Frankie Big Face - not sure how i feel about such a prominent sample. I don’t think i can give you full credits for music you didn’t compose…. I’m sure i’ll get yelled at for that, but oh well. Anyway the vocals are good.
What a narrow view of music you have almost a quarter of the way through the 21st century! If you (and the other judges, for that matter) can’t understand the difference between using a 5-second sample and “music you didn’t compose,” then eliminate me and I’ll take my ball and go home.
In the meantime, I would encourage you to go listen to “Heartbreaker” and see just how little these two songs have in common. Also, watch the video AA posted. Maybe you’ll change your mind.
Also, go listen to “Whole Lotta Love” followed by Muddy Waters’s “You Need Love” and then you’ll know what stealing a song really sounds like.
Sheesh I know about sampling. Like the Avalanches and such, "Frontier Psychiatrist" is awesome. But I didn't like how - for this competition, where the challenge had nothing to do with sampling - the sample was in the forefront and really SO MUCH of what we heard in the song, the sample did a lot of the work. If it was less prominent I would have rated it higher.
Also, watch the video AA posted. Maybe you’ll change your mind.
I just realized that someone unfamiliar with the song, who just looked at the title of the embedded video without listening, might have interpreted my message to say that a song built around a prominently-featured sample is a form of theft (i.e. "Rhymin and Stealin"), reinforcing the notion that the sampling artist composed nothing of their own.
That could not be further from what I meant. The only part of this song written by the actual Beastie Boys was their lyrics, true, and producer Rick Rubin created the backing track 100% from Led Zeppelin drums and Black Sabbath guitars. But you'd have a heck of a time convincing me that the song wasn't creatively assembled into an entirely new creation.
Sheesh I know about sampling. Like the Avalanches and such, "Frontier Psychiatrist" is awesome. But I didn't like how - for this competition, where the challenge had nothing to do with sampling - the sample was in the forefront and really SO MUCH of what we heard in the song, the sample did a lot of the work. If it was less prominent I would have rated it higher.
Look, I really don’t care. But there’s SO much that goes into writing and recording a song and your review doesn’t focus on any of those things. Lyrics, song structure, etc. “Anyway, the vocals are good” is the extent of your review of my song (so dismissive) and the rest is complaining about a 5-second sample. For someone who *insists* the lyrics be posted, you don’t spend any time actually reviewing them. I mean, good for you for actually writing reviews, I guess…
Obviously, I could have written a slightly different guitar riff and avoided all of this, but I thought it was more interesting to use it. It doesn’t detract from the song unless you want it to. But I knew this was a possibility. I made the song I wanted to make and I don’t need to pander to you, or any of the judges for that matter.
Alright, dragged my lazy @ss around to finally finish this set of reviews; great set of songs this round. I hope these are helpful at least for folks' consideration. I'm just some random dude on the internet, so what do I know? Still, I hope this gives you something to think about.
Balance Lost - Long intro gives me some Cure meets Tom Delonge Blink 182 vibes, which I like. Nice drum work/programming on the choked hats in the intro, really nice touches here with the chops too. Long way into the song. Double vocal works. Really great lyric here in "years to build and seconds to collapse". Another cool breakdown to synths, I always appreciate a low pass filter on a breakdown too, it was nice on the vocal here. Very solid all around, and one of my favorite set of lyrics this time around as well. For constructives, all I'll say is listening environment affected my enjoyment of this one; in my earbuds at my desk everything sounds great, but in my car the vocal sounds a bit buried in the mix, so at at any rate, might be at least worth a listen on your end to see if you think the same. Fun track.
Cavedwellers - First and foremost this song has one of the breakdowns that I liked the most the whole round; great cut back and build up on the vocals. No table talk hits a chord with me; I played a lot of spades and hearts with my friends in high school, so I enjoyed that line. Pretty young thing? MJ Reference? Seems a bit out of place in the context of all of the rest of the lyrics, (I thought you were saying "Video game" until I read the lyrics) but perhaps I'm missing something metaphorical going on above the gameplay elements of the lyrics. Great breakdown, great solo. I'm resisting clicking the spoiler tag on your lyrics, but I'll say I don't seem to be able to figure it out without it, so I would say perhaps some more clues to the context or meaning for a constructive criticism, as I'm a bit lost without it. Cool song, I enjoyed it.
Frankie Big Face - Very recognizable sample here from Zep. Feels a bit like a mashup. Nice layered vocals, get a little muddy when all stacked up on the "life is so hard" bit. Similarly, it can be a little tough to understand a bit of the vocals due to the strong effect on the verse; perhaps maybe some parallel processing or a bit more of the clean in the mix? At least to my ear that might help. I enjoyed the scraping/scratching sounds, and a cool breakdown in this one. Really solid groove, nice organ tones.
For constructives, I have similar things to say here on the lyrics as I did for Starfinger, and also Moss Palace this round, mainly that I like the assonance, sounds, organization of the lyrics and how they are put together, but when I dig into them, it feels like they don't really have much to say. It feels a bit more like platitudes and insults in some vague way about politics and the state of things in Washington DC, without really getting into the who, what, and why of the narrator's upseted-ness with the state of affairs. Why should we care about the piggy from Tennessee? Who is the city rat country skunk? I guess at the end of the day I feel like there's connecting tissue missing from the story-fabric here in the lyrics, and I would have liked more. That's just my opinion, though, obviously, and I thought this was a cool song.
The Friends - The vocals feel a bit off to me; it may be pitchiness, it may be levels, it may just be the delivery in the light higher register, but it feels a bit off and takes me out of my enjoyment of the song a bit; could be the heavy reverb/delay/echo too, not sure, but could also just be me. Downtempo groove here I enjoy, cool synths, mellow guitar and drums, lot of warmth in this. Reminds me a bit of the Pillows in the guitar work here in a very good way (they did the soundtrack for the FLCL anime back in the 90's.) Descending line with the guitar and the bass in lock sounds really nice. Sounds a little muddled/muddy when the layered vocals all come in. Super cool synth solo. Lyrically it's an interesting story song, feels a little creepy, like taking advantage of someone, and that was probably the intent. I'm left wanting a bit for resolution, how did this story end? It seems like things would not have ended well.
Glennny - Dirty synths, very 8-bit retro here on the drums and instrumentation. A Glenny without guitar? Oh there it is, spanky and grimey, and comes back for the rest of the track. Dark ominous vibe in this, I like the music. Really dig the groove and the music; particularly when the bass comes in around the 3 of clubs bit. Fun lyrics centered around the deck of cards itself, I enjoyed that bit in the chorus. Overall take on a charlatan pitching snake oil in the lyrics I think works for the song.
For constructives, I think I only really have two; first the line "I see through your transparency" lands a little awkward with me; since if it's transparent, you can already see through it, it feels like a bit of an awkward phrasing, and it hits three times for the chorus. Second I'd say that relative to all of the other entries, the breakdown did not stand out as much or stick with me very much, even compared to your other one with the Cavedwellers breakdown (which I liked a lot and can still imagine while sitting here). Cool tune.
MechaKarp - Work travel and sickness made this round really tough, but I did the best I could.
Moss Palace - Another super clean production on this, I am always here for pop-punk stuff. Really dig the chucks in the verse. Really dig the energy, solid mini solo between chorus and V2. For constructives, I'd say lyrically, skirts the edges of some political stuff, but not enough to really get into the meat of things. Micah has given some feedback previously that I really resonated with; either dive into it and get into it, or don't; it feels like you're dipping your toe into something meaningful here, but then dancing away like pop-punk Fairies; personally I would have liked a link emotionally or clever lyrical twists to dig in a bit more.
Breakdown, shaker and vibraslap takes me back to some 90's Cake, really fun percussion, sounds like spoons? Triangle as well. Great walking bassline, great stops at the end, fun one. Reminded me a bit of Ballroom Blitz.
Starfinger - Man, you really got the dirty bassline thing down, I get Les Claypool vibes. Great groove, great emotive vocal take. Bass guitar and bass synths make for super thick bass. I enjoyed the selection of synths and arps in this too; the shift to double-time percussion in the chorus and bridge work well too to differentiate it from the verse, plenty of space to breathe in the verse relative to the instrumentals and chorus. What can I say, I think I must just be a Starfinger stan at this point.
Lyrically, assonance, rhythmically, and word choice is on point. In terms of finding constructive criticism to give on this one, I'd say the lyrics in this are actually very literal; while last round it was very literal as well but also the silly connection to an emotional love of crushing things, this time around, to me at least, I don't sense an emotional core in this song, and it's really ripe for the metaphor from closed window, getting unstable, cards lie; I think maybe a bridge or something to link that all up to something real about the narrator/singer would have elevated it for me. Just for your consideration, anyhow. I still really dug the tune.
Brown Word and the Big Whine - Whoa distortion screaming tone. Cool slide to open. Guitars sound cool, but I think they are fatiguing my ear a bit, maybe something above 1400 Hz or so? Could also be the level, but maybe worth a listen to see if you like a bit of a low-pass. Also a bit messy just due to the sheer layering of the guitars early in the song, perhaps a more focused approach to the guitar lines and/or eq in the beginning would improve this? It just sounds like the guitars are eating up more than their fair share of the spectrum, like hungry guitars do. Just a thought. FWIW, not something I hear later on in the Chorus, but it could just be due to fewer guitars. I really liked the emotion in the vocal, it comes through very well. Really lovely oohs and aahs in the backing harmonies on this, and a solid bassline supporting everything.
Lyrically I really like the imagery and lines for doubling down on a house of stone or scooping up so you won't be alone, I thought that was clever. I also liked the Tarot cards imagery instead of the classic poker playing cards.
Spintown & Company - Happy hardcore vibe to this, fun electronic bop. The vocal take here sounds a bit more nasal than usual, perhaps your collaborator had a cold like me? The nasal-ness is a little distracting in the pre-chorus. I enjoyed the electronic instrumentation and groove in this, solid sweeps, downswells and build ups, much care given to the arrangement and I really appreciate that; very polished, well executed and solidly in genre.
For the lyrics, for a joke song, I generally want 1) Is the joke good/funny (subjective, I know)? 2) Is it well executed?
For serious songs, I want 1) emotional connection/vulnerability (subjective), 2) clever wordplay 3) Interesting insights or introspection.
Lyrically, I'm guessing you did what you set out to do in generating more content for your minecraft youtube channel so take this feedback as you will; what I will say though is that I don't feel a lot of emotional weight or connection in this (even if it's melodramatic emotional weight for a gag); the stakes don't feel real. For good joke/gag songs to me, first and foremost the music MUST be good without the jokes (you have a check here, your collaborator is very solid), and second you need to have either really good jokes, and/or a relatable emotional core to the song. I'm thinking of some Weird Al parodies from back in the day, or Lonely Island, For Weird Al's "I am so sick of you", there is an emotional core of just being so fed up with the partner, and that's also where all the jokes stem. For Lonely Island, take "I'm on a boat", the emotional core is that it feels pretty baller to be hanging out on a boat, and the jokes stem from that, or "D!ck in a box", where the emotional core, while silly, is the love and caring of giving your partner an awesome gift for every different holiday. While they are filled with jokes, they also have an emotional core to them to relate to. I think you have the seed of it here, in the rage and frustration from failing, falling, and the pressure building from repeated deaths. I think leaning into the emotional elements of the lyrics can help the listener connect to the lyrics and engage in some empathy, "I crushed my can of Monster, and put a hole in my new desk, my eyes dried out from the strain of every increasing death", you know something like that.
Sorry for the wall of text. I'm a nerd at my core, and I really like jokes and humor, so I think about them a lot, including deconstructing them. As someone who loves to and does write a lot of silly and goofy songs, perhaps just take the above for some consideration and thought. I know you're banging out a lot of these lyrics in just a day, but at least IMHO adding some consideration or exploration to the emotional core for your song may improve your songs going forward.
Anyways, what do I know? I'm just some random dude on the internet, but I hope this gives you something to think about.
* mechakarp
something weird is going on with the vocals. i like the drums a lot in the
breakdown, with the faith no more-ish piano line. yeah the music is all great.
it's pretty long!
Thanks for the review, Starfinger. Yeah, I know my voice was hurting, and I definitely eclipsed the 5 minute mark which I try to never do, but I really wanted that loooong build up in the breakdown; hopefully it doesn't hurt me too much with the judges and they like the groove, and I can coast on my usual previous-round brevity banked up *fingers crossed*.
MechaKarp - i can see what you mean about the vocals. I felt the sameness was a bit of a problem by the end of the second verse - but the changeup after the breakdown with the piano brought the excitement back. Hey that solo section is really rad.
Thanks for the review, Hueristic. Yeah, my voice was hurting, and I can see what you mean about the sameness. I'm glad you liked the solo section, that's my favorite part of the song, and was worth the effort to me for that part alone.
Last edited by Siebass on Wed Jun 19, 2024 8:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
....and reading some of the exchanges above, a question for veteran nur ein-ers....is now the appropriate time for me to shout "NUR EIN!" and then duck under the nearest table...?
I appreciate your perspective on the mix, especially. I will try to clarify the verse lyrics. I'm experimenting with a pretty nice reverb plugin I bought recently and sometimes I overdo it. The chorus layers are meant to be intentionally dissonant so I may leave them as is. But yeah, I hear you about vocal clarity.
Regarding the lyrics, I often write very specific lyrics and then find myself feeling a little jealous toward songwriters who unapologetically write cryptic lyrics. These lyrics are about a real person, but they're also just words that go together well (to "sample" The Beatles). Sometimes it's good not to know everything, Siebass!
Thank you again for the thorough review and suggestions.
Regarding the lyrics, I often write very specific lyrics and then find myself feeling a little jealous toward songwriters who unapologetically write cryptic lyrics.
Man, I hear you on that. Whenever I try to get away with generic or cryptic lyrics I always get dinged on it, but there are many major acts that do just that, so I do see your point. My thinking has always been, 'maybe they're just famous enough they can get away with it?' It could also be my personal preference towards specifics in lyrics; I do find even when specifics are given, it makes it easier for me to connect with and generalize the emotional bits of a song.
For constructives, I think I only really have two; first the line "I see through your transparency" lands a little awkward with me;.....
Hey, thanks for the review! I meant to throw quotation marks around "transparency". I did not. Does that fix it? Does it help? I liked that line because many folks claim to be "transparent" in all of their business, and they are indeed not. So this protagonist who is investigating sees who they actually are, and is not satisfied with a claim of "I have full transparency".
Ultimately, it's an unsuccessful lyric, if I have to explain it. Thank you for bringing it up. That's the kind of thing my collaborators catch and rewrite, or have me rewrite. In my solo project, however, I let it out.
cheers!
I'm working on my reviews.
Phillipso, Older Brothers, Semolina Pilchards, Zipline , Thank Glennny for the Frisbee, The Odoriferous Valley, The Worldly Self Assurance, Berkeley Social Scene, Very Gentle Knives, Daddy Bop Swing Set, GUNS, The Kraken Lives, Cavedwellers
Hey, thanks for the review! I meant to throw quotation marks around "transparency". I did not. Does that fix it? Does it help?
I think it would definitely help in the reading of the lyrics, but I think in the audio I would still have the same issue; maybe even I see through your "fake/faux/mock/etc. transparency" and that would still salvage the next line rhyme with "impress me"
Spintown & Company - this style kinda wants more present vocals and synths - maybe the mix and effects could make this more punchy. Man that map looked kinda annoying. How many times did it take to do? Anyway this was fun.
Musically my main goal was to have Joe recreate a relaxing & driving mix. That tends to be the type of music people who speed run or grind parkour listen to while doing it. Maybe it could have used punched up a little though.
As for the map, well it took me 0 tries. I'm primarily a parkour builder. I like to think up new ways to use Minecraft physics to get places & use it to make new jumps & puzzles. The map is actually a modified version of a public server I ran for 7 years. When I closed the server I released the courses as a downloadable map so the players could still run the courses on their own. I had my friend & former admin run the course while I filmed him. He's out of practice so it took him about 100 tries? For top notch players that wouldn't take long to do, all the jumps are really simple, the only difficult part is learning the timing because everything is triggered by 1 single button at the very start. After you hit the button all the blocks move once, in order, and if you miss the timing you can't wait for a block to come back. The only thing you can do is start over.
Spintown & Company - Happy hardcore vibe to this, fun electronic bop. The vocal take here sounds a bit more nasal than usual, perhaps your collaborator had a cold like me? The nasal-ness is a little distracting in the pre-chorus. I enjoyed the electronic instrumentation and groove in this, solid sweeps, downswells and build ups, much care given to the arrangement and I really appreciate that; very polished, well executed and solidly in genre.
For the lyrics, for a joke song, I generally want 1) Is the joke good/funny (subjective, I know)? 2) Is it well executed?
For serious songs, I want 1) emotional connection/vulnerability (subjective), 2) clever wordplay 3) Interesting insights or introspection.
Lyrically, I'm guessing you did what you set out to do in generating more content for your minecraft youtube channel so take this feedback as you will; what I will say though is that I don't feel a lot of emotional weight or connection in this (even if it's melodramatic emotional weight for a gag); the stakes don't feel real. For good joke/gag songs to me, first and foremost the music MUST be good without the jokes (you have a check here, your collaborator is very solid), and second you need to have either really good jokes, and/or a relatable emotional core to the song. I'm thinking of some Weird Al parodies from back in the day, or Lonely Island, For Weird Al's "I am so sick of you", there is an emotional core of just being so fed up with the partner, and that's also where all the jokes stem. For Lonely Island, take "I'm on a boat", the emotional core is that it feels pretty baller to be hanging out on a boat, and the jokes stem from that, or "D!ck in a box", where the emotional core, while silly, is the love and caring of giving your partner an awesome gift for every different holiday. While they are filled with jokes, they also have an emotional core to them to relate to. I think you have the seed of it here, in the rage and frustration from failing, falling, and the pressure building from repeated deaths. I think leaning into the emotional elements of the lyrics can help the listener connect to the lyrics and engage in some empathy, "I crushed my can of Monster, and put a hole in my new desk, my eyes dried out from the strain of every increasing death", you know something like that.
Sorry for the wall of text. I'm a nerd at my core, and I really like jokes and humor, so I think about them a lot, including deconstructing them. As someone who loves to and does write a lot of silly and goofy songs, perhaps just take the above for some consideration and thought. I know you're banging out a lot of these lyrics in just a day, but at least IMHO adding some consideration or exploration to the emotional core for your song may improve your songs going forward.
Anyways, what do I know? I'm just some random dude on the internet, but I hope this gives you something to think about.
I think I agree with most of what your saying, but I didn't really consider humor much in this song. I was trying to just portray the feelings & thoughts people have while running my parkour courses. Some people make parkour courses that are meant to be "fun" for most people. I intentionally made "rage parkour". Including trolls, puzzles, jumps that require 100's of attempts or 1000's to make, my server would literally insult you if failed a jump or quit a course. I also had demotivational signs placed to try to make people quit. If they quit...I won the contest between my parkour & their skills. So more so than humor...I wanted to focus on misery. It may be a song about a silly topic to write about, but humor wasn't actually the goal. Now I still may have missed the goal, but humor wasn't it.
Also, not sure if Joe was sick or not. I'm usually just happy to have someone else do the singing & don't say much unless they sang an incorrect lyric. I tried singing one of my songs & had a professional try to mix it...and it didn't go well. ;p So I just say, "Thanks, and nice work." when I have someone else doing vocals for me. Anyways, thanks for taking so much time with the review!
I think I agree with most of what your saying, but I didn't really consider humor much in this song. I was trying to just portray the feelings & thoughts people have while running my parkour courses. Some people make parkour courses that are meant to be "fun" for most people. I intentionally made "rage parkour". Including trolls, puzzles, jumps that require 100's of attempts or 1000's to make, my server would literally insult you if failed a jump or quit a course. I also had demotivational signs placed to try to make people quit. If they quit...I won the contest between my parkour & their skills. So more so than humor...I wanted to focus on misery. It may be a song about a silly topic to write about, but humor wasn't actually the goal. Now I still may have missed the goal, but humor wasn't it.
Also, not sure if Joe was sick or not. I'm usually just happy to have someone else do the singing & don't say much unless they sang an incorrect lyric. I tried singing one of my songs & had a professional try to mix it...and it didn't go well. ;p So I just say, "Thanks, and nice work." when I have someone else doing vocals for me. Anyways, thanks for taking so much time with the review!
Fair if I missed the mark on the humor aspect of it; in that case, I would have loved more misery and misanthropic vibe on your desire to frustrate and foil your contestants
Fair if I missed the mark on the humor aspect of it; in that case, I would have loved more misery and misanthropic vibe on your desire to frustrate and foil your contestants
I really loved making people rage. But the harder it was the more joy you got when you completed it. I remember back when the server was still basically in public beta, it was so new it wasn't even in a void world. One of my friends found a video someone posted of themselves running the easy course. This person had spent hours trying to finish the course, and his reaction was probably one of my favorite things ever. Complete misery to complete joy. https://spinkour.blogspot.com/2015/06/tunarific.html
Look, I really don’t care. But there’s SO much that goes into writing and recording a song and your review doesn’t focus on any of those things. Lyrics, song structure, etc. “Anyway, the vocals are good” is the extent of your review of my song (so dismissive) and the rest is complaining about a 5-second sample. For someone who *insists* the lyrics be posted, you don’t spend any time actually reviewing them. I mean, good for you for actually writing reviews, I guess…
it wasn't meant to be dismissive. i do like the vocals, they sound great. the problem with the 5-second sample is how often it repeats. and it repeats in the original song too, yeah? it makes it hard to hear what you brought to the song outside of it, the sample overpowers the rest of the composition. sort of like vanilla ice sampling "under pressure" - i feel he didn't bring enough "new" to the song to support the sample. this is how i feel about this song. as for lyrics, i ask for them because i have always been bad at understanding sung lyrics and i want to understand them, especially when i'm judging.
as for your lyrics, i don't really know what you're talking about in them, they seem kinda cryptic to me, i didn't have any real thoughts on them last night. tho i do like the line about straw wood and bricks -> house of cards.
Look, I really don’t care. But there’s SO much that goes into writing and recording a song and your review doesn’t focus on any of those things. Lyrics, song structure, etc. “Anyway, the vocals are good” is the extent of your review of my song (so dismissive) and the rest is complaining about a 5-second sample. For someone who *insists* the lyrics be posted, you don’t spend any time actually reviewing them. I mean, good for you for actually writing reviews, I guess…
it wasn't meant to be dismissive. i do like the vocals, they sound great. the problem with the 5-second sample is how often it repeats. and it repeats in the original song too, yeah? it makes it hard to hear what you brought to the song outside of it, the sample overpowers the rest of the composition. sort of like vanilla ice sampling "under pressure" - i feel he didn't bring enough "new" to the song to support the sample. this is how i feel about this song. as for lyrics, i ask for them because i have always been bad at understanding sung lyrics and i want to understand them, especially when i'm judging.
So say that. Don’t say “I don’t know how I feel” or “I can’t give you full credits for music you didn’t compose.” Your entire review of my song is about the sample until the “anyway, the vocals are good.” That’s why it’s dismissive because it’s presented as an afterthought to a bunch of complaining about the sample.
I’m not going to keep defending my song—if you didn’t like it, that’s okay. It’s the I’m penalizing you because you used a sample business that bothers me.
And, while I don’t particularly like “Ice Ice Baby,” it is not even remotely close to “Under Pressure”—they are two completely different songs. The controversy over that sample was that it was uncredited and he claimed it didn't need to be because he repeated a note. But even still, that is a rap song with no additional melodies, instrumental parts, choruses, etc. My song has melodies, a chorus—a lot of parts that are completely independent of the 5-second sample I cribbed from LZ.
Phillipso, Older Brothers, Semolina Pilchards, Zipline , Thank Glennny for the Frisbee, The Odoriferous Valley, The Worldly Self Assurance, Berkeley Social Scene, Very Gentle Knives, Daddy Bop Swing Set, GUNS, The Kraken Lives, Cavedwellers
....and reading some of the exchanges above, a question for veteran nur ein-ers....is now the appropriate time for me to shout "NUR EIN!" and then duck under the nearest table...?
Phillipso, Older Brothers, Semolina Pilchards, Zipline , Thank Glennny for the Frisbee, The Odoriferous Valley, The Worldly Self Assurance, Berkeley Social Scene, Very Gentle Knives, Daddy Bop Swing Set, GUNS, The Kraken Lives, Cavedwellers
I’m off to Germany on Tuesday so this is the best time to be eliminated. Otherwise, I would have had to write and record a song on Monday without knowing if I was in the final. So, I’m cool. See you next time!
It could also be my personal preference towards specifics in lyrics; I do find even when specifics are given, it makes it easier for me to connect with and generalize the emotional bits of a song.
So, I’m cool. See you next time!