tournament PLATINUM HIT 11▴ congratulations aurora ♛

[Tsareena]

57 minutes ago, Glassmouth said:

I hope el Chupacabra has some sucking d*ck references or I'll be dissapointed

sorry  there are 0 d*ck or even any sexual references 

[Citrus]

Scores done, doing reviews now. Lemme try to explain my review philosophy since it's slightly different from the others.

 

Once we're top 10 or so, I'll write out bullet points of everything I see or think of while reading the song the first and second times (good lines, bad wordings, etc). Just quick lil thoughts. At the end, I'll do a paragraph summing everything up.

 

Before we get to top 10 and there's more of you, I'm reading through and picking what I believe to be the most pressing issue in the song and trying to explain how you can address it in the future. So I may only talk about one or two lines in your song in reviews, and lowkey I'm not bothering a whole whole lot with pulling out lines I loved unless they really slayed me. 

 

So basically, my reviews now may sound a bit meaner than my reviews later, but it's a time thing and making sure you get something to work on as opposed to me making up compliments for everybody.

[Speezy]

9 minutes ago, Citrus said:

Scores done, doing reviews now. Lemme try to explain my review philosophy since it's slightly different from the others.

 

Once we're top 10 or so, I'll write out bullet points of everything I see or think of while reading the song the first and second times (good lines, bad wordings, etc). Just quick lil thoughts. At the end, I'll do a paragraph summing everything up.

 

Before we get to top 10 and there's more of you, I'm reading through and picking what I believe to be the most pressing issue in the song and trying to explain how you can address it in the future. So I may only talk about one or two lines in your song in reviews, and lowkey I'm not bothering a whole whole lot with pulling out lines I loved unless they really slayed me. 

 

So basically, my reviews now may sound a bit meaner than my reviews later, but it's a time thing and making sure you get something to work on as opposed to me making up compliments for everybody.

Ready for my curbstomping  

[poki]

It's fine, one reason I actually joined this season is so I can get honest opinions on my songs. I don't want any sugar coating, because then I won't be able to become better and evolve.

 

My meters are good so I guess that's something. I kinda wanna read more about stressing though, currently it's a little blurry for me but it might help me a bit to go over it. 

 

I guess I'm batch 3 so tomorrow morning or tonight? 

 

And really, I wanna get better so I'm here for the lashing.

 

Do What you want.mp3

 

[Citrus]

imma do both batches today. 1-12 in like 40 minutes probably

[Jackson]

Posting my next reviews now. I just have 10 left which I'm going to try to get done tonight

[Jackson]

 

@Glassmouth – Unicorn Blood

I’m not sure if this was quite the concept to go with. I know what you’re trying to do with the unicorn blood, but those words and the connotation they carry don’t really fit the confessional nature of the song. I see in your explanation you wanted the song to be cheesy yet morbid, and I’m not sure if a satirical tone is really appropriate for the subject matter.

 

 

@SaintWest – Olympia

The second stanza of your first verse is complete appropriation of my song For the Gods (like I used the exact words “suddenly I’m blinded by your…”) but I’m going to assume you haven’t read it so I’ll give you a pass on that. Some people might drag pyromaniac, but I love big words in short lines when they work well. This whole song kinda served me tbh. I loved how you stuck pretty closely to the themes you chose, but used it as one huge metaphor to wrap the deeper meanings of the song around. This allowed you to balance emotion and imagery without giving up one for the other. Good work.

 

 

@Nait Phoenix – Gemini

Is “missing peace” spelled like that on purpose? I hope so. This was a step back from your entry last week. Up until the end of the song the inspiration was quite vague, which is alright, but you didn’t really fill in the missing pieces with any interesting language or concepts. The first verse had some issues with flow as well. Fortunately, the ending did bring you up a step, but it wasn’t enough to save the song as a whole.

 

 

@OreGuy – Bal Bal

Wow, way to bring in some exotic cryptozoology. The biggest issues here were probably language barrier issues. “Searching for that recipe he needs” and “the crow birds sharing grin” didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and the line in the chorus should read “roams”. I liked how you were adventurous with your concept, and there was some vivid imagery here. I’d try to get someone to proofread your song before submitting, though, as a native English speaker might be able to catch those errors a bit more easily.

 

 

@MattyTacos – DreamSpell

The meter in the first verse could have been a little tighter. The 7 syllable lines were great, but the even lines were clumsy at times. The spacing in your past couple entries has been messy as well, so maybe and try and fix that xoxo (just a formatting thing). Overall, you had a lot of good lines here and the imagery was strong, but the flow and structure of the song was so uneven that it was hard to enjoy. Work on tightening up lines and making things flow a little better.

 

 

@Tsareena – El Chupacabra

That metaphor was creative, but a bit of a choice. Not sure if I’d choose a chupacabra as a metaphor for a lover. But it was creative, so props for that. I liked how you experimented with structure, but the repetition was perhaps a bit much. Remember we’re just reading lyrics, so “chu chupa chupa cabra” isn’t ever going to be seen as a strong chorus. The ending was clever though.

 

 

@funnellegs – Without A Goodbye

 I like this song because you retold the myth without it feeling like a retelling. The emotion was quite present in the piece, and I could feel the urgency and anxiety felt by the subject throughout. “Outlast forever” was a weird choice of words, among a few others. A few lines didn’t quite flow either, like “searching for my feathered cape all summer long”. The progression was great, though, and I like the way you used the title in two different contexts at the beginning and end of the song.

 

 

@EmojiClothes – If Looks Could Kill

The song started off on a bad note. “Your superpower was never freezing/but you’re cold to me for no reason” was definitely a throwaway. “Jealousy reared its ugly head” was also a bit too blunt for a song. Fortunately, you did pick up some of the pieces later on. I liked the title, and the way it related to the story you told, and the entire second verse was pretty good, just work on being more consistently good.

 

[funnellegs]

Thank you @Jackson! I'll be conscious of how the lines flow with the next round. 

[Glassmouth]

6 minutes ago, Jackson said:

 

@Glassmouth – Unicorn Blood

I’m not sure if this was quite the concept to go with. I know what you’re trying to do with the unicorn blood, but those words and the connotation they carry don’t really fit the confessional nature of the song. I see in your explanation you wanted the song to be cheesy yet morbid, and I’m not sure if a satirical tone is really appropriate for the subject matter.

I get what you say but the song is morbid for that exact same reason, it's meant to be cheesy, unpleasant and uncomfortable to read, I will work on making the words fit better on the song tho

[FCKNAmbrosia]

I'm ready to be dragged to the pits because my song is trash 

[Jackson]

9 hours ago, minho said:

Thank you Jackson!

 

I chose not to follow the myths too closely but rather twist them and imagine them interacting with each other in a new way (both are separate) but I can see that might not have come through properly.

I guess what I was trying to say is that with no explicit allusion to the myths it would be really hard to understand what the song is about without reading a description. I didn't take off points for that though

[Tsareena]

35 minutes ago, Jackson said:

@Tsareena – El Chupacabra

That metaphor was creative, but a bit of a choice. Not sure if I’d choose a chupacabra as a metaphor for a lover. But it was creative, so props for that. I liked how you experimented with structure, but the repetition was perhaps a bit much. Remember we’re just reading lyrics, so “chu chupa chupa cabra” isn’t ever going to be seen as a strong chorus. The ending was clever though.

 thanks Jackson. I added that as my chorus to break up the verses a bit.

[Citrus]

my reviews on next page xo

[poki]

You're welcome xoxo

 

[Citrus]

 

CitRuviews - Batch 1

 

 

Mezik – Restart

Proofread your entries in the future. “Wondering why I became so cold” is a cute line, I stan. This is a fairly serviceable unrequited love song and not being able to be there for the other person as a friend. The biggest issues in this song are some awkward phrasings and tenses. In “Your arms would be holding me tight”, for example. Try not to do conditionals like “would” or “could” if you can avoid it. “And in your arms you’d hold me tight” flows better because it doesn’t have hard consonant breaks like you do with the woulD Be and it sounds less robotic. Take that critique and try to apply it to your lines and rest of the song – how can I make this smoother so that, as I say it, it seems to roll off the tongue with little to no difficulty?

 

Uvie – Numbered Days

Even though your syllables are more or less consistent, pay attention to longer words like “happiness”. Hap-pee-niss will always sound clunkier than three one syllable words. So, basically, the goal for you is t to think “Okay, are my syllables matching? Cool, but am I saying it in the most direct and punchiest way for it to flow?”. Finding that balance between the flow of the song and still maintaining elevated imagery and language is the whole point of this game, and you’re off to a good start. Just keep focusing on improving the details.

 

Hug – Tu’er Shan

First off, what a lovely person you are for explaining your backstory. No shade but did you intend to write it so it sounds like it was translated from Chinese? Because a lot of it is that more lilting, smoothness-lost-in-translation kinda stuff. It’s pretty well written so perhaps I’m being nitpicky but this song was essentially the same two or three lines restated in a dozen different ways. I’m fine with the repetition of beautiful man and all that, but, because it’s using more simplistic language, it felt as if you ran out of things to say by the second verse. Some more figurative language would have aided I think.

 

Minho – Cat’s Waltz

Slay the concept, a deep cut. I really, really like this. This has the translated vibe that Hug’s does, but you still insert a lot of imagery and movement that really takes the reader to this alley behind a house in China. I felt like I was reading a Pearl S. Buck novel (a high compliment from me – she’s one of my all time favorites). Only thing is that “comforting house” is weird. Personification is cool and all that etc etc, but I find that assigning action verbs to inanimate nouns tends to sound strange. Empty house, broken house, looming house, loving house, etc are all fine because they don’t imply a specific action whereas comforting sort of does. TLDR it just sounds ****ing weird. But the rest of the song is a slay tbh, very impressed.

 

Pears – The Owl

I surely screamed at this languid, flowing explanation and then the first line being so literal. Side note but “behind it’s glaring eyes” should be its, no apostrophe. “Great wise owl” is a bit redundant and extends the line without adding anything, you can scrap great. The thing I see coming up here and in the future for me with you is the difficulty of finding the rhythm in the song. This is well written and has a lot of poetic elements but it does not read (to me) as a song. It’s not the rhyming (well, the inconsistent rhyming doesn’t help), but more that there’s no pulse in the lines pulling me along as I read, no flow from word to word, sentence to sentence. Especially in songs without a lot of rhyme or standard structure, that pulse and flow are critical. The song “Wooden Heart” by Listener is a good example of what I believe to be an extremely poetic non ryming song that still has a heartbeat tugging the reader along. I need you to find that.

 

Glassmouth – Unicorn Blood

Proofread. “Imagine the landscape covered by your loins” is a mess, what is the intent for that line? You’ve got some decent attempts at figurative language here, but the reason very little of it succeeds is that it’s 1) incoherent and 2) out of place. You’re putting your fingers in too many things at once. When we write ocean songs, we try to allude to the ocean. When we write about suicide we try to bring up imagery that enhances the story we’re telling. Your references, allusions, and similes/metaphors are incongruous. Like, it’s cool to have a line about lifetime hurricanes but it doesn’t connect to the previously only rock-related imagery. And the rock stuff is sort of weird, too, because unicorns are more associated with woodland areas. Keep trying on the figurative language, but think about what you’re trying to convey and make sure your lines are adding to that specific end point, not just serving as a detour along the way.

 

Saintwest – Olympia

I think the chorus needed some more transitional words. “I’ll wander through THE Olympia you built to share with me” and “Blinded by THE godly light THAT I confuse for peace”. The comma is disruptive there and makes it seem like a separate thought even though they’re halves of the same line. You also have a tendency to force some rhymes in because they’re cool even if they aren’t good. Styx/Crucifix, black/pyromaniac, for example. Make sure the chorus especially flows and recall that two words may rhyme but that doesn’t mean you have to include them.

 

Nait Phoenix – Gemini

I know they’re different words but NO @ rhyming piece and peace. The hook was nice and catchy, I liked that. This song has a similar issue to Hug’s in that, largely, there’s only one sentiment or idea being expressed here and the reader learns it in the very first line. If you’re going to have a song entirely about this one emotion, that’s fine, but then your language either needs to narratively lead the reader to it or you have to elevate it figuratively so there’s still enough variability to keep us interested. It’s written well but it’s not engaging.

 

OreGuy – Bal Bal

Thank you for doing something different than Greek mythology. ‘Step by step’ and ‘walking down the street’ are redundant in the same line because they have the exact same meaning. “Walks like him and talks like you and acts like he’s like me” is a fun poppy pre chorus line, but it’s weird in the middle of an otherwise normal verse. Focus on counting the syllables in your lines to ensure they’re either the same or only one off in each stanza. Try not to have a 15 syllable line and a 4 syllable line, for example. It helps the song flow better.

 

MattyTacos – DreamSpell

Can’t decide if “So my thoughts find beauty in the shape of my lover” is brilliant or freshmen intro to philosophy BS. Whew this song was long, feel free to be shorter sister. You had the opposite problem of Glassmouth. You used contextually supportive figurative language to enrich the song, but like, you kinda tried too hard? For example, “What a holy scripture to lay for my sins beside him” is something Taylor probably wrote for her upcoming dark album, except I’m sure hers flows better. Keep up the descriptions that enhance the mood and tone, but try to find the balance so that they aren’t overbearing.

 

Tsareena – El Chupacabra

Yas @ you writing a song about Aciid. No @ it being a weird metaphor about love destroying people but actually just sounding like a bestiality bop. The chorus is really cheesy, and I don’t mean that in a bad way because I was going the **** off to “el chu chupa chupacabra”. That being said, I wish either the verses matched the campiness or the chorus matched the somber tone of the rest of the song. As is, it’s very uneven and as you read you’re not quite sure whether or not it’s supposed to be funny. I think so because you had lines like “Have I told you of my love / He is tall dark and so fuzzy”. Work on making your tone consistent and intentional. I do love the out of the box thinking on concept though, keep that up because it’s way more interesting to read than most entries.

 

Funnellegs – Without a Goodbye

Interesting concept and I like the narrative structure you employed, that’s pretty unique to a lot of people’s entries and styles. My big thing for you to work on is counting syllables. It’s the first way to make sure that your lines have similar length so that it reads smoothly. Lines in the same stanza should have either the same number or only be off by 1. If they’re off by more than that, it’s confusing in most cases.

 

@funnellegs @Tsareena @MattyTacos @OreGuy @Hug @SaintWest @Nait Phoenix @Glassmouth @keshaspearsxo @minho @Mezik @ultraviolence.xx

 

[ultraviolence.xx]

7 minutes ago, Citrus said:

 

CitRuviews - Batch 1

 

Uvie – Numbered Days

Even though your syllables are more or less consistent, pay attention to longer words like “happiness”. Hap-pee-niss will always sound clunkier than three one syllable words. So, basically, the goal for you is t to think “Okay, are my syllables matching? Cool, but am I saying it in the most direct and punchiest way for it to flow?”. Finding that balance between the flow of the song and still maintaining elevated imagery and language is the whole point of this game, and you’re off to a good start. Just keep focusing on improving the details.

 

thank you queen  

[Tsareena]

Thanks @Citrus. It was meant to be somber but with some self-deprecating humor. Glad you liked the concept 

[ultraviolence.xx]

making an instrumental track for my songs. you dubtrackers better get stapling your wigs

[fountain]

18 minutes ago, Citrus said:

Pears – The Owl

I surely screamed at this languid, flowing explanation and then the first line being so literal. Side note but “behind it’s glaring eyes” should be its, no apostrophe. “Great wise owl” is a bit redundant and extends the line without adding anything, you can scrap great. The thing I see coming up here and in the future for me with you is the difficulty of finding the rhythm in the song. This is well written and has a lot of poetic elements but it does not read (to me) as a song. It’s not the rhyming (well, the inconsistent rhyming doesn’t help), but more that there’s no pulse in the lines pulling me along as I read, no flow from word to word, sentence to sentence. Especially in songs without a lot of rhyme or standard structure, that pulse and flow are critical. The song “Wooden Heart” by Listener is a good example of what I believe to be an extremely poetic non ryming song that still has a heartbeat tugging the reader along. I need you to find that

I'm sad you thought that. I obviously always write to a rhythm, so it's a shame you didn't think it was clear enough. I'll keep that in mind in the future. Especially if anybody else claims that issue too. And the rhyme scheme is simply ABCB. But thanks. 

[Mezik]

Ugh, I'm sorry for disappointing yet again - I swear this round I did try.

 

 

I'm gonna try harder again next round, and maybe get peers to review it before hand too. I won't disappoint next round.  

[UFO]

5 hours ago, Jackson said:

 

As I'm working on reviews, here's everyone that submitted and when you can expect your review (except UFO because I didn't see his entry at first  )

 

SCREAMING

 

I purposely sent early so that I'd be in batch 1 so I was SHOCKED when I saw I wasn't in the first batch. I KNEW I was the first one to submit      there was literally no way I wasn't cause I submitted literally 12 hours after the round was posted    

 

but wait, so when should I be expecting my reviews? Will I be added to the last batch? cause...     I'll scream if I'm in the last batch now when I purposely sent early to avoid that from happening ffffffff

Edited September 2, 2017 by UFO

[UFO]

5 hours ago, Citrus said:

Okay **** ALL OF YOU who just said "inspired by X" and not explaining what that story/myth was. Boot.

Oop hopefully I get extra points then for that "brief" summary I included (literally a 5-paragraph CHUNK, not a "brief" summary at all ), several links AND even a damn GLOSSARY   I still can't believe Jackson didn't see my entry nnnnnn I sent it so early he must've overlooked it    

Edited September 2, 2017 by UFO

[UFO]

Nnnnn I guess I really am added to the last batch    

 

oh well! you know what they say... save the best for last and all that ****  

 

Edited September 2, 2017 by UFO

[EmojiClothes]

2 hours ago, Jackson said:

 

 

@EmojiClothes – If Looks Could Kill

The song started off on a bad note. “Your superpower was never freezing/but you’re cold to me for no reason” was definitely a throwaway. “Jealousy reared its ugly head” was also a bit too blunt for a song. Fortunately, you did pick up some of the pieces later on. I liked the title, and the way it related to the story you told, and the entire second verse was pretty good, just work on being more consistently good.

 

Thanks for the feedback!! I'll try to work on that

[UFO]

ahfkgakjf this round hasn't even ended yet but I'm so excited for next week