Reviews! As always, these are just my opinions, so take what you want and leave what you don't. I thought this was a super strong round overall. Well done everyone!
Melody Klein,
Samantha's Girl
IMO, this doesn't meet the challenge because it doesn't retell the story of the film. Sometimes it's useful to sit on an idea for a few days rather than recording and submitting immediately, because it allows time to come up with more ideas and better refine the ones you do have. On that note, the "She was more than a little surprised, To see the way she affected my eyes" is a super clunky line. She doesn't have an effect on your eyes, she affects you as a person. Someone might read your physical response in your eyes, but that's a different thing. A lot of the choices you've made in this song appear to be because they're what you're comfortable with or enjoy, not because they relate to the story in any particular way. That's a legit approach, but "why this choice?" is often a useful question to ask yourself when you're making something. Personally, I find the autotune in this a bit off-putting. It sounds a lot like it's masking your vocal performance rather than being a deliberate choice. Given the style of music, it wouldn't be an unusual choice to make, but if you're doing that you really have to make sure you do it well.
David G Harrington,
Starship Man in Red
I enjoyed this song more than last round's song, but it's still two minutes too long. I'm not sure that the solo at the end adds anything. Two songs isn't a big sample size, of course, so I could be wrong, but it feels like you just make arbitrary choices about what sections to include in your songs regardless of whether they're necessary or not. There's a good trick used in visual art where you step back to the opposite side of the room every so often while you're drawing or painting and just look at the image from afar for a few minutes to get some perspective, and I think you need to do the same sort of thing for your songs so that you can make better editing decisions. A couple of other technical notes: there's one spot where you rhyme "now" with "now" and it's super clunky. Again, editing carefully would help this sort of thing. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you have an American accent, but you're singing with one. It's the same kind of fake American accent I realised I put on when I first started writing songs. I know a lot of people do choose to alter their accent when they sing, and that it's a very personal choice, but I'm a big proponent of using the voice you have. My vocals and breath control improved immediately when I stopped subconsciously putting on an "American" accent while singing.
See-Man-Ski,
We're All Shameless
I really enjoyed this. Please do more piano things. I love the "c-a-a-a-a-an" and "d-a-a-a-ad" deliveries. The repetition in your lyrics works really well for this song. It might have been nice to here some variation in the piano rhythms, but, whatever, I love it. I don't know this show at all, and I'd prefer to hear the "Pattie's Pies" as something a bit more generic. I think that something along the lines of "making pies" instead would also work, and make the song feel less specific while still meeting the challenge.
Also In Blue,
Here On The Wall
My god. This is just stunning. The concept alone killed me dead. And the delivery. The delivery. This is just something else. I would be so damn proud of myself if I wrote this song. I sat down and watched Snow White again yesterday because of this song. The way you give the stepmother personal depth rather than the cardboard cutout she is in the film is heartbreaking and wonderful. It felt very sympathetic to the way that women become just invisible to society at a certain age. The switch from triple metre to 4/4 (?) for the bridge is glorious. Five and a half minutes that just fly by.
Pigfarmer Jr,
Such Evil Creatures
It's a big ask to follow up that Also In Blue song, and I'm sure my reaction to this is coloured by that, so I apologise! This is a fun idea, but I feel like it's one that's been done a lot recently, so it doesn't feel particularly fresh. Musically I want the guitars to sound much bigger and wider, and the whole things to sound wilder and less restrained. Overall it's a bit too long. I mean, I know it's only three minutes, but I feel like it should be two.
Dented Bento,
Things Are Going Well (Pleakley)
I feel like the rap and vocal sections in this don't quite mesh production-wise. I've only seen Lilo & Stitch once, and don't remember much about it. The way you've retold the story is a bit hard to follow and doesn't feel like it stands on its own separately from the film.
The Dutch Widows,
Hold Fast His Name
I avoided reading your liner notes and haven't listened too hard to the lyrics because I haven't read Hamnet yet and don't want spoilers! The delivery on "hold fast his name" is perfect. I'm a big fan of handclaps in pretty much anything, so thank you for that. The rhythms throughout this work really well. I was climbing a giant hill when this one came on, and you might not be aware, but this is a fucking brilliant song for hill climbing. I've never got to the top of that hill so fast.
EmKayDeeBee,
Wishful Thinking
Lyrically this is a big improvement on last week. Well done. I'm not familiar with the source material, but the song works really well as a standalone piece. The layering is cool and I love those string stabs in the background. My one nitpick with this is your vocal recording. The harp sounds great again, but it sounds like you're recording your vocals in a room with a lot of reflective surfaces and it's detracting from what's otherwise an excellent performance. My house is shit for recording anything, so I end up just piling cushions on every surface before recording vocals to absorb whatever room reverb I can. It might be worth looking into some room treatments, or a shield to put behind your mic if you don't have one already; I think it will make a huge difference and your vocals will sit much better in your mix.
Sober,
Take the Blame
This is hands down my favourite of your songs. Usually I find your stuff just too traditional, and I really like the way you've used drones and pans and stuff throughout this to add atmosphere. Please, pretty please experiment more with choices like this because it really adds some character. Good use of the high end with all those little flourishes of what I'm assuming is mandolin. The lead vox sound a little far back in my headphones.
rackwagon,
Au Revoir, Mon Fils
Once again, I cannot be impartial on this song. I always hear bits and pieces of the Rackwagon during the production, but for this one I gave a lot more feedback than normal on French pronunciation (don't @ me if anything's incorrect, @ Duolingo!) and vocal delivery. I was worried that Giz might actually kill me via text message at one point. It was so worth it. I fucken love it. I love it so much. My favourite bits are as follows:
The staggered repetition of "see" in the first verse ("Au revoir, mon fils / There’s so much in life you’re yet to see / And I’m afraid you won’t see it with me / And I won't see what you achieve").
Spoilers that are spoilers but stand on their own as lyrics as well ("Find me hidden deep inside the books / Where each page turns another clue"; "But that’s just not the way my life was framed").
The "gentle man" / "gentleman" delivery.
"And as my feet / Lift away and I no longer breathe / Take the only thing I have to give / Amour, au revoir, mon fils" <insert every crying emoji here>
Watch Lupin on Netflix everyone. Watch it now. Watch it in the original French with subtitles. Gosh, what a great show.
Jealous Brother,
Perfectly Good Collision Course
This is a good, fun song that is completely ruined by the verse about Michael Bay. If you enjoy this film, own it. Don't put all that effort in and then try and be cool by being mean and bitter in the last verse. It's unnecessary.
Vom Vorton,
The Ship's Cat
Your "my god" is the single best delivery of this whole round. The perspective is a little muddled throughout; sometimes I'm not sure if the cat is addressing Ripley or the alien. The mix is a little dull, but I hear that's Mo's fault.
Good Guy Sôjàbé,
Batman's Batman
Those sustained guitar (?) notes work super well to build atmosphere. On the whole I find this a bit relentless and would appreciate some more dynamics worked in to avoid fatigue. That Robin verse feels like a bit of a stretch, and I feel like you could find 30 seconds to cut somewhere.
Regis Michelena,
Maclunkey!
The chorus is fun in this, but the verse melody feels a bit tortured and the instrumentation is very repetitive. Your vocals sound very buried, and the guitar solo sounds like it was recorded in a tiny cardboard box. The mix needs a lot of work, but mostly I just don't relate to the song itself. It feels like a lot of in jokes and not something that could stand alone as its own thing.
Cavedwellers,
My Unlikely Best Friend
This sounds to me like a character study, and not actually a retelling of the story from a minor character's perspective. Also is Cameron even a minor character? You say at one point "it's happening again", but there's no context in the song to actually tell me what's happening again. You're relying on people knowing the film to fill in information rather than presenting a whole perspective. On the whole this feels too long and doesn't need the solo.
Keen Observer,
Salem 1693
I enjoyed this more the second time I listened to it after actually reading the lyrics. The first time everything just kind of washed over me and I couldn't latch onto the story. I'm not overly familiar with this film; I think I saw it once at the cinema when it was released, so I appreciated the back story in the liner notes. The vocals in the chorus become pretty incoherent, but in the verses they're clearer. It sounds like you've just cut it off at the end instead of letting the reverb tail ride out (or putting in a fade).
Governing Dynamics,
Neil, From Toronto
It sounds like you had fun making this. I think, though, you tried to squeeze too much in and it just ended up being a laundry list of plot points. I wasn't left with any kind of mental picture of the character whose perspective the song is from. The mix also feels a little thin.
Giraffes for Wings,
Caribou Crosses the Maskwa
There's a super catchy, cute song in Australia that was written as a PSA for the Metro train network called
Dumb Ways To Die, and your melody reminded me a lot of that song, except then I'd get really sad because this is much more tragic. Oh my heart. You killed me dead just like that poor caribou. The repetition of "to" in the lyrics is masterful.
Ominous Ride,
The Ballad of Poor Yorick
"Ooh, baby it's an Ominous Ride world..."
This is pretty nice to listen to, but I can't get past the Cat Stevens melody. That Cat Stevens
Tea For The Tillerman CD was one of the few we had in our house growing up, and I listened to it a lot.
Night Sky,
Nancy by Gaslight
Your saxes sound great in this. I wish it was more sax and less of the rest, unfortunately. The setup for the story is super clunky, and I don't feel that the musical style is a good fit. Your vox are mixed way too far back, and the verse melody sounds like you just made it up on the spot without thinking it through.
Boy on the Wall,
I'm Scared of my Dad
I've written down in my notes that I really like the "goat" and "dad echo". The dynamics work really well in this and it's a super fun song. The "scared of"/"scared for" turnaround in the lyrics is wonderful. I look forward to
Emo Boys of The Bible.
Jon Porobil,
Bald, Green, Boneless
Like some of the other songs so far, this feels more like a character study than a retelling of the story. It's probably much harder to retell a specific story when you've chosen something long and serialised as your source material, and the delivery is charming enough that I'm giving you a pass on the challenge aspect. Which doesn't actually matter at all because I'm not a judge.
Lucky Witch & the Righteous Ghost,
The Only Way
This feels like it's a little lacking in energy, which reading your story about the week you had is understandable. There's some bass type distortion that came through in my left headphone which was a bit distracting. I'm not sure if something was clipping or the Eq/compression was a bit off or something. This is another one that feels a bit too long.
***
Hot Pink Halo,
Mind The Gap
This is me, making a song about one of my favourite books,
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. I sat down and reread this (again) this week. I was originally going to write from Door's perspective, but I realised upon rereading that, while Richard Mayhew is definitely the protagonist, Door actually has some first person perspective chapters, so I went with Anaesthesia instead. I think I got a much better song out of it than I would have otherwise. My goal with this song was to make it sound as human as humanly possible. The heartbeat sound is me tapping close mic-ed on my violin, which I then pitch shifted, compressed and added extra reverb to. My house is pretty bad for recording violin, and also I'm not great at playing it, but I looked up how to actually mix strings properly for once and am really happy with how they ended up sounding.
***
Shadows not written up yet, but hopefully I'll get time to make a few comments tomorrow.
