Rankings from Evermind:
Read on for Evermind's reviews!
The challenge is pretty binary on this one, either you did it or you didn't, and as it turns out, everyone did! As a result, I'm dropping the "challenge" subscore from my rubric for this round (since everyone would have scored the same in that category anyway). However, that doesn't mean the challenge doesn't affect your score: there's a lot of considerations for how to make a good song that are affected by this challenge.
What I think may be the most difficult thing about this challenge was that without repetition, you can't clue the listener in to the structure of your song with words. You can't really do a proper chorus or even a refrain without repetition, so what do you do? Through-composition? AABA structure? Make a pseudo-chorus where the words sound similar but aren't the same? Make a chorus consisting of entirely exception words? (I'm glad nobody did that last one.)
Without further ado, let's get to reviews.
Stacking Theory - Goodbye Baby
===
What a crushing song. I mean that in the best of ways. Some real gut punches lyrically, especially at the end. There's enough raw emotion in these lyrics that I'm actually wondering if you're okay.
I like that you've chosen to end your final ST21 entry with "baby", the consistent through-thread of all your ST21 songs. It rings very differently, like a spiteful, mocking rebuke of your past self from previous rounds writing love songs and feeling optimistic.
I like that the intensity of the song changes from moment to moment, there's a lot of different changes throughout the song and it keeps me engaged.
Some very small timing wrinkles where your guitar strums aren't quite aligned around 1:55-2:05.
Drums feel kind of muffled and... is the whole kit panned to the left?
This really does feel like the ending credits to a sad movie.
Vocals could benefit from a little more compression or volume automation to even out individual sections a little bit.
Hot Pink Halo - Mimeograph
===
You always have really great concepts for your lyrics. I love that you've chosen to write about old duplicators. I can say with fairly high confidence I've never heard a song about that before.
Vocals are pitchy and rush the beat frequently, adding a sense of anxiety in an otherwise extremely chill song.
Timing issues throughout the song.
The background ooohs that come in are very pleasant.
The sound of the piano feels very soft jazz and it's nice.
The vocal melody feels aimless.
Some really wonderful imagery in the lyrics like "A lilac ghost". What a wonderful way to describe a ditto machine.
The song feels really drawn out. A bump in the tempo might have made a lot of difference, at least according to my subjective tastes.
I like the ambience added by the vinyl crackle, which suits the topic of outdated copiers.
This track has no rhythm section until late on in the song and feels incomplete because of it. On top of that, the piano and vocal cadence are very on the downbeats. There's no syncopation, no groove. The whole song feels really rigid and lifeless as a result, in contrast to some previous songs of yours like Shape Shifter.
Tunes by LJ - Watermelon
===
A bass-forward song can be so nice, and with all the swing this song drips with groove.
The vocal treatment on the section starting with "Those who know bow their heads to the ground" is really stellar. It sounds like you've either got a really nice sounding exciter or formant booster or maybe you've just layered a tightly synchronized whisper track underneath. That plus the "radio voice" style EQ provides a nice contrast between sections.
You've chosen to provide sonic consistency between the A and B sections by making the cadence and rhyme of some of the lines consistent with each other in these sections.
The sibilance is bordering on too hot on this.
I wish you'd added something to the second B section of the song to bring it up a little more from the first B section.
It feels like there's something missing from this song structurally. I don't know exactly what, but it's like there's some climax or some conclusion missing.
It's not quite clear what the concept of this song is. You've made another really great sounding groovy loungey vibey sort of song, but I can't quite find the meaning, and there's no song bio, so my best guess is this is just vibes.
The Dutch Widows - Finish on a High
===
"My other half suggested the title, hoping for something upbeat and positive" - And yet you wrote a song about assisted suicide! Seriously, though, this is something I've thought about a lot. It's a heavy topic but it's a daring and compelling choice of song concept and I appreciate it.
Vocals are rushed in the intro. Pronunciation is a little mumbly.
Plucky strings feel cheap. I feel like this is a thing you can lean into and make them sound really synthy and artificial or spend time and/or money getting a really natural sound, but if you're caught in the middle you get an uncanny valley effect that's unpleasant.
I like the choice to alternate between mono solo vocal and stereo doubled vocals. It makes a really nice contrast.
The amount of vocal reverb applied in this song would be overkill in a lot of songs but I think it was the right choice for this song. Gives a bit of a spooky gothy atmosphere that matches the lyrics.
"We are capable and able theoretically" has stresses on weird parts of the words. Some vocal delivery choices I'm not wild about, like making the last word of every line in the stanza starting with "See the signs that were never there" very short and abrupt. It could work if the instrumental followed suit with this delivery but it just continues on as it was. The "else" in "Long to be most anywhere else" comes across like you forgot to say the word earlier. Again, if the instrumentation followed suit it could work.
Vocals feel too loud.
Vocal melody feels too simple for the element that's the main focal point of this song.
The lyrics feel overly wordy. I think you can be more sparse and it would work in your favor.
No comments:
Post a Comment