I know that this round was a stretch outside of some contestants’ comfort zones, and I greatly enjoyed the results. Below are my reviews of the 13 official entries, in something almost kind of like album order.
See-Man-Ski - Climb Up The Leaderboard
This guy’s motivation is simple: He wants to win a contest. No problem there; Simba’s motivation was simple too: He just couldn’t wait to be king. Hopefully over the course of the musical Chris will learn that the real gold rings were the friends we made along the way.
The lines “I'm going to rock the rock / in the fall of 94 / I've been practising all summer long / a couple years before” are pretty clunky, and sound like a weird combo of Chris telling us what’s going to happen in the near future, and you telling us what happened 27 years ago.
The references to Alcatraz and to Sonic and Knuckles as “my blue haired friend with his red haired sidekick” also feel clunky. In general, I think you don’t need quite as many expository details; presumably by this time in the musical we know about the tournament and the game, and the song can just focus on Chris’s excitement and determination to win. Your vocals, the chorus hook, and the chip-tuney instrumentation do a great job communicating that already.
Chas Rock - Job Interview
Wow. To your credit, you’ve committed 100% to the choices you made in this song. I’m having a very hard time imagining the musical as a whole that this would belong to - or at least imagining myself enjoying sitting through it - but this song is a wild ride that I enjoy listening to.
Stacking Theory - REAPER MAN (EVERYTHING CHANGES SO WHY CAN'T I?)
I take my Terry Pratchett on audiobook, and if I had to briefly describe the voice of Death, it would likely be: “identifiably male, like gizo’s, but in all other respects completely different from gizo’s.”
That out of the way, this is a very nice song, maybe a bit too chill for the subject matter, but perhaps appropriate, as Death is longing for a more chill existence. The instrumental break around 1:20 is a bit too abrasive for my ears; otherwise everything here is smooth as butter.
Daniel Sitler - Miracle
I love hearing the live orchestral instruments as well as the duet vocals - there’s a sweetness to this that’s appropriate to the source material. I love when the two voices come together on the word “miracle”, which immediately pops out as the key word, and which makes a satisfying re-entrance recontextualized at the end once the tailor has the commission.
The vocals sound a bit under-rehearsed; I think that more time would have let you figure out the most natural delivery. As it is there are some odd phrasing choices like Simpkin’s clipped delivery of “master” / “faster” etc, and the tailor cramming the two syllables of Simpkin’s name into too little space on the line “I’ll make it happen, Simpkin, I promise you”.
Brian Gray - My People
I don’t think you need me to tell you that you nailed it, but you nailed it.
Governing Dynamics - Home
This is good stuff - the lyrics thread the needle between too concrete and too abstract, with some really arresting images that all tie into both the emotional state of the singer and the specific circumstances leading to it. I could see this staged as a modern-dance ballet on a minimal set with news footage projected on the backdrop. I’d watch it.
The Dutch Widows - Trapped
Sorry about your illness! I’m glad you were able to submit something, and something pretty good at that! The pitch correction puts your lead vocal into the uncanny valley; I would have dialed it up even more, and added some kind of electronic/ambient element to the instrumentation, to emphasize the liminal space the narrator is trapped in.
Jim of Seattle - I’m Not One of Them
This is skillful and clever but it leaves me cold. Kevin doesn't seem like the kind of person to use humor as a coping mechanism, so when his lyrics are essentially a series of one-liners, it feels like the song is laughing at him, not with him. If the songwriter doesn't care about his main character, why should I? Connecting emotionally with the singer is a key part of this challenge, and that's what's missing for me here.
Cavedwellers featuring BSS - I Want to be ME
It’s nice to hear BSS making an appearance on a SpinTunes track! Maybe we can lure more of them over next time… In any case, the band sounds great, and the overdubbed vocals and lead guitar mesh well with the live tracks. The guitar intro is very cool too.
I can tell that you had fun writing the lyrics, but they’re so full of insider language that it’s hard to believe the narrator isn’t already a mechanical engineer, rendering the “want” aspect, the central requirement of the challenge, quite circumspect-y.
"BucketHat" Bobby Matheson - Goerfeldt's 3rd - Keep The Band Together
I enjoy the central concept. The characters are fun and I like how it introduces multiple characters with their own motivations, while also “really” being about Goerfeldt and his fundamental need to be part of a community. The lyrics are clever and I like how Goerfeldt’s interjections continue the rhyme scheme set up by each character’s verse.
That said, this song is long, the instrumentation is sparse and artificial sounding, and the vocal deliveries range from mostly-singing to almost-singing to straight-up-talking. It doesn’t make for very entertaining repeat listens.
Phlubububub - Lost With The Plant People
This song is very chill and spacey, appropriate for the subject matter. I like the way things ebb and flow around the fairly constant rhythm of the piano. Your choice of tuning along with the harmonic language you’re using make it feel like the usual rules of tension and resolution don’t really apply. Combine that with your vocal mixing choices that make the specific lyrics hard to distinguish, and I don’t get a real feeling of desire or motivation from listening to the song. It’s floating in space, without direction. I don’t mind listening to it, but it’s not really what we asked for.
Sober - Leave the Ladder
I love the infectious energy, and the verse melody repeats just enough to ensure you’ll remember it, before you kick it up a notch heading into the chorus. The leap upwards on the word “all” is a great choice and it’s fun to hear the melody wind back down the scale so that it can jump up again. Whether intentionally or not, it very nicely illustrates the central lyrical image in the chorus: You’re jumping up to grab onto the ladder, but you always fail to hold on and end up sliding back down. Cool stuff.
Third Cat - Techno Man
Your music already is a compelling combination of organic and electronic sound, so the subject matter is a perfect fit. I love the chorus hook “I will become techno man”, and especially the low echo of “techno man”.
I really like the opening synth riff, but with the four repeated sixteenth notes on the same note (around 0:02-0:03, e.g.) I have the problem I often have, which is that they’re played at the exact same velocity leaving them feeling stiff and unnatural. I like the clearly artificial tambres, but I still want the playing to feel human.
I’m not sure how well this fits the challenge, honestly - it feels like more of a plot song than a character song in that the singer isn’t reflecting on his own desires, he’s acting in response to external events. I could easily imagine a song before this in which the singer expresses his hopes and motivations for the project he’s working on, and with some edits this song could probably fairly easily become that song. Really, it’s just the first verse that would need to change, probably. I might be overthinking the challenge and I don’t know how the judges will take it.
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