The first round of the VPC has reached its culmination and voting proceeds.  To think that one hundred six people (plus several more who didn’t get tracks submitted in time) have created songs for this competition that never would have existed is humbling and exhilarating!  We’re at NerdcoreNow are still trying to wrap our heads around this fact and not let the gravity of it cause us to second-guess anything needlessly.

As with anything, we will reflect, with intention, on “lessons learned” after each round as well as the competition as whole.  We really are grateful for the patience of all the teams and listeners as we learn from our inevitable mistakes and determine solutions for moving forward.

As far as the content itself, I’m pretty excited to see some of the partnerships that have jibed so well, full albums and EPs are already being planned.  Among those are the impendingly sub-thumping C/R/O/W/N, an album King Pheenix and DJ RoboRob are working on together; as well as Status Update, the raucous new Rage-flavored, rap-rock project with Emergency Pizza Party’s SirxUP on mic and Sci-Fried’s Dammit Jim on the instruments.

Another of these pairings is MC 117 and Jonny Nero Action Hero (a/k/a Unicornasauras), whose track “Another Castle” brings not only a heartfelt and challenging message to the table, but also what may be the catchiest hook of the round.  Another notable hook, of course, is from C0splay and Stone’s “The Needful.  Very cleverly, the chorus of this song about habitual laziness quotes an entire stanza from another song: The final round diss-track, and winning blow, against C0splay by Unicornasaurus’ own MC 117 in the debate battle from last year.

There were also a lot of surprise entrants that seemed to show up out of nowhere.  The long dormant (as far as rapping, but not his work with Channel Zero) Chozo Ninpo is on the mic once again and looking to “shake the cobwebs and rust.”  On the other end of the spectrum, Chemical42 and her producer/sister-in-arms Litra C are self-described “newcomers to the nerdcore scene” and just beginning to find their respective voices, so to speak.  They have caught some hate, but I am honored and impressed to see new artists participate and publicly submit their tracks.  Just remember, last year that same situation gave us Shubzilla.

I have to admit that I was pretty excited to see Tribe One submit a track supported by Jesse Dangerously.  I’d heard production work from Jesse before, but ”The Only Thing They Understand” has to be the best beat I’ve heard from him, as well as maybe my favorite of the round.  Another standout beat is the surprisingly cinematic “Wait” by cecilnick for his track with The Thoughtcriminals’ Sulfur.

While there are definitely some tracks that seem to be residing surprisingly low in the rankings, the submission I consider to be the most underrated is the smooth-grooving “EXP” by Aydin Feniix and GFRetro.  Some have criticized by people who seem to assume Autotune was haphazardly turned on to compensate for a bad vocalist, but this is far from the case.  As someone with experience using Autotune, I can hear that not only was the original vocal performed on pitch, but the use of Autotune is expertly executed.  This is the cleanest application of Autotune to ever see a nerdcore song.  Just the fact that GFRetro know how to accurately compose a MIDI track and properly sidechain it into his phase vocoder to control the pitch demonstrates that he is no newcomer.  More importantly, though, and song that would fit well on any Top 40 radio playlist, is entirely about anime, and is actually done well (*cough* Soulja Boy), is dope in my book.

Final random thought: If Warp45 and DJ Nerd42 don’t collab on a beat for Chemical42 and Funky49 to rap over, that’s an opportunity missed.  Maybe tanner4105 could mix it or something…

What are some of the tracks that surprised you?  What are your favorites this round?

Source : Vocalist Producer Challenge 2