This round we've got some reviews from one of our contestants, Chas Rock! Take it away, Chas:
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Hi Everybody! My name is Chas and I’m a fool with a little bit of in-studio engineering experience and a teenage-level-understanding of music theory (ahh yes, of course, the circle of fifths, love it, the way it surrounds fifths as opposed to fourths or even thirds, brilliant), so please don’t think of these reviews as anything other than the initial reaction of a true dum-dum who loves music, enjoys actively engaging in new songs, and appreciates all of the talent and experience in this competition. I am not the authority or some kind of gatekeeper and I don’t envy the judges’ job this round! People really put a lot of themselves into these songs and I loved them, which is the only reason I wanted to do this in the first place. I’m also not going to place them in any order, because I avoid doing that unless I absolutely have to and lucky for me! I don’t.
I’m not a judge, so this doesn’t matter, but I will tell you what I typically listen for in a song so you can understand how I approached this. I tried to start every song like it was going to be my favorite in the competition. That way I could find the things I loved about it and then attempt to recognize what prevented me from finding “new song nirvana” inside of it. I should also clarify, it’s common for me to look back at my songs and discover that I’ve failed these checklists! It doesn’t discourage me, but as a producer, it’s just something I shoot for and hope to get a little closer to every time I make something new!
- Production: I can’t help it. The song has to move me and if the production isn’t at least attempting to do something interesting with the space surrounding it, my ear loses interest and my eyes wonder away from the lyrics and I forget to pay attention to the artist’s message. That doesn’t mean that everything has to be overblown or loud or washed with verb or obnoxiously crowded or created on a super clean $25k analogue input chain, it just means that a little thought was put into the creation of the space you want this specific song to be heard in, and maybe you put a little extra effort into creating a melody and structure and sound dynamics that feel unique to the song, like they couldn’t exist anywhere else. Dry, subtle, uncomplicated production doesn’t have to be boring production!
- An Honest Point of View: For me, music is about effective communication. Whether I’m a silly story-teller or an avant-garde mirror reflection of society, I can’t write a good song if I’m not expressing a unique point of view that I can deliver confidently, even if it’s communicating passive emotions like melancholy or disinterest. I don’t like hearing insecurity in songs (unless it’s obviously intentional), which I think usually reveals itself in the performance. I like performers that embrace their sound fully, whatever that is, because they’re already so confident in the uniqueness of the POV that they’re compelled to create an experience the listener can understand or at the very least, emotionally relate to. I need to believe something about what the artist is saying and typically, music that avoids looking inward for fear of what it might find is a little boring and counterproductive to me. I want there to be clarity in the POV and I want it to feel like it could only come from the artist who needed to deliver it. As an example, this is why a lot of white rappers don’t work for me. It’s not that a white person can’t become an amazing MC (El-P, Aesop Rock, Mac Miller toward the end of his career, a million more), it’s that a lot of white rappers, and specifically “spiritual lyrical miracle” college party rappers use the aesthetic of hip-hop to play up the appeal of “isn’t it silly that I’m white and rapping, and look at how easy it is” or even worse “I’m not accepted in the hip hop community because I’m white and that makes me the underdog” which is a bogus, sneakily racist, deeply insecure POV that fails the self-awareness smell test and disproves itself because it refuses to understand what makes hip-hop great! A logical circle! A snake eating its own ass or whatever.
- Lyrics. Are the words in the song aesthetically pleasing? Do they surprise me? Do they create vibrant images or emotions? Even if it’s not the way I personally would word something, do they sound authentic coming from the artist? Do they sound comfortable for the artist to deliver as if they were telling their own personal story? Do I recognize the artist’s intention with the lyrics and if not, do they still somehow provoke me to think about them or return to them? Okay cool, good lyrics!
And there is my big pretentious opener that you can throw in my face when I fail to meet my own requirements! On to the reviews. You're going to love all of my run-on sentences.
Daniel Sitler - Work in Progress: I really had a lot of fun with this one. Felt personal and honest, at least from a narrative point of view. This is a great example of intentional insecurity, where the performance is obviously self-aware and embraces that the narrator of the song is insecure. That “Slow down” bit not only calls out the challenge, but it washes over you and feels like it’s trying to express a different emotion than the defiant punchiness of the verse. Plus, vocal layers! Fun! If I had to mark this down for anything, it would be the sounds chosen. The piano and drums specifically both sound a little bit sterile. I might play with their velocities inside of your DAW so they sound a little bit more human inside of the track.
Sara Parsons - Rewind, retry : Very cool to make a song that feels like an action and then a reaction. It opens with the party and the party is kind of a pop punk sprinter and ends with the consequences expressed as dark, beautiful Radiohead-y melancholy and a really nice bell (xylophone?) section. My note for this one is that if the opening was more overwhelming, the second half would pop even harder than it already does. I believe Sara said she was using midi instruments which makes it tough to embody the mentality of someone who thinks they’re invincible. The first half should be mixed aggressive and punchy, but in the case of this song, the dynamics are more noticeable in the bells from the lighter second half of the song. Either way, love the arrangement and idea!
See-Man-Ski - Sleep: Oh man, can’t express how much this song made me FEEL. It’s so drowsy (intentionally) but also the extreme dramatization of a child waking you up too early in the morning makes it sound super sad, dejected, and tired in a bigger way. I think it’s crazy effective! You feel sorry for the parents who had to wake up, you feel sorry for the kid who is being sent to bed, there is something unspoken and honest about the melancholy of not being able to just GODDAMN SLEEP IN FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE. The tune is so simple and effective without sacrificing dynamics or sound. Reminds me of something off Blackstar, loved it.
Stacking Theory - Escape the Grid: Really fun bouncy pop indie tune here, starts with the opening line of “all along the watchtower” and from there reminds me a little bit of Belle and Sebastian. Simple production, gives the illusion of being dry, but I feel like a decent amount of work has gone into making the sound fit together in a pleasing way and I think the mood of the song addresses the way a lot of people are feeling right now. Really love that moment where those big indie guitars come back in around 2:42, letting them ring out sounds really nice with that melodic bass. My biggest issue was that moment when you’ve “gotta escape” because it really felt like the artists wanted to let loose there, but held back and while they definitely did something with their voice, it didn’t sound like they were super confident doing it. Would have loved maybe some kind of subtle delay or reverb push on that moment to emphasize it and help it to land and I also wish the performance of that moment just WENT for it. Super small note, the song was great!
Jealous Brother - Uncle Jerry: Is that a live drum kit? In SpinTunes? Wild, but so dynamic and I love to hear it! I will say, there is something about this track that doesn’t 100% ever lock into a groove that I can follow and that makes it harder to connect to the message, but I feel like the primary cause is that the lead singer doesn’t feel like they’re locked into their performance and is instead thinking hard about what they are about to sing. Being from Kentucky, I love a good old fashioned southern singer/songwriter, but I would love for you to push your melodies so that all of the notes are landing in a range where you feel comfortable singing, or at least where the notes don’t matter because you’re so lost in the performance of them.
Sober - Waiting for the Crash : This is the first of three pirate songs this round (all of which, I loved!) This one is the “Daniel Day Lewis in a gritty, realistic pirate film” one. Man, what do I tell Sober? Your guitars sound immaculate both in their performance and the mix (I have to assume you have some real engineering experience, I adore your mixes). Interesting, visual lyrics that couldn’t possibly fit together any other way. Such a talented, well-rounded artist. Simple elements, but the song feels very full and I feel like I’m in the room with the performance. I always look forward to what you make.
The Dutch Widows - An Awkward Mend : I really love this song a lot. It’s sound is odd in an incredibly unique way, the percussion section is SO fun, reminds me a little bit of the Shins or Vampire Weekend, but in a non-direct way. I had one big issue with the mix and it’s a Tamborine or set of bells or something. Whatever that noise is that does a little 1-2, 1 at various sections throughout the song is hitting my ear pretty harsh, I think due to over saturation or a lack of subtractive EQing. Super high end elements like that can afford to be turned way down in a low-heavy mix like this because they’re going to cut through regardless of how loud they are. I think it’s a little bit distracting and if it was sitting more comfortably in the mix, I’d be able to enjoy the overall effect of this super unique song a lot more!
Timothy Patrick Hinkle - A Lost Love and a Roving Eye: Okay, so I love the big swings taken on this song and I think most of them land! Sounds like they did a little reversal on some drum samples to create those warped percussion noises throughout. I think those are great and incredibly creative, but they are distracting in that they pull a lot of focus from all of the other super fun Pink Floydy psychedelia happening. I wouldn’t take them out or anything, but I might make them way lower in the mix to create the exact same effect without dominating the song. As for the content of the song, it’s so dense and I’ve read it a couple of times as I followed along and it’s wild! If I’m following it correctly, the narrator kind of speaks with a sort of Camelot-y vibe, but everything seems to be set in modern day (or at least that’s what the coffee line tells me). There is some sort of ethereal big brother that wants to punish the narrator for a forbidden love? I think the word choice “Til they uncover our crime and that will mean the end of ME” instead of the “end of us” which would indicate that maybe only the narrator would be considered in the wrong in this story? I don’t know if I have any notes on any of this, just wanted to take you through what I hear when I listen! Definitely an interesting tune!
The Brewhouse Sessions - A Little Bit of Heaven
Always fun to hear a parent sing about how much they love their kid. Kind of the opposite approach from See-Man-Ski on this one too, it seems to be past the difficult years and it romanticizes the nostalgia of their infant years, like it was always easy and never stressful. I like that it rocks, I think the drums sound really really great, but I might work on that rhythm guitar tone. I also think there is something about the lyrics that sometimes lean toward the cliche and remind me a little bit of Bob Carlisle’s “Butterfly Kisses”. It’s sweet, but it’s very very sugary sweet, and I’m not sure it feels exclusive to the artist's relationship with their kid and instead sounds like it’s trying to appeal to all parents of all kids.
New Fangled Trolleys - Dat Studio Money : Okay so I really enjoy NFTs’ production. It’s sort of Acoustipunk, ala the Pixies or early Violent Femmes, and I really get into stuff like that. I wish that washboard stuck out in a more dynamic way, but I love that it’s there and I really admire NFTs’ sprawling arrangements and vocal bombast. Last week’s song was so fun because it looked internally and found the issues the artist had with feeling trapped in a desk job, and I thought that was pretty cool. This one however seems like it lacks a little bit of self-awareness? Who is asking this artist to go mainstream? Is that a huge problem for them? I wouldn’t consider much of anything in SpinTunes to be considered “mainstream” which is kind of a vague idea, but I’m assuming by the vocal harmonies (which I fully admit are very funny) that he meant Blink 182 or Backstreet Boys or some other commercial pop artist from the 90s. I don’t know, maybe there is a wider story to this, and I love punching up at the man, but this didn’t fully land for me.
Brian Gray - End of the World : Immediately laughed at the description of “Sandwich Board Man”, a detail you’d never know if you didn’t dig into the lyrics. Okay, so I think this thing is pretty incredible. An entire apocalypse musical theatre tale that opens with a “One Day More” level of melodrama, simplifies into some modern “Evan Hanson”y stuff, a little Grease aside, the whole thing is just very fun and also in space? I really dig it. My biggest issue is the space that the sound is in! The artist should reference some cast recordings (which I’m sure they already have their favorites) to specifically listen to how they make the sound feel like the listener is in the theatre, sitting in the best seat, watching their favorite musical. Don’t be afraid to get gratuitous with parallel reverb/delay chains (which are easy to turn down to avoid washing out the vocals, but will still make your songs sound BIG and wide, like they would in the Lincoln Center) and just make me feel like I’m watching the big opening night show and not sitting in the smaller room where the cast is rehearsing it.
Jocko Homomorphism - Theorist’s Dilemma: I don’t know how to say this any other way than I FUCK with your music. It’s madness, but in such a colorful way. I love DEVO, I love using a vocal affect, especially when they’re delivered with this level of belief and confidence and fun. The weird, wet, acidy synths are a nice touch. I mean there are like 12 layers of texture, but it’s not bullshit, it all works together in an unhinged way. Oh and it’s maybe about an alien scientist that committed a crime and then had to go work for corporate warlords I think? Then he feels homesick? Could be wrong, but I assume it’s loosely based on the many German/Austrian/Polish Jewish scientists, who escaped their homes only to be asked to develop devastating weapons for the US government during WWII. Hope that’s not a stretch, but either way, it’s very cool.
Cavedwellers - Richochet - I love the spacey production on this and all of your instrumentation sounds very dynamic. I think your lyrics are decrying the evils of capitalism (or at least that’s what I get from the beginning of the final section from “ricochet new slogans” to “all the rules have changed”), which is very cool, but I was left wishing a little bit that at some point in the song, you would say exactly what you meant using zero non-specific language. Then you can allow the rest to sit in metaphor. Again, this isn’t to say that I (ME) needs to “get” a song in order for it to be good or anything, I just would have enjoyed it a little bit more if the message wasn’t as shrouded as it is.
Third Cat - Some Truths: I love a synth. Always will. A lot of cool sounds in this song, very cool vocal background vocals. I wish the primary vocal sounded as confident as the background ones, but as the song progresses, the performer sounds more comfortable in the song and the entire effect is fun. Just wish they’d let loose on this, I wanted to hear them give it everything in the performance and leave it all in that song, especially given that this seems like a song that deserves a good cry. No idea what this song is about in specific terms, but I also want to comment on how absolutely devastating those final lines are. Really effective.
Governing Dynamics - Across the Wasteland : I think I already compared this to Dashboard, but it’s definitely the vibe I get, specifically around the “My Heart is Racing” bits. Anyway, this one feels like a coming of age love story, which I think is always cool and needs to be emotional by hormone default! I love the doubling of vocals and I feel like they're sitting in a decent place in the mix, just wish they weren’t SO dry compared to everything else. Even like, some light delay or anything on those vocals would elevate the entire song for me. But all of that said, I’ve enjoyed this every time I’ve listened to it, so overall, great work!
Jim of Seattle - Snorkeling, Snorkeling : Our second pirate song! This one sounds like something that could be in Spongebob (which of course, I’m a huge fan of). I mean, yeah the production on this is so fun. From chairs sliding around to glasses being put on tables, I just feel the tavern and I can smell all of those smelly silly pirates drunk as hell as they sing their silly fish songs. I also think it’s a huge testament to this song that a child could listen to it with their parents and both would enjoy it immensely. That’s a gift!
Temnere - 20w : Okay cool! I’m assuming Temnere is influenced by bands like System of a Down and Coheed and Cambria and that sort of epic Prague metal vibe. Also, a pretty apt description of anxiety and dealing with it internally, cool lyrics. I like the production, but it’s almost too clean for the song. Temnere is such a talented musician, I almost just want them to lighten up on those compressors and make the song sound like primordial NOISE, but everything is a little squashed which dampens the overall “AHHHHHHH” effect. Would just love for some of these vibrant transients to get through.
Phlububub - Threads! A Musical Odyssey in Four Movements: NO WAY, more live drums? Good for you guys, that shit is hard, especially on your own. Okay so the movements I would describe as “punk beach boys with a southern rock flare” “fucked up noise drones” “Black Hole Sun, but it gets trippy” and “Wrestlers yell at you”. I don’t know what to say about it, it’s so specific that it’s either your thing or it’s not. I think it’s my thing! I love that you just went in and did something totally unique and dense, please continue!
Brother Baker - The Silver Lining : I like a lot of what’s happening here, you lean into your performance and production and give us something interesting to listen to, but I’m not super engaged by the lyrics. I think it's a break up song but in the end, the narrator seems to gain confidence, and I enjoy an emotional arc like that, I just don’t know that the language grabs my ear in a way that makes me want to dig in.
Menage a Tune - No Time to Die - It’s fully acapella, there aren’t any harmonies, and it’s essentially a one liner joke. I understand that time can be limiting, but I think we’re supposed to fill in all of the other details here and that’s tough! But hey, I get it, you sing something in the shower and then you turn it into a song contest as a shadow. Nothing wrong with that, glad it’s here!
“BucketHat” Bobby Matheson - The Flame-Proof Polka : uh oh! We have our final pirate song of the group! These pirates aren’t as silly as Jim's or as dark as Sober's, hmmm I’d say they’re like Monkey Island pirates (LucasArts TM 1990). I know it seems like I’m poking fun, but I just want to stress that I’m fully not. I love all of the pirate songs. It was a fun pirate trilogy. The RPM shifts feel a little bit like a rocking ship with powder kegs rolling back and forth across the deck. I think a leg or thigh or something is being slapped. The funny little “higgidy har hars” are a blast at the end. I don’t know, I think it rules.
Entertainment Brothers - Slowly (SHADOW) Alright! Into the shadows! This one was hard! Not because it’s necessarily bad, but the song is intentionally uncomfortable and about a stalker with some bad vibes (he definitely murders!), so you know, tough to revisit and I probably won’t! But I also think that’s the intention, so great, everybody wins.
Red Watcher - No Measure (SHADOW) : Just want to say I think this is beautiful. Excellent shadow. Phil Collins vibes, lots of beautiful noise, excellent delivery. Lyrics aren’t necessarily out of this world, but I believe the performance so hard that I don’t need it to be something else. Feel better!
The Pleasantry - So Fucking Loud (Shadow) : Lol, is it a review if I argue with the protagonist of the song about their POV? I mean, I get it. Sometimes you just want to hear your friends talking in a bar (I assume it’s a bar and not like, a Michelin star restaurant if they’re playing some kind of skrillex trap hybrid), but also, bars are loud and I’m always a little annoyed when somebody’s like “why is the music loud in here?” because the answer is “buy alcohol and invite friends over if you want to drink in a place with no atmosphere”. Anyway, playful argument aside, it’s a fun enough shadow! I think there is a piece of it that I’d like to refer back to my NFTs review above but I also think this is just kind of a silly song and I don’t need to go deep into the weeds on it.
And that’s it, those are the reviews! I doubt I’ll be able to do this every time, but again, I just really loved this week’s submissions and wanted to challenge myself to participate a little bit more. I truly hope I didn’t step on anybody’s toes, because that’s not my intention at all. Please feel free to disagree with me, give me context, tell me I'm an ass, dunk on my song, whatever! Hope everybody is well and bye!
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