Melody Klein - Too Long
Mission accomplished, I feel personally attacked.
You know, I’ve done this: after writing “Your Name” and – to this day – believing it to be the absolute best song I wrote for ST 15, I got ranked far lower than expected, with 3 judges placing me out of the competition. I squeaked through to round 3, but followed up with a song that my wife described as “weaponizing my music” (she now insists she really likes it). In effect, I made the judges sit through a 6-minute Philip Glass style parody with only 5 unique words repeated. When the dust settled, it was consolation to pretend that I threw the game so my daughter could win, but I was really just being petty. And even when I won the whole damn thing, sooo many reviews expressed preference that I had written in a different genre, or following a different theme, or just not doing that stupid concept album.
Anyway, as for your lyrics, this time around your passion and emotions carry the song, and are in my opinion the best you’ve written so far. I might take issue with the line “It definitely won't make me less inclined to write any more”. On deep reading, it’s obviously sincere once parsed. But you’ve bounced back and forth from sarcastic to sincere the whole song, and this phrasing could go either way. Couple that with with a pseudo double negative, and it gets confusing. Through my body of reviewing work, I think you’ll notice a preference for consistent narrative perspective.
You have a voice. Stick to it if you’re passionate about it, and develop it. For all the feedback I’ve given, I admit I have no standing to criticize the music. You have one chord the whole way through, with some hints in the backing that maybe you half want to take the minor tonic down to its VI. That leaves the engineering to pull the full weight of the song, and you do let it ebb and flow in a subtle way. I’d suggest going bigger with this aspect, but is that me missing the genre again?
See-Man-Ski - Get Back (to where you came from)
First off, this sounds great. The textural contrast entering the chorus moves the energy in a really effective way. Now, I want to address a core issue that may make this song really awesome or really in need of work…
Your lyrics make great use of repetition. “Get back to where you came from” in the verses and “do you think” in the choruses, used in various ways to convey each thought, fit nicely. Then the music: I - iii - IV through the whole song, again repetition as far as the eye can see, even when the melody changes atop it. This is not a problem per se, as many wonderful songs (see “Born in the USA”) use the technique. But it has to mean something to compensate for passing on the opportunity to give the listener an out.
If this is a commentary on where the world is today, I want to hear more variety. Make the chorus and verses harmonically different, turn the back half of the verses into a pre-chorus that ends on V, or at least mix it up somehow in that 2-line bridge. If however your message is that this is a pattern that recurs throughout history in an unending loop, it’s brilliant the way it is. Since I can’t tell, I’m going to split the difference.
Firefly - Firephyte
Overall a very strong showing. Your story is unique, your imagery fantastic. “Turn up the Lizard King, turn down Billy Joel”? Inspired.
About the production, it’s really effective bringing in the low guitar for verse 2, I love that. The intro though, not sure I’m buying the drums dropping out when the lyrics start. There’s a subtle cymbal there to end things, but it’s just not selling the transition. Simpler might be better here, leaving out the drums completely until “four feet deep”, except those color cymbals here and there. Maybe some cymbal brush hits or rolls to swoosh things around a bit, but no fixed rhythm until you’ve covered the first stanza.
The chorus is where it’s at, and you have the opportunity to lean into it a bit more. Switch to a sustained cymbal for the 8th notes, like a semi-open hi hat, ride, or even soft crash. Layer harmony vocals on “burn us down (now)”. Let us really get immersed in it.
Of course none of the above really critiques your songwriting, just the arrangement and production. That’s a good sign. If I’m giving songwriting advice, and that’s kind of my job here, I’d think about the narrative voicing. There’s some first person, but mostly plural. That plus third person reference to son and daughter keep everyone at an emotional distance. Maybe “I” and “you” monologuing to connect the parents in concern for their children? Maybe “you” to the kids, pleading with them to thrive?
Phlub - Eternal Return
Dude, you know we’re just regular people, right? I studied all the theory and composition my college had to offer, but they didn’t end up getting to this. I’m just going to recuse myself from the part where I offer criticism of your music on account of being unqualified, and focus on the lyrics and holistic qualities.
This is a pretty deep investigation of your subject, full of questions and doubt, like the ongoing argument. I’d find a way to replace the part about entropy, as that’s essentially the one thing that’s not at all up for debate; entropy increases and does not circle back around. The rhyme scheme is inventive, guess I’d describe it as “return/a/a/a, return/b/b/b”. Pretty cool.
Your use of all circular percussion instruments is a cool Easter egg, but I’m not sure if it adds anything to the song. Does this make me a hypocrite? I recorded a song by people in train tunnels using only instruments they’d have had in an apocalypse. But it was in service of actually having those actors on stage in a production, actually playing the instruments (and each part is simple enough that the musical director could reasonably train an actor to play it), so it served a purpose within the narrative. What does your percussion do? Frankly, if I didn’t know why you chose them, I think I’d have interpreted the choices as throwing back to some of the earliest music, played around campfires, when the first philosophical discussions likely took place. Blended with the other electronic, synthesized instruments it connects the origins of debate to the present.
Star Bear - Chapters
Let’s talk about what I liked first. I’m not sure I’ve heard many songs with such large blocks of different content standing so far apart. Your slow, piano-backed stanzas number 5 before you get to the “you’ll” section, which you only visit once and for 3 stanzas. Is it a single chorus? Is it a long bridge? Who knows, but it’s different and it picks up the energy at a point when the song really needs a shakeup.
Now then, I have some issues with your lyrics, and how the lyrics interact with your melody. It took a bit to pin down just what was bothering me, and I think I’m perceiving a lack of marriage between what you’re saying and what notes on what rhythms you’re using to say it. Like you wrote lyrics to a rhythm in a vacuum, and a melody that sounded good, and just overlaid them. Important words aren’t timed to land on beats that feel more present, nor do you use melodic pitch to signal when thematic energy rises and falls. It’s a daunting proposition, and in practice it means composing both iteratively and reworking lyrics whenever you find that the impact word is on a non-impact note, because if you rework the melody then you have to do other lyrics when the melody repeats.
As to the lyrics themselves, I’m going to point out the overwhelming number of times you stress the wrong syllable to get a word to fit. “PUR-sue”, “BE-come”, “DE-serve”, “so-CIAL”, “con-TRACTS”… and ok, since I forced myself to listen for examples, I now see they’re all bunched up in the middle section. The rest flows ok, though I might still have an issue with inter-word stresses like “learn TO do”.
chewmeupspitmeout - Ad Homonym
Fine, you win, I want to kill myself now. Before I do though, I may as well review your song, perhaps even holding back from being overly pedantic.
I do have a soft spot for true minor like this; you know, where the harmonies are not simply relative to a major and traversed like i-VII-VI (really vi-V-IV), but where you hit a legit V7 with its major third from the harmonic minor scale. Not sure why it’s relatively rare these days, but for a song as depressing as this one, there’s no excuse to use any other pattern.
I think you could have massaged the lyrics to avoid those cases where you squeeze in more syllables than necessary. Even that third line would have sat better as “prostrate on the floor”, and there were many other instances. Also, I think both uses of “splinter” actually derive from the same concept. Damn, I wasn’t going to get pedantic. Guess I gotta be me.
Hot Pink Halo - Hexaflexagon
There’s a lot of good here. Right off the bat, the inner rhyme in “a story told and folded over time” is dense in its meaning and relevance. There’s enough of this meaningful density that it builds trust. Because of this trust, I believe that if this were popular and listed on Genius.com that someone would note an obvious meaning to the bay of shelves, or the tigers who smoke tobacco. I don’t have to know each reference to get it as a whole. Add to that a well-plotted syllabic structure that stays interesting via breaks in the rhythm making the listener anticipate the next line.
I do think you need to break up the monotony, and I’m feeling it’s after the 3rd and 6th stanzas. Maybe not even extra bridges, maybe something in the music? You’re kind of being coy with the harmonic definition, but the general feel is that of a i-VII movement repeating through the entire song. I get that a core message is the cycle of storytelling, but maybe more of a balance between cycle and engagement?
Sober - It’ll Be Ok
AAB, CC…D? I can respect your choice not to bring every 6th line back to B, but I’m not sure if I personally could have resisted replacing that 6th line with something like, “Full of time to kill ‘til I wave the white flag” (and next time up the 3rd line becomes “And all the other FOBs and COPs in my travel plan (in the battle plan?)”).
The song is excellent. IV-I-V in the chorus works great against your verses that begin on I, and the arrangement sets it apart from the verses nicely via vocal harmony and addition of the fuzzy guitar. The reference to “shades of gray” works two ways, as muted colors/life and lack of definitive right and wrong. Really, not too much in the way of notes, you’re pretty good at this whole songwriting thing.
Also In Blue - Howling At The Moon
Someone needs to let you know that this is an amateur songwriting competition, and that there is no place here for lyrics like “You keep one eye open on the morning news, and hope it doesn’t tell you where you were”. Take your #1 ranking and get the fuck out.
Mandibles - Home Sweet Home At Last
I’ll admit my bias for lines that sound naturalistic and aversion to re-ordered syntax like “Time with hungry jaws devours”. That’s on me. I understand a lot of professional music does this, and I won’t ding you on ranking just because I have this weird hangup.
I love the approach to this song. Too often we think we need to have our narrator say what the song is saying, but that’s not true. A narrator saying “This time it’s gonna work, I can feel it” can be MORE impactful when the listener gets that they’re fooling themself. I might fiddle with the transition from pre-chorus to chorus. At first I thought don’t start the chorus with the melody on the V, but no, that’s great. Instead, maybe alter the end of the prechorus to be somewhere else with a better leading. Drop it down to the II maybe, indicating maybe a hint of doubt from the singer, then up to the V on “home”? This is almost a purely artistic call, since the melody as written is emphatic and convinced about it working this time. It’s not my place to suggest changes to the actual emotional content of your work.
Oh, and I’m really feeling your artist bio here, not being sure where this falls in the folk-to-Broadway spectrum.
Night Sky - Leave it on the TMB
This is a tough one, and I think you’re going to take a hit from having such a good idea with so much potential and not fully delivering. The theme is great, the pattern of ending each stanza with the beginning line gives it a parallel internal structure, and I catch a glimpse of the romantic feel you’re going for.
Unfortunately, the piece as a whole falls flat. 5 stanzas of the same, with nothing building or falling, be it instrumental, compositional, or otherwise. No bridge to communicate the meta message that pulls together the experiences in each verse. Even the songcraft could use work, such as when you use internal rhymes such as, “Tonight sing your song, I will sing along”. You either want to repeat the melody for each line of these or do a higher variant of the melody for the second. Allow the music to flow in parallel to the lyrical structure. Also, don’t then give up on the structure and let the listener down in later verses.
Finally, I don’t think you need a whole stanza when you return to Chamonix. Drop the instruments mostly or completely (whole note piano chords?), and just sing the first two lines, ending on the unresolved V. The listener can do the rest of the work there.
Governing Dynamics - No Matter Who
I always hate when judges say this to me (when I disagree), but in my opinion this is your best song so far this contest. Part of it is the breath you allow the music to take in the refrain, driven it seems primarily by your choice of when and how to leverage harmonies. They are there as punctuation in the verses, but used more legato (at a project level) in the choruses, and it works. You know what also works? That bridge. All in all, I’d say this composition has a lot more to keep it musically interesting throughout than your last 2 entries.
Lyricall, I’m also interested. I tend to read ahead, and sometime we get to lyrics where I instinctually feel “this is going to get cramped”. But then you just allowed the line to be longer and not get hemmed in by established structure. It has the feel of a work that went through some revisions, even if done live as you composed it. The melody drives the lyrics, but then when they don’t fit you feed back into the melody and make it fit. I’m impressed, and I feel like you’re going to do well in the judging.
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