Round Two of BxT Idol!

Welcome to Round TWO of BxT Idol. (Finally. I blame Southrop. see how guilty he looks?)
Anyway, the people who will be proceeding are as follows:

Zone36
Fome
Hikaroo
Sephibox
Tenikime
Purple
Kizunami
Rockenroll
Dootiez
Fohfoh
Hirose
Jigenbakuda
Lupajunie
Naruchan16
TheZombie
Venuslove

First of all, wecome back winners. Things have changed slightly now. You need to impress psyren himself completely and utterly.
3/4 of the people in this round will be going home losers this time.
Though, to give yourself a small advantage, here is a list of songs which have a set point value assigned to them. If you plan to use a song from this list, please “claim” it by posting it here on the blog. That way no one else will do the same song. You won’t be told the bonus point totals for each song until AFTER all the entries are in.

SONG LIST:
Lily Allen – Not Fair
Buono! – Kokoro no Tamago
Minna no Tamago
Lia ~ Tori No Uta
One more time, One more chance
Amiche Vincenti
KOTOKO – Sakuranbo Kiss
ANY Eurovision song.
Pink – So What
Life is a boat
Evanescence – My Immortal
Franz Ferdinand – Take me Out
Alanis Morisette – I’M A BITCH
Kim Carnes – Bette Davis Eyes
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
The Killers – Somebody Told Me
Music of the Night – The Phantom of the Opera
Anything from Sweeney Todd

Zone36
Tuning was a bit out with your backing at a few places. Despite this being jazzy, you still need to be in tune =P Otherwise, great!
Now, for jazz, rhythmic accuracy is the core element of any piece. You managed to pull it off pretty well. I have no complaints here.
I love your dynamic contrasts. I love your energy. Could have stretched your dynamics a bit further (softer softs, louder louds), but what you did is good in my books.
Nice use of falsetto. Well executed, well controlled.
Great voice, very clear, easy to understand.

Well done.

Fome
Tuning was excellent overall. I just picked up some high notes that didn’t quite reach.
Rhythm was spot on. Nothing much to say here.
I like the changes in voice timbre, despite the small range of dynamic contrast. Your energy really does mesh with the song. Well done.
You sound like a native Japanese speaker. No faults with your diction.

Hikaroo
You have a charming mature voice. It captured my attention pretty quickly.
Backing was a bit too loud for your singing.

I found your intonation to be quite pleasant. There were some points that had me going ‘hmmm’, though. It sounded like your voice was about to crack, but you managed to move on without any noticeable inhibition.
Rhythm was solid. Nice to hear someone sit back on it when they’re in complete control.
There was some dynamic variation, but I felt it could have been more. Where you had semiquaver lead ins to longer notes (itsumo mayou kedo – the ‘itsumo’), I felt you could have put a small emphasis on the lead in; a small crescendo to accent the quick, rising lead in would have been icing on the cake.
You captured the mood very well. I liked it a lot.
In terms of diction, I think you’d be able to speak Japanese pretty well (if you don’t already), but I think some people may be able to pick out that you’re not a native speaker (correct me if I’m wrong) by the way you pronounce some of the syllables. It caught my ears (not unpleasantly) when some of the words were pronounced differently than I expected to hear them.

Sephibox
The only place where your tuning was questionable was on ‘kimi to hanarete’ and similar sounding melismas. The rest of the time, your tuning was essentially perfect.
Rhythm was solid.
Your opening line was too strong after the intro. Kinda killed the mood.
I like the dynamic variation and mood changes. If I have one complaint, it’s that your louds could be louder. Otherwise, great.
You sound like a native Japanese speaker. Enough said.

Tenikime
Tuning in the guitar was a touch off, but your voice kept its own.
Rhythm was perfect.
What can I say about your musicianship. I got chills listening to you play and sing.
The only qualm I have is that some of your words in the lower section got a little lost.

Absolutely brilliant.

Purple
You were slightly out of tune with your backing the whole time. You were in tune with yourself about 90% of the time, though.
Your rhythm was 99% in sync with your backing. At most, you were a demisemiquaver out.
You needed a bit more dynamic variation. You did the obvious ones as you sang higher, but the phrases that don’t jump also need to be shaped.
The biggest problem I have with your singing is your bulging on the ends of notes. For such a lyrical, restrainedly romantic song, you needed a bit more love and a bit (well, maybe more than a bit) less hormones in your voice =P
If someone came up to you and sang ‘I loooove YOOOOOOOU!!!!’, I can guess you’d be a bit… perturbed, to say the least. Take care of the ends of phrases and you’ll capture everyone’s heart (or their attention, at least).
No problems understanding you.

Kizunami
Love your tuning.
Love your rhythm.
I don’t like your unwillingness to go full bottle at the choruses. You have a huge swell from the rest of the band, and you hold back to be drowned out by the others. DON’T DO THIS. YOUR SINGING IS GREAT, SO LET EVERYONE KNOW ABOUT IT. You gave about… 3% of what you could have given.
Your voice is very clear, and you are very easy to understand. For the life of me, I could not understand a single word the original artists sang. Your rendition is word perfect.

Rockenroll
The opening whispers are too soft to be heard over the guitar.
Balance is an issue – the guitar is too loud for your singing.
Your singing is good; the tuning is good in the solo parts, the rhythm is secure. Well done.
When it got to the multiple voices, was that you recording yourself and layering it (which I think it was), or was that another person? Either way, tuning issues and rhythm issues emerged there. If it was you by yourself, then I’ll let it pass.
As for musicianship… I felt some words stuck out at the wrong spots. For example, you went ‘aWAAAAAAAAY from this’ as if you had just spotted a giant tarantula sitting next to you. Accenting is fine, but that was too much to the point of ‘gross’.
Dynamic contrasts were good (not counting the ‘aWAAAAAAAAY’s).
The vocalisation of notes at the start after the opening stanza seemed a little pointless, and you seemed to reflect that in your delivery.
Easy 10 points for diction here. You were easy to understand.

Dootiez
What can I say?
Tuning isn’t an issue here, so you won’t be marked on it.
You sat back on the rhythm, which shows you have fairly good control of it. The only place where it got unsettled was ‘and fast, and slow, and fast, and slow’.
I enjoyed your chuckle in the song; it shows your personality, and also shows that you’re having a good time performing the song. Other than that, there isn’t much else I can assess your musicianship with. The song was essentially performed around the same pitch and volume.
There are parts where I had to listen carefully to understand what you were saying. I suppose that’s the style of speech needed for this kind of music, but I still feel some words could have been clearer.

To me, this is something much too easy for you. I want you to sing something more challenging next round.

Fohfoh
You need to give more when you sing. Put the mic further away from your mouth and give more with your sound. To me, this was a very cautious performance.
Your tuning is very, very good; especially with a piece that firmly hammers a particular tonality. I can’t find any fault with your intonation… which is saying something.
Your rhythm was also pretty good. Just one spot was affected because of breathing (at the end, during the rall). Be careful to stay in time when you sing short notes.
For a piece like this, you NEED dynamic contrast to make it interesting. Otherwise, it’s no better than a warm-up exercise that just happens to have lyrics. The melodic contour goes up and down very symmetrically; match it with dynamic contour. Hairpin phrases fit perfectly here.
I did find that your ends of notes were pleasant to listen to.
Great diction, no problems.

Hirose
Whatever you did to your recording effects, it made your speech very hard to understand. Your voice is nice, but for the life of me, I could not write down (even phonetically) 1/3 of the stuff you sang.

Your tuning was alright. When you had small melodic steps, that’s where your intonation tended to suffer. Apart from that it was fine. Your highest note towards the end of the song was quite nice. More on that later. At the descending passages towards the end, I found that your voice lost focus and started to go all over the place. Remember not to lose concentration.
Your rhythm was pretty steady; some entries had a little lack of direction – you were unsure how to begin. Remember that there are peaks of phrases that you have to grow to; reflect this when you start a line.
I really like your dynamic contrasts. You also made your vocal timbre change to match, which I quite liked as well. I’m also very glad you didn’t cut your notes short.
Now, back to the peak of the piece. You managed to lead into the note nicely, but the way you came away from it wasn’t quite so nice. Try to keep an evenness of tone.
Diction is not something I can comment on, since I have 0 knowledge of Spanish. I will say, however, that whatever effect you used on your recording made your attacks very mushy. An interesting idea doing a Spanish dub of a Japanese song, though. An interesting, and well executed idea.

Jigenbakuda
I really like your delivery of the song.

Intonation was very good.
Rhythm was pretty solid, but after the break in the middle section, you had a little difficulty latching back onto the beat. Other than that, your overall rhythm was relaxed and settled.
I think your dynamic variation was just right for this song; any louder and you would have ruined the effect a bit. Only bit that could have been better is your conveyance of mood, especially in the ‘are? Chotto, ne’ spoken part. It was there, but it needed to be more.
Diction was good. Not many problems understanding you. Just some odd accenting here and there.
Nice work hitting the high notes without cracking or going out of tune.
What I particularly enjoyed about your singing was the conservative use of vibrato. Whether it was deliberate or not is one thing, but it worked.

Lupajunie
Your guitar is out of tune and too loud for your singing.
The intro does not match the rest of the song at all.
Interesting mic effect on your voice.

Tuning is pretty good. Please tune the guitar before you play next time.
Rhythm seemed to wander in a few places, but was otherwise fine.
Nice dynamic variations here, good mood changes, nice note endings. I felt your soft passages could have been a bit softer (which means you need to make that guitar shut up for a bit); you’ll have the audience’s full attention if you do this.
No problems understanding your singing. You have a nice voice for this sort of song.

Naruchan16
Your recording is quite soft and poor quality. It’s a shame. Your voice is very nice.

Your tuning was essentially spot on except for a particular melisma before each chorus (I think the syllable was ‘*ou’). There were some other spots here and there, too, but it wasn’t a major problem.
Your rhythm was also very good. You meshed very well with your backing and the harmonisation. You kept it nice and bouncy to match your backing. Nice work.
You have a lovely, potentially bright, lyrical voice… BUT YOU NEED TO SHOW IT OFF. The only time I felt you really had a good amount of dynamic variation was at the ending phrase, but you had the right amount of latent energy the whole way through.
Your pronunciation was spot on.

TheZombie
Your tuning was pretty good overall. I have nothing really to complain about. I did notice that you did hit some passing notes a little off-pitch, but nothing that made my ears bleed.
With the harmonised parts, was that you in both parts? It sounds like it is. Good job on getting both parts in tune with each other.
Your voice type seems to really suit the kind of song this is. Just be careful to make all the words understandable.
Rhythm was pretty much bang on. I did notice small discrepancies here and there, but it was very minor.
I think you could have made more of the changing moods in the verses. Add more dynamic contrasts, and we have a great entry.

Venuslove
Try not to talk over the intro =P
Your backing is too loud for your singing.

Tuning is quite good. I can’t find many faults with it.
Some of your entries were a bit early, highlighted by the backing harmony coming in after you did. Otherwise, the rhythm was reasonably relaxed.
I felt you could have given a little more variation in terms of vocal timbre. The dynamic changes were good, but needed a bit of exaggeration.
Some of your words got lost, probably as a result of the balance problem, but I felt it was also partly because you didn’t enunciate them clearly. Otherwise, your pronunciation was very good.

(Prizes are shaping up too. I think you’ll liek em. (All rewards will be awarded RIGHT at the end of the competition.)