Round four. Two chords. One winner. Glad this one is not on us judges (unless there’s a tie-breaker, of course, which is not entirely unlikely…). Once again, these cycled through my rankings, and I had to be super picky at decision time. When we decided on this challenge, the point wasn’t the chords themselves, but for you to focus on other ways to make your songs interesting, and we’ve ended up with five (or twelve, counting the shadows) very different songs, which is great. To judge, I went through my usual descending order list of song / structure > lyrics > emotional core / storytelling / intention > musical ability > production skills. All the competing songs have some great characteristics this time round, but I want to specifically praise all the really great shadow entries submitted, because there’s some excellent songs in there.
1. Jim of Seattle
2. Brian Gray
3. Chas Rock
4. Sober
5. Daniel Sitler
Daniel Sitler, What If?
It took a few spins to get my head around this one. At first I didn’t realise that the timing was changing between four and triple metre in different sections, and it sounded like you were off time, but that was a result of my tired brain, not you! I do think that the intro section could do a better job of setting up the timing, even if it’s your intention that it feel unsettled, as that part continues to confound me a little after listening a lot.
I think the lyrics are really well written. The structure and rhymes feel very natural and well placed. As it is, I feel like the song as a whole is a touch suppressed. It asks the existential questions, but doesn’t offer any moment of light or revelation to answer those questions. The song could really benefit from building up to a release moment. Even if you don’t necessarily have the answers to the questions asked, you could possibly try a bridge or something that approaches the same questions from a different perspective. One thing your lyrics made me think of was an episode of the TV series ‘Angel’, where one character comes to an existential realisation and sums it up as “if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do”. For me, your song hits that first part of the statement, but it doesn’t explore the second part, and that part of questioning existence is what’s most interesting to me. I do think that if you wanted to, you could find a way to explore that musically and lyrically. Musically, a song that I loved and listened to obsessively as a teenager that kind of approaches this is ‘Mayonaise’ by the Smashing Pumpkins. It sits in the same genre that you’re going for with ‘What If?’, with shifts from slower to heavier sections, and it asks many of the same doom-laden questions, but there’s a lightness that breaks through both lyrically and musically that helps give it another dimension.
I know from reading that this is not your forte, and I’ve been trying hard not to judge all the songs on the quality of the song itself, not the mix, but I have a few tips that might be helpful to you. I personally find this kind of music incredibly difficult to mix well. I think I’ve said another similar thing in one of you previous reviews, but this has a lot of bass buildup and it sounds like you’ve used a lot of compression, and that’s adding to the overall lack of light in the song. If you listen to a song like ‘Mayonaise’, there’s a lot of light sounds mixed in to the fuzz, and they utilise a lot of treble to cut through those darker sounds and add musical interest. Even if you didn’t want to add any other sounds or instruments to the arrangement, you could improve this mix a lot by cutting the bass EQs quite drastically on many of the tracks, and by maybe using a bit less reverb on the guitars. There’s a lot of muddiness happening in your sounds, and carefully cleaning that up will give you a lot more headroom and you won’t have to compress the whole track so heavily at the end. Look at high passing anything that might have a lot of room resonance. With other instruments, look and listen carefully to make sure they’re not all just taking up the same sonic space. Just carefully applying different EQs across multiple guitar layers in this kind of track will make them sound louder and bigger without needing to turn up the volume.
Although it focusses on plugins from a particular brand, this article has some good information in it that might be useful to you: https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/6-ways-to-use-a-high-pass-filter-when-mixing.html
On articles, here’s an interview with Butch Vig, producer of Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, etc., on recording and mixing guitars: https://guitar.com/features/interviews/butch-vig-guitar-recording-secrets-nirvana-the-smashing-pumpkins-foo-fighters/
Overall, good job with the track. While I think it’s one that could be improved upon, it’s an interesting song and would be worth investing the time and energy to really make it shine.
Brian Gray, Gestalt
I realised when listening to this song for the first time that, while I had heard the word “gestalt” before, I had absolutely no idea what it meant or how to say it. So I learned a new thing!
Way to go here on taking an already restrictive challenge and restricting it even further by only allowing yourself instruments that could be easily carried onto a spaceship. You’ve managed to come up with a sound that is both authentic and enjoyable, while keeping interest throughout the arrangement. I especially love the tambourine that comes in half way through. And those harmonies, hell yes.
Lyrically this is just as good, although I do keep getting stuck on the “Surprise! Here’s some debt to go into!” line. That seems a little too outside of the story; does debt still matter when you’re escaping an apocalypse, or is “debt” meant more as a catch-all for the general terrible situation?
Overall, I think this is very effective both as a song that could exist as part of your musical, and also as something with a life of its own.
Sober, It Never Comes
I’m a total sucker for a good double entendre song. This is lighthearted, especially in comparison to the other songs this round, but it’s also clever and thoroughly enjoyable.
There are a few moments in the breakout sections that feel a little awkward in this recording. The rhythm in the slowdown part where you starts to sing the “In my fantasies” section feels a bit off. It tripped me up on the first few listens, and I think that it’s one of those things that would work really well if this was being performed live, as the band would play off one another and make it feel more natural and exaggerated, but as it stands it’s just sounding a little bit awkward. I think some of the lyrics there could be be rewritten a little to add some more spice as well. The “I want to hear a nice subdominant” line could do with an extra syllable, or at least a more exciting word than “nice”. I keep rewriting it in my mind as “I want to hear that sweet subdominant” (in Australia and New Zealand, “sweet”, or “sweeeeet” is slang for “awesome”, “cool”, etc., and that’s more the vibe I mean, rather than “sweet” meaning “delightful” or “sugary”).
The mix is generally good. There were a few moments where something sounded like it was masking the vocal, particularly the first time you sing “bassline”; there’s something hitting in a frequency there that makes it sound like you’re singing “face line”. The vibrato on “half cadence” is lovely, and I still want you to nudge that fader up just a touch on your lead vocal. Just a l’il bit more presence would be great.
Good job. Thanks for making me laugh.
Jim of Seattle, Variations on an End
This was my immediate favourite of the round. That minor 7 / G7 combo is right up my melancholy music street. I love that, for a song about endings, this one feels very much like it doesn’t have a beginning or ending; you can just jump in at any point and feel up to speed. It’s also one of the longer songs but never seems to get tired for me. There’s so many little things that keep me engaged, or pull me back in if I drift away while listening: little crossings in the panning, new instruments coming in and leaving, the strings, the sad saxophone. It feels like it could be in a film.
The only thing I’d really suggest looking at would be the EQ on some of the very high end sounds. In particular, on my main listening headphones, the mix sounded a bit spiky on some of the higher pitched piano lines.
On the whole though, I really loved this from start to end.
Chas Rock, Hotel by the Hospital
If there’s any surefire way to suck me into a song, it’s a heartbeat rhythm. Sonically this is a style that I definitely love, and I’ll happily listen to this song outside of the contest for a long time to come. The pacing is great, and while the lyrics don’t necessary fall exactly as they would if you were speaking the lines, the rhythms work for the song.
My one minor quibble is unfortunately in the focal line of the song, where you sing “I don’t want to be here neither”; I understand that “neither” is easier to sing than “either”, because it has that nice consonant at the beginning of the word, but because you’ve used a negative construction for the sentence (“I don’t want to be here…”), it should be “either”. You’ve built the world of the song so well, and that line yanks me right out of it every time.
Well done though on making a 5 minute plus song feel not remotely long and incredibly engaging.
See-man-ski, Brief
First couple of listens I thought you’d deliberately gone the three chord route, and then I realised it was a one chord song right up until the end and it became even funnier. (I do hope I got that correct!)
There are some spots in the mix that feel like the vocal is being masked a bit. The word “brief” sometimes gets buried and is a little hard to make out. I’m not sure if it’s a case of playing with EQs to give the vocals a bit of room, or just riding the volume automation on them a bit to bring some parts out a touch more clearly.
Stacking Theory (ft Toshiro), Holding My Own
Definite fave. Love the Yo La Tengo style doot doots, and I like that you and yr wife are singing different variations of the doot (ba ba and da da); they blend together in a really interesting way. I also appreciate that in a song about holding your own, you’ve called in multiple people to help out, which helps underline the main theme of the song. I also love that you’ve referenced parts from all your Spintunes songs this round to help build this one.
The bridge going very small and quiet is a good decision thematically. And it’s a nice sounding glockenspiel in there, but I am curious as to why you’ve used a fake one when I know for a fact that you own a real one. ;)
One mix tip: use a de-esser at the start of your vocal chain. I accidentally listened to this way to loud at one point, and the sibilance was quite harsh. It wasn’t so much of an issue when I sorted my shit out and turned down the volume, but still, de-essing is useful and will help your mix on the whole.
My husband put in a request for royalties when he heard me listening to this for the millionth time. In his defence, those guitar parts are just lovely.
Best lyrical moment “this precious crowd / don’t hold me down / they pull me up / we share the cup /until I am holding my own”
See-man-ski, Love Is
Lovely contrast here with your other entry. That Jeff Tweedy book is a great reference, and I should probably borrow it again and do some of the exercises. I know that making something so stripped back and then leaving all the little random bits in was probably more about pushing back on things that had been picked up on as distracting in previous songs, but I do think that in this context they really work to add to the humanity of a song that comes from a very sincere place. I’m super glad you submitted this.
Hot Pink Halo, One Two Punch
This one is me. The subject matter has been making me sad since 2012, so I wanted to write something bouncy that made me feel happy. The contrast in theme to feel is very deliberate. I’d love to release this somehow, but I’m slightly terrified of even sharing it on my Facebook page. The politicians in the Australian Liberal Party have been pretty slap-happy with the defamation lawsuits of late. Of course, silencing potential dissent is exactly the purpose of their lawsuits… ugh. Anyway, very pleased with how this ended up.
Jocko Homomorphism, Tuck and Roll
I love the general vibe of this. All those sounds are wild and invigorating, and there’s a lot of energy in the arrangement. There’s something in there that sounds to me like a typewriter spacebar, and I’m 100% here for it. I wish you’d spent as much care on the vocals as you did on the rest of the song, because they feel really tacked on. Lyrically they work, but the delivery is lacking in creativity and energy. You could do so much cool stuff with these lyrics, and I hope you revisit them.
Cybronica, Yesterday’s Mascara
Just the title alone, before even listening to the song, is so evocative. The imagery throughout the song continues to be great
There’s some fret buzz on the bass here are there that is a bit distracting, but also kind of humanising at the same time. There’s also a static pop in the bass that happens about a third of the way through as the music hits at the change-up; I’m not sure if it’s the result of comping something, but it might be worth cleaning up that one area. Overall I love the sound and the arrangement, and those very high little piano notes that are sprinkled in towards the end of the song are just beautiful. If this was in the competition it would be right near the top of my rankings.
Buckethat Bobby Matheson, Two Cords
This is a long song, for sure, but I think the lyrics really do carry it well, moreso than in some of your other longer songs. It has a personal poetic feel combined with a narrative that justifies the length. I think this one is definitely worth refining in the orchestration and delivery; there’s a lot of room to experiment and play with different arrangements if you wanted to. It’s the kind of song that you could make as big or as small as you want, which is a great indicator that you (and your discord cohorts) have written a really good song.
