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Read on for Jim's reviews!
Yet again, a super high quality round. I do think the challenge made itself known in various ways throughout. Sometimes it improved things, sometimes not, but where I think it was a wild success is that it seemed like everyone’s need to meet the challenge required looking at the songwriting process from a different perspective. I did include how well the song met the challenge in my scoring this time, but honestly, on a scale from -3 to 3, only one song was something other than 1 or 0, so it hardly counted for anything. It really made for interesting listening though. Everybody sounded a little different from the first two rounds, and just how for each was great fun.
Sober said in his song notes, “I feel the prompt had me writing melody in a more deliberate, thoughtful way.” I do think there was more attention paid to melody and form in this round. And the songs were generally better for it. This challenge seemed to be a big success in that regard. What I’m taking away from this challenge is that simply changing one’s approach to crafting a piece of music can really open things up.
However, none of these songs earned an all-out fanboy gush this time. So instead of being evenly distributed from super-tops-perfection to needing work, this collection is all bunched up near the top, yet with none really flying me to the moon. Weird.
Anyway, this is such fun. Isn’t this fun? And now…
THE BLUE RIBBONS OF COOLNESS
These were my top favorite individual tiny moments of the round. They have nothing to do with my rankings at all. I’m calling them out specifically because I think they deserve attention on their own. These were little moments I rewound to and either hummed in admiration, or maybe just turned my head a bit, made an O between my thumb and middle finger and raised it near my head. You know the moments I’m talking about. The “shut up, I love this part” moments.
In this round, they were, in no particular order:
Celestial Drift - Instrumental break under “Here’s what we’ll do” - (1:17 - 1:37) This is just about being the exactly correct thing, performed perfectly, at exactly the right place in a song.
Joy Sitler - The dominant Sus chord at the end of the bridge (1:10) This shows how sometimes a single pitch in a single chord being a mere half step away and played only one time can elevate an entire song.
Flintsteel - A moment of silence during the instrumental break (3:26) This shows how suddenly pulling the rubber band all the way in the other direction for a few seconds can be terribly exciting, and also how effects like this can also benefit from intentionally being a little imperfect (it’s not totally silent!).
Vehicles of Beware - The big instrumental build (3:20-3:40) This is a clear example of a songwriter having an inspired idea, then the band going through all the steps it takes to realize that idea, and having it end up working exactly as planned.
David Taro
A delicious piece of candy. Like Taro’s other two entries, this is super catchy, and immediately accessible. But unlike the other two, with this one the vocal style matches the vibe of the song nicely. Gone is his growlier bar band singing style, replaced with a gentler light style. It’s also on-pitch all the way through. But what I found especially effective was that even though the vocal was soft and sweet, every so often I could hear a bit of the growl I knew was being suppressed, and that sense of holding back energy felt really palpable.
I’m reminded of XTC’s frothier output, and that’s a very good thing. I’m also reminded of Fountains of Wayne.
Lyrically, I appreciate the low bar the song sets for itself. It seems to be aware that this is all about the tune and vibe, and the lyrics really just need to uphold that and stay out of the way. It’s got a clear idea, but leaves enough open for listener interpretation.
It does feel a little long for what it is, and I found myself wishing it would go somewhere else after the 4th or 5th listen. Right at 2:24, “Another day in purgatory”, that’s where I would change the arrangement up a bit so ears don’t tire. At “Never sounded so sweet” it sounds like that instinct to add variety was there, but I’d take it a tad further.
That line works well because the vocalist has the pipes to really sell it. I already know he does from the previous rounds. It’s like this Turbo Mode he can save for those moments when it’s effective, rather than leaving it on all the time. People whose normal singing style is that soft sweet way don’t often possess Turbo Mode, so David Taro has that advantage.
This was in stuck my head all last evening. Dammit.
Vehicles of Beware
“A-han-jey”….
For a second I thought I had “Angie” playing instead of SpinTunes. I doubt the song is intentionally evoking the Stones classic, but it starts the same and is in the same key even. Ha.
Honestly, I didn’t love this one at first, but over repeated listenings it grew on me, and now I like it a lot. It weirdly reminds me a great deal of the This Big Old Endless Sky entry this round. Both have the same broad scope and ambitious composition, structure and arrangement.
Very little to improve here, but as I ask myself why this song doesn’t feel quite perfect, I come round to the vocals on the verses. I think it’s fine, but the rest of the song is so muscular that the vocal sounds weak in comparison. Perhaps just double-tracking it might help.
In any case, I would definitely double-track the money line: “Lordless Lucy languid lone and lithe”. Adding a second vocal part an octave up on just that one line would set it apart in a way it deserves.
Another thing that kept sticking out: At the end of the intro, first time “languid lone and lithe” is sung, the big guitar riff comes in, but it’s never sounded right to me. If I may get geeky a moment: Starting at 0:30, “Loyal just to one”, the chords go Emin — then Fmaj7 Em under “Lordless Lucy languid lone and lithe”. The Emin there really feels like the minor dominant to Amin which is where I’m thinking we’re going. But when the big guitar riff comes in, we’re not in Amin at all, but Dmin, and the Amin chord is actually the minor dominant. It’s struck me as wrong every time I’ve heard it, so now that I’m sitting down to review here I thought I’d plunk out at the piano exactly what’s going on that sounds wrong and that’s what it is. You set us up to go into A minor, but you go into D minor, and because nothing else is playing, when the guitars come in it’s disconcerting.
Man, that break at 2:19 with the riffs overlapping and building up to the big moment where the organ comes in at about 2:40 is super effective. Congrats, well done. I would have been tempted to make that even more pronounced, maybe starting even smaller and making the crescendo more of a curved line up instead of a straight line, if that makes any sense. If I hear 2:20 as the starting energy level (which I think could be even lower, going solo and not echoing it for a few more seconds), and compare it to the top energy level at 2:40, then listen to the energy level halfway through, at 2:30, it sounds like it’s maybe 3/4 of the way there already if not more, so the last ten seconds doesn’t have as far to go. I would make the build slower to start with and then the pace of build would get faster in the second half. I’m only going into this much detail because that’s an exciting moment and I got engaged.
The flat VI as the last chord with that guitar wail was a cool idea. I love that little gimmick, and hope to write a Substack article about songs that do that. “Liv and Let Die” comes to mind.
Celestial Drift
This definitely does NOT sound like it was done in a week. The band is so tight through all those time sig and tempo changes. For most bands that alone would take a good week of rehearsal, but in that time this song was written as well. Impressive.
This one works really well for me. I love the ambitious structure, all the variety from verse to verse, and the lyrics tell the story pretty nicely. But more about that next.
I think the loose approach to the lyrics was the correct one. We don’t need Sondheim here, given the subject matter and genre and story-song style. But I do think more attention could have been paid to specific word choices. Too many places it comes across like the story was jotted down exactly as it happened, and then a phrase here and there was tweaked so that it sort of rhymed. There isn’t enough musicality to the lyrics when performed. Extraneous words and phrases are squeezed in there and the singer is struggling unnaturally to get them all in, when it would have been better to clean them up beforehand and give the singer the best chance possible to sell them. (I do realize it’s likely the lyricist and singer are the same person here. Interpret as necessary.)
Really wonderful changes at the end of “I’ve got a plan for you” (1:18) and then that bend in the vocal line on last last word of “Here’s what we’ll do”. So very cool. Top favorite moment among all 14 entries (see my intro regarding the Blue Ribbons of Coolness). And then it carries over into a little break and really elegantly gets us back to the verse from 1:37-1:42. Slick, slidey, and sick.
The tempo change following the big stop at 2:29 is also very effective. Now we’re driving! I probably would have had “He was in” spoken at that break before the new bass line comes in, but it’s way better the way it was done, delayed until after the bass starts. So what do I know?
Despite the tragic story, I chuckled a little at the suggestion of an Irish jig, reminding us of the leprechaun suit. Just a little bit funny, but not disrespectful.
The change under “Drive Skinner drive” is super cool; there’s just no way in hell the band didn’t know how good that was when it was being recorded. All around, the visual painting done by this arrangement hits the bullseye. I can really see it happening and the music underscores it well.
But I kept finding myself wanting something new like a key change or something as things get ramped up. The tempo and arrangement builds take the song a lot of the way there, but ultimately it suffers from a lack of imagination in the melody. Because it’s a story song, “Clair de Lune” isn’t appropriate of course, but it does get a little repetitive, maybe a little more inventiveness in the vocal lines. Something different. Maybe all it would take would be singing on a higher pitch there? I don’t know.
Anyway, good work.
This Big Old Endless Sky
Wow, this is an ambitious entry. I really enjoyed following along with it every time it came up. It’s got a wide musical scope which goes hand in glove with the lyric content, and I was most impressed with the last minute or so, where it turned in different directions.
My revulsion at all the distortion has been previously documented, so of course it loses points for that, even though the distortions are mostly kept at bay and seem appropriate. It’s just a lot of distortion, and I feel could use some balance with some purer tone sometimes.
I really like the big dynamic change with the lone piano at “clock won’t stop” (though crikey, even the piano is distorted!).
I also really love the emotional dedication to the material in the lead vocal. I feel sorry for that guy. He’s not just singing the song, he’s acting it. Works terrific.
It would have been so easy for the song to take on a more triumphant finish as he resolves to keep striving, but it doesn’t, it stays sort of miserable to the end. The repeat effect that echoes to the end sounds like an ellipsis, and I’m left not sure whether he’s going to ultimately succeed or not.
I also loved all the wordplay, reminded me of hip-hop lyrics.
I really appreciate the ambition and honesty of this song, and the care taken to the production and performance. Very nice. I just find the heavy distortion on absolutely everything too much, just plain old “sounds unpleasant” to my ears. Nevertheless, a favorite this round.
The Moon Bureau
This seems very different from the previous MB entries. I like all the breathing space in this. Very different from the wall of sound feel of the first rounds. I also really love the extremely low ambitions for the lyric. He got the sweater back, The End. That made me laugh. It could have gone into the whole thing about his feelings and what happened when he tried calling, etc., but no, this was just about getting it back so he could call, and he got it, so he would be able to.
In the previous MB songs, I felt like there were several salient issues that could be improved upon, and the vocal performance was not the biggest thing. But in this one, I think it is. There’s good space in the arrangement, and the vocals are nice and dry, and all is well, but the vocal performance is just too off pitch to not be distracting. I’m not expecting a tour de force or anything, and actually the non-chalant delivery seems exactly right. But it’s off pitch all the time and that kind of spoils things.
Governing Dynamics
The title and main lyric hook of the song is so specific and attention-grabbing, I’m immediately in the scene. That’s a great grabber to start off with.
(This round seems to have a preponderance of great lyric hooks “Put the gun down baby”, “Thin-skinned baby man”, “Lordless Lucy languid lone and lithe”. Good Lord.)
Unfortunately, the rest of the song doesn’t fulfill the promise that the catchy opening line makes. Here’s my problem with it: “Put the gun down baby” vividly evokes a tense situation, and we can see it, and wonder what’s going to happen, but from then on the lyrics don’t follow through. The diction changes from something someone would actually say in a terrified moment to poetic musings. I’m picturing a guy standing across the room from a desperate woman with a gun, so abstractions like “A mirage of maybe” doesn’t seem appropriate in that moment. I wouldn’t be poetic with a gun pointed at me. Then it goes straight into rather abstract imagery, and lacks enough specificity. What happened to the gun? Who was she pointing it at? And why, exactly?
If the title line is meant metaphorically, that’s a different story. But opening the song with it as it does makes it feel more real than metaphoric.
The arrangement and performance are all very nice. The band sounds great and the whispery vocal delivery works.
Dream Bells
Very interesting. This band really knows their way around a DAW, I can tell you that. In all three rounds their productions are nuanced and elegant and sensitive and very musical. That’s a real strong suit for me with regard to Dream Bells. Great work, really.
Based on a purely do-I-want-to-hear-it level, this song ranks quite low. Life’s too short. I don’t watch horror movies for the same reason. (Who wants to feel like that in their spare time?) However, as a judge for the competition, I’m setting that aside in my scoring, because the sound the song has here is clearly what it was going for. So dinging it on that is like shooting the messenger, who is bringing me unpleasant news in a well-crafted, artful way. I just wanted to get that out there.
OK, my first big thing about this one is that the pretty section at the end seems ill-motivated. I’m not quite sure why I’m listening to that at the end. There’s no change in the mindset based on lyrics, and there are no vocals over the pretty part. It seems tacked on there and I don’t get it.
Nice meeting of the challenge, though I would have liked the riff to have been explored pitch-ically as well as rhythmically. It stays interesting because of all the different timbres it progresses through, but there seems to be some musical interest was left on the table.
The song fares better in my mind if I don’t know what it’s supposed to be about. It’s a purely sonic experience for me, and I don’t really care what the lyrics are. I can barely hear them anyway. The effect for me is that a yelling woman is just another instrument in the ensemble. And heard as just that, it works great. As soon as I’m supposed to know why she’s yelling, I lose interest.
I do miss the gentle melodic invention in the vocal lines of the previous entries. This is fine, but a lot of other people do the angry yelly thing just as well. I think Dream Bells stands out in other areas.
Sober
Thanks for the detailed bio. Fun to read and got me to listen a little differently. So certainly, as for the challenge, this song scores super high.
On a purely do-I-wanna-hear-it level, though, it falls short for me. A couple things seem to work against it.
While the song’s metric of success was met as was hoped for, meaning it doesn’t sound like it was trying to do any fancy motivic thing, it fails in another regard, which serves as an important caution for anyone approaching a song this way. And that is that it sounds like no one was stepping back and listening to it outside of the narrow perspective of meeting the challenge. At the motivic detail level, this song is clever and interesting. But from 20 feet away, the composition feels a little flat. Like it became maybe a little more of a head trip, and making sure it was also fun to listen to was sort of forgotten.
And while I kind of like the idea of the archaic language in the lyrics, that maybe went a bit too far in a few places, and the concept loses its luster for me by the end.
Performed wonderfully.
Flintsteel
No need for apologies, the challenge was well-met.
There’s something I’ve noticed writing reviews today, and that is for many of these entries, the best part of the song is some part that has nothing to do with the challenge. It’s like for some people, meeting the challenge engaged too much left brain, and when the right brain got engaged good things happened.
As with the other Flintsteel entries, the metal guitar riffs are the star, and they’re as good as ever. And I really appreciate the complexity of the form. There’s a ton of interesting stuff going on. I can’t stand this genre, and yet Flintsteel earns my respect.
I’m not a drummer and am uneducated at drumming relative to other musical aspects. But I’ll mention that to my naive ears, I’ve actually noticed the cool drums on all three Flintsteel entries.
The pre-chorus is my favorite part. It’s catchy and I want to sing along. Disappointing that the chorus is less interesting to me than the pre-chorus. Neither the verse nor the chorus is catchy enough, and the notes in the melody sometimes actually feel kind of random.
The lyrics sound like a lot of kind of tired fantasy/metal phrases strung together and I’m not getting a point to them.
This band really shines when the guitars take over. A lot of musical inventiveness and interest can be found there, and those are always the best parts. When the vocals enter, the songs always seem to deflate somewhat. The melodies aren’t interesting enough and the vocal delivery is kind of doing the same thing all the time.
The Dutch Widows
My favorite thing about this song is the concept of the lyrics. It’s a good idea, the lyric hook is fun, and the song follows through with the idea all the way through. Some nice clear images, and it doesn’t fall back on cliches.
I do wish there was more variety in the melody. The whole thing sits low in the lead singer’s range, the delivery is pretty constant, and so there’s a sameness to it which wears after a while. On the other hand, singing any part of this song in a higher register or with more energy doesn’t seem appropriate at all, so maybe this song just needs to be like that. So I’m walking back a little now. Acting-wise, the vocal delivery seems correct, but on a purely musical enjoyment level, I get tired of it. Suggested solution not available though. Hmmmm…
Those BG vocal lines in the chorus aren’t registering at all. I had to read them to make them out. They’re kind of fun and clever, but are mixed too low, and sit in the same register as the lead, so they are just adding clutter at this point. I don’t know that the song is gaining anything with them.
I also had a little trouble with the switching between first and third person in the lyrics. From what I make of this guy, he wouldn’t possess the self-awareness required to know all that about himself. Feels more like some outside observer should be singing the song, not the baby man himself. In fact, not to rewrite, but when I read through the lyric and just replace all the I’s and my’s to he’s and his’s, so the whole thing is third person, it seems better to me.
I do my song rankings by assigning scores to a bunch of different aspects of each song, and I let the total scores that result determine the rankings. Given how strong this round is, I’m betting this song won’t make the top tier, which is a real shame because I like it a lot.
Jealous Brother
I can practically hear the logs!
This band sounds fantastic. The fiddle was a nice addition. The folksy playout was a pretty touch. I’m glad the log cabin was mentioned because that added a lot for me!
I really can’t understand what the lyrics are supposed to be about. It sounds like the lyricist has a specific person in mind, but the imagery doesn’t all connect up in my mind, and I find myself going “huh?” a lot.
It feels like this song needs a chorus. Musically, that would break up the verses, and lyrically, it could be a simple “Here’s what we’re talking about” kind of thing. Dutch Widows do that in their entry this round. If one doesn’t listen to the chorus in the DW song, it would pretty hard to make out what it’s about. This song feels like that one but with the chorus removed. Consequently it’s lyrically confusing and musically a little too repetitive.
Like if the verse goes
Soft and smooth
Walks funny
Sounds terrible
Always in pairs
I’m thinking “What is this lyric even talking about?” and then the chorus comes in with
I’m looking at a duck
Waddling across the grass
Look at that duck!
What a comely duck it is
I now know what the verse was about, and the next verse can be equally abstract but I’m on solid ground.
All that is a real shame though because the performances are so solid, and the verse is catchy.
Engineering-wise, I jotted a note down that I thought the drums might be mixed a little loud and the high-end on them could be rolled off a bit because those cymbals are pretty hot right now.
I thought it was amusing that the correct state was footnoted in the lyrics, but I thought it was odd that Arkansas was also intentionally misspelled!
Hot Pink Halo
I don’t entirely believe you.
That’s kind of my overriding experience of this song. I read the touching song notes and felt your sadness there, but I don’t feel any of that sadness in the song. It’s like all the feeling was drained out of it and put into the song notes and this was the music that was left over.
I do really like the chorus. The bass line conflicts with the melody in an interesting way and sets it apart from the verse nicely.
Even so, I’m not hearing any radiant joy here. It kind of feels like the song was written and performed by someone who did not even know the guy being sung about.
I am more used to the HPH vocal sound now and so I kind of dig it here. The double-tracking helps, and it doesn’t seem to push too hard and thereby go Billie-Holiday-sharp all the time like I have heard in previous entries.
I wanted to like this one based on the notes, alas.
Joy Sitler
This is positively lovely. For me, this kind of song is deceptively difficult– simple but not simplistic, interesting and just a little surprising… I’ve never been able to pull this kind of song off. It’s so much harder than it sounds, imo.
While it’s especially catchy and clever with the switch to the minor at “If you had to go” (a sensitive setting for that line, btw, and where the motivic challenge was accomplished quite obviously), where it really kills for me is how it stays on the sus chord under “What is left to show” instead of going to the regular dominant. (See my intro under Blue Ribbons of Coolness.) So sweet.
In under 2 minutes the song manages to squeeze in a verse and two bridges, but it never felt crowded, and it also didn’t feel too short. Getting Sandy Denny/Joan Baez to sing it was also a good choice. The song sounds like it was written for her.
I think this song could get over the top with some minor lyric tweaks, however. I would change “a gravel road” to “the gravel road”. These people know each other, and using “the” clues us in that it is a road they both know. “a” gravel road implies that it could be ANY gravel road, which draws attention to the gravel-ness of it, which doesn’t resonate nearly as well. It made me ask Why gravel? But “the gravel road”, (or perhaps “that gravel road”) and now we’re being let into their little world.
I found it unnecessary and a little odd that there is no moon hanging low. No one would say that. They’d just say “no moon”. If there’s no moon hanging low, does that imply the moon is out there but it’s just somewhere else? Nitpick I know, just pointing things out that struck me. That said, it’s a cool idea, and I find myself wanting to ask her “Why no moon, anyway?” For the sake of simple musicality and imagery, why not just go with “With the moon hanging low?”
The lyric jumps from present to past tense in a way that confuses me. “In my head you’re my light/All I knew”. You WERE my light? Or does she mean “All I KNOW”?
Unfortunate that ‘grave’ rhymes with ‘save’, but she’s not saying ‘save’. ‘Say’ of course makes much more sense, but because it’s trying to rhyme with “grave” it’s unintentionally weaker than it could be, because I keep wanting to hear ‘save’. No solution comes to mind, but my ear does stumble there every time.
I really like the organization where most of the verses are these extended questions. But then unfortunately the fourth stanza starts with “well”, which sounds a lot like “will”, so I’m thinking I’m hearing another question, and honestly didn’t realize it was “well” until I read it. That stanza doesn’t make any sense to me anyway. I would completely rewrite it.
Then she asks “If you had to go/Would you let me know”, but she already knows he’s going to walk away and take thoughts to the grave, so why would he need to let her know he had to go? And I don’t understand “My confession/begs the question/what is left to show”.
Of course, many song lyrics are far more opaque than this, and get away with it just fine. I’m picking on this lyric because the style of the song has set me up to expect a crystal clear picture of a scene and a possibly sad moment between two people, and it’s so dripping with honest feeling and a vivid visual image that I find myself longing to truly be there with her and understand it. This song has such a high ceiling as it is, so it seems worth it to get all perfectionist on the words.
Had this been a regular non-shadow entry, it would have landed among the top few. Really nice.
Mobius Strip Club
This one really suffers from a weak production. The vocals are mixed far too low, the instruments are not in sync, and there’s some clunky stereo panning and squishy timing on the vocals.
However, like with the group’s previous entries, there’s a ton of thought and ambition put into the composition. They again are going for this through-composed style rather than strict verse-chorus, and I think that can work. But it’s a high bar they’ve set themselves in pulling it off, because there’s so much to it.
It would be easy for someone to say “Write simpler songs that you can successfully perform”, but I don’t want to hear that. I like the complexity and run-on melody style here, where they are composing to every line for its own sake. I want to hear how that would sound if done with some polish. I think it could be pretty nice. But right now it is in desperate need of practice and rehearsal and general clean up, and maybe a more discerning musical ear in there to point out areas that could be better.
Thing is, I’d really love to hear this band in the hands of a good producer, doing complex songs like this. Without that, Mobius Strip Club is biting off more than it can chew.
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