1. happy - knockman
Wonderful lyrics and vocal performance (you say the word 'government' just like Roger Waters - but your style is all your own - I love it). The bitter take on the happiness theme is great. The mix and instrumentation is just perfect. Great, great song!

2. Highland Stomp - Doc Jon
The instruments and overall sound is fantastic. Does a nice job recreating a live jam - the tempo changes are especially impressive. Makes me want to grab a tall beer stein and dance with some buxom lasses! If that's not happiness I don't know what is!

3. Everything's Just Ducky - Peterhud
Love the frolicking Mardi Gras style, the snaps, the ducks, and the great waddling feel. The break midway through is just fantastic.

4. Happy Honey Bee - beanpole
Great guitars! I like the way you associate a different sound with the happy creatures from each verse. Really good happy sing-along chorus that makes me smile.

5. Thing That Makes You Happy - offthewall
Love the subject matter. Really nice performance with those awesome acoustic instruments as well. This song makes me so happy my eyes well up!

6. Simply - Emerald Tablet
Very cool musical recreation of slowly waking up to springtime love. Nice how it becomes more complex as it progresses. Excellent vocals, melodies, and instrumentation - all work so well together to get across a gentle feeling of joy.

7. Beltane Dance - kryptonaut
Nice dance melodies, but what really puts it over the top for me is the heavy guitar and groovy bass lines. It all gels in such a happy way.

8. snappy joe - nikp2000
Great riff and drums. Not sure why, but every time I hear a tuba I can't help but smile. Love the way you integrated it in between the electric bass parts. This snappy joe is one happy go lucky fella!

9. Friday's hashish - Mister Natural
Thick like a room full of smoke, really cool mesmerizing track. Hookahs make me happy, and so does this song!

10. Tempo de Carnaval - GMoneh
Really like the background vocs and electric piano. Favorite part is the percussion/vocal breakdown at two minutes - would have liked much more of that.

Runners up:
Happy Melodies - jackoo (Very joyful. Beautiful playing - really like the call and response of happy melodies between the instruments.), BossaHappy - Beardedone (Stellar guitar playing. Nice tone too!), Happiness is - shrikant (Great melodic percussion. Instrumentation blended very nicely. Sharp guitar attacks are very cool. Really enjoy this.), Happiness - Patrick9 (That main riff is so wild - I love it! The instruments work really well together - very creative mix.)

(DQ) Happiness - Gorgorgathgorgorgor
Would have been my number 4. Such an infectious, catchy tune. Sweet bass playing and singing as well. Had me grinning ear to ear. Not much makes me happier than dark humor and contrasts like this. Singing about slitting throats while playing a funky clavinet… so brilliant!

Music Cafe 1202

I realized while listening to the entries that I hate happy songs. This struck me as I found I was unable to listen to all three minutes of most entries. Therefore I have decided (and I actually decided this before I discovered that I was disqualified) That I will Vote for my least favorite entries, in order of least bearable to mildly offensive. The entries I actually like will not get points, as they clearly could not have been happy songs. I include my notes, please don't hate me. Much.

10 Points
Laguna Rising - Freaky-tune Happiness
Oh god no. This is terrible, and not in any kind of good way. I actually almost liked certain parts of it, but you successfully tapped into my virulent hatred of christmas carols. Truly painful.

9 Points
jackoo - Happy Melodies
I may vote based on which songs make me the most physically ill. (it was at this moment that I made my decision to employ my unorthodox voting procedure)

8 Points
beanpole - Happy Honey Bee
Ouch.

7 Points
nikp2000 - snappy joe
Delightful. Horribly cheerful lounge vibe, loaded with good intentions. Ugh.

6 Points
shrikant - Happiness is
Starts out all Sesame Street and then that awful electric guitar blunders in and completely ruins it. Points for sure.

5 Points
Patrick9 - Happiness
I hate happy songs.

4 Points
evo2slo - Dandelion Wine
I still hate happy songs.

3 Points
Beardedone - BossaHappy
Caravansarai anyone? Liked the first couple of seconds then hated it.

2 Points
offthewall - ThingThatMakesYouHappy
Winner of the So Bad it's Awesome award.

1 Point
Wopelka - Ode and die Freude
Wow. A new contender for the So Bad it's Awesome award.


Now for the ones I liked!

rachmiel - 11 Happy Sounds
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. Of something. Meow.

GMoneh - Tempo de Carnival
I love this, because it was obviously intended to be happy, but the vocal is absolutely morose! I'm glad you chose to
sing in Portuguese because it's easier to imagine you singing
about the death of your beloved cat. (my appologies to anyone
who has recently lost a feline companion)

pljones - It's a New World
Fast does not automatically mean happy. Frenetic, manic,
bipolar, yes.

D.H. Miltz - Racket for Six Hands
Bravo, now make it stop.

Peterhud - Everything's Just Ducky
This is great! Definitely happy, but I like it. This shoots
some holes in my original concept. not sure what to do with
this.

kryptonaut - Beltane Dance
I very nearly like this.

Doc Jon - Highland Stomp
Happy enough, I love the whoops and hollers, all the
instruments are realistically realized, and yet again I am
forced to re-evaluate my approach to voting. Then again, maybe not.

Robojam - Formation of a Diffuse Nebula
This is nice, it takes me to an interesting place. I like it,
therefore, no points.

Mister Natural - Friday's Hashish
I like it. Is it happy? Not particularly, which is why I like
it. Therefore, no points.

Emerald Tablet - Simply
I rather like this. Simple is good. I am afraid that because
I don't hate it (in fact as I listen, it continues to grow on
me), it will get no points. Great job!

Knockman - Happy
Might be my favorite of the bunch, and not really happy at
all, I love it! So, no points for you.

Finally I've come up with my rankings. The difficulty this month was on the weighting of the theme... some of the pieces I liked the most wouldn't particularly be called happy songs, and that had to be reflected somehow...

Anyway, I'll share some of the notes in the gossip thread. Here, just the ranks:

1. Highland Stomp - DocJon
2. Everything's Just Ducky - Peterhud
3. Snappy Joe - nikp2000
4. Happy Melodies - jackoo
5. Beltane Dance - kryptonaut
6. BossaHappy - Beardedone
7. Thing That Makes You Happy - offthewall
8. Happy - knockman
9. Simply - Emerald Tablet
10. Happy Honey Bee - beanpole

Honor Mentions:
- Dandelion Wine - evo2slo
- Ode and die Freude - Wopelka
- Happiness - Patrick9

1. Nikp2000 - Snappy Joe
2. Emerald Tablet - Simply
3. Knockman - Happy
4. Robojam - Formation of a Diffuse Nebula
5. GMoneh - Tempo de Carnival
6. Beltane Dance - Kryptonaut
7. Laguna Rising - Freaky-tune Happiness
8. Peterhud - Everything's Just Ducky
9. Happy Honey Bee - Beanpole
10. D.H. Miltz - Racket for Six Hands

Happiness is such a big, sloppy word that there are surely a wide variety of ideas about what we should be trying to write (not sure if that's a very good feature for a contest). For me, the entry couldn't simply be a song about happiness, but the music itself had to exude happiness (i.e. positive energy, warm-fuzzies, etc.) on a visceral level.

I actually had my voting done a couple days ago, but gorgorgathgorgorgor-gate caused me to give everything a re-listen and shuffle my rankings somewhat….


1) Laguna Rising - Freaky-tune Happiness
Freaky, weird, ironic, fun, with lots of colour and interest, all pureed together into a tasty musical pudding.

2) GMoneh - Tempo De Carnaval
Great loose and easy rhythmic feel in the instruments and voice - totally authentic for the style, and fits the happy theme perfectly. Excellent production too.

3) rachmiel - 11 Happy Sounds
Absolutely first-rate production and performances. A lot of symbolism going on that I would probably re-interpret on every listen. Makes me intellectually happy, but its overall emotional effect was something more complex . . . still trying to figure it out!

4) Wopelka - Ode and die Freude
Interesting and original choice of instrumentation, and I think you really made it work. There's a naturalness, comfort and warmth to the vocals - thought it brought out the theme extremely well.

5) robojam - Formation of a Diffuse Nebula
Depicts the title beautifully, kind of emotionally ambiguous for the first 30s, then a sort of cold, metallic happiness begins to emerge. Very original and I really dug it.

6) nikp2000 - Snappy Joe
Like the plunky guitar opening, and the guitar tone overall. Good times music!

7) Emerald Tablet - Simply
Crack-of-dawn happiness - can feel the sunlight poking through the cracks between the curtains! Well-produced and nice angle on the contest theme.

8) DocJon - HighlandStomp
Really well put-together. Sounds pretty authentic for using all VIs. Repetitive, but not boring for pure listening, which is sometimes hard to do with traditional dance music.

9) Patrick9 - Happiness
Meanders a bit, but catchy theme and definitely has a happy vibe going on that never lets up!

10) jackoo - Happy Melodies
Yup, those are happy melodies! Maybe a bit one-dimensional at times and could use a bit more interest in the arrangement, but this fits the bill.


----
Peterhud

1: Emerald Tablet - Simply
2: DocJon - HighlandStomp
3: Peterhud - Everything's Just Ducky
4: kryptonaut - Beltane Dance
5: beanpole - Happy Honey Bee
6: evo2slo - Dandelion Wine
7: Beardedone - Bossa Happy
8: nikp2000 - snappy_joe
9: offthewall - ThingThatMakesYouHappy
10 Robojam - Formation of a Diffuse Nebula

_

what a happy month

1 gmoneh
2 peterhud
3 knockman
4 offthewall
5 beardedone
6 beanpole
7 pat9
8 evo2slo
9 donjon
10 shrikant

nick

_

my votes:
01. Shrikant
02. nikp2000
03. Laguna Rising
04. Peterhud
05. Patrick9
06. pljones
07. Doc Jon
08. GMoneh
09. Knockman
10. Offthewall