The annual music ranking returns, now crazier than ever!
Rules
1: Nominate songs. There is no limit to how many songs you may nominate!
2: It would be helpful if you nominated your songs in Blocks of five. This is not a requirement--even a single song is welcome, as is any other amount that isn't a multiple of five--it's just easier on us if you did.
3: Songs under ten minutes preferred. Songs up to thirty minutes allowed, though try to keep the 10+ minute long songs to one per Block if possible.
4: There are no restrictions on what songs may be nominated. Nominate an artist's entire discography, ten versions of the same song, whatever amuses you. We want a ridiculously large amount of nominations, so we're not in the habit of rejecting anything. Likewise, we'll accept anything that could charitably be called music: commercially released tracks, VGM, background noise, commercial jingles, AI content, mashups, parodies, etc.
5: The first phase of nominations will last until June 5th, 2025. Even if we somehow get 1,250 songs before that point, noms will remain open to try to give everyone a chance to post whatever they want. Nominate whatever you want, whenever you want!
5a: If we've received over 1,250 songs by June 5th, we'll trim excess songs from whomever has nominated the most to spread things out a bit and close nominations.
5b: If we haven't reached 1,250 nominations by then, there will be an additional two weeks of overtime with begging people to post more songs. Nominations will be locked the moment 1,250 is reached.
5c: If we still can't reach 1,250 songs after two weeks, then we'll just fill the remaining slots ourselves. There will be 1,250 songs in this ranking one way or another, so please nominate!
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6: Nominated songs, with separate tabs for each Nominator, will be found here once we have some songs to add to it: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wXnu_JQMub6VQSBmEgqjkXh9I8NTIK0gVlR02XGhQ78/edit?usp=sharing
7: The preferred nomination format (though you don't have to follow it):
Artist Name -or- Source Material | Song Title (Song Duration)
Song Link
Such as:
Muppet Madness | Everything Was Terrible (1:58)
https://youtu.be/m5XLOfbOYSA?t=154
friendship games | self-destruct (3:25)
https://friendshipgames.bandcamp.com/track/self-destruct
For the Muppet song you could also hypothetically credit it to The Muppets, Gonzo, or Dave Goelz. We're not too particular on credits, so long as you give us something to work with.
Song links can be to any site that works: YouTube, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Spotify, etc. Spotify is the only subscription we have and we're not planning on spending any more money on this project, so please nothing that we'd have to pay to get access to.
8: If you would like to be tagged/notified when one of your songs drops, ask. We don't like bothering people with tags unless told to do so.
9: if you want to be referred to as something other than your username, please say so! We're bad at remembering people's preferred names.
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STANDARD DISCLAIMER:
Try not to take any of the rankings too seriously. Expect lots of random text-based actions, tail wagging, alternate identities, running gags, comedic exaggerations, and a lack of coherent or insightful write ups. We don't understand much about music and our thought processes tend to be alien; that being said, every song's placement does reflect how we genuinely feel about it. It's more "We're treating this as a safe place to fully unmask without adhering to any standards of quality" than a joke topic. Regardless of how harsh we may be to some songs, we do legitimately appreciate all the nominations.
Thank you to anyone who clicked this and double thank you to anyone who nominates anything.
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FAQ
Q: LRF?
A: Acronym for Luce, Rae, and Flutter. Putting all of our names into the topic title was a bit unwieldy, so this seemed like the easiest solution.
All the others (Kari [shortened to Kay at past topics], Katie, Ray, Chaos, Ashe... I feel like I'm forgetting someone...) are welcome to make an apppearance, but they are rarely seen and trying to create an acronym for everyone is also unwieldy.
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Q: Why Blocks of five?
A: Inspired by azuarc's Reverse Rankings, it's easier to get a handle on a large batch of songs by working through them in smaller groups. The plan for our first trip through the list of nominations is to listen to every song in a Block in nominated order while typing up initial thoughts, then immediately listen a second time in order from worst-to-best before giving them a preliminary score & some extra thoughts. By giving every song two listens, it gives more of a chance for us to find something we want to say about them and should help stabilize the initial score.
Also, some people enjoy creating mini-playlists with themes or gimmicks. That's obviously not a requirement and most Blocks will likely not have any type of theme, but if you *want* to create a gimmick or a five song playlist that flows in a certain way, then have at it!
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Q: What happens if I nominate a number of songs that is not a multiple of five? Like, eight or something?
A: In that case, the first five nominations would fill a Block by themselves. The other three would be part of an unfinished Block that we'd leave open, in case you ever came back to nominate more songs and fill it... if you don't--which is totally fine--then we'll just get someone else to fill any remaining slots at your unfinished Block when nominations are closing down.
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Q: Does a song's ranking within a Block impact anything?
A: Not directly. If you put five perfect scoring songs in the same Block, they'd all be given perfect scores and in the running for first place.
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Q: Can I nominate an entire album?
A: Yes! However, we will still divide the tracks into Blocks of five which will likely require some additional songs to be added onto albums to reach a multiple of five. Apologies for the inconvenience.
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Q: What are some valid excuses to put multiple long songs in the same BlocK?
A: You're nominating multiple songs from the same album and hearing the songs in close proximity to each other is an integral part of the listening experience ; you're only nominating one Block (or part of one Block) and thus can't spread them out ; you have a theme in mind for the Block of songs and it doesn't work if you split the songs into multiple Blocks ; your two long songs aren't that far over the limit (say, a 12 minute and a 15 minute song) and the other three songs are very short, so the total length is actually shorter than some standard Blocks.
Seriously, if you really want to nominate long songs together, we'll work with you. We need the nominations more than we need to enforce rules. Splitting your long songs up would be a gesture of goodwill on your part, but if you have a reason not to, then go ahead and do what you want! If you're happy, then I'm happy.
*continued*