[SotW] Song of the Week - Statistics Thread

First SoTW (voting): Week 65
First SoTW (nominating): Week 67
First placing: Week 92
First gold: Week 101
Length between first nomination and first placing: 25 weeks
Length between first nomination and first gold: 34 weeks
Other awards: 1 battle winner

1st: 8
2nd: 3
3rd: 5
4th: 7
5th: 4
6th: 13
7th: 10
8th: 6

Nomination history (with comments/descriptions for each song):

Spoiler:

Week 67: Lost Technology ~ Thunder Force Sound Track - Cyber Cave - 4th
My first nom. It's a rockin' song with some electronic backing, and a solo that I really love. The week had several rockin' songs if I remember correctly, though, and this one placed in the middle of the pack.

Week 70: Solstice: The Quest for the Staff of Demnos (Game Rip) - Main Theme - 6th
After hearing some Tim Follin love in the BSC, I went right off and nominated this song Solstice. Well, I was going to nominate Title Theme, but that had already been nominated weeks before, so I went for the other main song in the game. I was shocked it didn't do better.

Week 73: beatmania IIDX 11 IIDX RED Original Soundtrack - Fake Time - 7th
Looking back, this wasn't the greatest of nominations. It's a really high energy rock song, but it's definitely not the best IIDX has to offer.

Week 76: Lunar 2 Eternal Blue Complete - Field To Tomorrow - 5th
There are a couple other tracks on this soundtrack I'd like to nominate, but I figure this one would appeal to most. Perhaps the awesomeness of that Mega Mari track that week distracted everyone from this. >_>

Week 79: pop'n music Inst Best - DRAGON DANCE revision-2 - 7th
I knew this wasn't going to place high when I nominated it. It creates a great atmosphere, which I love about it, and is a bit trance-y. But, the repetitiveness and some poor instrument choices (including something really whiny and high-pitched for half the song) obviously didn't appeal to most.

Week 82: Space Invaders '91 (Game Rip) - Rounds 2, 11, 14 - 7th
My first nom from a game I had never played. I find it really catchy and upbeat, and since I didn't give it a BCC nomination, I figured I'd throw it in SOTW. It turned out there was a bit of chiptune backlash going on, and it was the victim of being part of an outstanding week. I still think this should've placed higher.

Week 86: ATP Tour Championship Tennis (Game Rip) - Title Screen - 5th
Another chiptune I didn't give a nomination to in the BCC but wanted people to hear. It's a little repetitive, and was mostly viewed as above average.

Week 89: Capcom Music Generation Area 88 Original Soundtrack - Front Line Base - 7th
This song is totally awesome. I don't get you people.

Week 92: Albert Odyssey Gaiden ~ Legend of Eldean - Main Theme 1 - 3rd
YAY I FINALLY PLACED. Not the most complex of songs, but great instrument choice and an overall beautiful sound.

Week 95: pop'n music 10 AC & CS pop'n music 8 - Atlantic Spotted Dolphin - 3rd
Two placings in a row! The one problem here is, I wasn't able to vote this week. Two more points would've put this track in first, and I could've had my first gold. D'oh.

Week 98: ResQ - Level 4A - 7th
I nominated this while my computer was broken and I couldn't see my nom list, and it had the easiest name to remember. I didn't expect it to do great, even though it was a pretty rockin'/groovin Genesis chiptune.

Week 101: Snow in Saigon - Larmes de la lune - 1st
My first gold, and my first song nominated not actually from a game. Osamu Kubota generally does outstanding work in Bemani games, creating unique songs for the series, using classical or jazzy styles a lot. I figured something from his CD that was longer than the bemani standard two minutes and more developed would better showcase his abilities. It was hard to pick an individual track, it's all good stuff.

Week 103: beatmaniaIIDX 14 GOLD ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACKS - Reflection Into the EDEN - 1st
Holy wow, two golds in a row! I nominated this as soon as I could following the soundtrack's release. This is a great song that I felt could do really well. Pretty much everything of Nekomata Master's in Bemani is good stuff.

Week 105: Devil Crash / Alien Crush - Devil Crash "Heavy Metal" - 4th
This track is some awesome rockin' from Noriyuki Iwadare. But oh, how quickly I regret giving this song only two points instead of a biased three. It tied in points with the bronze track, but lost the tiebreaker. And sorry if I sniped your nom, CHz.

Week 107: Astal (Game Rip) - Glacial Rift - 6th
This is a nice atmospheric track, as the track title fits it nicely. But it seems more people wanted something developed, as it didn't do too well.

Week 109: Cotton 2 ~Magical Night Dreams~ - The Castle in the Sky - 6th
I've never played this game, but I saw some gameplay videos of it a long time ago. And while the music certainly isn't the best, I found it to be quite catchy. I could still recall songs from that video months later. And I think was the best representative of the catchy soundtrack, and a good song too.

Week 112: Zombies Ate My Neighbors (SNES Game Rip) - Mars Needs Cheerleaders - 6th
Zombies Ate My Neighbors is a game that takes a load of horror genres, and parodies them all, while still keeping a horror atmosphere. The title of this song reflects the parody nature greatly. The song itself feels like something out of some old Martian invasion B-movie with high pitched synths and harps and other odd instruments. I didn't expect everyone to "get" this song, so I'm fine with 6th. And hmm, three sixth places in a row.

Week 116: Barbie Super Model (SNES Game Rip) - Stage 1 - 7th
I am completely surprised this did not take 8th place. It's from an awful SNES game, has some weak synths, and it's rather short, which is enough to draw hate for it from all over. But I find it to be rather catchy, and it's got a cool bass line. And it seems enough people enjoyed it to just keep it out of last. Aww yeah.

Week 118: milestone - Nageki no ki Arbre triste -a la viennoise- - 4th
Milestone is dj Taka's (of the Bemani games) works album. I don't like Taka's music. But he also had other artists remix a bunch of his songs, and they improved a lot of them. This one is by Osamu Kubota (who earned me my first gold!) and is one of my favorites from this album. A real jazzy take on the song, and a bit all over the place, but overall very cool.

Week 121: The King of Fighters '97 Arrange Sound Trax - Rhythmic Hallucination (Mid Boss Stage) - 2nd
This taking second place kind of surprised me, considering it was in a good week, and it is weak in a few areas. But it also has some really good ideas, with some dark sounds and some really odd sounds. And that droning flatline part that Crash hated is what I find the best part of the song. It goes on for a smidgen longer than you would expect, grabbing your attention midway through and showing you the song won't just stick to the norm.

Week 123: Ken Griffey Jr.'s Winning Run (Game Rip) - Main Theme - 4th
This track was one of those "oh god I should nominate SOMETHING" tracks. It's from a mid-90's sports game, and uses several cheesy cliches of mid-90's techno. Throw in some odd voice samples, and you have something could possible be completely awful. But it's sort of catchy and exciting, and all the oddities are used to the song's advantage. Plus it's a Rare game, so it had the sound quality similar to the DKC games, very good for the SNES.

Week 126: Growlanser Generations Soundtrack - Wandering - 3rd
I'll go with what Moguta said for this: "Simple yet wonderfully calming flute & string melody, with a mellow piano backing. The bass that comes in adds in a nice smooth beat. Love how it ends with the piano getting its own soft solo."

Week 129: beyond the dead future - oriental mechanist - 6th
Beyond the dead future is Slake's solo album. Slake is a guy known for creating quirky, weird pieces, and not afraid to experiment completely outrageous ways. This track is full of crazy percussion, and has a lot of heavy bass samples backing it. It's a lot different from standard SOTW fare, and figured I'd throw it in as something unique. It did about as well as I expected.

Week 132: pop'n music 13 Carnival AC & CS pop'n music 11 - fffff - 6th
I was kind of disappointed with this result. I thought this song was all kinds of awesome, with energy out the wazoo. But it seems most voters didn't care for it, or maybe it was in a strong week, so it finished low.

Week 134: Insector X - ORIENTAL FEAR (Pyramid) - 7th
This was sort of a last second nom. I love this whole soundtrack, and had no idea what to pick. I figured this one wasn't too far out there, so I went with it. It seemed I had the wrong idea. I probably should've picked one of the crazier songs.

Week 137: The Alternate Phantom: ZIZZ Original Sound Tracks for Phantom of Inferno - Glass City - 6th
This was an odd song that I came across at random. It's a rock song with some crazy distortion effects that build as the song goes on. The song starts to get into weird dissonant territory (which can be cool) when things suddenly drop to a calm, and a soft whisper voice comes in. Hell if I know what it says, but during the voice, there's a long, subtle build up before the song goes back into the rockin' from before. Some people seemed to enjoy it, so that's good.

Week 140: beatmania HIROSHI WATANABE beat indication - DEEP CLEAR EYES - 1st & BATTLE WINNER
HIROSHI GOD DAMN WATANABE. The man makes awesome music.

Week 143: Putty Squad (SNES Game Rip) - Dr. Sushi's Laboratory of Terror - 6th
This is an SNES song that probably started as an Amiga song at one point. As such, it has a lot of styling found in Amiga music, but made with the SNES sound systems. I thought that was interesting enough to bring it up, and didn't really expect much more than what this got. I enjoy the song, but it's not completely amazing, just a cool discovery I wanted to share. I think I achieved that.

Week 145: Neon FM: Dance Radio (Game Rip) - Girlz Buttz - 8th
Well, I've been at this for nearly 80 weeks, I guess it's time something of mine took 8th place. It's sad though, this is a hilarious song.

Week 147: Axelay - Mother (3st BGM) - 2nd
Well, this song is of course amazing, and it placed pretty well. Axelay's got a great soundtrack, and this is my favorite of the bunch.

Week 149: Downtown Nekketsu Koushinkyoku Soreyuke Daiundoukai (NES Game Rip) - Fighting Tournament - 8th
This was disappointing. It's an NES chiptune by Kazuo Sawa, from one of the Kunio-kun games. The opening of it is really cool, it has the stutter effects that I don't believe I've ever heard in an NES chiptune before. Beyond that, it's got a pretty standard feel to it, which is why I guess it received few points. It doesn't do a lot to wow beyond the intro, but I felt it was solid throughout and doesn't do anything wrong.

Week 152: Age Of Empires Compilation Soundtrack - Gamelan - 3rd
This has been a favorite of mine for years. The Age of Empires soundtrack does a good job conveying a tribal style in its music. This is one of several good songs from the game, using a nice array of percussive sounds and a gamelan.

Week 154: pop'n music 11 AC ♥ CS pop'n music 9 - AUSLANDSGESPRÄCH [80's WERK] - 8th
Well, that's disappointing. I always thought this was a pretty cool song, very different. It uses various telephone sounds, and as the title implies, mixes it in with a Kraftwek-like old German techno sound. I thought it was fun, and the phone sounds and operator voice samples added some humor to it, but some people just found it annoying.

Week 156: Space Megaforce (Game Rip) - Black Hole Anomalies - 4th
Space Megaforce, or Super Aleste as it is known to some people, is an SNES shmup with some pretty decent music. I thought this was the best of the bunch, so I brought it forth. It seemed to do pretty well - people liked the sudden switch that occurred halfway through the song. But, it fell just short of bronze.

Week 158: milestone -dj TAKA- - MOON -Sun Mix- - 6th
This is my second nomination from the milestone album. Like my first nomination, I picked one of the songs not done by dj Taka, but a remix done by another artist. Akira Yamaoka did this one, and once again I felt this was a huge improvement over the original Taka song. It took kind of a mundane song with some meh lyrics, and made it into a very upbeat, dance style song. The lyrics were sampled, and sort of played around with in fun ways. I think ultimately, some people didn't care for the lyrics in this form either.

Week 160: OutRun 2019 (Game Rip) - Victorious - 4th
This is some good Genesis chiptune fun. It's pretty darn long for a Genesis tune, and from a game that I think has a spectacular soundtrack. There was lots to choose from here, but I eventually went with this. Decent placing.

Week 163: Master Takahashi's Super Adventure Island - Ice Groove - 8th
Augh, another 8th place. This song isn't the most developed, but like the title implies, gets in a nice groove. It's mellow, chill, and pretty fun. But it didn't do all that great. Guess voters like stuff with a bit more substance to it.

Week 165: beatmaniaIIDX12 HAPPY SKY ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK - mind the gap - 5th
Someone else nominated a track titled "Mind the Gap", so I thought I'd be funny and nom this. Turns out the other song was actually called "Subway", and the entire pun was lost, as was the point of the nom. But it's still a decent song, as it placed in the middle. The IIDX genre of it is "UK Progressive", if that explains anything.

Week 167: La-Mulana (Game Rip) - Curse of IRON PIPE - 3rd
La-Mulana's music is an imitation MSX-style, very much like the old chiptune sounds. This song not only has a cool name, but some catchy segments and lots of energetic chiptune sounds.

Week 169: Lost Technology ~ Thunder Force Sound Track - Steel of Destiny - 5th
Whoops, I forgot to vote. This would've placed higher. More greating rocking from this soundtrack (along with my first nom). Yeah, it's not much beyond rockin', but it's ROCKIN'.

Week 171: ChaosField Sound Track - back in to the machine -phase 5- - 6th
This song is stage 5 theme from a bullet hell shmup game, and very techno in style. It doesn't do too much to stand out from standard music like this, except a couple parts where the music has a brief pause of silence, like a skip in the song, which is usually a cool effect. It's also pretty catchy, but maybe that's just because I've played the game a bunch.

Week 173: Baten Kaitos ~Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean~ Original Soundtrack - House of Cards - 7th
Oh god Motoi Sakuraba. Should come in last for that fact alone, but wait! It has none of the trademark Sakuraba style! It's got a bit of a trippy/prog rock style to it, and is pretty calming to listen to. I nominated it because of how much it deviates from Sakuraba's norm, and how he can actually do some cool stuff if he tries. Or maybe just by accident.

Week 175: Moon Crystal (Game Rip) - Evil Forest (Stage 1) - 7th
Hey, another 7th place. This chiptune was apparently in the best chiptune contest a couple years back? I didn't even remember that. It did decent there, but not so well in this week of sotw. It's a little short, but has some good sound quality for the NES.

Week 178: Beatmania IIDX 10th Style Original Sountrack - Let's Run -Post Production Mitsuto Suzuki Mix- - 7th
I absolutely love this song. It's a new wave song, with lyrics and electronic instrumentation similar to the kind of stuff that was big in the 80's. It's too bad I missed voting this week, because this song would've finished much higher with my vote.

Week 180: Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete Music Soundtrack - Ghaleon's Theme - 6th
Years back, when I was completely obsessed with the Lunar games, this song topped my favorites from the soundtrack. While I might not claim it to be as great anymore, I still really enjoy it.

Week 182: Rise of the Triad: Dark War (Game Rip) - Goin' Down The Fast Way - 1st
Wow, it's been a while since I got a gold. I discovered this one back through the vgmq, and that little 30 second snippet hooked me. When I finally found the full song, I discovered that it was a really good song throughout. It was designed with an old PC midi sound, but overcomes that with great energy and runs of notes.

Week 184: beatmania IIDX 9th style ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK - BREEDING (premium party MIX) - 6th
Hey, more IIDX music. There's a lot of it though, so this isn't really an overkill from the series. Anyways, Slake is awesome and makes great music. It's kind of quirky though, but it's loads of fun for those who can get into it.

Week 186: pop'n music 12 Iroha AC ♥ CS pop'n music 10 - MAGICAL VOICE SHOWER - 1st
This song is done entirely in an a capella style. It's unique and upbeat and the voices harmonize well. It's a little short, but I'd like to think that's good for something different like this, as it doesn't overstay its welcome.

Week 189: Little Samson (Game Rip) - Lickle's Theme - 8th
Whoops, another week I forget to vote, and another poor finish. Little Samson is an overlooked NES title from late in the system's life. This song gets the NES sound down well, but as pointed out, maybe lacks a little in the good melody department.

Week 191: Wurm: Journey to the Center of the Earth (Game Rip) - Title - 2nd
This was for the under 1 minute song theme week. I came across this game and the title theme years ago. It's really catchy, but loops after only 15 or 20 seconds. I never would've nominated it normally, as it really lacked in depth, but the theme week was a perfect opportunity. For the short time it does take, it does well for an NES chiptune.

Week 207: beatmania IIDX 16 EMPRESS ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK - Mind Mapping - 1st
I took a bit of an unexpected break from SotW between the last nom and this. I came back in style though, and got a rare first place song for me on my return. A very fun electro track that combines some chiptuney sounds in with it. It took third in the battle week.

Week 209: Insector X - PARTY IN THEIR NEST (Imperial Underground) - 1st
Two firsts in a row? That hasn't happened in over 100 weeks. Insector-X has a weird soundtrack, really eccentric. It does some odd stuff, but the risks turn into some awesome stuff in a handful of songs. This one has a harmonica piece in the middle that almost seems out of place until the song does stuff that is even more out of place.

Week 211: starmine - Harmony and Lovely -contemporary chamber mix- - 6th
I thought this had the ability to grab a first place too. This was off of Beatmania artist Ryu's solo album, but it is a remix of one of his songs done by Tomosuke, another Beatmania artist. There's not much "chamber" in this song, but fast piano parts and whispering vocal effects sprinkled in creating an upbeat but still mellow remix of the original dancey techno song.

Week 212: nouvelle vague -G.S.M. Taito 7- - Rising - 4th
This one I found only shortly before nominating it, but I had to get it in right away. This song is an arrangement of a song from the game Warrior Blade. It's a nice fusion piece with some amazing drumwork. Holy cow those drums.

Week 213: Super Castlevania IV (Game Rip) - Secret Room (Bonus BGM) - 1st
By some weird twist, I got noms in three consecutive weeks. This one was due to another theme week of obscure songs from well-known games. SCIV has a fantastic soundtrack, and this song is only played in well-hidden areas of the game. It's unique for a Castlevania tune too, which helped.

Week 215: Super Valis IV (Game Rip) - Vecanti - 8th
Super Valis 4 is a game with some weird saxophone synths in a lot of its music, and some echo-y drums. This features both of those. It's also the theme for the first area of the game, so probably the one the most work was put into. It's a decent song, but I didn't expect it to do superbly.

Jam it back in, in the dark.