ST23.1 Reviews and Rankings - Leonie Connellan

Here are your Round 1 rankings from Leonie Connellan of Hot Pink Halo:

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

Read on for Leonie's reviews!

I mostly listened to your songs while building a path in my backyard. Nothing like hard physical labour to focus the ears.

Falcon Artist - The Proposal

This is a super sweet song. I love that you’ve turned things on their head a bit by having the woman propose to the man. I have a real weakness for songs in triple meter; there’s something about it that feels very natural an instinctive to me. It’s also a good thematic choice for a song related to the idea of marriage and proposals. I mean, the Bridal March is obviously 2/4, and most first dances at weddings are pop songs now, but even still, waltzes still conjure up strong wedding dance floor vibes.

I’m pretty sure you’re just recording a single take voice memo type thing without much editing. Considering that kind of recording, your songs do always sound pretty clear and easy enough to listen to, but I’d be interested to hear what you could do if you had a go at using some more advanced recording software and techniques. There’s plenty of free options around (GarageBand if you have an iPad or a Mac, or Reaper if you have a PC type computer, for instance) that you could experiment with recording in a multitrack way. That said, a good song is a good song regardless of its instrumentation or the way it’s recorded, but having access to those tools is a really excellent, effective and easy way to expand how you approach song structure and writing.

You’re always the first person to submit a song, which is admirable, but it’s also a sign that you’re getting one idea and running with it. My proposal (pun 110% intended) would be to sit on your ideas a bit longer (this is a piece of advice I’ve given to many early submitters over the years…) Maybe record the idea like you have here, but then really listen objectively for a little while to see where you could break things apart a bit. In your song notes, you’ve labelled parts of the song as verse / chorus / bridge, but I wouldn’t have picked up on that if I hadn’t read the notes. Everything sort of blends in to everything else, and it doesn’t feel like there are distinct sections. Sitting down and listening to your song before you send it in will help you identify those things, and give you a chance to experiment with different melodies or strumming patterns that would help to separate parts of the song more distinctly.

The Moon Bureau - Girl with the Eyeliner

Absolutely charming. The first time or two listening I thought it could do with being a little faster, but as I listened more this became a non-issue. I still find the jokes funny after about 10 million listens. I didn’t need the explainers to get the general gist, but definitely appreciated having them; unlike Ryan, I know what kohl is, but I did assume that Bauhaus referred to the school of design… 

“Oh girl with the eyeliner I think I might” is such a perfect refrain line with all those internal “I” rhymes. I love the little jangly guitar riffs; they add interest but also provide space that let the lyrics/jokes bed in nicely. The harmonies are also really sweet, and I can’t help but come up with more and more and more of my own harmonies every time I listen, not because it needs changing, but because I love it enough that I find myself constantly reimagining how things could work in different styles. This one will be going into high rotation (to be honest it’s already there).

Thorsten Nesch - Roadie

I quite liked the general vibe of this on the first few listens. Those guitars have a very cool sound and bring a lot of atmosphere. Unfortunately the melody got tired pretty quickly. It feels very much like a melody that someone would come up with on the first run through. Every line has the same kind of contour, and the story in the lyrics isn’t strong enough to counter that. I found myself skipping this after a few runs through on the playlist. My recommendation would be to break down the structure of the song before recording anything. Right now it feels like one big take that you’ve improvised on top of. If you break the song up into smaller, more distinct sections, it would allow you to keep the instrumentation feeling easy and loose while providing a stronger framework for lyric and melody writing. Alternately, if you wanted to keep the shaggy dog story style of the lyrics and melody, adding more structure and changes in the instrumentation would help provide interest for the listener.

chewmeupspitmeout - Smoke Filled Room

“This could lead to an unfriending” is one of my favourite lines of this whole round, especially leading into the James Bond style melody of the next line. I love some fuzzy guitars, and they help underline the lyrics well. The idea of a smoke filled 4am room at this point in my life is just utterly ghastly. Unfortunately you’ve painted yourself into a bit of a corner lyrically. As a listener I relate to the main character in the song, but they’re also pretty unlikable, and there’s not enough in the song to make me want to go back and listen over and over again. Writing an unlikable character well is incredibly difficult, so props on giving it a go, but there’s not enough story in the lyrics to allow any complexity in that character. I don’t mind listening when it comes up in the list, but it’s not a song I would deliberately seek out.

Berkeley Social Scene - Just A Theory

I love space and science, so was excited to listen to this one after a glance at the song notes. I’ve made a lot of art about things like gravity, physics, chaos theory, etc., and going to show openings of my work is always a bit nerve wracking because there will invariably be someone who wants to talk to me about the woo interpretations of all of that. On paper this is the song for me, but in reality it’s just not gelling. I find the main character quite annoying. I quite like the lyrics when I read them (I particularly like the bridge), but the vocal melody is very pedestrian and forgettable. I’m not particularly fond of the singer’s vocal tone for most of the song, but again, really like that change up in the bridge, and the vocal harmony works nicely there.

OutLyer - Missed Calls

Love this. Vast, polished pop doesn’t come up much in Spintunes and I am 100% here for it. I wish I knew how to make this kind of music. The one weakness I find is that I feel like it’s just the start of a song. I’m ready for a big drop right when the song ends. If leaving us hanging is what you were going for, top marks, but I want more from the song, even if you just completely leave the lyrics behind and that point and go full dance instrumental for another few sections. I guess it depends on where you see the song fitting. If it’s intended for the dance floor in a nightclub, it needs more, but if it’s the closer on an album it would work really well as is (without cutting the tail of the fadeout of course… naughty!)

C-00000291*.sys - Keeping You Safe

Yes, I am rating your “joke song” higher than your “serious song”. Because it’s funny, and it’s clever, and you’ve somehow managed to get away with a last minute objectively terrible edit and make it MEAN something legit. That bridge needs even more awkward edits attacking from all angles as computer falls apart. HEY. The motor sound conking out at the end it perfect. Even though I am married to a network engineer I admit I had to look up "what even is CrowdStrike anyways?” because I think I was out in a field decorating a circus tent when that all went down. You’ve somehow managed to tell a story from a weird perspective in a way that is delightful (in a creepy way), without making it a boring song about an incredibly nerdy thing. HEY BABY.

Stacking Theory - the start of last division

There’s a lot to like about this song, but unfortunately it’s not a joke about a firewall. The rhyme scheme is swish. It wasn’t until just now that I realised the “chorus” isn’t a repeat. I like all the sounds. This review is not going to be particularly useful, I’m sorry. You’re good at making sounds that I like. Initially I thought the lyrics were a little obscure and impenetrable, but I also think that’s fine. A song doesn’t have to make perfect sense to everyone to be good. There’s a definite vibe of sadness and resignation that feels reflected well enough in both the lyrics and the music. Bittersweet, like an empty cast iron pan on a bbq.

Cavedwellers - 2CU

Excellent vocal performance. Love the melodies, especially the little high notes like in “because the State of California isn’t likely to let me”. Adorable. The way that the melody opens up in the …chorus? Post chorus? “But it’s a funny thing” part… is especially nice. It’s definitely an interesting structure to have a somewhat understated refrain line (I wanted 2CU), and then something else that fills the role of melodic release. It could be very easy to make the 80s film boombox grand gesture creepy, but the way this is written cleverly skirts that by pointing out politely that it’s not a great thing to do, so you get away with it.

glennny - Corvette Seasick

Love the talk box type WOWOW sound in this. You do a great job of differentiating the voices of the dad and the son. I do admit that I didn’t really notice that until Ryan spelled it out for me. That all said, I don’t love the vocal production. Everything sounds a bit buried, and I’d like the vocals to be a bit more prominent. I can’t always make out what the lyrics are without reading through the lyric sheet. This song is a bit different than many in that the chorus is much less lively than the verses. I totally understand why, as it fits with the idea of the song, but I do admit I struggle when the hook part of the song isn’t particularly hooky. Making that kind of chorus work well is very difficult. I’d maybe try throwing in some higher harmonies that are wordless (oohs and aahs) just to see what it sounded like.

The Pannacotta Army - Amy

I keep think this song is about Amy Winehouse. I don’t know if I’m right, but the lyrics fit that take. It could be about some kind of relationship failure, but I kind of like picturing it as the Amy Winehouse song regardless. The instrumentation here is just absolutely delightful. Because you’ve left so much space between lyrics, you’ve opened up opportunities for little call and response instrument lines and I love them. Easy to miss on the first couple of listens. I don’t know if it’s a mellotron or some kind of Rhodes over on the left side (I’m pretty bad at identifying specific instruments) that I particularly enjoy. Love it musically, love it lyrically. I think I just convinced myself to push you up a few notches in the rankings. This is why I don’t submit my rankings until the reviews are done!

West of Vine - Vespers

I’m reserving the right here to be terrible by listing all the other artists this sounds like to me. My husband thinks it has heavy Billy Bragg vibes, but the very opening chord tricks me every time into thinking it’s going to be ‘Evening Prayer’ by Ezra Furman, and then I immediately start channelling Bruce Springsteen. I’m totally fine with all this, by the way, because I love all those people. Reading the song notes, I think the misunderstanding of the protagonist wanting to leave with the person, not without them, is interesting and fun, but I’m not sure I would have picked that up all on my own. Reading the lyrics in retrospect, the back story obviously makes sense, but still, I didn’t get it until I tried harder! That said, me not understanding properly what was going on in the story didn’t really affect my enjoyment of the song. The lyrics are interesting and well written, and I enjoy the vibe.

My Broken Demo Tape - It Gets Worse with Age

Hello. It’s me. Your target audience. Sad Elliotty Smithy music isn’t just for Chumpy! This is another song from this round that plays its cards close to its chest lyrically. I don’t really know what’s happening, and appreciated the paragraph of song notes for a little more context. Musically it just breaks my heart. It’s so lovely, and so unique sounding amongst this batch of songs.

See-Man-Ski - Did You Mean It?

This one has bounced around my rankings quite a bit.  Musically I love it. Thematically I feel it. I wish there was a little more meat on the bones lyrically though. It’s just scratching the surface without going into specifics. The instinct I think is to keep things general, because we think that personal examples might be too specific for people to relate to, but I find that song with more details feel more personal to more people even if the specifics don’t necessarily line up with everyone’s experiences. 

Siebass - The Idea of You

Slow, sad song to kick off round one. Risky! Luckily I’m a judge, and also an absolute sucker for slow, sad songs. The little tonal move that I don’t know how to describe is so perfect here. Beautiful vocal choices. Appreciate the clarification of the songs intent in the song notes, because I find myself getting so caught up in the moment that I don’t necessarily follow along with what’s actually going on lyrically. I realise I’m lacking in useful feedback here, so apologies for that, but I love this. No notes.

Also In Blue - A Mile And A Half

This song made me cry in public. I was waiting for a train, thankfully wearing sunglasses. I don’t have a strong knowledge of historical warfare, but since then I’ve spent so much time on Wikipedia reading everything associated with the events described here, and that’s all because your song is so, so good. Those backing vocals that pan wide on the bridge break my heart. Far out. The way the mandolin(?) builds in that following section under “just a mile and a half”, at about 3:25 is masterful. “And the story lives forever / and the graves make no reply” is devastating. If I had any complaints, it’s that I could maybe do with a little more bass other than just the piano (a minor quibble), and the way you emphasise the “gan” in “Cardigan” at 1:40 is not how it would be pronounced (again, a minor quibble). You pronounce it fine everywhere else, and I think you could adjust the melody slightly there so as not to make that emphasis. Unrelated to any part of the song, as I was listening and crying to this at the train station, my knitter brain said “Cardigan? Raglan? Those are all jumper designs.” (Jumper = “sweater” in places outside the USA.) When I got home, I looked it up, and it turns out the jumper designs were indeed named after Raglan and Cardigan’s uniforms. A couple of bits I read suggested that Raglan favoured the raglan sleeve as it was the design that best fit his arm after he lost it in the Battle of Waterloo, and that Cardigan accidentally burned the tails off his jacket in a fireplace somewhere once, and liked the resulting short jacket enough to model his uniforms from it. I don’t know how much of those stories are true, but I’m running with them, and wondering if I can knit a raglan cardigan from exactly a mile and a half of wool.

SpinTown & Company - Department Of Miscommunication

Lyrically this is an absolute slog, but thankfully for you it’s also an absolute banger and I find myself not caring about the lyrics. The music is so joyful and fun, and full of all the little flourishes that I love. I know nothing about Minecraft expect that it exists and is some sort of block game where you make things, which is fine. I’d like to see you try and write the rest of the songs in a way that’s not just listing stuff. In a song, I don’t need all the facts to understand something. A great example from this very round is the ‘Keeping You Safe’ song, which describes a very specific, very nerdy thing in a creative, non-didactic way. Try and find a way into the Minecraft world that invites us in without risking us getting lost.

James Young - Dignified

I like the panning in the vocal, but I think it would have more impact if it came in at specific times rather than running across the whole of the verses. As it is, it gets a little wearing. That might be what you’re going for considering the themes of the song, but the trick would be to make people feel that oceanic weariness without it being overbearing. There’s not a lot of information here to figure out what the miscommunication is; it’s all a bit generic, and I could do with some more info, whether that’s in the form of song notes, or more specifics in the lyrics.

With Joe - Just The Start

The lyrics here are a bit confusing, and if I hadn’t read the song notes I wouldn’t really know what’s going on. With this genre of music, that’s kinda fine. It doesn’t necessarily need to make sense, but if you’d like it to, you could sit down and rewrite it in a more straightforward way. This feels like the start of a song to me, but in this case that also seems thematically appropriate and a deliberate choice. The song is over before it really gets going, and that reflects the story in the lyrics. So, yeah, I want a giant dance drop right at the end of the song, but only for selfish reasons and not because it would serve the song. Musically I love it. The finger clicks (“snaps” if you're American) are super cool and fun, and the falsetto is beautiful. The little yelp at 1:16 is golden.

Definitely Not Secretly Glennny - Definitely Not Secretly Glennny

This is too much fun. I apologise to Glennny for rating it higher than any of the three other songs Glennny was actually part of, but, as stated, it’s too much fun. My money is on this being Evermind, Mo and maybe Phlub. Regardless of who is and is not Glennny, this gets top marks for being joyful, funny (it’s not not funny), and just generally incredibly well made. I get a huge smile on my face every time it comes up. Curious to see where we go from here…

Sharquin - Can You Believe?

Unfortunately I really don’t like this song at all. The very first rhyme is “yeah” and “chair”, which sets the scene for some pretty lazy writing, IMO. The chorus asks me “can you believe?”, and the problem with that is that my answer is “yes, I can”, which defeats the purpose of the song. The protagonist asks a barber they haven’t had before for “the usual” with no other instructions, and then is surprised when the barber cut off their hair? Later on in the song, how can you be sore from “all the activities” when all the activities so far were getting a haircut and eating lunch? Those are not high impact activities. The massage verse is just extremely distasteful. A) It’s 2024: I think everyone knows what “a happy ending” means by now and B) It’s 2024: why are we still writing lyrics that giggle about sex workers? Regardless of the taste levels, the protagonist is an adult who should know that they don’t have to take off all their clothes just because someone asks. These are a bunch of vignettes that could be easily resolved by the main character using their words.

cardamom seed - you got this wrong

I’m in the awkward position where I love this song when I listen to it, but remember absolutely nothing about it when it’s over. Really like it, but it’s not at all sticky in my head. The drum machine is great. Love handclaps. Love the vocals. No idea at all what’s going on with the lyrics. I’ve probably short changed this a little in my rankings. I do think it’s one that I’ll generally enjoy a lot when it comes on in the future, but for whatever reason it’s not entirely sticking with me right now.

Ominous Ride - Telephone

I think your idea is good. The lyrical function of the Telephone game is really solid and has a lot going for it. I did get caught up in the semantics a bit. In real life the sentences that the children whisper would have been far more nonsensical, and there would have been a lot more repetition. I’ve never played a round of that game where every single person misheard the sentence in a completely different way, but I also understand that if you’d gone with reality the song would be very long and boring, so a bit of poetic licence is totally fair play. I hate the AI. I use samples and the auto play instrument tools in Logic all the time, but I use those tools (samples, specifically) to try and break out of my own sound and do something different, which feels to me a lot more legit than asking an AI to come up with music specifically trying to sound like something I would make. Other times it’s for practical reasons (I don’t have a drum kit for example), so if I can have a robot play drums for me I’ll happily do it. It doesn’t feel like a huge step from that to end up at “I’ve got no instruments with me, so I’ll get an AI to do it all”, but there’s a line somewhere in there that has been crossed for me. There are so many tools that you could use creatively to make a song with just a computer, and I would rather hear something recorded with a phone for the mic and a bunch of samples or midi patterns with patches than an AI that’s specifically trying to model your sound in a way that’s as polished as possible. A song doesn’t need all the bells and whistles to be a good song. An AI is never going to make choices as interesting as your own brain can.

Night Sky - Bummer, Lamb

Love the general feel of this song, and obviously really love the sax. I’ve never heard the phrase “bummer lamb” before, and am personally not 100% on board with it, but the internet tells me it’s a legit phrase, so there you go. Apart from that, the story in the lyrics feels very forced. Why does the dog get to recognise and find joy in other dogs, but the lamb finds other sheep scary and weird? Why did it take the lamb so long to bleat and recognise that the bleat is different to the bark? Surely the lamb and the puppy were both making noises from day 1. If Megan is a domesticated pet dog with a name, why are her owners letting her run off with a random pack of dogs?

Menage a Tune - Miss Communication

I really appreciate you putting some instruments underneath here. Even if it’s just a basic instrument like you have here it really does help me place your songs in a more musical context as opposed to just having the lyrics sung a cappella. I enjoy the melody and the vocal performance here. I’m struggling with how separate the two verses are lyrically. Each one stands fine on its own, but they don’t seem to have any relationship to each other except that they’re both about miscommunication. I would like to see the second verse relate more directly to the first verse, whether that’s with the protagonist cooking something different, or something that expands on the egg scenario. If you went with an approach along either those lines, you open the song up enough to think about adding some kind of bridge that reflects on literalism in a more abstract way to build on the song. (Not saying the song necessarily needs another section, just offering up an example of what having a more succinct through line to the song could offer.)

▷ - I Had A Friend Once Their Name Was 夢Мечта

The music here is very polished and very cool. The little laughs, wash of the ocean, bird noises and other things mixed in add a lot of charm and personality. The vocal isn’t gelling for me with the style of the music. You should absolutely embrace your own accent, but I think you should look into adding a lot more processing to the vocal so that it fits with the instrumentation and genre more fluidly. A lot of people complain about “over processed” this and that, especially when it comes to vocals, but that’s generally a bad take. The instrumental is dreamy, the lyrics are about a dream: the vocals should reflect that, and sometimes to fit that you need (for example), ten million doubles, a heck load of tuning and five chorus plugins. Homework: listen to some pop. Chappell Roan, Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’ album, etc. Listen to how many layers of vocals there are in the production, and the weird formant shifts and processing they all have going on in the vocal lasagne. Those songs aren’t necessarily what you’re making, or what you want to make, but they’re good examples of production tricks. It’s mad and cool and I love it, and it’s what music like this song needs.

All Bottled Up - Sober

I somehow almost missed this in my document and nearly didn’t write a review. Sorry! And sorry also that it’s probably going to be pretty short at this point. Thoroughly enjoyed this song. Saw more of myself in it than I care to admit. Love the line about the therapists. The rise and harmonies on “shame” are so good. I think I need a pedal steel, and also magically the ability to know what the heck to do with it please.

Governing Dynamics - Last Light of Wednesday

This is lyrically quite dense, but I also don’t really know what’s going on at all. I do really like the line “An unspoken truth, but you know that it's true: You're a few bad breaks from being me, I’m a miracle or two from you”. I feel like that probably sums up the whole song really well, but it’s not enough for me to really love this one. It’s just not hitting for me for whatever reason. Apologies for the short reviews for this last handful of songs. I’m giving you the short end of the stick review wise, I think, but rest assured that I’ve listened to all the songs many, many times.

Flintsteel - tell me why

Love the Casio sounds. Lyrically this seems incredibly generic. The lyrics are absolutely fine, but there’s no context at all for me to know what’s going on in the story. I feel like it would probably work well as part of a longer concept album type thing, where the other songs are helping give context, but as a standalone song it’s not giving me a lot. Love the line “failing can rack your focus”; that one stands out to me every listen.

Profestriga - Carving Nature At It’s Joints

This is very much not my cup of tea genre wise. I think the lyrics are really interesting and challenging in a good way, and it’s probably very cathartic to perform this kind of music, but it’s not what I would ever choose to listen to unfortunately. Lyrically some sentences don’t fit well rhythmically. I think it would be worth revisiting some of the lines that have a lot of syllables squashed in to make them shorter and simpler.

Celestial Drift - Have You Gone Mental?

Really enjoy all the instrumentation. The vocals could stand being a little more upfront. Love the female harmony. There’s not enough info in the lyrics for me to really buy the story (also this is a very, very American song, and that’s probably a bit of an unavoidable barrier to me getting what’s going on), I understand not wanting to go into too much detail if it’s a real story, but some more little specifics would go a long way to paint a picture and make the whole thing more relatable.

The Alleviators - If Only

“And if she had the words, she wouldn’t stay them still” is such a wonderful, evocative opening line. The little trick of leaving the chorus on a cliffhanger to be resolved by the start of the next section is really enjoyable. The harmonies could have done with a take or two more, but that doesn’t bother me too much. I love the way this song feels.

Boffo Yux Dudes - Kiss My Wife Goodbye

I have to admit that I’m a space nerd but am not at all familiar with this story. I liked this song quite a lot. There’s quite a few charming details, like the Bowie references, and rushin’/russian. I’m curious to go and learn more about the background. Love the tambourine; it’s a little sloppy sounding in some spots, but is a good choice instrumentally regardless. The intro and fadeout on the samples is a great way to bookend and give context without spelling things out too specifically.