What’s that? You’ve never heard of Fedivision?! You’re missing out!

Fedivision is a yearly music contest, directly inspired by the Eurovision Song Contest. This year featured a whopping 43 entries from all across the network, spanning genres from electronic rock and metal to sea shanties and synthpop. It’s an eclectic mix, to say the least.

The Fedivision bot recently announced the winning tracks, based on votes submitted to it by listeners. Here are the top 5:

#5 – “Mars” – Bajoran Republic

Artist: TQ

This is a song about climate injustice, people being too rich for their own good and ignorant about the future. But hey, you can still dance to it!

TQ

This track is an absolute bop, reminiscent of 80’s synth with a bit of a Europop influence. Catchy, with some tremendous lyrics and strongly nostalgic vibes.

#4 – “the verse might rise again” – New Cyberia

Artist: controlfreak

We are on the grim precipace of the most real threats of co-option, resource overpowering and islanding of the fedi. Keep fedi weird and embrace usable home feeds.

controlfreak

This is a fun entry from Control Freak: pumping beats, strange synth tones, and a recital of many different fediverse platform names. The track is oddly hypnotic, and reminiscent of binaural beats.

#3 – “Mostly I Don’t Mind” – Disassociated Empire of Sadsackistan

Artist: negativeplayers

Musical idea all started off with a nice little downward chromatic movement in D. Retune to an almost Open D tuning. Was traveling the next day so quickly recorded the acoustic guitar part. Spent down time over the next week working on the arrangements. Then over a day or two recorded all the live instruments and vocals. It’s an ode to being mostly comfortable living with depression as a regular state of being.

negativeplayers

A wonderful acoustic guitar entry, with some nice dissonance. Perfect melancholy vibes for a rainy day, with an emphasis on the struggle to move on from one’s past.

#2 – “Spirits” – Lost Railroad Valley

Artist: Stephan

I explained the lyrics to my singer with the words “it’s about the afterlife, or prospero’s island, or both”. Well I guess that’s what it is. 😉 The song collaboration with the wonderful @andijah@masto.ai on lead vocals and the by no means less wonderful @MyLoFy@mastodon.social on guitars. Also, this field is too small.

Stephan

This song starts out with a fat bass synth and some plucky chords, and leads into some lovely operatic vocals. The lyrics are surreal and poetic, with imagery like horses roaming free and playing with spirits. Some pretty piano and absolutely sick guitar shredding towards the end.

#1 – “Haul on the Jib: A Recursive C Shanty” – The Old Mermaid Townsfolk

Artist: Futzle

Haul on the Jib” is a recursive C shanty about Fibonacci numbers (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, …). Sea shanties became popular during the early Days of Lockdown, and while several nerdy types joked that a C shanty would be fun, none ever materialized.

With “Haul on the Jib” I wanted to make something that was accessible to non-geeks but with hidden and chuckle-worthy easter eggs for computer-touchers, with additional bonus points for sheer earworminess.

While the verse uses the Dorian mode in true sea shanty style, I’ll concede that the major-key chorus is more of a jig than a shanty. Please look out for the Old Mermaid Townsfolk’s next C shanty, “Twenty-Five Thousand Tail Calls on the Wall”.

Futzle

This is so much fun! Very reminiscent of one of my favorite groups, The Longest Johns. The vocals have a wonderful synthesized effect that almost seems like a computer is singing, and the song is incredibly nerdy. A worthy winner of this year’s contest!

That about sums it up for the top five winners, but there are so many more entries worth checking out!

You can listen to them all on Fedivision’s website.