The New Underdog List

[CapnCoconuts]

I spent some time looking in the archives and found a topic about a list of underdog audio developers. For some reason, the guy maintaining that list stopped doing so about 4 years ago, but the topic kept going in spite of that, and it was eventually locked.

Since I haven't seen anyone else attempt to start it up again, and since the mod that locked the topic said that it was OK to make a new topic, well... I think I'll volunteer, with this being the new topic. So now, without further ado...

Welcome to the New Underdog List!

The purpose of this topic is to find and showcase works made with talent that have been buried by the loads of not-so-talented stuff on the portal. By doing so, hopefully the underdogs will be a little more mainstream, and a bit easier to access by people people who want good music.

What Should be Considered an Underdog?

This is one of these things that can be subjective in certain circumstances. Nonetheless, for the sake of order and decency, there has to be some objective criteria for nominations to the list. So, I submit to you the following:

1) The musician must have composed at least 3 songs, each of which should be of respectable quality.
Having a few songs to listen to is nice, as it allows others to get a feel for the composer's style. It'd also be nice if those songs were actually pleasant to listen to.

2) Pick the song of theirs which you think is best and link to it.
That song will be recommended on the list. Alternatively, pick a song that has gotten much less attention than the others.

3) No more than 5 reviews for each of the four most recent submissions.
Or three, if the nominee only has the bare minimum of songs. On another note, please don't nominate an artist that's submitted loads of music that's gotten loads of reviews who just happened to submit 4+ songs a few hours ago. OF COURSE he's not going to have enough reviews on his new songs.

4) Only nominate active artists unless your potential nominee is totally awesome.
If they haven't submitted audio in a month, they might not care about submitting audio anymore, and thus might not care about being an Underdog... so unless your dude is totally rad, look for someone else to nominate.

5) DO NOT NOMINATE YOURSELF.

Sadly, the majority of the Underdog nominations on the old topic were self-nominations, which kinda made that topic suck. Sorry, but you can't self-nominate here. If you want to self-advertise your audio, there's a topic for that.

How This Works

Nominations and debate on those nominations will occur in this thread. Periodically, I will make news posts containing the lists on my user page. Links to list updates will be provided. And with that... happy nominating to the nominators, and may all of you as a whole enjoy all that the list has to offer!

[Wurfel-Waffles]

I nominate both MockOff

• 

  Conformity

  by MockOff

  From my spring album Myself;Yourself

  Song

  Indie

  2,763 Views

  PLAY

and
Krautergeist

• Unpublished Submission

for their braveries on music making.

and this is very serious! LOL

[MockOff]

At 6/30/13 02:54 AM, Wurfel-Waffles wrote: I nominate both MockOff http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/530896
and
Krautergeist http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/541106
for their braveries on music making.

and this is very serious! LOL

Oh wow, didn't expect to receive a nomination here but I would like to thank you for the nomination. Thank you very much.

[Wurfel-Waffles]

I nominate Bspendlove

• 

  by <deleted>

  4 Views

for his bravery, too!

[CapnCoconuts]

I think I will be posting list updates on a weekly basis. That schedule might change in the future, but it seems acceptable for now.

Anyway, I'm digging what I'm hearing so far. Keep posting nominations!

[Bosa]

At 6/30/13 03:02 PM, Nimble wrote:

At 6/30/13 02:32 AM, Bosa wrote:

This is a good idea, and I hope it will prove to be more fruitful than the last underdog thread. I remember the last one, and it had good intentions at first.

If this thread is moderated correctly, then I see no problem with starting a new underdog list. Even though it's not ran by audio portal veterans like the last one, I still have hope that good will come of this.

I personally nominate Nimble -- Not only does he produce excellent music in my opinion, but I also feel as though he does receive the recognition he deserves (just as so many others on this site).

• 

  [Nim]Act 2: Downtown

  by Nimble

  Now, where were we again?

  Song

  Cinematic

  876 Views

  PLAY

There are many others I would like to mention, but I can do so later and after this thread gains more support.

[CapnCoconuts]

At 6/30/13 03:06 PM, Bosa wrote:
This is a good idea, and I hope it will prove to be more fruitful than the last underdog thread. I remember the last one, and it had good intentions at first.

If this thread is moderated correctly, then I see no problem with starting a new underdog list. Even though it's not ran by audio portal veterans like the last one, I still have hope that good will come of this.

I wonder why no veterans wanted to start anew with it.

I know I only got interested in the portal very recently. However, I've been sporadically writing music for years (perhaps I should submit some of that stuff). Maybe that counts for something... maybe not. Anyway, I'd appreciate it if those of you who are more well-known could help by advertising the list (with respect to the rules, of course).

[CapnCoconuts]

No, no, no. I'm not letting this thread die so easily. Surely it can exist without all the self-nominators. Surely.

I nominate MobiusIII--I l

• 

  Showdown

  by MobiusIII

  It's like a Wild West RPG battle theme, or something?!

  Song

  Video Game

  1,223 Views

  PLAY

On another note, those interested in the list should consider following me. I'd appreciate it if those of you with more popularity than I would try to get more people involved in this. Pretty please?

[FustigateM]

i nominate the Spinwires.

• 

  I Don't Care I Love it

  by SpinWires

  Upbeat Dance Rock Cover of Icona Pop Song I Love it I Don't Care

  Song

  Pop

  9,365 Views

  PLAY

this is definitely not my normal M.O. but i love the danceability and vocal work these guys have.

[CapnCoconuts]

At 7/4/13 01:26 AM, FustigateM wrote: this is definitely not my normal M.O. but i love the danceability and vocal work these guys have.

I'm not much of a Pop guy either, but I have to agree that this is most impressive. Excellent choice.

[CapnCoconuts]

The first list update is now live.

I'm making an incentive to those of you who want some exposure yourselves: all nominators will be listed and linked to alongside their nominees. The more people you nominate, the more links you get (provided that you stay faithful to the nomination guidelines).

[SpinWires]

At 7/4/13 01:26 AM, FustigateM wrote: i nominate the Spinwires.
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/538439
this is definitely not my normal M.O. but i love the danceability and vocal work these guys have.

Thanks dudes!

[CapnCoconuts]

No nominations this week? :(

Regardless, I went through the trouble of finding some underdogs myself, lest the list be left to collect dust. So DarkantheHero, djadj50, and FlyingColours are my selections for this update. The songs of my choice are featured on the blog post.

The list update can be found HERE.

-

Some time ago Bosa sent me a PM showing concern that some people may be afraid to take part in this topic because I'm not an audio veteran. Now if some audio veteran wants to run this and asks me nicely, I'd consider letting him run it, but let's try to reason here for a moment.

I'm making a solid effort to make the audio portal a better place--to help people with talent get noticed. I'm struggling with this because not many people are posting in this topic, nor are many people apparently reading the lists. Some of you who could very well contribute to this list apparently aren't doing so because OMG TEH OP IS NOOB!!11!.

By letting your completely irrational fear keep you from contributing to this topic, you are threatening the Underdog List with failure, which is what you fear. Awfully self-fulfilling, ain't it? Doesn't make much logical sense, does it? Of course it doesn't make any sense. If you were actually contributing to it and sharing it with others, it wouldn't fail. It's your fear that it will fail that will make it fail.

Thus, if you're afraid to take part in this, the only logical response IS to take part in it. Stop being chicken and exercise some basic common sense. Otherwise, if it does fail, you will be responsible for its failure.

Q. E. D.

[Back-From-Purgatory]

At 7/15/13 12:15 AM, CapnCoconuts wrote: Thus, if you're afraid to take part in this, the only logical response IS to take part in it. Stop being chicken and exercise some basic common sense. Otherwise, if it does fail, you will be responsible for its failure.

Q. E. D.

Because attacking the community is going to make people want to participate.

Here's are the issues I have with this:
1: You are accusing the community of not participating because of who you are, how many posts you have, or how new you are to the site because of a single PM someone sent you with a valid concern.

2: The original list had it's own account set up for it, which eliminates any concern of someone using the Underdog list as an excuse to funnel people to their own profile. And I've overlooked the fact that you decided to use your own profile to sport the list until this post.

3: You are accusing the community of being "self-fulfilling", "illogical", and pushing any blame for the list "failing" onto the community.

You are essentially trying to strong arm the community into participating. And you know what? That's a horrible way to try run a community list... making assumptions about, and accusing the very community that participates. I'm sorry, but I'm gonna close this down.

If you want to give this another go, and do it properly, feel free to send me a PM, and we can work something out.

Again, I strongly encourage you to still give shout outs to underrated artists in your newsposts/forum signature (I do this pretty often myself)... but until we can find a more reliable method to hold such a list, I'm not going to let a list created for the purpose of helping people get out there turn into a malicious blame game of who's not participating or why.