GENERAL NOTE re: Judging: If you write and perform well a GREAT song that at least pays lip service to the challenge, I personally will rank it highly and not dock you. If your song sucks but you absolutely NAIL the challenge, you will get a point or two more than you would have if you only barely addressed the challenge. If your song is mediocre and it's falling somewhere in the middle of the pack, then how well you handle the challenge (and the title, for that matter, which honestly irks me more than the challenge half the time, I agree with Chumpy on that one) could well make or break you in the rankings. And honestly I challenge all the whiners and haters to try judging for yourself before bitching. When I was a contestant, I thought it would be sooo easy and it is NOT. The reviews are one thing but coming up with the challenges and doing the rankings is hard AF. If I love it or I hate it, that's easy. But we don't have the option of saying "it was okay" without assigning a number to it, which directly affects the participants. WHICH MAKES ME FEEL BAD SOMETIMES!!! BUT THAT'S HOW THE CONTEST WORKS!! In the early rounds, the difference between 16 and 6 is often just a matter of "I felt meh about all of them, but some handled the challenge better or some annoyed me slightly less". But when we're writing the reviews some of us feel compelled to nitpick in order to "justify" our ranking when sometimes it was as simple as "15 entries were better than yours". HOPE THIS HELPS!
And now, on to the reviews.
Max Bombast - This wow’ed me out of the gate with the wild sample. I love how it’s so distorted and processed. At first I didn’t even recognize it. The contrast between the high pitch of the singing and the intense low (bass? guitar?) heavy AF riff is so great. And THEN Max comes in singing & swinging. The best part is at the end when Max sings Amazing Grace in the key of his sample. Fabulous. This is catchy and ballsy and overall just… words fail me. Max killed it.
Rachael Layne - I do not understand why this got ranked so low from some of the other judges. I really liked it. (References that only Niveous will get - this reminds me of
Max Miller meets
Killy Dwyer.) Cool beats, underwater synth sounds, vocal that dances around the beat, so much going on with the production that I never get bored. Arguably the sample was not perhaps used the way we instructed (I believe we said it should be a “vocal riff” i.e. melodic line) BUT the song is soooo good that I did not take off points for it.(see note above)
Rain Watt- sort of shocked that Rain was the only one of two competitors to sample her own work! I would have thought more people would have done it, if for no other reason than you know what key your own song is, depending on how you recorded it you might have access to an isolated vocal track, AND you get to direct the judges to your Bandcamp/Soundcloud. Just saying. Anyway, this is another great track from Rain. The fast part is so catchy. And then the slow part is sooooo intense and good and sad. Great dynamics, atmospheric backing vocals, layers, ping-ponging drums. Damn. And I listened to the song it was sampling and while the lyrics aren’t posted, Rain’s not at all hard to understand so it was fairly easy to pick up the callbacks. Very, very well done. If I had to quibble (see general note) I would say only that “colo(u)r me out” is not really an idiom/saying, at least not one I’m familiar with. But who cares? This is is really good.
Merisan - This instantly reminded me of Fleetwood Mac for some reason, the layered harmonies over fingerpicking, lush and pretty. I also think the samples are really well integrated, because they both sound like they could be Erin’s voice, and the song is built well around them so they don’t stick out like a sore thumb. This is also interesting lyrically because even though it doesn’t tell an explicit story, it conjures up a mood pretty effectively, which to me is honestly just as good as telling a story. Like I don’t need to know exactly what is going down to get the feeling of it, which is done well here. Merisan for me is getting better and better each round.
Vowl Sounds - WOW the lyrics are really great in this one, as is the sampling. This ties with Max for best use of sample. Not one, not 2 or 3 but FOUR samples are used here, and they all sound gorgeous. The Depeche Mode one cracked me up. However the song itself didn’t grab me right away. Of course it’s a grower, so now I am loving it more and more. The Nur Ein format really works against these types of song. The ones I rank highest at 2 days in listening are OFTEN not the same ones I would rank high at the end of a week or 14 days of listening. (I tend to listen to things over and over and then - if I don’t start skipping them - they grow on me and I often love them more than the ones I liked at first blush.) The singing and backing music is also really beautiful. Is that an Omnichord I hear in the chorus?? Sounds like an OM-84. (I play Omni but later models (150 and up) but have learned to recognize Omni wherever I may come across it.) Even the whipporwills are tasteful and pretty! And I LOVE the first Vowl Sounds song they sample - I mean I didn’t know it before, but I went and listened to it, so beautiful AND it uses one of my favorite Latin phrases (sic transit gloria mundi) - ps wow 2nd Nur Ein
song to reference it?)
The Sunday Colors - The new mic sounds great! Big improvement in sound quality, great job Christopher! As usual, lyrics and performance are fabulous. I especially like “You flashed your half-moon smile when I stepped off the plane”. And then the chorus hits, and the sample. Ha! This cracked me up. I’m not sure it was supposed to be funny, but come on. Lionel Richie is just about the LAST person I expected tSC to sample. I think you could play this live and just sing it and change the words to “That’s why I’m easy / Easy like Sunday Colors” and it would be great. Also noted a second guitar part, as previously suggested, I think it was by Grumpy Mike? Very nice. You are improving rapidly, young grasshopper.
Grumpy Mike - this is another grower. At first I found the sample kind of annoying, but now I’m starting to really dig it. I like how high pitched it is compared to the doomy low notes of the instrumentation and GM’s voice. (Though I maintain that Max Bombast did it slightly better. But these are v. different types of songs.) This reminds me of Ben Harper meets Soundgarden. The lyrics are quite frankly, sexy - and I will admit I was kind of startled/taken aback by it at first. I don’t expect sexy from Grumpy Mike! But good singing, and good playing. I like the big echoey drum sound and the slow arpeggios adding interest in the 2nd verse. I guess the reason it’s ranked where it is, is that I didn’t find it super catchy or memorable the first 4 times I listened to it. Sample is well used, as is the title.
Frankie Big Face - This starts out sounding like Phantom of the Opera mixed with EDM. And then the sample kicks in. Hard to beat Bill Withers for sheer catchy, especially the best part of the song (“I know I know I know I know I know”). Honestly I didn’t really care for the verses at all of this, but the chorus was good and the sample was good and well used.
Berkeley Social Scene - I really like the noodly prog bits in the background on the verses. The line “My favorite number / is the color blue” is cute. The sample is
weird but I don’t hate it. I like the wash of sound on the chorus - and there’s something about that jangly guitar in the background that reminds me of the Byrds, “Eight Miles High”, but the actual melody of the chorus leaves me flat. The solo is pretty, and then the synth comes in with a very prog-rock sound on the final outro (chorus repeated). Basically despite a lot of nice sounding elements here, the song as a whole doesn’t really move me.
Faster Jackalope - Another nice riff, this one reminds me of Sloan again. I liked the music of this but the melody & lyrics left me cold again. The samples were ok I guess? I mean they don’t sound terrible, and I guess it makes sense but there were too many names and I wasn’t clear at all where any of them fit in and the overall story line (someone is gambling, that’s all I got). Honestly in 2 days I do not have the time to understand a song this complicated. And it didn’t really grow on me, unlike several of the others. The ending is pretty, I like the ascending stacked vocals. It has its moments, but overall not really one I would listen to outside the contest.
Nick M. Soma - This one is so creepy. It reminds me of something from a horror movie, which makes sense given the source of the samples. The piano is pretty, and the low bass etc are a nice contrast. But the vocals, melody line and overall song didn’t really grab me. The lyrics are ok, not particularly original. Overall a meh.
Third Cat - This reminds me of a cheesy 60’s song. I like the echoing background vocals. This was starting to grow on me until the bridge with the gross lyric about digging out an eyeball. Ugggh! That part musically is really pretty, too, which somehow only makes it worse. I get that it’s a Beatlesque sort of homage but that lyric turned me off. And the chorus is corny. An abrupt ending completed its low ranking.
Ujn Hunter + Friends - This reminds me of David Bowie. I
hate David Bowie. Or like Kraftwerk. Weird, mannered vocals and a strange melody combined to not endear it to me. I feel like if this were more sensitively sung I might have liked it more. There are many parts, some more pleasant than others.
Abominominous - Welp, Abominominous is nothing if not consistent. Unfortunately most of the time I find them so annoying that that doesn’t really help with my rankings. When I read the lyrics I see that this for once has an actual story and makes sense, however I could not understand the majority of the lyrics due to a mumble-mouthed, overly drawling, weirdly pronounced delivery. Is that guitar riff from the childhood taunt “Nah nah nah nah nah”? The sample is whatever, mildly amusing I guess. Overall I found the song both bizarre and irritating. The fact that it’s less than a minute and half long could be seen as a blessing.
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Agony Sauce (Immune) - Not bad. I like the verse music. This has a slow groove that is hypnotic. I will admit I didn’t really listen to any of the immune/shadow tracks more than a few times, because I was focusing on getting my rankings in on the competing entries. But I like the bridge on this a lot. Good effort.
Vom Vorton (shadow) - This one might grow on me. I like the instrumentation and the constant motion of all the parts, including the panning on the backing vocals. Lyrics are kind of cheesy. Reminds me of Sesame Street, or the Electric Company with the naming of the colors.
Inflatable Vegetables (shadow) - The opening sample is mildly irritating, but it kind of reminds me of Spookey Ruben, who I love, but does that a lot. What’s worse is the buzzing (synth? guitar?) instrument that plays on the same horrible frequency throughout the whole song (except for a brief, blessed break on the bridge). It makes my ears tired. The singing, lyrics and overall song are not compelling enough to get me to overcome these annoyances. The chorus reminds me of The Moody Blues, with the orchestral stabs in the background.
Mandibles - Perfectly inoffensive and pleasant, but not particularly memorable, much like the paintings of Bob Ross, who provides the sample.