ST23.2 Reviews and Rankings - Edric Haleen

Here are your rankings from SpinTunes 10 Champion Edric Haleen:

Siebass	1
My Broken Demo Tape	2
Cavedwellers	3
Also In Blue	4
SpinTown & Company	5
Definitely Not Secretly Glennny	6
The Pannacotta Army	7
Sober	8
Stacking Theory	9
The Moon Bureau	10
▷	11
Flintsteel	12
The Alleviators	13
West of Vine	14
Celestial Drift	15
With Joe	16
See-Man-Ski	17
Profestriga	18
glennny	19
Governing Dynamics	20
Boffo Yux Dudes	21
cardamom seed	22
Berkeley Social Scene	23

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

My Process:

First Pass:

Basically the same as in Round 1.  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.  I made notes of which vocals were clear and which were hard to discern; I made notes of which stories were understandable on first listen and which were more opaque; I made notes about how well the nonsense words played.  (I actually forgot that “wordless singing” was also an option during the Listening Party, but I corrected that oversight on my second pass.)

And again, there’s more to a song than just the first impression it leaves . . . so again, I just jotted down my initial thoughts so I’d remember them later, knowing that it would be all the other passes through the songs that would actually contribute substantively to my reviews and rankings.

Second Pass:

I once again listened to the songs in reverse submission order for the second pass, again in a quest to be more fair to those songs at the end of the album.  I spread these re-listens across Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to try to make sure I had “fresh ears” for each song.  I listened to each song multiple times, paying attention to story and structure, creativity and craft.  Again, I thought only about the songs themselves; no thoughts yet on points or rankings.

Final Pass:

On Saturday, I started filling scores into the same matrix I used for Round 1.  And like in Round 1, my comments stemmed largely from my notes from earlier in the week, and the scores came from actively 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 23 entries.)

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