Congratulations to our Round 1 contestants; no matter where you ended up in the rankings, writing and recording a song in nine days is no small feat, and I hope that all of you can find something in your songs to be proud of.
I don’t rank the songs, but I do try to review each round. My thoughts on the Round 1 entries are below.
A disclaimer: my general assumption is that any song is fictional or at least fictionalized, and I always want to make a distinction between you - the songwriter who made the musical and lyrical choices in the song - and your narrator - the imaginary character from whose point of view the lyrics are presented. If I make assumptions about your narrator, in no way do they reflect my views on you as a songwriter!
Read on for my reviews!
▷ - Rain
Your sound design skills are second to none in this competition - the way you use varied timbres and textures to simulate the sound of the rain musically with synth splashes, drops, and cascades, is a lot of fun to listen to. Melodically, the only thing that sticks with me afterwards is the “raaaaaaaaaain” melismatic hook, but what a tasty hook it is.
Lyrically, the central premise is a good one, and it works perfectly together with your sound design: rain sounds like music to you, so you’ve made music that sounds like rain. But the lyrics themselves could get tightened up considerably. You’re not telling a story, you’re creating an image, so you could cut out anything that doesn’t support that image, especially since the music is doing so much of the work.
For me, this song would not be worse, and would probably be better, if these were the lyrics:
no music better than the rain
rain is always on my playlist
rain outside my window
turn the music down
let me hear the rain
rain
rain
rain
rain
Falcon Artist - The Sun
Welcome to SpinTunes! Glad to have you here.
You’ve got a good voice and a decent melodic sense - “Hip hip hip hooray, here comes the sun” spent a lot of time in my head over the past two weeks!
Something to work on is phrase length and what’s happening between your melodic phrases. Since your guitar is your only accompanying instrument and you maintain the same strumming pattern throughout, and your harmonic rhythm (time between chord changes) is fairly slow, that means that we spend a lot of time between vocal phrases just listening to your guitar strumming and waiting for something interesting to happen again.
Lyrically, your song is quite literally about enjoying warm weather, without any layers of metaphor - and that’s just fine! Plenty of classic songs operate on just one layer of meaning. But the lyrics of this song don’t have a sense of focus and some verses don’t feel connected to the next in a way that makes sense.
For instance, you sing “But for me I like it hot not cold / and people will say that I am old / So most years there is a plan / to go away to a hot country to get a tan”. Aside from not being clear what your age has to do with it, this is fairly clear: you like to travel somewhere warm.
But in the next verse you sing “so they board the plane / With there suitcase in the hands / and they think about their plans”. You switch from talking about yourself to talking about other people, without any transition. And why are they thinking about their plans when they are in the middle of carrying out their plans?
In general, the lyrics throughout feel like a first draft. It’s a fine start, but you need to go back and examine verse, each line, each word even, asking yourself, “Does this contribute to the overall song? Does it make sense with what came before and what comes after? Is this worded in a way that flows naturally? Does it have the right number of syllables to fit my melody?” If not, edit, edit, edit.
Joy Sitler - Parade
Great song with a great message. I think your hedging in your song bio sells the song short; sure, connection to other people and the natural world isn’t a sufficient substitute for therapy and medication - but neither are therapy and medication a sufficient substitute for connection to other people and the natural world!
I think the only place you possibly oversell the benefits is in the line “And finally I know I’m gonna be fine”. Maybe something like “And I see that today I’m gonna be fine” or something. But it’s not a huge issue either way, especially with the later lines about the storm clouds waiting till another day - not banished forever!
The most effective rhetorical trick you use, and to great effect, is to repeat the “parade” line, switching from “I don’t wanna be the one to rain on your parade” to “I’m not gonna be the one to rain on my parade” - the narrator comes to see themself as worthy of happiness and not just as a burden on other people and it’s summed up nicely in that seemingly small lyric change.
The energy of the song is great, but at times the layers of strummed guitars (or guitar and uke, or what have you) aren’t quite lined up rhythmically and the effect is more chaotic than I think you're going for.
The Pannacotta Army - A New Low
I’m repeating myself somewhat from my review of “Elephant” in SpinTunes 21, but here again I have a hard time reconciling the ultra-smooth polished sound of the music with the despair of the lyrics. Musically everything is impeccable, but there’s no urgency, no sense that all is not right with the world. And the music is so lush and full, and the vocal so restrained, that it’s easy to sit back and listen without processing the lyrics at all.
I think it is possible to pull off this kind of juxtaposition, but you need to take it farther: dig deeper into the anger and despair of the lyrics, and reach for some more visceral imagery. “I wish it all would wash down the drain” is a good start, but what gets washed down the drain? Shit, right? Or at the very least, filth, decay, rot. Similarly, “People still pouring all their faith into a selfish denier” is pretty good, but what about “Losers still lend their livid ears to that big bag of bile”? Maybe not those exact words, but you get the idea. Make us sit up from bobbing our heads pleasantly and ask “Did he really just say that?” Otherwise your lyrical pleas come off as insincere, or at best half-hearted.
Cheslain - And The Rain Came Pouring Down
I think this is your SpinTunes debut - if so, welcome! If not, my apologies and welcome back!
Musically, this is really well done, and feels like a proggy take on 90s alternative rock. Your voice sounds great and that chorus melody is such an earworm.
The lyrics flow well rhythmically and metrically but come off as clunky on the page - “dread in the air for those who do not soil their hand / answer to prayers for those who live off the land” in particular feels awkwardly worded. On the other hand, “clouds are nomads on the prairie of the sky” is a nice, well-formed metaphor.
And more generally, I’m not sure what the perspective of the song is. Is the narrator literally made of clay or is this a metaphor for something? Is there a particular “sin” that the rain is washing away? Who is the “someone in my stead”? Is the idea that the rain offers a chance to leave one’s faults behind and become someone new?
See-Man-Ski - Popcorn Brain
This song skitters from one metaphor to another without a coherent overall framework, which I suspect is actually the point since it supports the central thesis. Similarly, the musical transition from the verses to the chorus is jarring and always takes me by surprise.
That said, I do really like the ending where you strip down to a cappella vocals and then build the instrumentation back up. And in general your voice is in fine form and the chorus melody is fiendishly catchy.
Stacking Theory - Mordialloc Beach (when the wind is right)
This one has a great overall feel - I like the relentless layers of eighth notes and how you have faster chord changes over pedal tones that then themselves change eventually, for a sort of nested set of chord progressions.
Writing lyrics from the perspective of the kite is a very nice and unexpected touch. My only real complaint in this one is the spoken section, which falls flat for me, though I struggle with spoken sections in general so we may just need to chalk that one up to personal preference.
The Moon Bureau - Sweater Weather
There are lots of weather metaphors in this round; this might be the best song that’s literally just about the weather that it’s about. The music is very well done; I can feel the crisp autumn breeze in those guitars. The vocal delivery is good though there were a few pitch issues that I heard (the final “cashmere cardigan” at 2:00 caught my ear in particular). The “sundress times” section provides a welcome musical lift, and you wisely don’t overstay your welcome, wrapping things up in a tight 2:16.
A small part of me is put off by what feel like strangely voyeuristic lyrics, but I think that’s a me problem, not a you problem.
Giraffes for Wings - Impact Winter
There are some interesting contrasts in this song - emotionally, the lyrics on the page read as weary and resigned, but the music is anthemic. The song runs to an economical 1:47, but the lyrics are shaggy, with irregular rhyme schemes and line lengths and a conversational tone. None of these are bad choices per se, but taken together they make it hard for me to get a handle on this song and my thoughts about it.
I’m also not sure why “impact winter” is the final weather metaphor - that would suggest that the “impact” (the car crash?) caused the “winter” in your heart, but you indicate that you didn’t feel much about the crash at all.
There are some tightly constructed, efficient lyrics in here - “The gutters are gonna swell over / With cheap hangers-on” is a particularly good one - but personally I’d like to see more of that same efficiency in the rest of the song. And the high energy of the music is great, but when your doubled vocals aren’t exactly locked in rhythmically, especially with your rapid-fire vocal delivery, it often sounds cluttered and chaotic and the meaning of the lyrics doesn’t come through super clearly.
Berkeley Social Scene - Waterspout
You guys are experts at creating and maintaining a groove, and this instrumental sounds great. That guitar solo could have gone on for a few more bars, though I understand not wanting to push the song longer when you’re already past four minutes. The vocal performance is good too, although it’s buried in the mix and difficult to hear.
The lyrics don’t add up to something coherent for me. On one side of the metaphor, there’s some kind of relationship, presumably romantic, and on the other side there’s an ocean and a waterspout. But there’s not really any consistency in how one maps to the other.
In Verse One, the narrator is trying to keep the peace with a volatile partner, depicted as trying not to drown in the partner’s ocean. In Pre-Chorus One, the narrator is in the waterspout, which is very clearly depicted as bad. He’s spiraling, he’s going crazy, he’s being led up and down and all around.
But in the Chorus, the narrator is encouraging the partner to enter the waterspout, which is good now? Even though a few lines ago it was bad, and in fact it was representing the partner, or the partner’s actions/attitudes that were making the narrator feel bad. But now it leads to a place of calm and peace: the clouds. And the narrator is encouraging the partner to enter the waterspout to leave behind… herself?
Verse Two and Pre-Chorus Two reinforce that being in the ocean is bad, and being in the clouds is good, even though there’s no transition; the narrator is in his boat trying not to drown in the storm of his partner’s wrath, and then suddenly he’s in cloud and at peace.
Finally, in the bridge, we find out that being in the clouds can actually be bad, in which case you can return to the ocean, which is now good. It just all feels jumbled to me, and it makes me work pretty hard for not much reward.
Chamomileon - Sleet and Snow
First things first: I fact-checked the “30 hours of driving” line, and Google Maps says whether you start from Phoenix or Tucson or Tempe, it is indeed a 30 hour trip by car to Thunder Bay, ON. So PolitiFact rates this claim “true”.
I like this song. The high, shimmery guitar is gorgeous and evocative of the snow, and the restrained but continuous mood and pace of the song supports the description of a long, slow car ride. You don’t hit every pitch of the vocal melody bang-on, but your voice is well suited to this style and you give a good overall performance.
The lyrics have some well-chosen, vivid descriptions of the snowy nighttime drive (“a skating rink for SUVs” is excellent, although “Can barely see, low visibility” feels like a missed opportunity for more descriptive language). What’s missing for me is a better sense of the narrator’s motivation. He recognizes the danger of the drive and the lack of common sense he’s displaying, but I don’t have a clear enough idea of his relationship with “her” that justifies making this spur of the moment decision to go see her. Were they a romantic couple? (Seems likely but not definitely stated.) When they moved from the jungle, why didn’t they move together? Have they been in contact since or is this text out of the blue? “So I'm talking to the cacti” does imply that he’s been lonely, but a few more carefully chosen hints as to the history of the characters and their emotional states might be welcome.
Ironbark - I Am A Clear Blue Sky
Lyrically, this is the best use of the “unstable person = destructive storm” metaphor in this round. You use ornate, flowery metaphorical language to depict the second person’s dysfunction; then, in just a few simple lines you demolish the narrator’s sanctimoniousness (if someone insists multiple times unprompted that they are “blameless”, that’s a pretty big hint they’re not). Since the language is all metaphorical, we don’t really know anything about the actual behavior of either party, but the narrator’s description of himself, along with the “I just want a reaction” language from the second person, points to the situation being more complicated than the easiest read of it would suggest.
I don’t think this is the arrangement that best suits this song. It’s true that the somewhat cheesy lounge style helps establish some ironic distance between us and the narrator, and the laid-back, mostly emotionless vocal delivery supports the narrator’s casting of himself as the sane, rational one. However, there are moments when the vocal and piano want to breathe a bit, and the relentless percussion just doesn’t let them. At the same time, the percussion isn’t energetic enough to adequately portray the chaos of the second person, so it’s in a weird in-between space that makes for an awkward listen.
glennny - Psychotic Cyclone
I adore the bell-like effect of the acoustic guitar, and I wouldn’t object to it being more prominent throughout the song, though of course your electric guitar work is excellent as well. We spend a lot of the song’s runtime with repetitions of the chorus, which is just fine with me as it’s a fiendishly catchy one. I do wish that the vocals were clearer and more prominent in the mix.
Do I love the lyrics? Not really; “this girl’s crazy but the sex is amazing” is a tired trope, but the storm metaphor is employed ably enough. The verses seem to describe a literal storm and the damage it causes, then the chorus shifts to reveal it’s a person, and the storm is portrayed more positively (‘cause she’s freaky in bed, presumably). The contrast works because it’s consistently employed (and with only two verses and no bridge, there’s not much room to complicate it).
Jeff Walker - And So It Begins
You’re in fine form here! Lyrically, you’ve hooked me right off the gate with the evocative and alliteration-heavy “The swelter of the summer in the tropics is a trigger”. The theme of cyclical change in the weather is handled on both a literal and metaphorical level, and you do a great job of threading between the two.
Musically, the vocal and instrumental elements both sound great. You have a gift for delivering a compelling vocal melody in a way that sounds both conversational and deliberate. The somewhat meandering verse melody contrasts nicely with the catchier chorus.
This was one of the highlights of the round, for me.
West of Vine - Aeromancer
The structure of this song is great, with the parallelisms of the first three verses: time, weather, relationship in the same order, and the reasons/treason/vision rhyme further tying them together. Then the final verse shifts energy and focus to bring the song to a close. The overall form of the song is elegant and effective.
The vocal feels very far in front of everything else in the mix, which makes it particularly apparent when you’re not quite on pitch. A tighter vocal performance as well as mixing the vocal a hair quieter, perhaps with some light reverb or other effect to soften it, would do a lot to make the song feel more cohesive.
Hot Pink Halo - Strange Attraction
Great energy in this song. I love the rewinding effect of starting each verse with the same line, I love the build into the chorus, I love that cool squeaky/clangy synth or whatever it is on the off-beats.
I’m not sure that the song earns its fourth verse. The chaos theory stuff is over my head, so I’m focusing on the progression of the relationship through the verses - Verse 1 = infatuation and adventure, Verse 2 = testing and adversity, and Verse 3 = facing the future with security and commitment, Verse 4 = ????? I’m probably missing something extremely clever and highly relevant in the last verse, but at over four minutes without much of a bridge or contrasting section against the verses and choruses, the song overstays its welcome just a bit.
Temnere - Seeker Of The Storm
You read these lyrics and you just know this is a Temnere joint. This song can easily be read as a parable about modern day climate change and the personal sacrifices needed to address it, but you wisely keep the narrative in the fictional world and let the listener draw any parallels they might want to draw.
The vocal melody loses energy at the ends of stanzas, e.g. “if we are all to survive” is delivered in a low half-spoken style when I want you to stay in the higher, more energetic range of the previous line.
My only complaint about the lyrics is the line “who fable claims can bring them back alive” - you so obviously mean “bring them back to life”. “Bring them back to life” means they’ve died and must be revived; “bring them back alive” means they’ve been kidnapped and need to be rescued safely. This probably feels like an absurd nitpick, but to me it’s just so objectively wrong that it needs to be mentioned, like if you randomly had a guitar riff in the wrong key, or something.
Otherwise, this is classic Temnere and such fun to listen to.
Hutch - Just Standin’ in the Rain
Welcome to your first SpinTunes as an official competitor!
This is a solidly constructed song. It’s got a memorable melody in both the verse and chorus, and the lyrics flow just fine even if they don’t tread much new ground thematically. The “missin’/listen” rhyme is rhythmically unexpected and fun. And that probably-not-actually-a-guitar lead instrument plays some pretty tasty licks!
The biggest problem with the song is a lack of variation - the verse and chorus do have different melodies, which is good, but the instrumentation and rhythmic patterns in the accompaniment are identical, with no change in energy. The vocal delivery is essentially the same as well. Thinking about how your performance and arrangement choices support the overall form of the song can go a long way in maintaining the listener’s interest.
The Dutch Widows - Cold, Hard Blackberry Winter
Is this my new favorite Dutch Widows song? Maybe! The things that you tend to do well, you do very well here - tasty guitars, lovely production and mix, that warm deep vocal with restrained but memorable melodies. That chorus hook where “cold” comes in on the downbeat with the instrumental CHUCK CHUCK and then “hard” pops out on a high note with almost nothing underneath it? Excellent stuff.
Lyrically, your song uses the same “bad weather = relationship troubles” metaphor that is shared by a number of other entries in this round, so the song distinguishes itself less in that regard. But the metaphor is handled well throughout the song, and I like the change in the final chorus where you switch from “will you still be so frosty with me?” to “will you still be with me?” - finally getting straight to the crux of the problem.
chewmeupspitmeout - Hurricane
That chorus is fantastic - the way the “oooh” vocals are answered by “You were a hurricane” is so satisfying. (Is there a term for that technique? I feel like maybe it’s something that other SpinTunes participants could stand to try out…)
The metaphor of a dysfunctional lover as a destructive hurricane is not a particularly original one, but I appreciate that the narrator implicates himself just as much by intentionally seeking out the drama.
The lyrics are structurally sound, with verse 1 describing the narrator’s initial boredom and desire for excitement, verse 2 the lover’s destruction, and the ending reflecting on who’s at fault. It’s solid but the verses do feel like they drag on a bit; either inserting a bit more musical variety into the verses (I do very much appreciate the glockenspiel!), or else possibly cutting each of the verses in half, which I think is definitely doable since both verses do some restating of their basic ideas.
Cybronica - Grey Skies
Great, well-constructed lyrics here, always flowing naturally without oddly crammed syllables or word order strained to fit a rhyme. I love the ABABCCDD rhyme scheme of the third verse; I do wish the other two verses held to it as rigorously, but that’s a minor complaint.
The lyrics adhere closely to the “emotional state = weather” metaphor and pack in plenty of vivid, descriptive lines: “Laced with gusts of sharp despair”, “These gray clouds call on me / Im wrapped in their embrace”, “Soak me to the bone and hold me fast”, etc, etc.
For all the emotion in the lyrics, the music never fully reaches the same expressiveness. You both obviously have excellent voices, but neither the performance nor the melody itself has a lot of emotionality, and the accompaniment, while it does build gradually throughout the song, never reaches quite the energy level I think it could. The flute sounds wonderful, though, and it’s always lovely to hear wind instruments played well in SpinTunes.
The Alleviators - Fog
Hey hey, this is a very good song! The subtle layering of voices, which sound to me to mostly be in unison/octaves, can be really tricky to pull off if you’re not locked in rhythmically and pitch-wise; when it’s done well, as you do it here, it gives the impression of a single voice that changes timbre throughout the song. Really cool. (Travis, if my ears aren’t deceiving me, it sounds like you’re mostly singing in your usual tenor-ish range but also doing some doubling of yourself an octave lower? Which makes for a nice rich, full aggregate sound that I’m not used to hearing from you. It’s good stuff!)
“Bad weather = relationship troubles” is a metaphor used by several entries in this round, but the focus on fog as a metaphor for impairing your judgment, as well as the consistent beach setting, set this one apart lyrically. And the musical choices throughout support the mood of the lyrics. Really well done.
Winterloper - Frostbitten Hearts
Welcome to SpinTunes!
You’ve got a solid lyric, although it doesn’t offer much in the way of surprises. “Cold = unfeeling” is a classic trope, though the specific phrase “frostbitten hearts” feels fresh and memorable. The lyrics are consistent in the use of the metaphor, which is good - although the line “let our hearts regrow” that ends the bridge feels out of place, as growth doesn’t show up anywhere else. Certainly plants grow when it’s warm and not when it’s cold, but you don’t do the work of fully bringing that aspect of the metaphor in.
A song this long, with this minimal instrumentation, needs a compelling vocal performance to drive it, and your vocal is pretty restrained, with the robo-tuning layered on them robbing them even more of any emotive power they may have. The harmonic language is jazz, with your extended chords and unexpected changes, but without an emotive, dramatic vocal performance it comes off as an intellectual exercise.
Boffo Yux Dudes - Weather The Storm
That drum intro that opens the song is great, though when the song properly gets started the drums settle into a pretty generic backbeat; it’d be nice to keep up a little more of that energy from the intro going into the rest of the song.
Not to say that there isn’t plenty to enjoy here! The time-signature switch in the middle is very cool, and I love the “the weather… the weather inside my head” harmony hook in the chorus.
I’m not 100% clear on the story here - my guess is that there was a breakup and the narrator blames the ex for his poor mental state. You go between blaming the second person for the bad weather and wishing they were back. The narrator’s bitterness is a bit of a turn-off; I think he needs to take a little more responsibility for his own mental well-being.
SunLite - Glass House
This is a hook-heavy, high-energy slice of pop-rock and I’m here for it. The melodic variety throughout the song is great to hear; you’ve got two contrasting verse melodies and two contrasting chorus melodies, all of which are compelling on their own and which transition nicely, keeping the listener engaged throughout. And then the ending when you layer the two different chorus melodies on top of each other… fantastic stuff.
The lyrics feel somewhat free-associative, but you manage to keep everything loosely connected via the central “relationship in trouble = bad weather” metaphor, so it works.
I like the timbre of your voice; it’s in the neighborhood of Ben Folds but without so much of his pinched quality. I suspect you could have spent more time practicing and/or polishing the vocal - there’s a lot of pitch issues and some spots where it’s clear that separate vocal takes were pasted together. More care with the vocal would elevate this already-enjoyable song even higher.
Governing Dynamics - Storm Over The Ocean
It’s always nice to hear Governing Dynamics in rock mode. The guitars sound great, and that instrumental hiccup on the downbeats in the chorus is a great touch. The energy of the vocal is great too, as is the chorus melody, but there are some distressing pitch issues - The second syllable of “thunder” at 0:44 and the sustained “lines” at 0:50, just to name a couple examples.
The lyrics feel like less than the sum of their parts - the narrator seems to want their partner to leave them - “the harm I do / I'm not sure you should forgive”; “don't settle / for something / you don't believe / believes in you” - but also won’t be the one to pull the trigger themself - “bet that I'm still in it”; “I won't drown”. They acknowledge that they’re not a very healthy person to be in a relationship, but their partner isn’t either. The most I can get out of this is that it’s a game of relationship chicken between two highly dysfunctional people, but I feel like I have to piece that interpretation together from disparate parts of the song, rather than it being presented as a coherent whole. And maybe that’s fine, I guess, but I do like being confident about what I think a songwriter is trying to tell me, and I’m not feeling that confidence here.
Menage a Tune - Wind and sand
A heartbreaking portrait of a destitute, traumatized veteran. The titular wind and sand are used to powerful effect both as physical descriptors of the literal weather in the desert and as a metaphor for the narrator’s trauma and fragile sense of self.
This song would have benefited from some more time to better lock in the melody and chord progression and to get a more confident vocal performance, but compositionally this is a very strong song!
Sober - Back in Texas
Musically, this song displays your usual skill, professionalism, and obvious respect for your stylistic forerunners. It’s a sonic treat. Well done!
Lyrically, this song actually contains two songs within it: Song A is a light-hearted take on regional differences in climate, cuisine, and couture; Song B is a somber meditation on weighing one’s personal safety against responsibility to one’s community. I can think of three ways I might be meant to reconcile the two songs: 1) Song A is the Trojan horse that lulls me into a false sense of fun before I’m hit by the reality of Song B; 2) Song A is the main point, Song B is just a brief aside; 3) Songs A and B are of equal importance. I’m not sold on the song as a whole effectively pulling off any of these.
Song A is full of specific, concrete details: it’s not “the food is better here”, it’s “I’ll take Damariscotta Oysters / Over drive thru Chik Fil A”. Likewise, it’s not “I still dress the same”, it’s “I still have my ropers / And they’ve always had tread / To be caught with smooth-sole square toes / I’d rather be caught dead”.
In contrast, Song B refers blandly, euphemistically and awkwardly to “people / Who check boxes that aren’t right”. There’s an argument that can be made that to remain somewhere that injustice is rampant is to be complicit in said injustice, and maybe the narrator counts himself among said wrong-box-checkers and it’s his own safety he’s worried about. But the wishy-washy language and lack of reference to any concrete injustice or specific group of people means that the narrator’s justification comes off as lip service.
So if the real point you’re making is supposed to be found in Song B, get more explicit. Make the listener uncomfortable, make them feel complicit in viewing the differences between Texas and Maine as nothing more than fun variations in food and weather. “I’d rather be freezing in the sleet than beaten in the street”, or something.
And if the song as a whole is supposed to be light-hearted and fun, and Song B is there for a brief moment of contrast, it doesn’t work either because a half-hearted bummer is still a bummer.
Eric Baer - Weather Anomaly
This was a sleeper hit for me. The drum machine and acoustic guitar instrumentation are not at all flashy, but the guitar playing is very tastefully done and the vocal melody really wormed its way into my brain. (The first half of the verse melody bears more than a passing resemblance to They Might Be Giants’ version of “I’m Gettin’ Sentimental Over You”, but I’m willing to chalk it up to coincidence.)
It’s easy to read the lyrics metaphorically as describing the sort of sad-sack character for whom everything seems to go wrong, but you leave that reading up to the listener, rather than spelling it out, which I think is the right choice. You describe a guy who is literally followed around by bad weather; the lyrics are weird and delightful and full of concrete, sensory details. Great stuff.
Lucky Witch & the Righteous Ghost - Weather Song
This song is shaggy and messy in ways that I actually find charming on most listens. It helps that it’s consistent across multiple aspects of the song: the vocals are often somewhat pitchy, but the melody and harmony are always recognizable; the instruments aren’t always perfectly synchronized rhythmically but they’re still hanging together; the recording and mixing is somewhat lo-fi but all the elements are still audible; the meter of the lyrics isn’t particularly consistent from line to line, but they were clearly written deliberately. In other words, it comes across as a stylistic choice.
All that said, would it be nice to hear this song with a more polished performance and production? Maybe! The song is lyrically solid, with a relatable central theme and some fun imagery throughout. And you’ve got one of the catchiest choruses in the round; it starts off with an attention-grabbing surprise chord change under that sustained high note on “I”, and those sustained high notes contrast nicely with the rapid fire “and the words go, and the words go, and the words go and I talk about the weather”. I’ve found this song running through my head quite a bit the past two weeks!
Ominous Ride - Nymphorainiac
This right here, folks, is what we call “commitment to the bit”. You thought to yourself, “I’m going to write a song about a man who is uncontrollably turned on by the rain”, and then you did it, you wrung every bit of innuendo you could out of it, you gave it your usual dark, intense musical treatment, and you delivered it with a completely straight face. Well done. Well done indeed. The drums should be much, much louder.
Dream Bells - Snowsong
I think this is your SpinTunes debut - if so, welcome! If not, my apologies and welcome back!
The effects on your vocals make your lyrics almost completely unintelligible without the lyric sheet, but they do contribute to the overall atmosphere of cold and snowfall you’re going for. I think the drums during the chorus and post-chorus are a little too heavy, but otherwise it’s a really nice mood you create.
Reading the lyrics, they are a bit opaque, but the general air of regret and lost time that you mention in the song bio definitely comes through, and they’re certainly well constructed in terms of meter, rhyme, etc., with nothing sticking out as awkwardly worded.
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