump to Andrew’s defense. riddle is a FAN who is willing to give detailed critiques of songs. How many of those do we have? How many of those are we willing to insult and drive away, even if we are SURE we are right?

The last thing the Song Fu Challengers need to do is insult the observers, fans, commentators and voters who come to this page. We especially don’t want to insult our hosts or the people who make the quick-stop trains run on time. We have enough problems attracting fans to this page without incessantly arguing with or insulting the few that come here. At best we will bore our fans, at worst we will actually drive them away.