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Saturday, November 24, 2018

ST15R2 Reviews: Edric Haleen

Hello again, Participants!

Same preamble -- congrats on completing and submitting a song and then turning it over to the reviewers!  I hope you're all having fun this SpinTunes -- here we go!

LYRICS:

A lot of my general comments (about rhymes and rhyme schemes, etc.) would be essentially the same as last time.

•  Zoe Gray was once again most adept at rhyming . . . but still had a single inexact pair ("eyes"/"realized").  (And Zoe?  I don't know if "music" and "all this" were meant to have rhymed in your chorus.  That is, I can't tell if it starts out ABAB or ABCB.  If I listen further, the second half is clearly ABCB(BB) . . . but then again, that half of the chorus is also structured just a little differently right there where you've now got me listening comparatively.  Now, if the rest of the song were rhymed perfectly without exception, I'd go ahead and assume that it wasn't meant to rhyme and maybe just point out how close to each other they turned out to be.  But as there's already one example of "close-enough" to be found in your lyric . . .)

•  None of the metrical frameworks were absolute again.  (Zoe was closest, but gave a halting delivery on "oh, please" and a hesitation between "please/am i ready" in the first verse that she didn't duplicate at the corresponding points of the second verse.)

•  And another list of ever-so-slightly mangled words this round . . .
Glen Raphael -- PROgramMERS 
Zoe Gray -- (ev'ryTHING?  ev'RYthing?) 
Vom Vorton -- oVER 
Good Guy Sôjàbé -- invinciBLE/spectacuLAR 
Brian Gray -- hypocriSY  (this was also the root of your one not-quite-true rhyme -- you forced "aren't me" and "hypocrisy" to sound like they rhyme by mis-accenting hypocrisy.)
Ominous Ride -- chemisTRY 
Third Cat -- oPEN 
Marlon -- witCHES 
RedWatcher -- (poWER?  POW-WER?) 
Matchy Matchy -- recoverING
Plus a few weird accents within sentences.
PigFarmer Jr. -- 'CAUSE you died (when the more important word is "died").  Perhaps if you had placed "died" on the downbeat and added a few more syllables (e.g. "'cause you DIED in a really bad year in my life..."). 
PigFarmer Jr. -- [I wish I could say] "thank YOU" (this just sits on the melodic line in a weird way). 
Governing Dynamics -- CAN do (particularly as paired with "deSERVE you").  If one says the phrase, "It's all I can do . . ." the accent is usually on "all" or "do," or even both.  (Otherwise, you're saying that you're incapable of doing anything BUT the one thing you're describing.)

MUSIC:

Standout thoughts again:
Zoe Gray -- Another really strong musical entry.  Of the four sections (verse, pre-chorus, chorus, and bridge), I think the pre-chorus is the weakest (and a bit reminiscent of Katy Perry).  The bridge is fine and I don't have a lot to say about it.  But from there on things rise and rise in my estimation.  The verses are very good.  The choruses are even better.  The vocal harmonies throughout are very well done and used to good effect.  But the thing I liked above all was the octave jumps on the final "how to sing"s -- those were stellar!  Good job [again!], Zoe!
Vom Vorton -- Wanted to give a special shout out for your music.  I thought it was very well-written, well-performed, and well-recorded.  I didn't think the lyric, as a whole, was as good as the music upon which it rode (although there were definitely some good bits within the lyric), but did I want to make sure that I gave you props for your music in this round.
Good Guy Sôjàbé -- Really liked your music, too.  When your vocals came in at the beginning, I thought they were a bit of a "let-down," but then when the arrangement really kicked it, in brought things back together again nicely.  And when the arrangement thinned out for the start of Verse Two, the vocals were right back to feeling "empty" for me, so it really is the strength of the music you wrote that carried this song in my mind.  Congrats!
Brian Gray -- You know that I often reward people [and by "people," I often mean "you"] for their musical or lyrical ambition.  I'm going to ding you pretty hard on something else later on, but I want to make sure that I spend some time here acknowledging your musical ambition in this song.  The aural soundscape you created, when coupled with the melody and the harmonic structures and the arrangement, definitely establishes an evocative world.  I also like how the song changes emotionally throughout the three minutes -- from dystopian despair to introspective musing to triumphal paeans for the fallen.  The ever-shifting key signatures add to this nicely, as well -- keeping the listener off-balance even while shepherding him/her through the various aspects of the new realities on Earth.  And the arrangement was a lot of fun.  (I've been called out for crappy brass sounds before, so I'll mention that yes, some of your brass sounds are, as Dave Leigh would say, "whhuufff."  But I also know that none of us have a full symphony orchestra on retainer, so I'm going to just imagine the brass sounds I know you really WANTED there, because your intentions are certainly abundantly clear.)
Temnere -- You just keep on impressing us, don't you?  Before the album went up, I was really interested in how you, with your style, would deal with a "gratitude" challenge . . . and you pleasantly surprised me!  You actually simultaneously departed from your style enough to "sell" the song, while departing from your style a LOT LESS than I suspected you'd have to!  And it's still of a very high quality -- both in terms of melody and in terms of musical accompaniment.  Keep rockin' -- you do seem to kick ass at it!
Faster Jackalope -- Crazy props to you for including a live violin and French horn among the instruments performed!  I thought the arrangement was lovely (with the possible exception of the banjo which I thought was maybe a little too "harsh" or "strident" for this particular mix).  The melody of this song was good and the harmonic structure was solid.  The lyric of this particular song, to my mind, was just "okay" . . . which probably would have kept this song in the "middle" echelon of my rankings had it not been for the excellent arrangement and performance of your instrumentation.  The only regret I have -- and this might be because I've played French horn myself since I was in 7th grade band -- is that the horn didn't sound like it got to "soar" appropriately during its solo.  I wanted Jill to really let it fly at 3:02, but instead it felt restrained.  I don't know if she recorded the line solo or with the group, but it sounds on the recording as if she was playing "live" with the band and then correspondingly didn't want to overpower the other performers.  If she had gone for "greater gusto" on those soaring bits, with more air and more volume, it not only would have helped the couple of notes that went a bit flat but it would have changed the feel of her whole overall performance.  (Recording instrumental lines solo, of course, allows for this, knowing that the track can be mixed back "down" to the appropriate level for the final recording.  If Jill did record those lines solo, then I just wish she had let those awesome parts really ring out . . .)
Governing Dynamics -- Umm . . . what happened?  This song sounded disjointed and out of sync in a way I've never heard from you before.  There were points where it sounded like you were actually falling behind by full sixteenth notes at times.  (And I did ask myself if this were perhaps an intentional choice to match some facet of the story being told, but that didn't seem to scan.)  My notes from my initial listen actually included the following quote:  "One section is either way out of tune or horribly written?!"  And the percussion -- which in a song like this is supposed to be keeping the rhythm -- seemed to keep wandering at spots?  And there were a couple spots where both the guitars and the vocals both seemed out of tune . . . both with the song and with each other?  I know you're ALWAYS of a higher quality than I'm hearing here, so I'm imagining that it was in some way, shape, or form a really tough week for you.  Illness?  Equipment troubles?  Software vexations?  If that's it, then here's wishing you a speedy recovery . . .
Menage a Tune -- Often, the "Kiper-accompaniment" is the driving force of a Menage a Tune song.  This time the arrangement almost seems "phoned in" from Ted.  (See my notes from the last round, delivered to Marlon, about Mike Lombardo's "auto-pilot" entry in MoSF...)  And your choice of mallets is somewhat baffling, in that they start off the song sounding out-of-tune.  My notes from my initial listen actually included the following quote:  "Intro is odd as hell," and I actually STOPPED THE SONG thirteen seconds into the first listen and replayed the intro THREE TIMES just to figure out the tonal center of the song before going on and hearing the rest of your entry.  If Faster Jackalope's song is an example of the song being improved by an arrangement, then this song is an example of a song being degraded by an arrangement.  There's actually nothing really much wrong with the style of the accompaniment, or the harmonic structure or the melody of this song . . . but now when I judge this song, I have to basically ignore everything I hear on your recording, and judge instead what this song would sound like with a better singer and a completely different instrumentation.
Marlon -- THERE ya go!  Thanks for coming back and giving us this!  I really like the song -- not just what you wrote, but also the fun you had playing it on your guitar.  I know sometimes the guitar chords went a bit "sideways" on you at a couple of points in the bridge and into the final chorus, but I REALLY liked your little fill from 1:03-1:05.  I didn't think its corollary at 2:05-2:06 was as good, but I did enjoy your strumming-with-reckless-abandon when the song started to really rock out.  I know that this single-take recording would end up getting DQ'd due to its lack of vocal harmonies if it were an actual entry, but after I summarily-dismissed your effort from Round 1, I did want to take some time to commend you for your effort in Round 2.  I suspect the reason Dave likes covering your songs as he does is because he can also listen through rudimentary recording techniques to appreciate songwriting quality underneath.
Red Watcher -- I wanted to commend your orchestration and recording in I Wasn't The One.  Sounds very professional.  The only thing that struck was that your switch to falsetto, while well-executed, feels to me to actually work against the sentiment about which you're singing.  Particularly in a song where the very premise for its existence is the imperative to express gratitude for something, to have the vocal line -- repeated in the recurring chorus, no less --  "I should grateful I wasn't the one" be the line that sounds weakest when sung is probably a bit of a mistake.  (But if you listen only to your delivery, it does sound nice...)

STRATIFICATION:

Again -- all of the above was written after my initial rounds of listening.  Now I'll play all of the songs again on my computer, write comments about each as I go along, and sort them into my upper, middle, and lower ranking echelons.

Work of the Programmers (prior to Dave sharing a link to "Work of the Weavers") -- A lively jig!  Putting this in my upper echelon right away.  I there are a couple of weird breathing-places here and there, but I also understand that you were away from your home base during this songwriting window.  Only thing that really ate at my brain while listening to your song was probably due to what's most likely just an unfortunate typo ("hae") in your lyric.  When you perform a song in a particular style (in this case, with an Irish brogue), it needs to be performed consistently.  And my brain kept thinking it found parts in the lyric that were "less-Irishy" and "more-Irishy" . . . and then "SUPER-Irishy" when you got to "You wouldn’a hae a thing" in each chorus.  And perhaps it's just an aural illusion, but some of the "had"s really sound a lot like actual "hae"s (1:21 in particular) -- whereas must of the "had"s that preceded "Google maps" had nice, hard "d"s at the end of them.  So anyway -- this is just a picky, picky thing that's not going to affect your ranking or anything like that.  Good, fun song.  Thanks, Glen!
Work of the Programmers (subsequent to Dave sharing a link to "Work of the Weavers") -- Sorry, my plagiarism-checker wasn't switched on.  Funny -- now that I see Donald Shaw's original lyrics, it turns out that "had" was the actual typo.  Wouldn'a hae guessed.  Anyway -- not an original melody.  That right there probably means a DQ, even before addressing the question of whether your lyrics are an homage, a parody, or "heavily borrowed."  Sorry, Glen!  I do still like the song -- and props to your dad and his fellow programmers -- but it does say in the rules that there needs to be original music...
How to Sing -- I've already talked a bit about this song above.  It's definitely going into the upper echelon.  I do have a question about the lyric in the pre-chorus:  Do you really think you need the "no" and the "oh" that seem needlessly appended to the ends of lines that don't really require them?  (That "oh" really seems especially awkward when you sing it.)  I really liked the lyric as a whole -- you picked a good topic and then gave it treatment both subtle and deep . . . where a lot of your competitor's lyrics were stuck in a more superficial-sounding place.  You're definitely setting yourself up as the "one to beat" in this SpinTunes . . . but don't let off the gas.  (I know of what I speak . . . see also: Spintunes #1.)
Thank You Rafa & Agnes -- I like this song a lot.  I don't know whether it should be the lowest song in my upper echelon, or the highest song in my middle echelon, but it's definitely fun and well done.  The thing that's holding it back in my mind is its lyric -- it needs a little more polish and a little more depth.  It comes off as either needing to be a little less familiar if the audience is all of us or a little more familiar if the audience is your cats.  (For instance -- "a tennis player and a film director/became a ladder climber and a shoe inspector" seems like it's for our benefit, even though the song is ostensibly addressed to Rafa and Agnes proper.)  But the music's fun and upbeat, and I like it a lot.
Upward & Onward -- Another song for the upper echelon.  Like I said before, the only "letdowns" in this song are from 0:11 to 0:22 and from 1:35 to 1:46.  Everything else sounds great.  (I still wish everyone's rhymes were more exact across the board . . . but I already promised that near-rhymes wouldn't affect my rankings.  This song in particular was like "InDependence" in that it started off not rhyming . . . but then gradually picked up more and more rhymes -- sometimes in weird places -- which made my brain markedly unhappy.)
So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish -- A pretty solid song.  Definitely going in the middle echelon.  Another song whose lyric could use a little more depth, as the masculine rhymes you chose seem really "easy" and lend the lyric a somewhat superficial feel.  I'm also a little distracted by how similarly your chorus tracks with much of Pachelbel's Canon . . . but then again, Pachelbel's Canon has survived and thrived for centuries now, so that can't be all bad, can it?
InDependence -- In my initial notes, I wrote, "weird bridge cements middle."  Most of the music was quite nice (although the piano cut through a bit too strongly), and the lyric was heartfelt.  But that bridge didn't really do it for me.  (Also -- while you did have a lot of things that rhymed well throughout the song, you started out right off the bat with two bad pairs in particularly noticeable spots ["around"/"sounds" and "gone"/"song"], which meant that all your good rhymes became kind of an afterthought . . . at least until "love"/"drug" went and rent that all again.  But again, my persnickety-ness about rhymes won't affect my rankings.)  On a separate note -- if you wanted to resubmit your song without the accidental 37 seconds of silence at the end, I'm sure Dave'd be happy to replace the track for you...
Your Name -- Musically masterful.  An interesting and (can I call it fun?!) successor to "For The Glory of Gleeble Glorp."  And divorced from this competition, I absolutely love this song.  But I'm nevertheless sending this to the lower echelon of my rankings -- and the reason why has to do entirely with the extent to which I think you met the challenge.  The text of the challenge (with emphasis added so I can expound upon my thinking) read, "Write a song that expresses or conveys GENUINE gratitude for someone or something. Your song may be fictional but THE EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE SHOULD BE SINCERE. Your song must include vocal harmonies."  In this sense, I think that this song did the worst at meeting the challenge we gave everyone.  I'm not really reading "sincere gratitude" from this character.  I mean . . . yeah, he's alive.  But you've done such a complete job of painting so hopelessly bleak a picture of what the world is like any more (and what existence on/in that world will entail) that this guy doesn't seem like he's exactly jumping for joy to learn that someone else stepped in and took the bullet (slime slug) meant for him.  But even this could have been redeemed if the character had jumped up and vowed to make things right . . . vowed to beat the aliens back and reclaim this world for the human race . . . or at least to kill the particular alien who had proved to be the end of his anonymous savior.  But instead, you have your character shrink BACK into himself to offer his thanks (this withdrawal is scored right into your orchestration) and then deliver an extraordinarily passive-aggressive promise that whatever he does will be in his savior's [unknown] name.  (And everything you've given us prior to that moment suggests heavily that there's a good chance that he'll soon be captured and compelled to join the other chanting, moaning slaves.)  So I'm not hearing a song that proffers sincere gratitude as we envisioned it when we wrote the challenge.  So while I'm sure your craft and musicianship will all but guarantee you the very top spot in my lower echelon, this song's not going to be a front-runner on my list this time.  Sorry.
Thanks For No(thing) -- Don't know/understand the story behind this.  I'm hoping it was just that you had a rough week that unexpectedly didn't leave time for a full-fledged entry, and that you submitted this as at least some small morsel or quality while simultaneously essentially recusing yourself from the round at large.  But whatever its inception-story, I'm going to send this song to the bottom of my rankings just as I did with Marlon's entry last round.  Sorry.  Hope all is well with all of you.
Not This Time -- Yeah -- definitely another song for the upper echelon.  I'll confess I had to ask for help in interpreting your lyric.  I didn't know if this was sung by a particular character from some comic book universe or something.  But Dave filled me in, saying, "The singer has been trapped in a karmic cycle of death and rebirth for hundreds of lifetimes, unable to progress. With the help of friends he's able to overcome the mistakes of the past and move forward his spiritual journey."  Sounds like a good reason for sincere gratitude to me.  I really like your entries so far this SpinTunes, and I can easily imagine you winning it all if the cards fall right . . .
Dodging Bullets -- Okay, this sounds good.  Well produced and recorded, with a good melody and chord progression.  Just trying to figure out what's going on with your lyric construction.  Your verses about "Mama," the "autumn breeze" woman and the "LA 10" woman are similar enough to suggest that they should be a "matched set."  But there's a completely different rhyme scheme in the second half of the third verse as there is in the first two.  Is there a reason for this (other than expedience)?  I'm going to keep this song in my middle echelon rather than considering whether it's strong enough to propel itself into the upper echelon -- mostly due to this perplexing facet of the lyrics's construction.  But I do enjoy listening to the song.
Selfless Heart -- Bits of this lyric are a bit odd to my brain.  Like I wrote about PigFarmer Jr.'s song, the masculine rhymes you chose seem "easy" ("might"/"night"?  "plateful"/"grateful"?) and lend the lyric a somewhat superficial feel, which cuts against the deep connection/support that the singer's trying to relate/describe through these lyrics.  But this song gets bumped into the upper echelon by virtue of its superb arrangement.  Well done.
Looking for Light -- A perfectly serviceable song.  Nothing bad I can say about it (save the weird opening "rhyme" of "oPEN/again"), but also nothing that's screaming out to me to consider it for the upper echelon.  A good, solid song that fits squarely in the middle echelon.
Guiding Star -- Yeah.  If Brian Gray's song for this round didn't exist, I still wouldn't know whether this should be at the top of my bottom echelon or the bottom of my middle echelon.  But Brian's song does exist (and it's already been promised the very top slot of my bottom echelon) . . . and I can't have that song finish below this song in my rankings.  So I have to move this into my lower echelon of rankings . . . and if you had asked me last week if that was ever likely to happen to a Governing Dynamics song, I'd have probably answered, "Not a chance."  So I look forward to hearing what you do in the future, but this song's a "pass" for me.  (Sorry.)
I Wish (Jennifer's Song) -- Okay, so some things in the lyric jumped out at me.  One -- did you change the rhyme scheme for the second verse, or did you really try to rhyme "yard" and "was" in Verse 1?  Two -- instead of setting "wish" on a melisma (twice!) in each pre-chorus, why didn't you just make the line "I wish that you could see her," which wouldn't sound so stilted and artificial?  (The final recurrence could still be as you sing it.)  This is the kind of little, easily-ironed-out glitch in lyric writing that always bothered me when Mark Meritt kept doing it.  (Best example of what I'm talking about?  "Like cho-co-late and peanut butter" instead of "Like peanut butter AND choc'late" at 3:44 in "Do It (Duet).")  So in addition to the fact that the arrangement seemed lazy (as I discussed above), it also seems like bits of the lyric were written somewhat lazily as well.  Unlike the previous song, this song's still strong enough overall that I'm going to keep it in my middle echelon, but there I know there will be other songs that are better constructed that will end up ranking higher than this one.
A New Ideal -- Okay -- this one had the weirdest rhyme scheme of any of the songs.  To such an extent that it ended up feeling a lot like, "Eh -- we're just gonna throw in rhymes whenever we feel like it, or whenever it's convenient to do so."  And that lyric-writing laziness is going to doom this song to my lower echelon of rankings.  Yes, there's lots of details to be mined in the lyrics about mathematics and mathematical history -- and kudos for bringing attention to one of our female mathematicians!  And the music is bouncy and fun.  But in a songwriting competition, I can't reward such a sloppy approach to lyric construction.  Sorry.
I Am Not Your Princess -- Silly topic, but big fun to be had in this song.  If this wasn't a shadow and if I wouldn't have had to DQ it for not having any vocal harmonies, I would have happily put this in my middle echelon of rankings.
I Wasn't the One -- Okay, so some things in the lyric jumped out at me.  One -- did you change the rhyme scheme for the second verse, or did you really try to rhyme "not" and "heart" in Verse 1 and "go" and "alone" in Verse 2?  Two -- you have a really, REALLY strong [partial] rhyme with "face [it]" and "erase" in Verse 3.  Does that imply that you meant to similarly try to rhyme "hap[pen]" and "sat[isfy]" in Verse 1 and "hap[pen]" and "sad" in Verse 2?  Or is your lyric construction more like Jocko Homomorphism's (i.e. "I'll-rhyme-whenever-it-seems-convenient-to-do-so")?  I liked listening to the song . . . but had this song not been a shadow, these niggling questions would probably have kept it in the upper ranks of the middle echelon, not the upper echelon itself.
Match -- A perfectly serviceable, run-of-the-mill Dr. Lindyke song.  Would have been in the middle of the middle echelon had it not been a shadow.  But may I indulge myself and good-naturedly berate you for being the only entry in the entirety of SpinTunes #15 so far whose every attempted rhyme fails to actually rhyme properly?  ;-)
Kindness Reigns Power -- I like this song, too.  Another one that would have been in high up in the middle echelon if it weren't a shadow.  But I'm going to point out that this song enjoys the dubious distinction of having the greatest number of rhymes-that-don't-really-rhyme.  (Dave's song right before this one had the highest percentage, but this one had more.)
Thanks -- Has moments of Billy Joel amidst some nice 50s-style vocal harmonies.  Never really grabbed me, but it was pleasant enough and would definitely have been in my middle echelon of rankings had it not been a shadow.



Okay -- I've followed a similar schedule to last round, and having fewer entries to review means it's now just 11:46 p.m. on Friday instead of 1:36 a.m. on Saturday.  But just like last time, I'm gonna go get some sleep and then suss out the final rankings when I wake up.  Best of luck to all of you in the next round!

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