ST23.1 Reviews and Rankings - Edric Haleen

Here are your rankings from SpinTunes 10 Champion Edric Haleen:

Also In Blue	1
SpinTown & Company	2
The Moon Bureau	3
Ominous Ride	4
Governing Dynamics	5
Definitely Not Secretly Glennny	6
Night Sky	7
glennny	8
Siebass	9
Flintsteel	10
Sober	11
Profestriga	12
Cavedwellers	13
Stacking Theory	14
Boffo Yux Dudes	15
The Alleviators	16
With Joe	17
cardamom seed	18
▷	19
West of Vine	20
Menage a Tune	21
Celestial Drift	22
Berkeley Social Scene	23
OutLyer	24
C-00000291*.sys	25
See-Man-Ski	26
The Pannacotta Army	27
Sharquin	28
Falcon Artist	29
James Young	30
My Broken Demo Tape	31
chewmeupspitmeout	32
Thorsten Nesch	33

Read on for a description of Edric's process and a link to his full reviews:

My Process:

First Pass:

I tuned in to the Listening Party with the goal of setting down my first impressions.  I did not look at the artist or song title as the songs played, nor did I watch the YouTube chat – I simply listened to the songs to see what I took from them on their own strengths alone.  And over the next two-plus hours, I realized what a handicap that posed.  It was actually a fairly frustrating, depressing exercise as song-after-song passed where I either [1] the vocals were so fuzzy that I couldn’t understand the lyrics or [2] the lyrics by themselves did not convey the song’s connection to the challenge on the first pass.  And, within the context of this being a songwriting competition, it would seem logical to believe that competitors would do well to make a concerted effort to make their songs accessible and the connection to the challenge clear.  But I also understood that there’s often more to it than that.

Within the context of these being artists bringing something into being that, while initiated by the particular phrasing of a songwriting challenge, may well have an importance or an intention that transcends the challenge, it would be unfair for me to judge them solely on how closely they hewed to my initial, external expectations.  (Plus – as I’ve done myself many a time myself! – some songs may be born from a conscious attempt to explore exactly how far afield one can reach while still remaining technically within the challenge’s confines.  So again, I knew that it would be important to also consider the songs on their terms, not solely mine!)  So I simply jotted down my initial thoughts so I’d remember them later . . . and then vowed not to actually use them for anything more than feedback and perhaps last-resort tiebreakers.

Second Pass:

Knowing full well that after two hours of intense listening I was tired and worn-out as the Listening Party wound through the final several songs, I listened to the songs in reverse submission order for the second pass, to be more fair to those songs at the end of the album.  I also spread the second pass out across several days, only listening to a manageable number of songs each day to try to make sure I was giving each song its due attention.  I listened to each song multiple times in a row, taking notes about things like the arrangement/instrumentation, the rhyme scheme (if there was one) and the songwriter’s adherence to it, and other songwriting aspects that stood out to me.  No thoughts on ranking, just trying to understand the song on its own terms (following along with the printed lyrics and using the provided descriptions to help) and judging the degree to which it met the challenge.

Final Pass:

On Thursday, I finally felt ready to create a scoring matrix.  I did the best I could to come up with something that could at least be consistent across songs and genres and approaches, knowing full well that it’s very, very difficult to come up with something that going to be globally “fair” across every single aspect of something as subjective as music.  I used my notes from the first two passes mostly to write the comments; the actual scores came almost exclusively from me re-listening to each song as I worked on each ranking.

Scoring Categories:

Met the Challenge  (Was the connection clear/strong/tenuous/creative?)

Music  (Did it serve the song well? Was it interesting/appropriate/evocative/engaging? Did it enhance the story, co-exist with the story, or seem at odds with the story? Note – I imagined what a professional recording might sound like when I assigned actual scores for Music, so participants would not automatically be “penalized” if they didn’t have an abundance of resources at their disposal.  But I did add an extra 0.5 if an arrangement went “above-and-beyond,” and/or and extra 0.5 if I felt the music served to significantly enhance the story. A score of “2” should be considered my “expectation” for this category.)

Story  (Did it serve the song well? Was it interesting/appropriate/evocative/engaging? Note – I did not judge how strongly it met the challenge when I assigned actual scores for Story; that’s what “Met the Challenge” was for. A score of “2” should be considered my “expectation” for this category.)

Lyric  (Did the lyrics still on the melody line well? Did the words-chosen serve the lyric well? Once a metrical pattern was established, was it adhered to throughout the song, or were syllables squooshed-in or left-out across recurrences of similar sections of the lyric? A score of “2” should be considered my “expectation” for this category.)

Rhyme Scheme  (Once a rhyme scheme was established, was it adhered to throughout the song, or were rhymes squooshed-in or left-out across recurrences of similar sections of the lyric? Note – I did not penalize for near-rhymes or identities when I assigned actual scores for Rhyme Scheme, but I did award an extra 0.25 points to competitors who rhymed perfectly across an entire rhyme scheme. A score of “3” should be considered my “expectation” for this category.)

Tie-Breaker “Bumps”  (This is a place where I could add in hundredths of a point to break ties for the sake of assigning distinct rankings to all 33 entries.)

My scores/rankings can be viewed in this Google Sheet.