ST17.4 Reviews and Rankings - Guest Judge Zoe Gray

Our last guest judge for this tournament is SpinTunes 15 champion Zoe Gray. Here is what she has to say about this round:

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Wow. Wow wow wow wow wow. Hi, y’all. I wanted to judge more rounds of the competition this time aroundand it unfortunately just didn’t line up with my school schedule, but I’m finally coming in this last round here to be… absolutely blown away by the quality of submissions. What a difficult challenge for a last round! And what deftness of skill with which you all executed it! It was a pleasure to get to listen of all of your submissions, and although I’m loathe to have to rank them, that is my job, so rank them I must.

Rankings: 

1. Also In Blue - Forgotten Cities

2. Sober - Judgment is Gonna Come

3. Cavedwellers - What You Do

4. Seen-Man-Ski - Sometimes I Forget Myself

Also In Blue - Forgotten Cities 

There seem to be two major camps in the interpretation of this challenge. The first is straight up repetition: pick your favorite 25 words, more or less repeat that phrase for the length of a song. The second is the attempt to pick 25 words that can be used in various contexts and slyly disguise the fact that the song you are creating has only 25 words. You somehow managed to excellently execute both. Straightaway, I was incredibly impressed by the vocals. You’ve created a song here that I would genuinely want to listen to, to add onto my playlists and work into a regular rotation any time I’m in a Decemberists/Johnny Flynn/Andrew Bird type dark folk mood. But as I got about two minutes into the song, and we were out of lyrics, and there was still half the song left, I sat there wondering what was about to fill out the rest of those 2.5 minutes remaining. A long banjo solo? A Zeppelin-type beat drop and electric guitar shred? 

What I didn’t expect was exactly what the song needed– a miracuolous, beautiful chorus, in canon and harmony. The second time through these lyrics was a revelation. How perfectly it dropped me into the world of the song. If I were writing a slightly gritty mythologically-based show like Britannia or American Gods, I would tap you for my theme song. Masterfully done– never once was I pulled out of the song by the fact that there were only 25 words in it. The uses of repetition felt not made out of necessity but out of a want, a yearning, almost spiritual or primal. Which is, of course, exactly what this song is supposed to evoke in its listener. Top notch work.

Sober - Judgment is Gonna Come

This song has a truly beautiful arrangement. The slides in the beginning, the acoustic guitar (which is expertly played and recorded), the riff between verses, which is played on either a banjo or with a slide guitar? Your vocals were perfectly fitting for this genre of music, and I was so happy when the harmonies and vocal doubling kicked in, because they were incredibly tight and well blended. This song is like if Renegade by Styx dropped an acoustic version. You got around/through this challenge by using repetition, and you used it well. This kind of repetition works very well for this kind of song, a sort of Wailin’ Jennys-esque mantra with just few enough lyric changes to guide a listener into singing along, if she so chooses. I, for one, was certainly head-bopping. Great vibes, really nice work preserving the integrity of the challenge without making those 25 words limit you. 

Cavedwellers - What You Do

This is a clever way to execute a “simplistic” song (only so because of the restrictions of the challenge)– by framing it as a Beatlesesque, almost doo-wop retro song. This reminded me of the titular song from “That Thing You Do”. I commend you for going the route of not just repeating the same stanzas but making your allowed words mean different things and work in different contexts. That’s harder than it looks, and I could see the craftsmanship and effort you put into training these phrases like ivy towards the words they needed to use. The chord progression was fun, the guitar solo slapped, and the melody at the “you were not true, two to one” and corresponding sections at the ends of the verses was so very catchy. This could very well pass, except for a few errant lyrics that feel just a little shoehorned in, as a song which a listener would never realize is only comprised of 25 words. 

See-Man-Ski - Sometimes I Forget Myself

I really like the arrangement here. Right when I wanted a build/escalation, halfway through the first verse, it came in. The guitar work was absolutely masterful, and the instruments lent themselves to an almost late 90’s or early 00’s vibe. See: Blood Like Lemonade by Morcheeba. I think the challenge that this song ran up against was feeling just a little too long for its content, which is always gonna be the challenge with this kind of challenge, but that’s, well… the challenge. I liked the use of repetition but at a certain point I wanted more of a build or a breakdown or something musically to sustain through the repetition of the lyrics, or, better yet, to enhance them.