Here are your rankings from SpinTunes 23 Champion glennny:
Read on for glennny's reviews!
1- The Moon Bureau- Though Carcassonne is not one of my favorite games, it is a classic. I have played hundreds of times. I prefer the original to all of the expansions and variations. My other hobby is board games, so you got my number on this one. So A+ on the subject. I really enjoy the Sting reference. Oddly enough, I don’t care that much about lyrics nor subject. I really care about music and melody. This melody is fantastic and catchy! The production is delightful! I’m juggling a lot of the other rankings, but this has been my favorite from the first listen. I love your voice, I love the bass tone. Great catchy drums! It’s sooo good! I want this album! Does anyone ever tell you your vocals remind them of Mark Kozelek? The string plucks after the first chorus are delightful! Excellent job!
2- Vehicles Beware- So smooth! The production and mix are perfect. Super solid take on the challenge. I really love the chord pattern for the verse. Weirdly, I enjoy the verse much more than the chorus. The chorus is a less adventurous melody. The bridge is really sweet! The recording really comes alive with headphones. I’m a Steely Dan fan, and clearly you are too. Excellent job! I’m looking forward to your next entry.
3- Flintsteel- Dry guitars! How Metallica of you! I’m enjoying your drums a lot. You’ve stepped up your drum game. Great take on the challenge! What I enjoy most about this song is how much music it has! The intros, the solos, the structure. Dynamics are great. This is everything fun about metal. It leans into whatever sub-genre Dragon Force is. There’s something Helloween- Keeper of the Seven Keys about this. Oh man, i like for the solo, especially for the lead into the solo. Awesome!
4-- Sober- This is awesome! Great riffs! Excellent singing! No solo? Missed opportunity. This would be really great to hear a solo over. The production is amazing! Great take on the challenge. I think your voice is excellent, but it’s really loud in the mix. You’re such a good player. This has much rock power, the “Woah!” backing vocals are killer too! It’s over too quick. I wanted more. Good job!
5- Tunes by LJ- Kick Ass! Excellent Poker song! This belongs on my Spotify poker playlist. The production is excellent. It really comes alive with headphones. Weird ending. When I sample songs, this ranked higher for me, but I think as a whole song it’s too short. 48 measures at 90bpm. I think most people yearn for 96 measures. So make it twice as long. (In my humble opinion) . I think there’s the perfect amount of lyrics, i just want, intro, outro, solo, etc. This is tight. Feels like you could sell this song to a casino for a commercial. Damn this mix is awesome! Wonderful vocals and backing vocals! Great melodies and riffs, I just want to live in all that a lot more.
6-Joy Sitler- Dress Up: Is dress up a game? A very loose definition of game. If I play Hamlet, am I playing the game Hamlet? Doesn’t matter, good song. It’s too short. Is Master and Servant a game? DM wants to play it. So if I get in the mood for this song by having a little Misfits listening session, the length becomes more of a strength. I just can’t help wanting more. I don’t believe the truth about Twister as I much as I believe it’s such a great rhyme for sister. You write great songs. I always enjoy your melodies, phrasing, performance, etc.
7- Sun Lite- No Fun!-I love the beat. I love the riffs. Good melody. The challenge is okay. It’s generally about games. Nice dynamics. Though I wish there was this instrumental bit and then a solo, I really appreciate the instrumental bit. I’m starving for more music in these songs. You deliver well. The head is really catchy! The chorus has a great lift to it. Certainly the Weezer school of rock (much like Berkeley Social Scene). This would be great to hear live, even better to sit in and play with. I love it! Good job!
8- Distance- Despite some sour moments, this is so inventive and fun. I didn’t need the skit at the end. I did enjoy this on every listen. I didn’t remember this game exactly. When I looked it up, I’m sure I played it many times. Groovy! I think this is one of the best choices for subjects in this round. This is so fun! More music, less skits in the future please.
9- Jealous Brother- Kings in the Corner
This is great! Thank you for some excellent guitar playing! I enjoyed the game morphing into political ranting. I may or may not agree with your political stance (you’ll never know, but it doesn’t matter). I used to play King’s Corners. You do a great job with the lyrics! I’m slightly annoyed by the pause in the middle of the word “auto-crats”, musically it’s cool, but I just wish there were 2 words there and not a word split in two. Great strong chorus! I think the structure is perfect! The drums sound great! Fun song!
10- This Big Old Endless Sky- I love Sunburnt Country- I love a Sunburnt Country: Sounds like Gizo on vocals. I like it when Gizo rocks out. Is it not Gizo? The lyrics don’t make it clear what game this is. I think I remember the bio explaining how this is a game. This is a fun rocker. Okay, the bio informs me about the game. I don’t think songs should need bios, but I lost that battle a long time ago. The visceral energy of this is awesome. The guitar solos are more in the noise genre, of which I’m a fan. They’re not very melodic, but the noise is awesome. The music sounds more like a nuclear war gang fight than a drinking game, but maybe you’re an angry drunk ( I just get good posture and smile a lot). When can I see this live?
11- David Taro- Excellent production! I especially love this with headphones. Those backing vocals are great! I love the head riff. Are those backing vocals real? They’re so perfect. I mean this is basically Queen- Play the Game lyrically. It’s what we asked for. Solid take, but a little cheesy. I love your voice. The structure of the song is perfect, well like most everyone else it’s missing a solo, so almost perfect. At least you have that catchy head. I’m very much looking forward to your next song!
12- Dream Bells- As one would expect from your name, this is some nice dream pop. Thank you for the nice loud drums driving this. The pads and synths are gorgeous! Thos breaks are powerful. This is really good. This falls under “... obliquely about any sort of game”, so that’s fine. I enjoy the lyrics and the melody. Good job!
13- The Panacotta Army- Covfefe: Funny lyrics. Performance is flawless. Great production. That said, I get this idea immediately. This is not a genre I want to hang out with. You’re getting crazy high points for production performance and lyrics, but with all that I don’t find myself wanting to re-listen to this.
14- Stacking Theory- This is so slow. It’s gorgeous! Your vocals are really nice. The empty gymnasium reverb sounds great! I don’t understand the title thing, but I don’t really care. All the guitars and pedal steel are so lush! Good stuff!
15- Dutch Widows- Good chorus, too slow. Nice production. This reminds me of something off of that Eno / Cale album. I love the production. I just don’t think it’s as catchy as many of your other songs. It’s solid though!
16- Siebass- You must be a bass player. The bass makes this song. The riff is really catchy. Solid take on the challenge! The guitar solo could have the guitar come up in the mix, it’s weirdly quiet. The drums and bass of this song are so good.
17- Brian Gray- Nice structure. All the performances are great. I really enjoy the slow section for the last part. The dynamics are really good!
18- Ominous Ride- Pretty cool groove. I’m not sure about the harmonies everywhere all of the time. I think they could be useful for variation and dynamics. They sound nice, i just don’t want them there all of the time. I don’t feel much of a lift from verse to chorus. The only dynamics are at the very end, and my reaction is “ Alright! here we go! what? It’s over? Ughhh” Cool stuff, I just want more dynamics.
19- Jim Tyrell- Game Over: The atrocity of verbosity. Eight stanzas for a guy and guitar. You’re a pro, the performance is great, your voice is great. I’d much rather hear this with fewer stanzas, a solo, drums and bass. Some kind of Tom Waits style production would be cool. Okay fine, your studio was on fire. I’m sorry about that, but I don’t really enjoy a guy and guitar entry. All of these lyrics are rather predictable. It all feels improvised. standard progression.
20- West of Vine- Easy Modes & Cheat Codes: Nice dynamics. The lyrics work well. I’m not into the country drawl. The groove is very hurky-jerky. The bass tone is nice. These are some of the better lyrics of the round. The performances are a bit loosey-goosey. I like it.
21- Pig Farmer Jr.- Hangman- I’m not sure I agree with the Mowtown beat with snare on 1-2-3-4. It’s effective as a pre-chorus or alternate chorus, but it seems too much for the verses. I like the lyrics, but I think they could be reworked a bit. They sound like lyrics came before melody. They feel a bit crammed in sometimes. The production is nice. I enjoyed this over all.
22- We Happy Few- Weak lyrics, too slow. I love your voice and your vocal performance. The lyrics bring this song down. I enjoy the riff and the slide guitar. This has good structure. I think faster bpm would elevate this as well. All the playing is nice. Great bass and drums!
23- Governing Dynamics- This intro is one of my favorites. The harmonics and atmosphere is great. I’d say more music, less vocals. I think you could create a lot more drama. Your voice is nice, but too loud in the mix for my taste. I count 130 bpm. That means 126 measures. In my writing of songs (I'm over a thousand) I’ve found the sweet spot for listeners is around 96 measures. Less feels too short, more drags. You’re way over. Edit this down, add more dynamics, I think this would be a lot stronger.
24- Boffo Yux Dudes- This is fun. Something about this makes it feel novelty. I think this is just a description of the game. Seems like an explanation song. I don’t really enjoy the spoken word bits. That’s a hard thing to pull off. I like the drums and th groove.
25- Fourty Two- I like your voice. The verse starts out strong. The pre-chorus and chorus don’t really lift up from the verse. I don’t think Tarot cards is a game. Even though you have to go to a game store to buy tarot cards. That doesn’t matter, certainly it is “obliquely about any sort of game”. The guitar is relentless, but it serves as your rhythm section, so I guess it has to be. Oh, quiet drums come in, they’re way too quiet. So many words. I want more hooks, fewer words, more dynamics. Your voice is really nice to soak in, even if it’s too loud in the mix.
26- Dog Star Pilot- This sounds like a demo. The vocals are very quiet and unsure. I enjoy the multitude of syllables in every line. This could really use an upright bass. There’s no low end to balance this recording out. I think this song needs a couple more ideas. I like the one idea quite a bit, strong verse. It just needs more variation in structure and dynamics.
27- Celestial Drift- You are very talented. The performance is spot on. However, this is torture to listen to. Perhaps that is the point given the subject. The saw noises do make me laugh. I feel like I was supposed to be laughing the whole time. It’s certainly a novelty song. Tasty acoustic solo! Killer banjo playing! I find it weird you would record this for a song-writing contest.
28- Mobius Strip Club- Super quiet drums somewhere off in the distance. Your vocals are amazing, of course. We can hear them, really we can. In my opinion they need to be way lower in the mix. The backing “oohs” are a bit much. They are nice, but too often i think. Is there bass? Aren’t you a bass player? Oh I hear it if I concentrate. All the instruments could use some tightening up.
29- chewmeupspitmeout- Do you know “Horn” by Phish? For some reason, this reminds me of that song. I don’t think the lyrics were very inspired. This seems a bit slow. The hooks are not really working for me. It’s not bad, but there’s a lot of strong competition.
30- Hot Pink Halo- What does this intro have to do with the rest of the song? It sounds like your vocals are trying not to wake up your roommate. There’s some starting and stopping, but not much dynamics beyond that. I think there’s too many lyrics and not enough melody for me. It’s not bad, but I just enjoyed the others more.
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