An 11 Year Old Wrote This About His Bully

Nur Ein 12 Round 6 Reviews

Title: Excuse Me
Challenge:  A lipogram - your lyrics may not contain any letter "A".

All the songs from this round can be listened to & downloaded from HERE.

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Glenn Case - Best 5 minute song about the Wheel Of Fortune I’ve heard today.  Another great job with the lyrics.  I’m starting to think we should have got rid of the letter “E”, this sounds easy for you.  Then the rapping...you’re just rubbing our face in this challenge like, “THIS IS NOT WORTHY OF ME, BRING ME SOMETHING HARD!”  I probably would have got a little bored if you neglected to mix it up a little, so good call...and well done.

Skub - Your vocals are great, but I’m still of the mindset if you have multiple characters I should hear multiple voices.  The story is well written, no Yoda’s here.  Music was solid, but honestly this round was strong.  Good song or not, something minor like that 2nd vocalist will probably drop you a spot in my rankings.

73 Keep It Beautiful - You were the first song I listened to this round and I’d say we’re off to a fine start.  One thing I was worried about this round is getting a lot of “Yoda-like” lyrics because we’ve basically limited everyone's vocabulary this round.  I was glad you didn’t have that issue.  Overall I thought it sounded lovely (music, singing, lyrics, etc..), and it’s a very relatable song.

Merisan - At this point I’d be shocked if you turned something in I wasn’t impressed with.  For the most part I loved both your vocals together.  I’d love for you to soften a few of those beginning & ending sounds in the words a little verses saying them perfectly at times.  Otherwise...no complaints.

Strangelove - Performance wise you had moments I enjoyed, but it wasn’t consistent throughout the song.  Lyrically & musically nothing really stuck with me after listening the first time.  After a few more listens same thing…  While avoiding the Yoda, some of your lyrics didn’t really flow all that great or left me wanting a rhyme.  You’ve had some strong songs this contest, but in the end, this was a forgettable song for me.

Without Jew

Sharp Eyes (Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact)

Smells Like Teen Spirit

I go from liking this to being annoyed by it each time I play it.  Kina is an amazing talent, but has reached a point where most of her songs & covers just all start to sound the same...

Breathe

Djamila (who once guest judged SpinTunes) has a new music video out.  So cool to see her doing so well putting out great music.

Bad To The Bone (Steve Urkel Remix)

You're Nobody's Sweetheart

Gunhild Carling featuring Idun Blomé.

Nur Ein 12 Round 5 Reviews

Title: Elevator Men
Challenge:  Prominent musical repetition.

All the songs from this round can be listened to & downloaded from HERE.

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Skub - Beatboxing, awesome.  Don’t really get a ton of this in these online contests.  WOAH.  You waited over a minute before using any instruments & you were already well on your way to a good review from me.  Then you laid it down.  Man you did a good job of setting the bar high just so you could come over & knock it up again halfway through your song when a lot of songs are getting predictable.  I came into this contest REALLY liking 1 of your past songs...I’m going to leave it with small fanboy crush.

Glenn Case - Musically not really up my alley, but it does set the mood well for your story.  The story is actually the strongest from this round (so far at least, still have 2 more to review), and keeps me interested throughout the song.  In a round without a lot of lyrical details you stand out.

Berkeley Social Scene - God I’m dense.  At first I’m thinking this is a positive song about the elevator guys that actually hit the buttons & shit for you.  Then the snow line & I spend 2 minutes trying to figure out what snow has to do with it.  Not your fault, I’m just not hip with the drug lingo...and as I said I’m just dense.  After I checked the lyrics page & saw the “jonesing” line a lightbulb went off & I enjoyed the song as a whole MUCH more. ;p  Thought your musical hook was really strong.  Well done, strong entry overall.

Merisan - Sounds like something that might play during a montage in a 60’s or 70’s movie.  You know, in a happy montage where everything is right in the world right before all hell breaks loose.  Vocals may be a little to loud in the mix, but really nothing bad to say here.

Strangelove - It starts very abruptly.  I know repetition was part of the challenge, but I’d like a little more story.  Have to admit it turned out to be a bit of an earworm for me.  This could be the Song Fight version of Banana Phone.

Micah Sommersmith - The opening sounds like something from an 8-bit videogame.  Liked the music & vocals were ok.  What I’d like to see done is replacing the last 2 lines of the first verse with the last 2 of the 2nd….then just getting rid of the 2nd verse.  You spend too much time explaining how boring these suits are.  Get it done in 1 verse so your song doesn’t start to get boring.  Then write another verse about the secrets you mentioned in the 3rd verse.

73 Keep It Beautiful - You had me at the start, but eventually I found myself wanting this to continue down a different path story wise.  Really wanted you to explore in more detail these elevator men.  But nothing new is learned about this mysterious cult or their secret floor.  Musically it sounded fine, you just peaked my curiousity & left me hanging.

Balance Lost - You create some beautiful sounds at times, and then at other times it just feels to busy & more like noise.  Mostly beautiful, but yeah, sometimes not.  A bit lost with whatever message you’re trying to convey lyrically, but I’m pretty dense.  Why I like mine more on the nose.

Castle Raid 6

I'm The One (Song Rants)

I love it when they roast these asshole hacks.

 

Our American Cousin

Masters Of Song Fu throwback...

Nur Ein 12 Round 4 Reviews

Title: A Sense Of The Absurd
Challenge:  Write your lyric around a mondegreen.

All the songs from this round can be listened to & downloaded from HERE.

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Micah Sommersmith - Love the idea, and it’s something that I probably would be overly annoyed with if a girlfriend constantly sang the wrong words to songs I knew.  Great job with all the examples.  Musically I wasn’t blown away by anything, but lyrically it kept me entertained.

Berkeley Social Scene - You had me early on with the cheesy first verse.  Creative mondegreens in there.  I do feel like you peeked in the first verse, but that’s not to say the rest of the song wasn’t good.  But the most memorable part for me came early.  Nice work getting the Kool-Aid Man to do the “Oh Yeah” parts.

Merisan - Story kinda bored me, but the performances were great.  Musically it was very cheerful & entertaining right from the start.  You’ve set the bar pretty damn high so far, so even though I’m ranking you high, I was honestly a little disappointed just based on your other entries.

Cavedwellers - Lyrically I was kinda tuned out pretty fast, but musically it was an enjoyable experience.  Hate to admit it took me longer than it should have to get “Each Hidden Die”.  I had to say it out loud a dozen times first.

Glenn Case - Forgive me for not knowing the terminology I should probably use, but the music made the hair on my arms stand up...in a bad way.  I’m not a fan of distorted instruments or whatever effects you were using.  Lyrically I thought you did fine, and it’s fun to see how some of you all are using the same examples here and there at times.  But I can’t really say I’m ever going to want to listen to this again.

Jerkatorium - I’ve liked most of your work thus far, but this one missed the mark for me.  Nothing sit well with me, the music was ok...but the change of pace just felt out of place.  Lyrics bored me, and the only positive was your vocals.

Balance Lost - Didn’t care for the instrumental section towards the end, but enjoyed the music otherwise.  Thought the performance was solid and sold the lyrics in places.

Strangelove - As an ignorant American who knows nothing of cricket, I’m sure some things were lost on me here.  Nothing here really held my attention.

73 Keep It Beautiful - The story is from the POV of someone who is stressing out about his girl possibly kissing another guy...but the music is so slow & chill.  To me this just doesn’t sit right.  The song idea wasn’t bad, but there’s no real conclusion or payoff.  Throw in the fact slow songs usually aren’t my thing and you’re looking at a lower ranking from me this round.

Nick Soma - Vocals killed this one for me.  Not sure I’d have been ok with the lyrics anyways.  Even reading along with the lyrics I got lost in the first verse at 1 point.

Death By Diamonds

Canada Is Only There Til They Do Something We Don't Like

The Ballad Of #Moldylocks (Just Hit Me)

Stumbling onto this was the biggest wtf moment I've had online in awhile...

Let's Call The Wole Thing Off

Gunhild Carling is one of the most amazing performers I've every seen.

Closer

Sweet Sweet Canyon

Nur Ein 12 Round 3 Reviews

Title: Regime Change
Challenge:  Two or more guest vocalists, each appearing in a separate section of your song.

All the songs from this round can be listened to & downloaded from HERE.

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Skub - Wow, that rocked.  Only entry this round that I found myself bobbin' my head to.  The mood of the lyrics, music & performance all fit perfectly.  Cleverly written, all parties involved meshed together perfectly.  You win.

73 Keep It Beautiful - The kids nailed their lines, well done.  The idea is really funny, and the lyrics did a good job of telling the story.  Can’t find anything to complain about...which is good for you.

Glenn Case - You went above & beyond for this challenge.  4 guest vocalist, and the combination of them all sounded great.  The song itself  was a lot of fun, something that is catchy & easy to sing.  Without getting too political going the direction of Trump was a natural & obvious choice.  Since this is the first song I’ve listened to, I’m hoping not EVERYONE did that though.  This just set the bar insanely high for everyone else this round.

Berkeley Social Scene - All your vocalist did a fine job, I was very impressed.  I think it was a great idea to have 1 vocalist play Trump with the others being the voice of (some of) the people.  The lyrics flowed well, and I only have 1 minor complaint for the entire song…stop beating around the bush & end the song when it needs ended.  Excellent in every other way though.

Micah Sommersmith - This sounds like a mixture of Brian Gray & Inverse T. Clown (both SpinTuners).  That’s not really a bad thing either.  Smart lyrics, accordion, and a little humor.  The guest vocalist did pretty well.  The section Sally sang sounded great, but it was an odd transition.  Her part didn’t even sound like it should be in the same song.

Jerkatorium - Without getting into details of who you’re writing about you widened your audience which is good & bad.  As long as this is meant to be a light-hearted fun song, it’s great.  If it’s meant to be a real protest song you fail there.  Overall I really liked it though.  I’m usually less into the heavy stuff & like the fun shit.  When you opened with Jeff singing I was worried for the next guest vocalist.  Especially when I saw that they both carried large portions of the song.  Jeff was good, but it set the bar really high so I worried the 2nd half would suck in comparison.  Fortunately I was wrong cause Chumpy was up to the task.  Sheri on the other hand...sounded like a robot.  Not sure if you wanted that or if you just had to cover up some really terrible raw vocal tracks.  Either way it couldn’t have sounded worse without those effects.  At least I hope not.  Redo the bridge, but other than that...well done.

Cavedwellers - Rachel’s guest vocals were pleasant, but Michael’s were a little though to listen to.  I was happy you picked a different direction than Trump.  Not that I’m for or against that topic, but nobody wants to listen to 10 songs all saying the same thing.  Lyrically I liked what you did with the verses & the chorus, but the bridges didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the song.  Solid work, but could be better.

Balance Lost - Nice work with the vocalist.  Musically it was interesting & well done.  Lyrically I’m just thinking we have different tastes.  I like telling clear stories, and you seem to be more about feeling & presenting a general picture.  It sucks ranking you lower for something that’s not bad at all, but not something I personally enjoy.  Dems the breaks I guess.

Strangelove - I’m not sure how vital your guests were to any 1 part of the song, so in that regard I’m not as impressed as I was with some others.  I liked that your story was unique in this group.  Didn’t really think I’d be getting a song about a guy fresh off a break-up getting back into the dating scene, but it was very enjoyable.  Probably knock you down a bit in my rankings due to how you used the guest vocalist though.

Nick Soma - Now I know it didn’t say the guest vocalist could be audio clips from other media, so I guess I can let that slide.  That’s straddlin’ the fence in terms of meeting the challenge though.  What bothers me most is that this song screams out for multiple vocalist & you don’t have them.  You wrote 3 characters into your song, and most people don’t have the range to play 3 different people.  I’ll assume you don’t since you didn’t try, and sang exactly the same throughout.  It’s a bit of a pet peeve I guess. I want a different voice for each character when I can, and with THIS challenge even more so.  Recently in SpinTunes the same thing happened with a vocalist who did very well (Ryan Brewer).  Despite his great vocals the song felt shorted by not having a different person for each role.

Isis Isis Baby

More Than Birds

Nur Ein 12 Round 2 Reviews

Title: Tired of Talking Challenge: Lyric consists of only one sentence.

All the songs from this round can be listened to & downloaded from HERE.

I’m pretty sure we just gave a perfect challenge for Dub Step remixes....

Strangelove - This is exactly what I was hoping to see people do.  You crafted a sentence that could be broken down to use bits & pieces of.  The dance track is a good choice with the lyrical limitations.  I probably would have liked a shorter sentence that wasn’t such a run on, but it worked.  Next step would be to have various versions of the lines.  The rather bland reading of the sentence could later become singing, screaming, whispering or performed any number of ways...but well done.

ROTR - I like the sound, but the sentence is again rather uninteresting.  Great idea using “talk talk talk” as a chorus though.

Merisan - Amazed at your ability to craft a song thus far in the contest.  Not thrilled with the run on sentence as it doesn’t even read well for a run on.  Can’t knock you much for that considering a lot of people ended up in the same boat.  But it’s the only negative thing I can think of.  Was a pleasure to listen to.

Paco del Stinko - I think it would have been better to have the sentence come early in the track verse at the end.  I liked how between the 34-43 second marks your instrumentations gave me a mental image of 2 people having a back & forth.

Glenn Case - Nice little haiku.  Honestly I’d have finished singing after the first time you sang your sentence.  Let the rest of the song be an instrumental.

Berkeley Social Scene - Enjoyed the music a lot, the run on sentence was pretty good.  After the first use of it I would have found it interesting if you had broken it up again instead of repeating it all again.  Make it seem more gibberish like as the more tired you get.  Nice effort overall.

Micah Sommersmith - Of the people who went the run on direction yours sounds like the most traditional song in the bunch.  That and managing to tell a story better than the others is an accomplishment.

Jerkatorium - I was expecting a lot of run on sentences, and you’re the first I’ve listened to that really ran with that idea.  It rocked, and I laughed a bit when you said, “um” and decided to rock a little more.  Was hoping people that went this direction would craft their run on sentences so that fragments could be used again later on & it wouldn’t just be repeated completely a 2nd time, but it was fun for what it was.

Balance Lost - This is about what I thought I’d get from you based on what I’ve heard thus far.  It’s not a bad thing, it’s rather pleasant to listen to.  At the same time I wasn’t really moved in any way, and there’s not much of a story.  Given the challenge though, I can’t really fault you there.  Cool sound.  You’re the first song I listened too this round, and I’m doing the reviews as I listen...so I have no idea where you’ll fall in my rankings yet.

Wendy Wiseman Fisher - This is a tough challenge for you.  I mean it’s a challenge that lends itself to leaning on instrumentals, yet you just got vocals.  However I think this was the catchiest of your entries so far, and it’s not a horrible choice for a sentence.  Something people can relate to, while still being pretty open in terms of what they’re talking about.  I suggest leaving a second or 2 of silence at the end.

73 Keep It Beautiful - I’m not sure how you got the 6 Million Dollar Man to run in slow motion throughout this recording process, but it might just be the best collab of the contest so far.

Nick Soma - While the music was interesting, the sentence you wrote basically says, “Yo I can’t talk now so listen to this..” lol  Except you say it in a way to make it seem deep, when it’s just meta.  Pretty music, but I wouldn't dive into it.

Pigfarmer Jr - Another run on attempt.  The music sounded fine, but I didn’t really care for the lyrics.  I wish more people embraced the limitations this round instead of trying to find ways add lyrics.  That isn’t directed at just you, but most people this round.

Skub - I would say embrace the restrictions, but as you had immunity you should always use that to have fun & do what you want.  If you’re going to bend the challenge you’re doing it at the right time.

Inflatable Vegetables - Ok, I’m very quickly figuring out that this round is going to have to be about a feeling for me.  I knew 1 sentence wasn’t going to lend itself to a great story, but so far the sentences that have been chosen are rather blah…  They should be something that’s going to evoke some sort of emotion since you have so little to say this round.

Cavedwellers - I was beginning to wonder if you had lyrics for a minute.  The music was interesting, but a couple transitions felt odd to me, like around the 16-17 second mark & the 57-56 second mark.  When it comes to your sentence I don’t really make a connection between the musical style & your lyrics.  They just felt tacked on, and that’s a lot of tacks considering the run on you used.

Zed Dead Baby - At the time of me reviewing this, I’m not sure if songs are usually required to have lyrics, but in a round where you’re told to have the lyrics be 1 sentence I’d have to vote to DQ this.  Will have to ask the other judges with more experience in Nur Ein though.

Meet Sean Forbes, A Deaf Rapper