ST23.3 Reviews and Rankings - Edric Haleen

Here are your rankings from SpinTunes 10 Champion Edric Haleen:

The Pannacotta Army	1
Cavedwellers	2
Celestial Drift	3
The Alleviators	4
My Broken Demo Tape	5
Sober	6
SpinTown & Company	7
With Joe	8
The Moon Bureau	9
glennny	10
Stacking Theory	11
Siebass	12
cardamom seed	13

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 the previous rounds.  I set down my initial impressions during the Listening Party.  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 whether I could understand how the song’s narrator satisfied the challenge or whether I’d need to turn to the “liner notes.”

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 Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, listening to each song multiple times, paying attention to story and structure, creativity and craft.  And again, I saved thinking about points and rankings for the final pass.

Final Pass:

On Friday, I started filling scores into the same matrix I used for the first two rounds.  And again, 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.