Reviews and Rankings from Leonie Connellan of Hot Pink Halo:
Welcome to Round 3: the final judge-ranked round! This batch of songs was especially difficult to rank. I settled on my top four fairly early on, and they didn’t really move around much, but, to be honest, every other song could have (and did) move around the rankings with abandon. More songs get cut than get through in this round. You should all be super proud of what you’ve made. To judge, I went through my usual list of song / structure > lyrics > emotional core / storytelling / intention > musical ability > production skills, then used “would I listen to this as a standalone song outside of its imaginary musical?” as my deciding factor.
NOTE: SHADOW REVIEWS ARE INCOMING! I’ve talked about them with my voice, but will try and get you some written reviews tonight as well.
If these reviews seem brief (she types, before actually writing anything at all), it’s because I’ve already talked about your songs on the podcast! Thanks for having me Ryan and Chumpy!
Chas Rock, Job Interview
This was a super, super loud way to start the show! You could consider easing off a little on any ad-limiting / compression in your master. The compression isn’t distracting or anything, and there’s a good distribution of sounds in the mix, but everything is much louder by comparison than all the other songs.
I like that this could be read as either very dry sarcasm, or alternatively from the perspective of someone who really believes that this is what they want. For the record, I’m Team Dry Sarcasm, but I think the writing is clever enough to function in multiple ways. As I mentioned in the podcast, there are a few lyrics I’d adjust (“endure through pain and torturing”, for example), but I do think you’ve been really clever with contradictions from line to line, eg “I'll be a millionaire by 40 at least and accordingly if I’m ever hurt as an employee, don't call an ambulance please I can't afford it and I'm spending smart!” and “I just need a home and a bed, to be fed, so you can grind my bones to make your bread.”
I think this song has a lot of energy, and musically it’s pretty fun. On the whole, I’d happily listen to this as part of a musical or bigger story, but as a standalone song, it’s probably not something I’d choose to play regularly.
See-man-ski, Climb up the leaderboard
One of my favourite things this whole round of Spintunes is your choice to make very melodramatic productions from the smallest ideas. Apparently this approach is not for everyone, but it’s very definitely For Me.
Really there’s only one change I’d make to this song, and it’d be to turn your vocals up a little bit, and turn the bloopy synth down slightly. I love the sparseness of sound in the mix. You’ve really paid attention to the arrangement and it definitely helps add excitement and tension to the song. All the little vocal flourishes are really great: I especially like the way you separate out words in the first part of the song (cli-i-i-imb, m-t-vee-eee, San Francisc-oh), then in the last chorus you drop that and keep “climb” as one full word.
There are a few lyrics you could look at for grammatical consistency, but as I mentioned in the podcast, they really only stood out to me when I read the lyrics, not when I listened to them in the context of the song.
I will definitely be listening to this one regularly. I think it would work really well as an I Want song in a musical, but it also holds its own without that context.
Brian Gray, My People
The first couple of times I listened to this I made a mental note about the slightly non-centred panning of the lyrics. I hadn’t picked up that they’d moved from right to left in the first part. When I realised what you’d done, and that the pan indicated a physical movement (and possible a metaphorical one; moving to another corner of the world), I was very happy to let go of my usual LEAD VOX ONLY AND EVER IN THE CENTRE mandate. I think in this context that it’s entirely appropriate.
I think I mentioned in the podcast that I’d really like to hear some choirs or backup singers coming in on this near the end. I do realise that’s a bit of a conundrum considering the subject matter and the fact that it’s very much a single point of view song. My rationale is that this really is a universal theme. So many people feel like this though, and they could be singing their own song with the same refrain. Even if it’s not in this song specifically, this could be a musical theme that returns later when the story develops. That all aside though, I think you’ve done a really great job with the orchestration in this as it is. Love the key change. I *think* its the only key change in the whole round, which is interesting considering the challenge. Overall the song fits very well into your musical world, but I also would/will listen to the heck out of it on its own.
The Dutch Widows, Trapped
This song was the one this round that really grew on me the most with repeated listens. The first few goes round it didn’t really stand out to me until the “outlast my nine lives” line. The more I really listened, the more it became a firm favourite. I think it’s a really interesting perspective to write a song from. I’m not entirely sure what the full story and setting for this musical would be, but I would definitely watch it, and I’ll be listening to this song alone happily regardless.
During the podcast, this was the song where I hit a stumbling block while trying to express myself. What I was trying to say about the T-pain / Vocoder type effect is that it can really sonically solidify the ‘otherness’ of an in-between type character like this one. The effect has an other-wordliness that lends itself well to differentiating the real from the imagined. One of the songs I suggested as an example for this round was the ongoing cartoon musical Central Park, and that character has another song (not the I Want song that we linked, but another one in a similar vein) that makes use of tuning effects for this exact purpose: the character is stuck on a loop inside her own head and she uses the song to work out her feelings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkurx96dA2Q
Changing tracks for a second, over on the songfight boards you talked about specifically trying hard to prevent knowing how stuff works. I understand the reasons why you might want to do that, but I do really think it’s a good idea to (slowly) learn how and why to do specific things with recording and mixing. Having knowledge and understanding doesn’t mean that you’ll end up with boring songs. It just means that you might need to find other ways to keep your processes fresh. Ryan asked me in the podcast why I like printmaking more than other types of art, and part of the reason (which I didn’t think to go into at the time of recording) is that it’s an art form where I can set up rules and constraints that allow me to build uncertainty into my finished pieces. Even though I technically know exactly what I’m doing, it’s never boring for me because I’ve figured out process that incorporate an element of surprise. Songwriting can work the same way, and I think that’s why I like these songwriting challenges so much; they come with inbuilt constraints that force me to do things differently. I think you’d get a lot out of shifting your process a bit so that you can keep the elements of surprise and creativity but still understand the what, how and why of the technical stuff. There’s no one right or wrong way to write songs or to mix songs, and a little bit of knowledge can go a long way.
Buckethat Bobby Matheson, Goerfeldt's 3rd - Keep The Band Together
I’ll start out by saying that I have no real feelings either way for D&D. It’s not something I have any interest in playing myself, but I understand why people enjoy it. I think the problem with writing a song or musical from the perspective of your current campaign is that it’s more of a journey than a story, and that doesn’t hold much interest for an outsider (like me, for example). I can’t picture what the whole story for this musical would be, and as a result it’s difficult to care about any of the characters we meet. If you did have a solid story arc in place, I think this would be a perfectly fine song to help introduce characters or move the story along, but on it’s own, it’s not something that I have any interest in listening to (especially at almost 5 minutes run time).
My other problem with this song is definitely a more personal one, and I know I’ve already gone into it on the podcast, but I just really, really, really hate people putting on fake accents for songs. It’s definitely a quick way that you can differentiate between people, especially when you’re singing most of the character parts yourself, but otherwise, there doesn’t seem to be any reason you couldn’t just sing these parts with your own accent. Part of my reaction to this is that I’m an immigrant living in Europe and I hear a lot of different accents every day. Another part is that I apparently have one of the more difficult accents for anyone to do, and it’s absolutely butchered by almost everyone I’ve ever heard try it. I’m a little hypocritical in that I’m happy for professional actors to play a character with an accent that’s not their own in a production (when it’s appropriate to the story), but I hate it in almost every other context.
Jim of Seattle, I’m not one of them
I went into a fair bit of detail on the podcast for your song, so if this is brief it’s just to avoid repeating myself! I absolutely love the style of this song. I know you don’t love musicals, but I do, and this is musically right up my alley. It was definitely a bold move of you to set this in the same world as your last song, which I didn’t find enjoyable, so I for one am glad that you didn’t do the extended version of this song with that song reappearing.
Lyrically there are some nice touches, but I’m not buying that this is an I Want song from Kevin. He’s not saying what he wants, really, just describing all his deficiencies, and what he doesn’t like. He says he wishes he was “one of them”, but they sound like empty words, and if it’s that he wants Claire to like him, then that makes it more of an ‘I want the girl’ song, which to me is not the same as an ‘I Want’ song.
Stacking Theory, REAPER MAN (EVERYTHING CHANGES SO WHY CAN’T I)
Big fan. We went over a lot of the technical/pandering specifically to me stuff in the podcast, but I realised afterwards that I didn’t talk about how much I love this character, and how much I want to see Bill Door: The Musical. I think having some prior understanding of this character is probably useful, but I also do think the song could be enjoyed by someone who isn’t familiar with the character or story.
I’m so frisking(TM) thrilled that you took these little loops of mine and made them into such a cool song. I particularly like how you’ve sung the first verse straight, with the harmony coming in on the last line, then sung the second verse with that high harmony coming in to finish each line, then on the third verse the verse and harmony come together, like old Bill Door is becoming more human and complex as the song goes on.
Five stars. A joy.
Cavedwellers ft BSS, I want to be ME
This is a super fun song. I’m not entirely sure I care about seeing the imaginary musical, but if I had some indication of a bigger story arc I could be convinced. It’s definitely a song I’d enjoy hearing as part of a show, and one that I’d also enjoy listening to as a standalone track without the other context.
The silly dad jokes made me laugh. It might be worth having another pass at some of the lyrics in general. There’s two verses where you use the word “tolerance” in different contexts, and it kind of stands out. I think you could probably find another way to express at least one of those lines to avoid the repetition. Also, there’s nothing stopping anyone being both an artist and an engineer! They’re not mutually exclusive!
Phlubububub - Olimar’s Theme
As discussed on the podcast, this is ‘Take Five' by Dave Brubeck reimagined. That’s what jazz does though, and I think with the left field tonal decisions, basing the song on something that’s recognisable was probably a good move. This doesn’t sound particularly dissonant to me, but I’m pretty fond of dissonance; it’s hard for me to tell what other people’s reactions would be. I do feel like there’s not really a strong pull in any direction structurally in the song, and your lyrics feel somewhat phoned in. Most of it is exposition, with only the last part expressing any ‘I Want’ feels. I do think it would be cool as part of some experimental theatre production, but it’s probably not something I’ll listen to a lot.
Daniel Sitler, Miracle
This is styled in super heavy duty musical way, and would definitely work well as part of a production. Love the bass (wish it was mixed a bit louder) and the horns. I think the vocal performances are a bit stilted, and I think that is in part due to how sugary the lyrics are. I also didn’t realise at first that Simpkin was a cat, which was a bit awkward, but if I was watching an actual musical on stage that wouldn’t be a problem!
For me, this really isn’t scanning as an ‘I Want’ song. It’s more exposition, and the ‘I Want’ part appears to be “I don’t want to die”, which, while it technically means the same thing as “I want to live”, is actually quite different. I wonder if you could restructure the song to have less exposition and write instead from the perspective of what the characters hopes and dreams for the future are. I think you’d end up with a much stronger song.
Two lyrical notes, one of which I mentioned in the podcast… Gloucester is pronounced “Gloss-tah”, not “Glous-ter”. I think if you’re singing a place name in a song you should double check how to say it! That change would also mean that you’d need to address your whole rhyme scheme in that verse. The other note is less of an issue, but “Christmas Day in the morning” is a lot of extra words when you could just say “Christmas Morning”.
Sober - Leave the Ladder
Reading these lyrics, they felt a bit cold and impersonal, and your perspective didn’t seem super clear from the song bio. Listening though, there’s an appropriate level of humanity in the performance. It does sound like you’ve mixed your vocals much lower than normal, and I think it’s because you know that the high notes are a bit thin. If you’re having trouble getting body into the performance, I wonder if there’s something you could do with layering or adding in another instrument in those chorus sections to give them some more guts.
Where you sing the to/too and indicate that it could be either, I just can’t hear it as “too”. It’s always “to”, because of the way you phrase it in the flow, and I think it’s definitely better as “to”. It’s more desperate, and feels more appropriate.
Anyway, this is a good song that I would listen to as part of a bigger production or on it’s own. Good job.
Governing Dynamics, Home
As I’ve mentioned previously, your general sound and vibe is definitely a thing that I like. I think in this song that you’ve mixed your vocals a touch too loud, but it’s not anything outlandish and would be an easy fix if you revisit it.
I’m not 100% sure that this would work in the context of an ‘I Want’ song in a musical. It’s definitely more of a standalone song than something that I can see working as part of a bigger story (just an observation, nothing wrong with that!) I think part of the reason I feel that way about the song is that there isn’t a clear setup or story for the song, and it’s not obvious to me what the back story is. A personal gripe is that I just don’t like the word or entire concept of “deserving” anything, and I think that’s probably colouring my perception of the song a little.
Third Cat - Techno man
Definitely enjoyed this song while I was listening, but unfortunately it’s not one that sticks with me at all. The melody doesn’t feel particularly strong or memorable to me, and when I finish listening to the song there’s nothing I can tell you about it except that “techno man” is repeated a lot. It just doesn’t draw me in.
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