The 5th BSG Singing Competition with $600 in Prizes Is Now Open!

We love the best good and the worst bad singers equally

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It has been a while, but we are back with the 5th BSG Singing Competition with $600 in cash to give away! Everyone’s favorite singing event where we appreciate both good and bad singers equally is officially open with the publication of this post, so read on for all the details, then get to picking your song and amazing us with your beautiful or horrible singing. We want this one to be the biggest yet, so don’t hesitate to share the competition around, and encourage others to join the party. Lets go!

Quick details

Two main categories with $100 max grand prize for the good category and $100 max for the bad category.
For each main category there are Second Place prizes of $75, third place prizes of $50, 4th place prizes of $25, and 5th place prizes of $15; with three additional $10 prizes, and two $20 duet prizes.
All solo category entries are submitted through this google form.
All duet category entries are submitted through this google form.
Open to anyone, not only blind singers.
All genres are encouraged and accepted.
Judging will be live on stream on Friday April 5th, and Saturday April 6th(or only April 6th) by Smoke & Hannibal. More on that below.
We are accepting song submissions starting with the release of this blog post on March 1, 2024.
Entries open until Sunday March 31, 2024 at 11:59pm eastern.
This is a competition of cover songs, and only new cover songs are accepted.
Optional mixing services provided by Quacker, but deadline of Sunday March 24, 2024
Everything else covered in the rules later on in this blog post.

What Is The BSG Singing Competition

Even though this is the fifth time we’ve done this, it is very important to read this section. Since this isn’t your standard singing competition, it can be confusing for some folks, and I’d like to clear up as much of the potential confusion as possible right off the top.
There are two categories in every BSG Singing Competition; the good category and the bad category. This is pretty self explanatory, the good category is for good singers recording good covers, and the bad category is for bad singers submitting bad covers. This doesn’t refer to the quality of the recording, but rather the quality of the voice doing the singing.
Everyone knows about good singing, it is everywhere, and we universally appreciate and celebrate the talent these singers have. Lots and lots of these individuals have entered into the BSG Singing Competitions, and every time they impress us and everyone watching the streams. Beautiful songs sung by people with beautiful voices, and it is so amazing how talented you all truly are.
On the flip side there are those bad singers who’s voice ensures they should never record a song to share with others…until the BSG Singing Competitions came around. We also love and appreciate the performances of the bad singers equally to the good ones, but for different reasons. There is something so enjoyable and comical about one of us who is bad at singing and knows it, but nevertheless belting out lines to a song we have no right singing. It is fun to share and listen to together.
When you combine these two opposite sides of the singing spectrum you get the BSG Singing Competition, and the reason for our two categories. It is a singing competition for the best of the best, and the worst of the worst, and they all get paid based on how good or bad they are. The most unique singing competition you’ll find, and it is a highlight of the year every time a new one launches.

How We Judge The Good Category Of The Competition

This seems to be another topic of confusion when it comes to the good category, and that seems to be my fault for not explaining it properly during the past 4 singing competitions. I’ll make an attempt to really drive home the point here.

This is not a competition of who can belt out the loudest:
There are competitions where the judging is seemingly based on who can sing the loudest, or hit the highest note. This is not how the BSG Singing Competition works. That doesn’t mean that it is not important however, as of course it can be a large part of someone’s style, and there are few things greater than someone who nails a hard song properly, and I hope we get some in this competition. Music is so much more than a high note and singing loud though, it is conveying a song and making the audience feel something. A perfectly sung song performed by a robot doesn’t bring us in, it doesn’t play with our emotions, it isn’t human, and we love the human aspect of music. That being said…if you can belt it out and also make us feel your emotional connection to the song, then hit us in our feels hard and you’ll get all the monies.

We don’t give…and won’t be giving people a numerical score for their performances:
This is mainly because of the inherent issues with this system. Your score for the first person you listen to will not be judged the same as the last person you listen to. After listening to more people your scoring criteria will change, and that will curve your scores the farther you get into a competition. This would result in needing to change numbers to ensure the person who is actually the best singer with the best performance has the highest number, and it is a headache no one wants to deal with. it is quite easy to know who is the best, and no number changes that. Me and Hannibal have independent ranking lists we use as the competition goes on, and chat can influence us when we get into a stalemate, but we have always been almost identical in our end of competition rankings. It is these rankings that determine the winners at the end.

A winner does not need to be technically perfect in every aspect of their singing:
Some people’s voices naturally hold and convey pain, longing, loss, joy, love, happiness, or seduction, and not every one of these people will hit every note perfect during a performance. We all know singers who really aren’t the best singers, but they can change our mood completely with one performance, that is what this section is about. This ties into the first point I made, but is also slightly different, and needs to be really stressed. You don’t need to be a perfect technical singer to place in one of our Singing Competitions. Does that mean that perfection is not important, no it does not, as a perfect singer who also conveys feelings in their music is a golden unicorn we’ll give all the money to. Just realize that some people may miss a note here or there, is that a deal breaker…no, does it hurt their potential placement…yes, but keep it in mind when we are judging on stream.

Song Choice Does Matter:
When you are trying to convey your singing ability it is important to pick a song that does at least part of the job for you. If you have the most beautiful majestic voice, but pick a song that is semi-monotone it won’t be doing you any favors, and it will be hard to judge it. You don’t need to over think it, just don’t go too generic, pick something that allows you to show off for us…it is a competition after all.

Some past good singing competition winners to illustrate the above points

Conclusion:
Take all these into account as a whole, and you’ll have a basis for what we are looking for in the good category. It isn’t just one, or part of one and not the other, but everything as a complete whole. You are all so talented and we can’t wait to see what you have for us!
Submit your Solo entry here.
Submit your duet entry here.

How We Judge The Bad Category Of The Competition

This is much easier, but a lot of the aspects from the good category still apply.
This Category is not about over the top exaggerated bad singing:
If you are a bad singer there is no helping it., and you don’t need help, you can just be yourself. This is exactly what this competition is for, naturally bad singers. Just be yourself, and sing in your voice, There is no need to put on an over the top show. That being said, there is a fine line between picking a song you cannot sing to intentionally emphasize your horrible singing verses exaggerating your bad singing to sound worse in a fake way. Being fake is no way to win, so just be yourself and let your naturally bad singing take front stage. This is not an acting competition, it is a singing competition.

Have confidence in your bad singing:
This is one of the most difficult things for us bad singers, because we know we are bad, and we should have no confidence in our singing. This is how you do good in a bad singing competition though, and it is a big factor in your performance. You need to be bad, and you need to be confident like you are the best singer on earth…even though you are the farthest thing from it. We look for this, and if you can master it you will make everyone laugh out loud, and you’ll be guaranteed to place.

Song Choice Does Matter:
This is arguably more important than in the good category. You can really put on a show if you pick the right song for the bad category. You want something that is out of your comfort zone, and something to put on a show for everyone. It is good to think outside the box, and go with something people will appreciate. Don’t hesitate…pick that right song and show us how bad you really are.

Some past Bad singing competition winners to illustrate the above points

Remember it is simple…just be yourself:
If you are a bad singer just be yourself…a bad singer, and we’ll love it. This is much easier than the good category ’cause we are already bad, so who cares, just be bad and own it!
Submit your Solo entry here.
Submit your duet entry here.

The Two Categories, The Two Streams, The Bonus Categories, & How The Prizes Scale

For the first time we are opening up the possibility to two streams. One for the good category, and one for the bad category. This is dependent on how many total entries we get however. It will be detailed below in its own section.
As mentioned above there is a good and bad category,and for each category the first place prize is $100. In both the good and bad category there needs to be a minimum of 5 entries for the category to happen. That’s 5 in the good category, and 5 also in the bad category.
We are keeping the system in place where prizes unlock based on the amount of people entering. In addition to that each prize goes up depending on how many people enter in that category. This means we can give away more, and everyone benefits from sharing the singing competition around and encouraging others to join.

Unlocking Two Streams

Ever since the massive boom in entries for the 3rd Singing Competition people have been asking us to think about splitting the singing competition into two streams on different days. Well after much weighing of the pros and cons, we decided to give it a shot this time. Like everything else in this section, it is up to the participants of the singing competition to make it happen.
If we get over 25 good entries, or 15 bad entries, or 40 or more total entries of any category we’ll split it into two streams. This means you better put on your sharing is caring face and get enough people to enter into the competition to make this a reality.
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If we reach this goal then there will be one stream on Friday April 5 for the good singers, and another stream on Saturday April 6th for the bad singers. Day one for the good singers will be more serious, where we aren’t partaking in excessive adult beverages, instead focusing on the beautiful performances. On day two when we get to the bad singers the gloves come off, and we let the beverages flow. It will be a celebration of all the bad singers where we drink with everyone and have a grand ol’ time listening to bad music.
Another perk to having two streams is the ability to go back and listen to songs when we are not 100% sure about their placement. With split streams they are shorter, and this will give us more time for this feature. There will also be a straw poll in chat for people to vote on what songs they think we should be listening to again, if they think they deserve to be heard again at the end.
If we don’t reach our threshold for splitting the stream there will be one stream on Saturday April 6th as normal, and we’ll follow previous singing competition formats. There will be an equal rotation between the entries in different categories on stream,and we’ll announce all winners at the end of the stream.

Unlocking Prizes in The Two Main Categories

The unlocking schedule for prizes in the two main categories is listed below.

At 5 entries in a category 1st place is unlocked. It starts at $70 and goes up by $5 for each additional entry up to $100.
At 7 entries in a category second place is unlocked. It starts out at $45 and goes up by $5 for each additional entry up to $75.
At 10 entries in a category 3rd place is unlocked. It starts out at $25 and goes up by $5 for each additional entry up to $50.
At 12 entries in a category 4th place is unlocked. It starts out at $10 and goes up by $5 for each additional entry up to $25.
At 15 entries in a category 5th place is unlocked. It starts at $15 and stays at $15.
If 15 entries are reached every prize will be maxed out for each place.

This means the more people you can get to enter the better, since for each person the prize pool goes up. Honestly get everyone to join, the more the better. In the past even those who didn’t win were some of the favorites by myself, Hannibal and everyone listening. If you are reading this and on the fence, do it and enter. Even if you don’t think you’ll win you could end up very surprised, and no matter what it is just a hell of a lot of fun. We all come together to enjoy everything there is to enjoy about all spectrums of the musical world.
Submit your Solo entry here.

Unlocking Two Categories For The Duets

The duet category has two $20 prizes up for grabs, but the way it is given out is dependent on how many people submit duets.
This isn’t actually an unlocking of prizes, but an unlocking of two categories. If we get at least 4 good duets and also 4 bad duets, then we will do a good and bad category. This could be a tall order, but I have faith in you all to unlock our first ever good bad duet category. People have been asking for us to do this, and here it is, the rest is up to you to find a partner and submit. First place for the best good and the worst bad duet will get a $20 prize.
If we don’t get at least four in each category then we’ll just mash them all together and me and Hannibal will pick our favorites, and each of those duets will get a $20 prize.
Note: If you are submitting a duet you will need to mix it yourself. Quacker’s Mixing service will not work for the duet category. There are way too many variables and creative decisions to make with a duet, and that is for each person to make on their own.
Submit your duet entry here.

Unlocking The Wildcard Prizes

Back in the third singing competition we introduced Smoke’s wildcard and Hannibal’s wildcard Prizes. For the 5th BSG Singing Competition these prizes will be unlocked once we get at least 10 entries in both categories.
This is a simple concept, and wide open for anyone to win. It can go to anyone who impresses us but didn’t win, hits on a lot of BSG memes but doesn’t win, or anything else we personally decide on. This is completely up to us with no guidelines for judging, or anything concrete, it is just whatever we want. Each wildcard winner will get a $10 prize.

Unlocking The People’s Choice Award

This one is just unlocked by default. The people in chat will vote on who they feel should be their collective wildcard, and whoever gets the most votes will win a $10 prize along with the admiration of chat. There will be a straw poll posted during the live stream, and people will be able to cast their vote on who should get the people’s choice award. This will include both good and bad categories, and voting will not conclude until the end of the second day if the stream is split.

Conclusion on all the unlockables

This time the total of all the potential prizes is up to $600. This is more than we have ever given away, and a lot of thought has been put into how everything scales, even more than in past competitions. The prizes and even the stream schedule are very much in your hands, so share share share, and get as many people as possible to join so it can get maxed out at $600.

Special Surprises & Pick Our Triet Song with Sarah Joyce

It is not fair to ask anyone to do something we wouldn’t do ourselves, so me and Hannibal are also going to do some horrific singing for everyone to enjoy. This time around we are going to each sing our own solo songs, and we’ll be playing them for the first time on stream.
We are still going to be doing a duet together, because whiskey nipples and pocket cheese is too powerful of a group to retire so soon. Who knows what song we’ll be singing, but if you know then you probably already know.

New! Choose what song Sarah Sings With Us!

In addition to the three songs listed above poor Sarah Joyce has agreed to do another Triet with us, and you can pick the song. There is a list of 10 songs to choose from in a post on the BSG Blog, and you can bid on the song you want.
View the list of songs you can pick for us to sing together on the BSG Blog.

The Rules & How To Enter

If you submit your song then you are giving me(Smoke) permission to make it downloadable from BSG, or streamable via a link you provide after the stream.
Submissions for the 5th singing competition open on March 1st 2024 at 12:01am eastern. Submissions close at 11:59pm eastern on March 31 2024. Your song must be submitted to the proper Google Form between these times.
The grand prize scales in each category depending on how many people enter, up to $100 for first place, $75 for 2nd place, $50 for 3rd place, $25 for 4th place, and $15 for 5th place.
We will need both a minimum of five good submissions and 5 bad submissions for the stream to be scheduled, if we don’t get 5 and 5 there will be no stream or competition.
If we get over 25 good entries, or over 15 bad entries, or a total of 40 or more entries, we’ll be splitting it into two streams of good and bad singers on Friday April 5, and Saturday April 6.
The person submitting classifies their song as a good cover, or a bad cover. This way we know how to listen to and judge the song.
Submissions are open as of the publishing of this blog post. We will stop accepting Submissions at 11:59pm eastern on March 31, 2024.
The two winners from the previous competition cannot enter, Sorry Olga and Gruntok. Winners from other competitions are welcome and encouraged to enter again however.
Anyone can enter, blind, sighted, and anything in between. The only exceptions are Smoke, Hannibal, and Sarah Joyce who cannot enter.
Only cover songs: This is so we can relate to the song, and so we have a base to go off of. No originals.
The song has to be a recording just for this competition, not a previously released cover song.
Don’t put aggressive effects on your voice. Less is always better. We want singing, not covering up the singing. subtle effects are fine, but just don’t get carried away please.
No use of autotunes, Melodyne, or similar software to pitch correct your voice is allowed in any way at all. Using such tools may result in you getting disqualified.
No use of AI for vocals in any way. This will result in an instant lifetime ban from this and all future BSG competitions and giveaways.
If you cover a song actually cover the song with words, do not just make mouth noises or you will be disqualified and we will skip your song on stream.
Try to perform close enough to your microphone so we can hear you, this is especially true if you are playing music or an instrument on the recording. We need to hear your voice to judge your song.
A hard limit of 6 minutes and 30 seconds maximum length on each song: This is so we don’t have a 15 minute song to take up all the length of the stream.
This is about enjoying people’s covers and having fun, so we won’t be making fun of the submissions flagged as good.
Amine or Sarah will pre-listen to the song to make sure it is playable, so we can truly listen to each song for the first time on stream. I will mail you via the email you provide in the google form to let you know your song plays and you are officially entered.
If you require your song to be mixed, we have someone to do this. Quacker will be mixing again, but your deadline will be 1 week earlier. So for mixing you must submit by Sunday March 24, 2024 at 11:59pm eastern time.
After submissions are closed I’ll randomize the order of songs using random.org, and publish the order in a blog post the week of the live stream.
Submissions are done completely through a Google Form this time, no other ways of submitting will be accepted.
The person who sings the song must be the one to submit it, unless they cannot because of physical or technological reasons. Then and only then a 3rd party can help by filling out the form and submitting on their behalf if the singer gives permission first.
When naming your file include the Category, Your Public Name, the Original Song Title, and the Original Artist. for example bad-CaptainHannibal-HipsDontLie-Shakira.mp3, or Good-SarahJoyceOcampo-Empire-Shakira.mp3, or Bad-FleshyImpactDrills-Thriller-MichaelJackson.mp3.

In conclusion

The goal of these singing competitions isn’t just to give people money for singing, but to have fun. No matter who wins, who places, it is about the experience we all share together for one single reason…music. This is only made better with more people entering, and that means it is all up to you reading this to make this the best singing competition yet.
No matter the level of your recording setup you have something you can sing into. Even if you just have a phone…we’ve had people win lots of money using their phones, so hit the record button and sing everyone a song. Every person out there has something to offer, and the potential to bring everyone together over their voice. We just organize this competition, the people entering are what make it great.
The most entries we’ve ever had is 63 from the 3rd singing competition, and the 4th was a close second with 60 entries. I think we need to blow those numbers out of the water, so lets do it! It is all up to everyone reading this, sing your heart out and make this the best BSG Singing Competition yet.
Submit your Solo entry here.
Submit your duet entry here.

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