Be Excellent To Each Other

Important: SONG WARS SUBFORUM NOW LIVE!

It's the Great BETEO Song Wars!
How it works (maybe subject to change, depending on circumstances)

The players are divided into four groups. Each week, every competitor puts forward one song of their choice, through Grim...'s excellent inline MP3 player, or a YouTube clip. The choices for each group are put to a vote, and anyone else on the forum can allocate a score for the three songs they like the most (more points for the favourite, slightly fewer for the second and third favourites, as with the photography thread). The three songs in each group with the most vote-points are allocated league-points, and a league table is produced.

At the end of the ten-week 'season', the top two from each group go into a knockout stage. From there, it's a straight knockout - four 'quarter-final' matches in the first knockout week, two 'semi-final' matches in the second knockout week, and a big final. (Note: Depending on the feelings of other players, one knockout stage may see a prolonged voting period to allow for the Christmas break.)


Themes

The first week of the wars will be open to absolutely any type of song. The second week will require the chosen song to be a cover version. For week three, players in each group will have to pick a song adhering to a specific theme, chosen by the player with the lowest number of votes in the first week*. The theme should be chosen so that it can apply to any type of music, along the lines of "a band or song with a number in the title", "a song from a movie", "songs lasting less than a minute", or in true Mark and Lard's Cheesily Chart Challenge style, a track applicable to an event in the news. You could even throw a curve ball, and decide the theme will be "pick the worst possible song", with votes being placed for the worst track. However, themes such as "pick a heavy metal song" or "pick a dance track" are to be frowned upon, if only for being indicative of stultifying unoriginality. Conversely (and being slightly contradictory), picking "there is no theme" as a theme is perfectly acceptable.

If it's your turn to pick a theme, there's no reason why you can't choose a theme already used by another group, although picking a track already nominated in another group is likely to incur the wrath of the Song Wars Badger, Kevin. Oh, and the tenth (and final) round of matches will have a theme of Christmas, just to get everyone in the festive mood.

(*If more than one person has tied on the lowest score, the one with the lower position in group table will become the next theme-picker. If group positions are level, then there will be no theme for the relevant week. Similarly, to ensure each round of voting kicks off on time, if Johnny (or Jane) Themepicker hasn't nominated a theme in time, or doesn't want to choose one, there will be no theme for the relevant week. All this is getting more complicated than rugby union, isn't it?)

Anon

For each voting stage, only the songs are to be listed, meaning there's a fun guessing game to be had when trying to work out which Beexer picked which track. Post-voting, as the scores are revealed, so are the names.

Schedule

The first week is for any song you like, and for the second week the theme will be cover versions, so you can get those thinking caps on right now. The themes are decided upon around two weeks in advance so that anyone going away from the forum for a while can put forward songs in advance. Please note that if anyone doesn't pick a song for a given week, then no entry will be listed for them for that week - there should be plenty of time to catch up in the league if you miss a week or two, though.



The List Of Participants

GROUP A
-
Pundabaya
Runcle
Nik
Plissken
Nirejhenge
Mimi
Bobbyaro
Mark X

GROUP B
-
Scarysheep3000
Zardoz
Craster
Mr Russ
Mr Chris
imtypingonakeyboard
nervouspete

GROUP C
-
The Rev Owen
Kern
Zen-Chan
Grim...
Spinglo Sponglo!
Craig
Rodafowa

GROUP D
-
Shin
Sheepeh
myoptika
TsuMuch
Bluecup
WullieOoster
tossrStu

Machiavellian Self-Voting

Due to the nature of forum voting, you will be able to vote for your own song, and there's nothing much that can be done about that. But then, politicians can vote for themselves in general elections, so there you go. Please note: people relentlessly pimping up the votes for their own songs will make baby Jesus cry.

The Prizes

Super big exciting prizes will be on offer for the winner. Or more likely, a couple of DVDs or albums I've somehow got two copies of.

I have a great song I'd like to send into battle.

I think that the rules regarding direct linking to MP3s may have changed in the last few days for some reason, but I don't much understand the reason or details of it so check with a mod first.

A fair point, although simply linking to YouTube videos might make things a bit easier for everyone involved. People can embed YouTube vids here, can't they? It'd certainly save people from having to download dozens of MP3 files, and then remember where each one came from.

Yes, you can embed the youtube files in threads, certainly.

So, the whole Great Song Wars thing could be even easier than I'd previously imagined, then? THIS THING MUST BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN.

hwo many people on here actually make music? can we not do one where we actually makehe songs around a certain funny topic or current cultural event or something and then have a face off with them?

sorry i mean as a similar type thing not for what your actually bringing up now, I meant like a forum version of the adam and joe song war.

That would be pretty ace. I'd have nothing to bring to the table regarding the actual creating of songs, but it'd be good fun voting on them each week (or however long between each round of songs).

I would be up for both a mp3 song war, and a create your own song war. These are both excellent runners.

I would like to play this game.

No it's not.

Just adding my support.

GO GO NEW MUSIC!

I would like to play.

Malc

Is there any way of working in the Cheesily Cheerful Chart Challenge?

I'd quite like to play this, as I know for a fact what the best song ever actually is.

Is it 'No Way, No Way' by Vanilla?

GAH! Trying to fight it landing in my head and staying there! GO WAY!

That said, I've had Jenny From The Block stuck in my head since Saturday night, so almost anything would be an improvement.

ALMOST anything.

forgot to say ill play.

NO NEED!

Stop! ...... carry on.

I think this Battle of the Songs is a good idea. However, I do fear that MC Hammer will always win.

Sounds fun. Arf.

Me etc.

[Vote : The Shirehorses]

Sounds like fun.

Aaaawwwww. Ten pence short.

Could be fun. I'm in.

Still...mushn't gwumble.

A few amendments to my initial proposal:

* As it would be really annoying to think up a load of suitable tracks only to get knocked out in the first round, instead of a knockout, there are several mini-leagues of five/six people each. Each person nominates their song, the voting takes place, and one, three and six points are allocated to the three people with the most vote. After a set number of 'matches' the top two from each league go into the semi-finals.

* Each 'match' is themed. For example, in match one each 'player' must nominate a cover version of their choice, match two would be a song with a number in the title, song three a track used in a movie, and so on. The only stipulation is that each theme must be able to apply to (pretty much) any genre of music, so people who don't like heavy metal, electroclash, 1960s French chanson or whatever don't have to wade through a load of music they'll dislike. Each theme can be chosen by the 'player' who'd received the lowest number of votes in the previous round (or lowest-placed in the group in the event of a tie), effectively giving them a chance to 'catch up'. If both lowest votes and places in the table are the same, the next round could be a free-for-all where any song at all could be nominated. As would the first round, so all the especially excellent songs participants have gone to the trouble of thinking of don't go to waste.

* The person who gets to pick the theme for the next round is of course perfectly entitled to choose something that could easily be used if the Cheesily Cheerful Chart Challenge were still running. Especially as the suggestions I'd made to it at the time never actually made it into the rundown at the end of each show, although I did get my name read out by Lard on daytime Radio One, which was ace.

* While the policy of MP3-linking here is now a sensible one, I still think a system of allowing the tracks to be embedded into posts would keep things as simple as possible. Problem is, if you want to put forward a track that isn't already on YouTube, you can't just upload music tracks to there (you need to marry them to a video file first, which might be a bit too much hassle). Does anyone know of a MP3 hosting system that would work here? I did think a Google for MP3Tube might reveal such a site, but that just allows you to search for tracks to be played on their custom flash-based player. Directly-linked MP3 files (i.e. not ones hidden behind Rapidshare, Zshare etc) can be played through Firefox using this wonderful Greasemonkey script, would that be worth encouraging?

At some point, I'll start collating the names of those interested so far, and begin badgering mods about creating a special Song Wars sub-forum, but to be honest I've spent 36 out of the previous 60 hours at work, so my brain is too fried to cope with anything vaguely complicated right now. I am already contemplating whether I should play safe and put forward a stupidly great pop-dance track for an opener, or try to win everyone else around to my newly discovered love of 1960s German big band music. I'm not joking here. The output of Orchester W. Kubiczeck is fer-rigging awesome.

Re: the MP3 thing - can I mention that Imeem is an awesomes youtube-without-video music site?

You can, and indeed have. Songs being embeddable within posts needn't be obligatory of course, links could just be placed to where each song can be heard.

Ah, tish. Sleep is for losers anyway. At the moment, going by the people making positive noises in this thread so far, the following people have expressed a preference for taking part (or at least have failed to say "what a stupid idea, you fat idiot"):

Bluecup
Craig
Kern
Mark X
Mimi
Mr Chris
Mr Russ
Pundabaya
Runcle
Scarysheep3000
Sheepeh
Spinglo Sponglo!
The Rev Owen

Which at thirteen people, I'd say would be enough to make it worthwhile. If the registration period were extended until, I don't know, the end of September, with the first round kicking off on October 1st, we could get a goodly sized crowd involved. For each round there could be a two-day period for selecting, uploading (if necessary) and passing on details of your track*, and then a five-day voting period, meaning each round lasts a week. The first group stage could last ten weeks (meaning everyone gets to have a notable amount of participation without going mad - ten songs would barely take up one side of a C90), with the theme for the final round in each group being (of course) Christmas songs.

* Or details of each track could just be posted in a "Group (X), Match (Y)" thread, to keep it simple**. If you were late getting your track in for each round, you could still post it in the match thread slightly late, although the self-fulfilling forfeit would be that you could expect to be behind in the voting by that point.

** Plus this method would save on arguments where Competitor (A) accuses Competitor (B) of copying their selection. If Competitor (A) posts a link to the song first, it's their choice. No takebacks.

I'll have a bit of the action, as well.

Sorry, I thought I'd signed up. I'm in, too.

I'm probably going to be away for the last couple of weeks of October, so if it's going to be running then I need to drop out.

Count me in also, please.

I'm up for this too, although I'm slightly wary that it might end up being a bit of a popularity contest (unless there's some anonymity element, like the photo thing), which would leave less regular posters (e.g. me) stuffed before we start.

I was also a little worried about this to be honest.

I thought maybe that sending then songs anonymously and having them pitted against each other might also be fun, because we can all see if we can guess who submitted which song, see if we can suss each other's tastes.

I refuse to believe you are worried about your prospects in a forum popularity contest!

Er *embarrassed* that's not what I meant, but I do like fairness. Anyway, my taste in music is almost certainly the opposite of most people's

I wholeheartedly approve of this product and/or event.

Songs being listed anonymously is a pretty good idea, especially so that when the scores are revealed at the end of the round, people may be unmasked as secret fans of Abba, Slayer or A-Teens. Good call. People could just PM me with their choices, and I'd start the relevant topics. (Given the amount of rule-making I've come up with so far, I guess it wouldn't be very nice of me to expect someone else to spend time running the whole thing.)

As for people going on holiday, the War Of The Songs could be planned so that people can put forward their nominations for each theme a few weeks in advance. So, the schedule would be something like:

Week One: Open round, anyone can pick absolutely any song they like. After voting closes, the person with fewest votes from each group picks a theme for Week Three.
Week Two: Themed round: Cover versions. After voting, the person with fewest votes chooses a theme for Week Four.
Week Three: Themed round, chosen by someone from Week One.
etc.
Week Ten: End of stage one, the theme will be Christmas songs.

So, anyone going away for up to two weeks would be able to put forward tracks in advance. If they're away for any longer, they might need to skip a week, but as only half the people taking part in each group will score any points in a given week, that shouldn't be too much of a hindrance.

So, when do we start?

Themed weeks? Why, it's just like the X-Factor! Consider me "in" the song war!

Oh, go on then, I'll join in.

I once played GothamScum with people on this forum, made a couple of posts, and promptly got lynched.

Another time I played Forza 2 with people on this forum, around 10 races or so, and never finished above 7th.

And then last week I played poker with people on this forum, bought in three times, and went out first.

But although I'm sure to fail even more spectacularly than in all my other forum interactions, you can count me in.

Leaving a bit of a gap so anyone else can register their interest, shall we say sorting out the group structure on Weds 24th Sept, then with a week for everyone to pass on details of the first (and second, if need be) songs, the voting to start on Weds 1st October?

Are the songs/artists anonymous, or just the contributors? Reason I ask is that when I was doing something a bit similar via CD, you would be given a list of song titles but not artist - so no "I really hate Band X" prejudice came into play.

Okie blokie, just wanted to make sure that I had myself sorted to take part for when I shift from London to Lancaster next.

Cheers, Mark.

I'd say just the contributors would be anonymous, otherwise it'd be a logistical nightmare what with disguising all the song details from filenames or YouTube titles and the like. Plus, if someone really likes a song, it will help them track it down.