What a round! I'm grateful that - unlike our judges - I don't have to rank these songs, and just get to enjoy listening and offer my thoughts. But first, I do want to offer a few awards of my own:
Best in Show - Ironbark Most Radio-Ready - Jeff Walker and Also In Blue (tie) Catchiest Chorus - Yeslessness, Hot Pink Halo and The Evil Genius formerly known as Timmy (tie) Best Faustian Bargain - chewmeupspitmeout and Ominous Ride (tie) Best Pyramid Scheme - roddy and Governing Dynamics (tie) Best Desperate Attempt to Save a Doomed Love One - Temnere and Mandibles (tie) Best Saxophones - Phantom Woes and Night Sky (tie)
Now on to the reviews!
Berni Armstrong - It Will Come in Handy One Day
A delightful story song with a classic folk feel. Some of the lyric rhythms read oddly on the page, but you make it work in the delivery - you’ve obviously been doing this for a while!
I’d suggest keeping the “It’ll come in handy one day” vocal chorus between verses throughout the song rather than the instrumental interludes, even if it would break up the narrative. It’s a great sing-along chorus (I can definitely picture you at a pub or cafe directing the crowd to join in on the chorus!) and it would make the lyric change to “It came in handy that day” at the end all the more satisfying.
Bubba & The Ghost of the Kraken - Knock Knock Knock
At first I didn’t get why the verse vocals had a fuzz effect on them given how clean the rest of the production is, but then I realized that it’s a way to sonically distinguish the point of view in the verses from the different point of view in the chorus. Neat!
The title hook is instantly catchy, both for its simplicity and the vocal inflection you put on it. The rest of the song doesn’t quite make the same lasting impression, but it’s definitely a good listen. The ending line of the verse “he said while nowhere” feels oddly phrased both grammatically and musically, but I’m not sure I have a suggestion for a quick fix.
Daniel Sitler - Sunshine
The instrumental texture of this song is lovely; the bowed upright bass in particular sounds fantastic but there are other great details throughout as well. There are some really striking images in the lyrics and the use of light as a recurring motif works well, although there’s no real sense of why the relationship ended; “These days I don't see your light anymore” seems to come out of nowhere and it’s treated as a simple matter of fact that things are over.
I’m really not connecting with the vocal; the verse melody is too repetitive for its length and the vocal tone on the long drawn-out notes comes off as whiny. The first half of the chorus spends four lines toggling between two notes a whole step apart. The second half of the chorus is much more engaging, especially when you add in the almost shouted backing vocals which provide a nice contrast to the plaintive lead vocal.
The vocal also seems to drag behind the instrumental throughout a lot of the song; for instance at 0:58 in “You didn't seem to care about”, the word “you” is phrased like a pick-up note but it lands on the downbeat. I’m not sure if it’s an intentional choice or not but it’s another thing that hampered my ability to engage with the song.
The Pannacotta Army - Never Look Back
This song is all about the atmosphere, and it’s beautiful. The contrast of short and long rhythms in the vocal keeps the interest up, and everything is performed and mixed flawlessly.
The lyrics don’t quite cohere for me - is it the opportunity to disappear and start over, or the opportunity to find love? But the music is so good that I barely care. I can easily imagine this in a film soundtrack over a montage of the protagonist wandering around the city aimlessly after just suffering a perceived setback. Or something.
Great stuff.
Balance Lost - A Temporary Window
I adore that synth solo! In general, all the instrumental parts are played, recorded and mixed very well. The vocal has some harsh high-end frequencies that made it hard to listen to (and understand) in the car, although it wasn’t a problem on other speakers.
I wish each verse was twice as long; it feels like you’ve only just established a mood and suddenly you’re moving on to the chorus. As for the chorus, I don’t think it’s quite strong enough to warrant the number of times it gets repeated.
The lyrics are strong, although I don’t know what “I didn’t come / Here for your amusement” means in the context of the rest of the song.
Single Pint of Failure - Don’t Believe in Hope
I haven’t seen Interstellar, but I suspect that even if I had, I wouldn’t have made the connection from your song to the movie, as your lyrics are fairly abstract. Not that that’s necessarily a problem; the emotional tenor and overall message are clear enough, and the “work work work” hook is pretty darn great.
It’s fun hearing you give a rougher, more rock-oriented vocal delivery; your voice sounds great on this song. I do think I hear some odd AutoTune artifacts in places, e.g. on the word “believe” at 0:25, “happen” around 2:10 and a few other places. I don’t have any objection to using pitch correction, but when it is detectable, it creates a specific effect, for better or for worse.
Weiner - Play Your Hand
I like the atmosphere you create here, but I wish it was more varied. The instrumental breaks provide some contrast, but otherwise the song is a pretty uniform experience throughout, and the lyrics are similarly one-note: the first two lines express the central idea and the rest is just variation on the same theme.
It is a pleasant listening experience and I never felt the need to skip the song, but it doesn’t leave much of an impression once it’s over.
Sober - Things You Can’t Unsay
In the past I’ve criticized you for letting your lyrics get bogged down in hyper-specific details. Here, I think you’ve swung too far in the other direction; the central concept is cute, but without any specific illustrating anecdotes you’re left mostly rehashing cliches (“Fuck around and find out”, “Better to be silent and thought a fool”, etc.). With a topic like this I want to hear a story, not an essay.
The music is fire, as usual. I particularly enjoy hearing the chromatic climbing motifs, especially in a genre where you expect things to be mostly or entirely diatonic.
Tunes by LJ - Draw the Line
I really enjoy the combination of pop/R&B flavored vocals and jazz piano solo. The overall mood is great.
You get in and get out, which I don’t have a problem with. In fact, I’d suggest a further cut: of the four instrumental beats after “But what am I so afraid of?” and “I just can’t let it go” - there’s nothing really happening in them, and cutting them would give some extra momentum to prepare for the higher-energy section at “The opportunity comes again”.
Stacking Theory - Make it Great
Vibes vibes vibes! I love the overall sound, with a highlight being the lead guitar around 1:50.
The profanity feels at odds with the positive message, though even so I’d prefer “an end to this fucking ceiling” rather than “a fucking end to this ceiling”, for reasons of both sense and sound.
Also… I know you love the beach and I don’t want to take that away from you, but you know what “it gets me wet” means, right?
Hot Pink Halo - Op shop
This song illustrates a cool and non-intuitive way to make your hook stand out: through the use of rests (or as you might say as a visual artist, negative space). You do it some in the verses, but it really stands out in the chorus, when you sing “What’s the [rest] opportunity cost? / It turns out, [rest] not a lot” - it’s just off-kilter enough to stand out, especially when contrasted with the fun cascade of “op” syllables that come in the second half of the chorus.
There are plenty of other lovely moments throughout the song; another standout is the vocal harmony on “X-ray machine” - another strategic use of musical contrast to draw attention to important lyrics.
In the chorus after 2:00, the layering of the electric guitars and violins makes things a bit sludgy to my ears; that’s about my only complaint.
Jeff Walker - Try Again
A gorgeous country ballad that your voice is perfectly suited to. The musical texture is pretty densely layered, but each instrument has its specific role and it never feels cluttered, a testament to both your performance choices and your mixing skills.
The lyrics feel like pretty standard fare for the genre, with some nice surprising turns of phrase (“When our futures and our feathers are so fine”, “A weathered hat in his hand”) and a few clunky cliches (“You were the one that got away”, “It’s not you it’s me”), but even the weaker lyrics are redeemed by the heartfelt delivery, and that melismatic “Try-y-y, try again” hook is simply perfect.
A standout entry in a round full of very good songs. Well done.
The Evil Genius formerly known as Timmy - Monkey Videos
You have a gift for both melodic and lyric writing - the chorus is effortlessly catchy and the vivid concrete details in the lyrics serve to pull the listener in. There was recently a conversation in the Discord about the dangers of misinterpreting authorial intent, but I’m pretty sure that you know as well as I do that this narrator is a creep - he’s obsessive, he equates aesthetic beauty with meaning (and probably moral goodness), he imagines connection where there is none. The line about getting past security is the biggest tell that you the songwriter are critical of the narrator as well.
Here I might be reaching (maybe she* just likes nature documentaries), but to me the “monkey videos” that she watches could be anything - music videos, comedy, TikTok or Instagram reels - and the “monkeys” are the ugly and meaningless people who, to the narrator, aren’t worthy of being considered human. He* can’t figure out what she sees in them, since she, like he, is a Real Person.
The falsetto chorus is great, although yours isn’t quite the voice to pull it off completely. In general I’d like to hear some more menace in this guy’s voice.
*You don’t specify the gender of any of your characters, so I’m making an assumption here. But I think it’s a safe one.
Huge Shark - Edge of a Knife
Love the sound here, love your vocal harmonies with some fantastic suspensions. The concept is great, and the cynicism throughout the song is crystalized in the great line “Have a gun in your hand when you answer the door.”
Structurally, the “edge of a knife” section functions as the chorus, but it’s lower-energy than the surrounding verses. I think you might be going for a sense of quiet menace, but if that’s the case I’d like to hear some more grit in your voice for that section, or a growling bass pad, or something.
Profestriga - Useless Sapphic
Fun concept, fun musical contrasts, fun use of samples.
With this style of spoken/rapped/declaimed vocals where the syllables on strong beats get really strongly emphasized, you need to be extra careful that the stress makes lyrical sense - here you have some weird moments like “Her anxious longing’s IN plain view!” or “Thinking this girl make HER heart sing”. And some lines just would benefit from another vocal take, like “And you worry she might not be gay”.
Mandrake - Supernova
This song is brimming with cool musical ideas and a really compelling central concept. You manage to extract some real emotion from what could be a cold intellectual idea. I love lines like “let me study you and all your beauty for a while / n' let me look at you in all your beauty for the view and for the vibe.”
Your voice does not come through the mix very clearly, and I don’t think I would understand any of the lyrics without reading them as I listen. I’d encourage you to bring the vocals forward and give them more clarity.
In general your vocal phrasing flows naturally, although starting at 1:19 your decision to lengthen the second-to-last syllable of each line makes for some truly awkward jumbles of syllables. What I hear is more or less:
before it disappears and vanishes likeitnever waaaaas here.
before it goes away forever nevrtb seeeen aaaaagain.
With a very small lyrical edit and by shortening those late syllables we could have the perfectly natural:
before it disappears and vanishes like it was never here.
before it goes away forever never to be seen again.
The Practitioners - Heaven
Solid production, solid laid-back flow, nice use of the samples (though I’m curious what the source is and what the sampled vocalists are actually singing).
I often counsel against “rhyming for the sake of the rhyme”, but the rules are different for hip-hop; you do a great job piling up rhymes while maintaining a natural, unforced delivery, even if the strict meaning of each line doesn’t necessarily have more than a tenuous relationship with the lines around it. And the central concept comes through clear enough. Great track, an enjoyable listen every time.
The Popped Hearts - Never Miss A Chance To Miss A Chance
Fun tune with a clever lyrical hook and a great way of describing this kind of relationship. I like the details in the lyrics too: Sally Rooney, “my suburban cul de sac”. My ears would love to hear more of a cleaner 2000s pop-punk production, but maybe that’s just my own preference. I really like how the snare drum emphasizes the words “tactics” and “praxis” - that’s a cool detail.
Phlub - 2023 Valley Motors Tesla Cybertruck Promo
Call me a grump, but I maintain that comedy songs should have actual jokes in them, and not just a jokey premise. This song relies on the listener finding the central premise of “hillbilly selling an electric vehicle” funny. Sure, it’s kinda funny, but it’s not a full song worth of funny, especially when the melody and instrumentation aren’t super engaging on their own either (though maybe you’d argue that the stripped-down acoustic instrumentation is also part of the joke). I did chuckle at the censoring truck horn.
Susan Veit Heslin - Go My Own Way
This is a lovely tune with a strong narrative. You don’t provide a lot of specific details, but the outline is clear enough: a child performer pushed by their parents into a career they don’t really want, until they finally find the strength to walk away from it. So many stories about child stars have an air of tragedy to them, so I appreciate that this one ends optimistically, even while acknowledging that it’s not an easy choice the narrator has made.
Both your voice and guitar playing are beautiful, but it feels like your voice drags behind your guitar at times; this may be a result of your tendency to swell dynamically right after the onset of a held note, such that it feels like you haven’t really “arrived” at the note until partway through. Not sure if you’ll hear this as well, or if it’s a concern for you, but it’s something I noticed.
Siebass - Just Go Away
I love the energy in this song. The madcap vocal harmony has some highly questionable tuning moments, but it’s delivered with such complete conviction that I feel like I can let it slide.
I love all the absurd details throughout the song - this is a great example of not just relying on a funny premise but backing it up with specifics. “New Stranger Things at ten” is a great line, but you might consider switching it out in later choruses for other excuses.
There’s some whiplash at the beginning - from the opening guitar chords I expect a sort of psychedelic country tune, then we have a thundering drum fill, but it feels like a fakeout because the energy immediately backs off at 0:06. You might consider simply starting with the drum fill at 0:11 leading directly into the first verse.
The Dutch Widows - Just The White Wine?
I really like this song. It combines the dreamy, hazy feel I’m used to hearing from you with a more narrative structure. I’m obsessed with the little bonus rhyme at the end of each stanza (e.g. “to the park in the dark”) and impressed that you maintained it faithfully throughout the song. In fact, the lyrics are very strong throughout. The only clunkers in my opinion are the line “The only way to capture time is a clock” which feels like it’s trying to be more clever than it is, and rhyming “midNIGHT” with… “night”. Oof.
Love the story, love the sound, I’d maybe bump up the volume of your vocal just a bit. I know the wash of sound is kinda your style, but it would be nice to hear those lyrics a little more clearly without having to rely on the lyric sheet.
Loren Kiyoshi Dempster - Land Of Opportunity
There’s so much great stuff here - the creepy cabaret vibe, the parallel major-minor swings, both the chorus hooks, the madcap energy that builds toward the end of the song. The overall form is strong too, with three independent stories connected by a common theme expressed in the chorus. (For two very different examples of this form, different both from each other and from this song, check out “Certain People I Could Name” by They Might Be Giants and “Tight Rope” by Brother Ali. But I digress.)
The verse lyrics could stand some pretty heavy editing, I think. First off is the length: at 20-24 lines each, it’s worth interrogating how important each stanza is and whether some could be cut or combined. Then, as you go line by line in the verses, there are some questions you can be asking yourself, like:
What’s the overall metrical pattern, and how strictly or loosely am I adhering to it? You don’t have to have every syllable line up perfectly in every line, but you should be aware of when you do or don’t. For instance, in the first stanza the first line is heavy with sixteenth-notes (“leave the sea and travel to a”) where the third line is eighth notes (“we’ll leave all your things behind”).
How does the meter of the lyrics line up with the meter of the music? E.g. in most lines the final rhymed syllable lands on beat four of the measure, whereas in the beginning of the second verse “grand” and “land” land on beat one of the next measure.
Is anything awkwardly phrased in order to force a rhyme? E.g. “hide in the basement of your neighbor” vs. “hide in your neighbor’s basement”.
The point isn’t to make every syllable line up in a perfect grid; the point is to be aware of where every syllable is, and to make each syllable a conscious choice. Carefully making these choices as a writer makes your job as a singer a lot easier; there’s less second-guessing how to phrase the line, your delivery will be more confident, and it will result in a more engaging and compelling performance.
Speaking of your vocal performance: the chorus vocals are fantastic, both the almost-whispered menace of “There’s knocking at the door” and the in-your-face exuberance of “One big building together”. I’d encourage you to bring a lot more of that theatricality to the verse vocals. I know the song deals with serious real-world issues, but you’ve chosen to play the part of the villain, and the lyrics drip with irony throughout. Let’s hear the sneer!
Roddy - Piano opportunity
This song absolutely depends on the quality of the piano playing itself to sell it, and thankfully you deliver. The Randy Newman schtick grates after a while - I don’t need the song to be longer than it is - but the lyrics do a great job of dropping more and more obvious hints about the underlying grift before finally coming right out and saying it at the end. Critiquing something by having your narrator espouse it is a difficult line to walk, and you do it well here.
Governing Dynamics - To The Moon!
I really dig the harsher, grittier sound, which fits the aggressive lyrics really well. The vocals feel a little underrehearsed, or maybe you’re not quite the right vocalist for this song; it’d be fun to hear more grit in the vocal.
The chorus is the highlight - I love the “running” / “gunning” rhyme and how the second line extends after “gunning” making it a surprise internal rhyme. Neat trick!
I think that “cement this building floor by floor” means to turn every floor into the supposed ground floor so that you can keep getting suckers “in on the ground floor”, but it’s an odd way of expressing the idea that gave me pause for a while.
Yeslessness - My Secret
The music here is a delicious blend of playful and sinister that perfectly complements the lyrics, which are nicely bizarre in their specificity. The hook “Someone else would try to control themselves” clearly has too many syllables, with “to control” jammed together awkwardly… but by repetition you manage to make that awkwardness indispensable to the catchiness of the hook. It’s great.
I’m not sure what the bridge contributes to the song, other than a brief change of mood - to me, the whispered section is just weird, and not in a good way.
James Young - What Can I Do?
Delicious harmonics on the acoustic guitar. This song has great dynamic range; huge contrasts while still feeling like they belong in the same song.
Love me that AABCCB rhyme scheme in the verse, and the title hook is simple enough to be instantly memorable. No real complaints about this song; while it’s not as attention-grabbingly inventive as some other songs in the round, it’s a solid track that I enjoyed on each listen.
thanks, brain - Looking Down
The compelling sonic landscape and vivid imagery in the lyrics thankfully prevent this song from coming across as a Luddite screed. It clearly is coming from an inside perspective, so there’s no smugness - except a bit in the closing section, where the direct lyrics and absence of metaphorical/sensory imagery makes for didacticism - as if to say “if you didn’t get it yet, here’s the point of the song”. It doesn’t ruin the song though, which is overall a lovely and engaging track.
JW Hanberry - Opportunity Knockin’
This is an ambitious mix of genres that, for me, doesn’t quite come together. I’d be interested in hearing the rock and electronic elements more integrated with each other, as opposed to the different sections feeling pasted together from different songs.
The lyrics are well-written, especially the verses - I’ll always appreciate an AABCCB rhyme scheme. But it’s not clear to me what you gain from speaking the verses rather than singing them; it almost seems like you wrote them to be sung but couldn’t come up with a melody you liked.
Cavedwellers - The Last Gasp Of An Empire (The Amateur Draft)
You guys are total pros, and this song is impeccably performed and produced as usual, but emotionally it leaves me cold. The lyrics tell us that this guy is putting everything on the line for his dream, but neither the vocal performance nor the instrumental arrangement conveys the urgency or vulnerability inherent in the lyrics.
“The last gasp of an empire” is also an oddly dismissive way for the narrator to refer to a sport that means enough to him that he’s giving up his career and stability for it.
chewmeupspitmeout - Never Die
The atmosphere is fantastic - your plaintive vocals, the tremolo guitar, the synth pads… it all adds up to a creepy vibe that perfectly complements the story you’re telling.
The call-and-response between the vocal and guitar, while great for atmosphere, makes the story drag; what if you kept the call-and-response in the first half of the verse, while the second half was shortened by removing the guitar response, so that e.g. “A cavalier’s blade (do doooo do do) / Plunged straight through his chest (do dooo do do)” becomes simply “A cavalier’s blade plunged straight through his chest”. This would lend some variation and build the momentum going into the “I beseeched the Lord” section.
Brother Baker feat. Father - The Sloth
Ironic that a song about a sloth is so high-energy. It's certainly a fun listen. The solo vocals are sloppy, but when everyone comes together it somehow works. Maybe focus more on group vocals and less on solo vocals?
One vocal line I have to single out is "I move to go achieve my dreams", where you emphasize the first syllable of "achieve" for absolutely no reason. The line makes just as much musical sense if you pronounce normally.
The Alleviators - Hit The Ground Stumbling
This sounds more like Governing Dynamics than the Governing Dynamics song does this round. It’s slow and dreamy and subdued, which means it takes a few listens to make an impression. But once it does, it’s worth it. My biggest criticism is that the vocals seem under-rehearsed and under-confident.
Simon Purchase James - Voices Fill the Air
This song, and this recording of it, reflect your skills as a community song leader: a simple, easily grasped melody, direct lyrics with a clear point of view and effective rhetorical devices, one-take professionalism in both your playing and singing, and an ability to improvise and engage on-the-fly with your (unexpected!) audience.
I don't think this song has reached its final form yet, judging by the differences between your lyrics as written and sung, and you may find that some parts, like the “In every moment every possibility…” section, actually belong in a different song.
"BucketHat" Bobby Matheson - Knockin’ on wood
A solid, fun entry with an instantly infectious sing-along chorus. The lyrics are pretty non-specific, which works to make the song relatable to anybody, though I would like to hear some more concrete imagery. The line about smashing the windows in is a great example of how to make a cliche fresh by giving it a twist.
The vocals and acoustic guitar dominate the mix; I know there’s drums and electric guitar and stuff in there but it’s so buried it doesn’t make much of an impression.
Jealous Brother - Missed Calls
For starters, I love the instrumental interlude/prechorus/intro - the unison electric guitar and ride cymbal made me think I was hearing a twelve-string acoustic at first - a cool effect!
Overall, it’s a really enjoyable country-rock tune. My only complaint is when you do the vocal layering at the ending - “There’s always next summer” is only layered once under the end of the chorus, and the two different vocal lines are mixed similarly enough that it just feels like clutter. Either lean into it, put “There’s always next summer” under the entire chorus, make some different mixing choices and make it a whole thing; or just wait until the chorus is over to have “There’s always next summer” as an entirely separate coda.
Also In Blue - Miss Opportunity
That “Wake up / it’s time … make up / your mind” rhyme scheme is so good it actually makes me mad. I’m just sitting here mad about how good this song is. It’s folk-pop perfection.
The bass that comes in to double the lead line at 3:30 sounds out of tune to me. There, I found a criticism.
Phantom Woes - New Woman, New Cry
An ambitious entry that would have fit well in SpinTunes 19 Round 3 “Let’s Circle Back to That”. The texture is not as immediately accessible on first listen as many other songs in the round, but it rewards repeated listens. The vocal tends to get buried under the layers of saxophones.
Your bio states that the opening word “Love” is the only word sung in unison… but the HIM voice doubles HER throughout most of her part, unless I’m hallucinating. A guide vocal that didn’t get deleted? If it’s an intentional choice I’m not sure why.
Ominous Ride - The Deal
When I think of ways to create contrast between a verse and a chorus, lyrical density is a big one. Normally I tend to have more dense verses and less dense choruses, but here you’ve inverted the formula, and to great success. When you start singing “You might have faith / but you ought to know” the fast-paced lyrics serve to ratchet up the tension and energy levels.
The lyrics suit your musical style very well; that relentless guitar riff that threads throughout most of the song is nicely ominous and the meedly-meedly guitar solo is positively Satanic.
Jocko Homomorphism - The Captive Sphinx
Fun to have Beatrix back with us - I see xe made the leap from xyr dead-end job hawking kitchen knives to magical creature seeking. The synth arpeggios do a great job setting the mood, and Cybronica’s MFA in Evil Laughter has really paid off.
Beatrix’s vocal part is mixed very hot, and your vocal delivery feels like you’re hammering every note - it’s fatiguing to listen to. I’d aim for a slightly more conversational/expressive vocal delivery. The voice of the cave(?) is more natural-sounding, perhaps ironic since it’s a non-human voice(?), giving you more opportunity to play with delivery.
Let’s talk about pronouns - second-person pronouns to be specific! The cave addresses Beatrix with thou/thee pronouns, but not very consistently and often without the corresponding verb forms. Here are the changes I would make based on my understanding of the relevant grammar:
Weeping stone and iron links,
Hungry lies the captive Sphinx.
Through the ages doth she brood,
Thou dear morsel art her food.
…
Sphinxes are a fickle kind,
Acid tongue and sharpened mind.
Bow thy head and state thy name,
if thou darest to play her game.
…
Bane of demon, witch, and elf,
Knows thee greater than thyself.
Shouldst thou give her answers true,
She shall do the same for thee.
Basically, if you’re going to use archaic grammar, I’d encourage you to try to do so consistently.
Speaking of grammar, it seems like in this world Beatrix has adopted a sort of lofty manner of speaking, compared to xyr language working at the mall (compare “There are some who call me fool, / I would think it zeal” to “Dead-end track and I sprained my back / I could use a beer”). I don’t have a problem with it in general, but I do wince at “Not here lies the end”, which strikes me as an awkward forcing of the “end”/”friend” rhyme.
Night Sky - Janus Lies
An intriguing concept that I don't think gets fully fleshed out. The lead vocal is rough but the choral backing vocals on the title hook sound fantastic. The saxophones are likewise great in their melodic interlude but elsewhere they're wasted playing while notes.
Ironbark - Privilege
This song is fantastic. It’s the specificity that sells it - the age, the word, the book voucher, “I even put a D in it”. The combination of concrete exterior details and interior emotion is just perfect.
There’s an excellent webcomic called “Hyperbole and a Half” by Allie Brosh, in which the art style appears amateurish, even sloppy, until you realize that every detail is carefully chosen and the pictures are conveying exactly what she wants to convey. Musically, this song reminds me of that comic: at first you hear the cheap drum machine, the simple organ, and the subdued, conversational vocal delivery. Then you realize that the vocal is bang on pitch every note (with some lovely ornamentation like on the word “wrong”), and the organ is playing some pretty tasty chord progressions. And then there’s the lush harmony vocals, which only appear to illuminate Karen Wong’s name, or what he imagines her thinking (e.g. “Karen Wong deserves a clever fella”). I’m a church choir director, so maybe I’m reading too much into this, but to me the vocal harmony on her name illustrates that he has essentially elevated her - or the idea of her - into an object of worship, despite being completely mistaken about her true nature (and ain’t that religion for you, after all).
This song has everything that it needs, and nothing that it doesn’t. Superb job.
Temnere - Sands of Time
A bangin’ track with soaring vocals, delicious riffs, and high energy. What else do we expect from Temnere.
The vocals sound fantastic, although a few spots like “our foregone tragedy” is uncharacteristically loosey-goosey, rhythmically speaking.
I’m not sure what the stripped-down reprise of the final section achieves; I’d rather have a continuation of the story to find out what happens when he actually casts the spell, or end the song early.
“Deafen” is a verb, not an adjective.
Menage a Tune - Push It
An effective retelling of the source material - good job in particular hinting at the twist at the end without being too obvious.
In a story song like this, having a musical contrast between the verses and choruses would help a lot. As it is, they have essentially the same melodic contour and rhythmic density, and there’s no instrumental track to provide variation either. As a starting point, you could try cutting the first two lines of the chorus so it’s just “Just press the button, the cash will be here / There’s no need to worry or fear” - and then sing it at half tempo with a different melody - some leaps perhaps, anything to generate more variety.
Watch out as well that you’re rhythmically emphasizing the syllables that it makes sense to emphasize - a few places like “Chain smoking THESE cancer sticks” stick out as unnatural-sounding. If you can’t figure out how to phrase the line naturally, a rewrite is probably in order.
Jerkatorium - Opportunity
The trademark Jerkatorium energy and dense rhymes are here in spades (love “intimacy”/”into the sea” and “crisis”/”Christ, it’s”/”price is”/”ice this”), but it feels a bit Jerkatorium-by-the-numbers. The lyrics would really benefit from some more specific details. The rhythm guitar is also too loud to my ears.
Good Niche Gracious - Cold War Master
Okay, this rules, actually. It’s a great little earworm with high replay value. I think the drums should be louder. The energy in the vocal is great but the multitracked vocal lines should be more rhythmically coordinated - 0:35-0:38 is especially egregious.
Now I want to do a thing where we randomly select three SpinTunes participants and make them write a song together.
Mandibles - Time Machine
Lovely stuff here. The pre-chorus and chorus melodies hit me right in the feels. Lyrically, things are sort of squishy and vaguely poetical (or poetically vague), which I think actually works really well in this style - and then you get a couple lines like “But there’s a little thing I could do … Go back in time and then forget” which are so direct and prosaic they stick out awkwardly.
Cybronica’s voice is a bit muddy compared to the rest of the music which is all pretty crisp. The screaming electric guitar is a great contrast and works really well. The piano that opens the song sounds clunky and cheap to me.
Weiner - Seven Card Stud [SHADOW]
I think you made the right choice picking “Play Your Hand” as your official entry, as this one is a bit too aggressively weird - but I wouldn't have minded if a few of the unorthodox choices you made here had made it into “Play Your Hand”.
Hutch - Opportunity Knocks [SHADOW]
Charming lyrics that I think would benefit from a simpler melody with fewer leaps.
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