Boy, is it time to make another one of these things? Ah, how the days have passed so quickly. Why, it was only yesterday I was sitting on the shitter dreaming up some liner notes (and getting rid of a burrito) for one of these compilations. Well folks, it's that time again. The NFC's talent has proved itself again, and it's bearing fruit. Well, not literally. I mean, not fruit. But, like.....talent......fuck you. Lets get this show on the road.

Last time, excitement was in the air as songs were selected for the NFC's compilation, and a wave of anticipation swept through the board. As it turns out, the compilation was a smashing success. Hundreds downloaded the CD and printed out the artwork. Rasmus Holmen even reported that the CD went to #1 on the Billboard Pop Charts! It's just a shame that he was hyped up on barbiturates and drinking cheap turpentine when he told us. Nonetheless, the board swelled with pride.

Some would say that hearing each other's music brought us closer. Others would say that Madonna has a nice ass. Either way, the first NFC Compilation's success wanted to be duplicated. At first, Rasmus thought of blowing all the cash he made on the first album on Ethiopian whores and Clydesdale horses. Thank goodness he found Jesus. He decided to dedicate his time and efforts to another album. Many were thrilled at this prospect. The scuffle for songs began. As time wore on, Rasmus noticed that the songs didn't come in as frequently, and that he wasn't wearing pants. He called again and again on the members of the board, and they responded brilliantly.

What gives me the warmest, fuzziest feeling (besides fleece jackets) is the fact that many newbies now are submitting their work. They don't care how many people know their names on the board, or how many posts they have, they care about whether or not their music is heard. That is what it's all about, people. Rasmus wanted to create something that would give recognition to people that may normally not have it, and to have a little fun along the way. I invite you all to applaud the actions of our dear webmaster for taking the time and effort to make this possible again. There are some really great songs in this compilation, so spare no expense and download the whole thing. Nirvanacr said so. Stay in school kids, and enjoy the music, something that we sometimes forget about on the board!

- Chris

Note: If you download these MP3s, feel free to convert them to WAV format and burn them to a CD. Just make sure to use the Disc-At-Once option. If you trade a CD sourced from these MP3s, make sure to tell the receipients it was made from MP3s. You will need a 80min CD for the 2nd CD.

To download these songs, click the track number. To get more info on the artist, click the colon next to the name. Selling copies of these CDs for profit is strictly forbidden. This compilation was officially released on June 20, 2001. The names noted for the artists above is not necessarily their real names, or the names of their bands, but simply the usernames they have on the NFC Board. Do not link to these files.

A note on the production:
Most of the songs were submitted electronically in the form of computer files, usually in either the MP3, WMA, WAV or RealAudio formats. Still, some of the songs suffered from being in very poor quality, and some were even dropped entirely just because of this. I wanted to present the songs in as good a quality as possible, even though only a couple of them had been produced professionally (in a studio for example). This is painfully evident in the fact that most of them are in mono (the same signal is repeated in both channels), which doesn't sound all that good. In addition, I needed to remove "hiss" and other annoying background noise(s) from a lot of the songs, and a few had annoying clicks and pops.

CobainIsAlive's song for example suffered from having loud constant hiss and crackles in the background, and several "pops". These were very difficult to get rid of, but I did manage to make it sound a bit better. I ended up cutting out a short guitar intro, actually, because the quality of it was just too poor. With it being a very nice song, it would be a pity to drop it entirely. Another song suffering from severe hiss was kemo's song. It wasn't until the last minute I decided to give it another chance, and try making it sound better. The result is a song without hiss or background noise, but also a sound that is a bit "flat" and clearly has traces of the noise reduction process. Still, I think it sounds significantly better than the alternative.

A song that had somewhat of a dramatic "makeover" was the soothing 'Mellow Jam' by difused. I added some ambience, making it sound more "broad" and "live" and amplified it a bit, among other things. The two brilliant songs by monimino should also have a broader spectrum and actually sound like stereo recordings even though the original tape I received was not recorded like that.

One song even had to be "slowed" because the vocalist was singing a bit too fast (due to being nervous). The slowed down song turned out to be about 40 seconds longer than the original. The result was surprisingly good too, actually. A couple of songs also got re-recorded for the comp, primarily because the original had been in too poor quality.

As it turns out, quite a lot of the songs being submitted mostly consisted of one person playing guitar while singing. So, to accomodate this, I decided to reserve one CD for songs like those, and the other for "band" songs. Alas, CD 1 is mostly comprised of songs with a solo artist, usually playing guitar and singing, or an instrumental of some sorts. Then, the 2nd CD is mostly comprised of songs made by a full band, and thus songs where several people are involved. So, most of the songs on the first CD are relatively quiet and soft melodies, whereas the 2nd is more Rock N' Roll based, with a slow tune here and there. The 2nd CD also has some electronic songs, and essentially covers several different genres and musical styles.

A note on the songs and selection:
The 1st CD starts out with a humorous track made by Mike Ziegler who used to run a Nirvana website called "The Happening". It proceeds with a couple of nice covers and Monimino's terrific "Here lies". It is followed with some additional covers and a few originals. The CD also offers a couple of short guitar solos, and a nice long bass solo by LotusKDC. The CD is concluded with girl's Beatles cover, which would probably "belong" to the 2nd CD but was put here since there was no more room on CD #2! About half the songs on the first CD are covers which is a bit unfortunate, but they are pretty good.

The 2nd CD opens with a great rockin' track by the British band Martyr, and is followed by Exhausted - an artist that also contributed to the first compilation. The third song, by a Swedish band called Reek, was recorded professionally in a studio which you can clearly tell when listening to it. The fifth track is the only one on the CD not by a user of the discussion board. Instead, it is a song taken from a recording I did of a show by my brother's band earlier this year. Track #7 stands a bit out from the rest, but is a very nice one all the same. The rest of the CD is a dirty mix of rock songs and softies, and the CD is concluded with a nice audio track from a video game, provided by oreogasm. Unfortunately, the songs by Martyr are not in as good a quality as they could be, since they were taken from some low quality MP3 files. The band had promised to supply a CD with these songs, but never did, sadly.

- Rasmus Holmen, June 2001.