Nur Ein XI Round Five "Unnecessary"

[noma]

Here are some more reviews. Ken is at the bottom of my list, but not because his song is bad (see below). These songs were tough to rank for all the judges.

BSS

Composition: 8/10
Lyrics: 10/10
Performance: 9/10
Production: 10/10

Creativity bonus: 4
Challenge bonus: 3

Supreme lyric. The allusion to the "secret of the universe" at the very end is the icing on the cake. Music is good as well; what effects did you use on the guitars?


bgm

Composition: 7/10
Lyrics: 7/10
Performance: 8/10
Production: 9/10

Creativity bonus: 2
Challenge bonus: 4

Strawberry Fields! Really cliché (it's not like that's the only thing you can do with a mellotron), but nice. Reminds me a lot of some Eels songs off Blinking Lights; until the other part at 1:10 or so sets in, of course. I don't like that part as much, though it is very psychedelic. I'd like to see the other part fleshed out and made into a song of its own.


Grumpy Mike

Composition: 7/10
Lyrics: 9/10
Performance: 10/10
Production: 8/10

Creativity bonus: 5
Challenge bonus: 1

Wasn't expecting this. Drugs aren't necessary, mmm'kay? Trombone is very funny.


iVeg

Composition: 6/10
Lyrics: 10/10
Performance: 7/10
Production: 8/10

Creativity bonus: 3
Challenge bonus: 1

Not as psychedelic as most of the others. The composition is OK, but it doesn't do much for me. The lyric is brilliant. It feels stream-of-conciousness-y at times, which is a good thing in my book if done properly. And you definitely did it.


Ken Mahru

Composition: 9/10
Lyrics: 6/10
Performance: 9/10
Production: 8/10

Creativity bonus: 1
Challenge bonus: 1

Lyric is a bit generic, and the music is not psychedelic enough to make up for it. It's a pretty song though, and I'd probably rank it higher if not for the challenge. (It's also too long IMO, but that's just a minor flaw, not an obvious one - oh, that was last week.)


Micah Sommersmith

Composition: 8/10
Lyrics: 9/10
Performance: 8/10
Production: 8/10

Creativity bonus: 3
Challenge bonus: 0

I just noticed your voice has similarities to Ian Anderson's (of Jethro Tull). I'd love to hear a Tull style song by you. Odd time signature is cool - you'd have done well in last year's round six. Sadly, the challenge here was "psychedelic", which I don't really hear. Current event challenge was done satisfyingly though. Maybe add some obviously flawed sounding animal noises over a spoken word origin story part?


Paco del Stinko

Composition: 9/10
Lyrics: 10/10
Performance: 8/10
Production: 9/10

Creativity bonus: 3
Challenge bonus: 3

The psychedelia in this song is somewhere between Ken's and BSS's. A bit subdued; one might also say it's "done tastefully", though, especially in the backing vocals. Dig the hazy guitar solo.


Sólo Frijóles

Composition: 8/10
Lyrics: 9/10
Performance: 9/10
Production: 8/10

Creativity bonus: 5
Challenge bonus: 2

Length of the song is a welcome surprise after some of these long tracks. The meta lyric really works here, and you get a well deserved creativity bonus for it.

[glennny]

Nick asked:

what effects did you use on the guitars?

There's the obvious phaser and reverb, but what I think you really want to know is that I prepared my guitar. So I got some aluminum foil and folded it up, but not too tight, so it had a little spring in it, then placed an Allen wrench on top of it, underneath the strings. The wrench was placed as close to the bridge as possible. This would rattle while playing. This messed with the intonation also, so I used the B string as my melodic string, and tuned the other strings to drone. I used the bridge pick up for the tingy-ness of it. It was a fragile set up. I had to do it multiple times while tracking and each time the timbre would change a little bit.

Thanks for the review! I'm glad someone appreciated the secret of the universe line