Here are your rankings from SpinTunes 23 Champion Truth:
Read on for Truth's reviews!
1. Jim Tyrrell - "Game Over"
"She's seven moves ahead of me and I don't know where to start" - the best line of the challenge? This lyric is amazing. Sorry about the fire, but the song works great with your vocal and the Freddy Green guitar. "She took the U and I"--great. With such a sparse instrumentation, I am drawn into the tasteful choice of harmony and all of the beautiful internal moving lines. It really does give you a lot to engage you aside from the lyric in the top line. If this had been on a Tom Waits album, I feel like we would all know about it. This one might stand the test of time. It doesn't wave its originality in your face, but hits you with a right hook of cleverness and a left hook of relatable feeling.
2. West of Vine - Easy Modes and Cheat Codes
I love the 80s southern jangle vibe, and the metaphorical and non metaphorical references to playing Madden. The turns of phrase that address self reflection land wonderfully. "I was a young federale in a diner booth" grabs you by the throat. I adore a good baritone range guitar lead. Timing is a little wonky between the drums on the one hand and the rest of the track, in places. This song is more than the sum of its parts. I really enjoy the payoff line at the end.
3. Tunes By LJ - Showdown
Absolutely magnificent chorus. Strong vocals and flawless doubling. NIce descending dorian line in the verse with a polymetrical flair appeals to me quite a bit. I don't mind the lack of an introduction here, but I do wish the song had a conclusion. Sounds like it had a lot of energy yet to spin out. The structural weakness makes me knock this down a bit.
4. Flintsteel - Tarnished
Great guitar sound and rhythmically awesome chugging. Really like the opening theme played on guitar. Awesome guitar solo, intellegently constructed, with a bit of counterpoint in the rhythm guitar to boot! Very satisfying climax to the vocal line at the end.
5. David Taro - The Hardest Game
GORGEOUS prechorus. Beautiful ensemble, very professional and proficient...feels like an actual band playing actual northern soul influenced music. Other than the siamese cat line I loved the lyrics!
6. ▷ - Golden Child
Bonkers music is my sweet spot. I WISH i liked the tuning of the vocals throughtout but I don't. I'm impressed with the keyboard solos. I like the rhythm section rattling away as it does. I could do without the spoken bits. Thanks for introducing me to a new game, and if I ever sub for gym again you can bet cricket isn't going to be the only oddball foreign game I'm going to throw at them.
7. Governing Dynamics - Falling for Maybe
"Falling for Maybe" is a pretty fresh way to describe the appeal of gambling. One sympathizes with the poor sap caught in the dubious promise of beating the house. I like the arpeggiated guitar part throughout, particularly in the chorus. Speaking of which, I really like the whoh whoh whoh's. Shameless earworm appeal. The bridge vocal is a little sharp.
8. Möbius Strip Club - To Victory or to Glory
Excellent heterophony between the verse vocal and that...what is it...an organ? Good chorus, very appropriate heroic medieval sound given the DnD subject matter. Very attractive bridge. The break between the bridge and the last chorus feels like it wants a melody.
9. Joy Sitler - Dress-Up
Funny! Flip. Great couplet in "When you come out of the closet wearing different clothes / How anyone reacts, well, no one knows"--without a doubt. High marks for your amusing juxtaposition of dress-up and card playing. I love a song that leads up to a punch line. The song is barely arranged, and has no intro and no real ending, but the punch line is ending enough, and the lack of an intro throws you right into the scene. There's barely a chance to breathe from start to finish, and I think it suits the tone of this lyric.
10. "Fourty-Two" - Tarot Cards
Lovely and beguiling vocal performance, lovely guitar picking. Clever text painting on "downwards trend". Tarot cards were designed to play a card game rather than for fortune-telling or other esoteric uses, so I was kind of hoping that would be what the song was about. But "play" is mentioned, so well enough. I like the turning around of the "playing tricks" cliche into "tricks of my imagination."
11. Dream Bells - Roses
I hate slow intros unless they're gorgeous, and this wins. I love ninths so it's a good note to start the verse on! I like breakbeats, and I like breathy vocals and I like verb and processing. So I'm supposed to like this, but it's not because of the formula. It's the melody. The melody is really good. Production really flatters the material here, top notch recording for me. Do a tutorial on this sound world!
12. Brian Gray - Hide and Seek
I didn't see Fungie on my trip to Dingle, but he seems like the kind of dolphin I would have gotten on well with. I know the word craic but not as you use it here. NIce celtic ballad, would love to hear it on all acoustic instruments. Love the slow last sing along chorus. I like how you start the chorus with that octave leap up and then drift gradually back down, an overally really well constructed melody. And the lyrics are intellegent and nucanced. Somehow the cumulative effect doesn't knock me off my feet.
13. Ominous Ride - Hide and Seek
"Back when hide and seek was still a game:" this is a good line and better than whats in your lyric sheet. Enjoyed the pointillistic palm mute guitar. Enjoyed the harmony vocals. I like the repeated rhythm guitar figure, really locks with the drums. Bass seems to do its own thing a la Mike Mills, and why not. The lyric suggests an unspecified loss, and its enough of a mystery to make me wonder what the story is. The cross relation between the major chords of the piano and the minor chords in the guitar seem a bit haphazard to me.
14. Vehicles of Beware - The Gambler
As a pastiche this is very impressive. I love the smooth transition from the guitar solo back to the verse. If this were a pastiche challenge you'd win like Secretariat. You are against a strong crop of songs with much originality, and the ranking isn't a comment on the quality of your recording.
15. Pigfarmer Jr. - Hangman
I like the verse melody a lot. The rhythm is demanding and I'm not sure you quite nail it, the shorter notes aren't always in the pocket. I like the chorus, very strong, energetic. The backing vocal is mostly doing a simplified version of the lead vocal without text (until the last line)...why not a more independent harmony part? Timing of the end of the bridge is an example of The bridge going from "You leave me hanging" to "leaving me behind" is great. The end seems a bit pat and cursory, and I feel like the lyric with its emotional depth isn't well served by it.
16. SunLite - No Fun!
This is kind of about every game. and no game. I like how the prechorus is catchy enough to be a chorus and then you get a catchier chorus! Proper intellegent conclusion.
17. Jeaslous Brother - Kings in the Corner
I like the music. I like the guitar tone. Chorus is catchy. The lyric is a bit preachy for my liking, but that aside, it's a solid song in a very solid field.
18. The Moon Bureau - Carcassonne, and On, and On
Good chorus and doesnt wear out its welcome. Good song performed well. I have been to Carcassonne but have never played the game, apropos of nothing.
19. Celestial Drift - Jigsaw
An Americana exercise, and a decent one. Pleasant flatpicked solo.
20. The Pannacotta Army - Covfefe
I'm into this West Indian groove. It's so smooth and 60s sounding, even the vocal processing. Diction'ry? OK. Pretty solid chorus. This rocksteady soul sound is so infectious. While I'm listening, I'm waiting to see if the play stands. Is it a post-truth Scrabble game? I really like the tambourine and the counter melody to your chorus hook. This is a beautifully recorded track, really a pastiche that takes me to a specific time and place. Kind of a bagatelle.
21. Sober - Blue Shells
Seriously rocking bass line. Seriously rocking intrumental riff in the middle of verse two! Where did that come from? Pick slides! I don't like the Louie-G manner of saying Luigi. Deserv-ed? It's like the Coverdale Psalter, man. I feel like the lyric doesn't match the passion and energy of the music.
22. Siebass - The Least Dangerous Game
The verse melody meanders for me. Prechorus is great. Chorus didn't really grab me. The guitar solo video game quotes were amusing.
23. Hot Pink Halo - A Numbers Game
Epic intro was lovely. Linn Drum rules. Your harmonies are really effective. This one sounds particularly good on headphones.
24. Boffo Yux Dudes - Fizzbin, Fizzbin
Pretty fun chorus, it's like "Slip KId" and infectious. The response harmonies aren't as good. I enjoyed the subject matter of the Star Trek game. The ending wasn't very conclusive for me which I didn't like as a listener, even if the lyric suggests that's on purpose. In a field of really strong songs this novelty song may struggle.
25. This Big Old Endless Sky - I Love a Sunburnt Country
You flippin beauty! The other day I was randomly thinking how great Fear's cover of "We Got To Get Out Of This Place" is, with it's bizarre atonal vocal. So it's not out of prejudice that I don't care for how your verses wander out of tune at the end. The choruses morph into speech, and that works better, I think. Your last chorus is very much pitched, not spoken, and doesn't jibe with the backing track as the others did, and I think that doesn't work as well. But it's a solid oversaturated rocker and I did enjoy it.
26. We Happy Few - Playing Games
"Playing games" seems to be more an idiomatic expression standing in for relationship issues in this lyric, and I was hoping that these songs would exploit metaphor but actually deal with actual games. Well structured and performed song in a strong field of songs. Good lead vocal has a grittiness and dirtiness that would be nice to hear more of in the accompaniment. The drum tone is particularly polite, maybe a bit more gain and a little less of that one crash in the center?
27. The Dutch Widows - The loneliness of the third choice goalkeeper
The rhythm of the verse is my favorite part of the topline. I'm very into the subject matter. It's a viewpoint i didn't know anything about. The midtempo groove is a little dull, despite enabling the verse vocal rhythm that I like so much. I could have used more of that drum machine throughout.
28. Dog Star Pilot - Some Kind of Pawn
The rhythm of the verses gallop wonderfully. I remember analyzing the libretto of Falstaff, and the parts that were in that triple time were the most fun. Are those finger cymbals? Nice detail. Three part harmonies are always nice, and competently done. The lead vocal is a little underpowered for me, doesn't sound as invested in the lyric as I am as a listener. I know you've got top harmonies to fit in but I wonder if this would work better up a step or so, to get more power out of your lead baritone.
29. chewmeupspitmeout - Bored Games
I like the bass line. I like the vocal harmonies. I like how your chorus smashes into verse two. I don't much like the chorus melody, and IV-V-IV-V is a progression that doesn't progress, so not much help here. Nice ending.
30. Stacking Theory - Andrew Management Issues
It's sumptuous guitar tone world, Robin Guthrie-esque, and I love it. If this were a guitar tone contest you'd be on top. Solid effective bridge. Lyrics are adequate for me. The big problem for me is that it doesn't hold my interest, and to be fair, it's a slow stew.
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