ST17.3 Reviews and Rankings - Guest Judge Brian Gray

This round, our faithful group of judges is joined by the talented tunesmith, loquacious lyricist, and mellifluous melodist, SpinTunes 12 Champion Brian Gray. Brian's rankings will be equally weighted along with the rest of the judging panel. Here's what Brian has to say:

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Hello!

Hi, I’m Brian. Long-time SpinTuner, but I haven’t been as involved lately as I used to be, so some of you new people may not know me. Not that there’s all that much to know: I make music sometimes, and sometimes I judge music.

When I do judge, I really try to keep the judging to the song itself. Even with respect to the challenge, I generally use that as a gate; once you’re not disqualified, how good is your song? In an ideal world, I’d receive sheet music and chord charts with lyrics written below the notes. But not only is that not realistic, it’s REALLY not realistic to think I can judge a song without knowing the arrangement. So when I give feedback on your production or voice or facility with instruments, I probably didn’t factor that into the ranking. But when I comment on your arrangement, I’m telling you that the arrangement makes me receive the song a certain way, either to its credit or detriment, and that counts.

If you’re interested, here’s the most recent song I wrote. It’s about a school kid who wants to be popular: https://briangray.bandcamp.com/track/popular-table

Rankings:

1. Also in Blue - Mr. Alarm
2. Sober - Until the Page is Torn
3. Jon Porobil - Boomerang (Viv & Hannah) (feat. Mo Ouyang)
4. Ominous Ride - La Minimal
5. Good Guy Sôjàbé - Deified
6. EmKayDeeBee - In Words Drown I
7. Jealous Brother - Dumb muD
8. See-Man-Ski - Never Odd Or Even
9. Vom Vorton - Won't Lovers Revolt Now
10. rackwagon - Backwards in Heels
11. Hot Pink Halo - I Hear The Roar
12. Cavedwellers - Fun E nuF
13. David G. Harrington - Was it a Rat I Saw?
14. The Dutch Widows - A Wapiti

Reviews:

David G. Harrington - Was it a Rat I Saw?

Praise:

• Great use of dynamic range and stereo spectrum; very full production
• I like how you jump out boldly to link the minor and relative major, establishing that you’re playing in this space with the bVII; it’s a fun harmonic place to be

Criticism:

• The verses and chorus are the same
• like “Born in the USA”, so you’re in good company, but this structure carries responsibilities
• The frenetic pace gets exhausting when there’s no let up
• Perhaps in the verses, in addition to cutting the horns and backup vocals, also take the drums down with tighter hi-hat on 16th notes and rimshot snare, introduce a pad (phased?), and use your voice to set a different mood.
• The bridge is too late in the song to serve as a mental break from the repetition
• Just plain too long for its content. 5 minutes is not where you want to land when you’re repeating phrases like “what price are we/you willing to pay” and asking 4 different people if their fame was worth a shorter lifespan.

See-Man-Ski - Never Odd Or Even

Praise:

• Like the 3-4 measure groupings; matches well with the odd-even theme and keeps the listener off-guard
• Nice harmonic space. Are you in Am? Maybe, but then that Em leading to the F begs to differ. Maybe C, and you just don’t resolve to the tonic? Lends the song even more of an unsteady feel. But then you go to C for the chorus, and we get the resolution at a point when the lyrics suggest we shouldn’t have one.
• Good or bad? Is the mismatch intended? The song gives an answer to accompany the resolution, but the answer is itself uncertain.
• Your arrangement and choice of instrumentation is on point, you clearly grasp what needs to provide a percussive effect, what should be a smooth pad, etc. Although…
• I have really good headphones. I can hear that super low beat-3 bass note. Most people probably can’t hear that, might want to think about taking it (or doubling) up an octave.
• Certain parts are clearly default software instruments, but I’m the last person who would have standing to criticize someone for that. Anyway, I’m here to judge your songwriting, not how much money you spent on instruments or your ability to play every instrument in your song personally (nice guitar in the pre-chorus though).

Criticism:

• The chorus feels like there’s too much air between words. Maybe more words, maybe just a more legato singing style or a melody that ranges farther afield? Not sure. But you can add harmonies to “odd or even”, then drop out the drums in “It won’t complete you” to highlight the line and give it anticipation for the next verse.
• Also, consider muddying up that last “you” with a less resolved chord like an Am9

rackwagon - Backwards in Heels

Praise:

• Hey, my wife and I recently saw Swing Time! Great film.
• Nice choice on the palindromic rhyme scheme in the verses
• Pretty depressing central theme: dust -> dance -> dust, and the dance isn’t even your own invention. I dig darkness.

Criticism:

• Not a fan of lampshading a metaphor; show don’t tell:
• I’m the heretofore. I’m every girl who runs at twelve for a foot in the door.
• A fair number of the songs in this round fail to separate the chorus from the verse and raise the energy level sufficiently. Sometimes it’s just production (which I’m trying not to judge heavily), and you get about halfway there with the drums and echoing, but for this one I’m thinking the songwriting itself could have done some heavy lifting. That piano transition could so easily have been one that changes key. Maybe you simply jump up to the relative major, or maybe go another, more difficult way.

EmKayDeeBee - In Words Drown I

Praise:

• Mixed triplets among a straight base-4 matrix
• Harmonies so close to being that kind where you can’t even tell which line is the melody. I’ve always liked this, still looking for a song of my own in which to use it.
• Great arrangement and instrumentation, very natural. Almost like you’re from a part of the world where this style of music is easy to find.

Criticism:

• I’ll admit I have no idea what this song is about. It has the aura of one of those songs where once you’re let in on the secret you’re like “oh of course! It all fits together now!” But maybe not? So many of the lyrics were chosen because they’re palindromes (wolf/flow, war/row, etc.). Nonsense? Or sense?
• Ok, I’m back, having read your song bio. It… sort of makes sense now, as much as it possibly could given the nature of the challenge and the limits it imposes on your lyrical expression.

Good Guy Sôjàbé - Deified

Praise:

• Starting strong with that palindrome in the guitar lead-in!
• Amazing lyric construction, pairing up 5 lines and mirroring them like that. And they work!
• I almost never give points for “how well” a song meets the challenge; it either meets it or not, then I judge the songwriting. But you definitely get a multiplier here for degree of difficulty.

Criticism:

• Impressed, but less a fan of the strict word-based mirroring in the “All my giving…” section. At this point the wording gets clunky in a way that’s probably unavoidable with this style. I go back and forth on this, because it’s so damn clever (the second half answers the question posed in the first), but having to dip into Yoda speak to make it work lands awkwardly. It may simply not be possible to do this gracefully.

Vom Vorton - Won't Lovers Revolt Now

Praise:

• Such a tragedy! Why won’t one of them just call?
• Great use of the bridge/break to separate 1st half from 2nd; keeps it from getting tedious
• I appreciate the planning using the ABAB rhyme scheme so that you’d be BABA on the other end and it still rhymes

Criticism:

• Kind of a nitpick, but the drinking line is such a tautology, was there no other way to get it done? I get the mood and meaning, but… I don’t know, like maybe:
• Drinking over impact can impact over-drinking (dunno, that’s not that great either)

Jealous Brother - Dumb muD

Praise:

• Great, authentic feel
• You do a better job than most at creating a new feel for the chorus section, it pops

Criticism:

• Kind of wish you’d explained a bit in your bio; having a difficult time discerning the meaning. In my imagination the bones underneath the home and the dead men who tell no tales are your ancestors, symbolizing a generational rooting to the area, and why the narrator is stuck and can’t leave. But I could be making all of this up to try to sound smart.

Also in Blue - Mr. Alarm

Praise:

• Dude, this is great.
• Other entrants used the structure where the lines go backward in the second half, but they didn’t perform them over a whole new set of music that introduces different modalities but still feels like the same song

Criticism:

• No much to criticize, except perhaps a more consistent message. Is the alarm good things ending? Or is it comfort? I’m trying to decide if the ticking represents my not having to worry about waking up late, or a threat to rob me of my sweet dreams.
• Of course it could be both, and probably that’s the intent, but the true stroke of genius would be when the lines go backwards the meaning changes from one to the other, from the first half of the song to the second.
• I’ve said this in many other reviews here: what I’m thinking of may not even be possible. Just noodle on it for a few more weeks and let me know, k?

Cavedwellers - Fun E nuF

Praise:

• This song sounds great; the opening chorused guitars in partial counterpoint, the harmonies, excellent production
• The chords and harmonic movement show purpose, progressing from section to section in a way that moves the song forward.

Criticism:

• The actual message of the song just doesn’t land for me. It’s a simple one and appropriate for a song, which I think is why I need to hear it approached sideways. Some other phrase or metaphor that could mean something else but then is revealed to be the main message, that this person (romantic? friend?) is incompatible with the rest of the people in your life. There’s just no hook, from where I sit; it’s too on the nose.

The Dutch Widows - A Wapiti

Praise:

• You draw in the listener immediately with that intro! And leading with forwards/backwards creates an immediate mystery and makes me want to find out where you’re going.

Criticism:

• You decision to cram in as many palindromes as you can is ambitious, but of course you end up with nonsense. Now, a nonsense song can be great, but I think it needs a reason to be nonsense. Weird Al for example did just this, but never said anything about palindromes; he just made a nonsense song sound like Bob Dylan to parody how difficult it is to understand what he’s saying (like verse 3 of “Smells Like Nirvana”): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUQDzj6R3p4
• Not that I’m dinging you for not being Weird Al, that would be immensely unfair. Just that there should be some other kind of layering to a song like this

Hot Pink Halo - I Hear The Roar

Praise:

• Brave, maintaining a purely instrumental arrangement for a minute and a half! I wonder if other judges will mark down for this, but I love it!
• The metaphor likewise comes through just fine; there are few words, but why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?

Criticism:

• That said, you should sink into the metaphor more deeply. I feel none of it in the music. Structurally, it could wind through mode and key changes, then unwind to complete the palindrome. Technically, you could reverb it up to make it feel closed in and lost. Don’t limit yourself to telling your story only through lyrics.

Ominous Ride - La Minimal

Praise:

• Your bio is too harsh. Yes, the technical attempt to mirror your words in stanzas stands zero chance of sounding natural. But in your case, and contrary to some other songs here, they sound “song-y”. You know, that not-natural that we’ve been conditioned to hear as valid song lyrics. So good on you, or as good as it could have been given the circumstances.

Criticism:

• The arrangement and chords start to sound droning and lack punch or variety. If this were cooking, it would be a fat-heavy dish like a chili, without acid notes to stab through the fat and brighten it up. Maybe bringing forward the higher guitars and de-fuzzing them somewhat? Not sure, I’m not really an expert here. The stripped down part about 2:30 in with the chorused guitars does some of the work here, but comes in too late. There could have been some of this style at the beginning.

Jon Porobil - Boomerang (Viv & Hannah) (feat. Mo Ouyang)

Praise:

• Excellent depth on the musicality. The guitar voicings as well as the single line of… I want to say some kind of horn? – add 6ths and 7ths and options to the song that do something other than just present the strongest possible resolution to everything. This subtlety contributes very nicely to a nostalgic mood. And the major II to resolve the chorus? What??

Criticism:

• It’s a simple story, a classic one, with music that supports the mood. So I would suggest maybe it’s longer than it needs to be. Four minutes is not too long for a song, but you risk losing your listener. Is there some way to tighten up the lyrics and eliminate a stanza each in the first and second half?

Sober - Until the Page is Torn

Praise:

• Treating the challenge in part as a push to put palindromes in the chord progressions works amazingly with this style of music. It keeps it simple by necessity, but simple is appropriate here because the story is both simple and classic. So many relationships falter, and remembering why and how they started is a natural way to strip down all the bullshit that happened since then.

Criticism:

• No notes! I’m writing this before ranking, so if you don’t end up #1, it won’t be because there was some flaw that I couldn’t get past. It would be because some other song added something special that put it over the top.
• Ok ok, you twisted my arm. How about varying the feel more at the “If sticking to the form” part? That’s a great place to keep your listener engaged by giving them something different, a few lines before you actually do so at “Don’t be afraid”.