Disco Donkey
12-28-2005, 12:02 PM
3rd - Pixiesfanyo – I don’t think the word “interesting” is the best word to use to describe your death-themed piece, since that would imply that I was entertained by this attempt at originality. The title mislead me into believing that I was about to read something truly amazing. It’s like pancakes: every time I see them on a menu for breakfast, I think “Man, those look good.” But then by the time I get done with the third or fourth one, I think “Why the hell did I just eat those?” Except, with your song, it only took me getting to about line three before I grew tired of it. Your structure is what bothered me the most. You hit us over the head with all of these adjective/noun combinations (“Careless waves,” “Graceful guts,” “Surreal copulation,” and “Useless attempts” all in the first stanza) at the start of each line. It just makes it boring to read. I commend you for at least trying to take a topic that’s been done to death (no pun intended) and giving it a few hints at being innovative. You took the classy route in describing the scene, rather than trying for shock value or something like that. It did have some genuinely great lines stuck in it (“Passive in nature, but the safety has been off for days”), but it just didn’t do much for me overall.
Changed rank after you told me what your song was about. Left crit for nuts of it.
11th - Silenceevolves – Please, don’t use that same line over and over in a song again. Too much of not such a good thing… is not such a good thing. You seem to be incredibly sporadic with the ideas that you’re tossing into your song. Either I am just too dumb to see the overall message (which is quite possible) or all of your meanings are of the hidden kind. I understand the general meaning: death. I get that. However, some of the lines have nothing to do with the ones that come before it. For the best example, look at your third stanza. What do “holiday shoppers” and a “holy necrosis” have to do with each other, let alone with the rest of the song? In places, I can see some great individual wording (“Heat themselves by a science fire”), but taken into context with everything else, it does little to help explain things. Take some time to more clearly show your ideas and connect them in more than just a series of vague descriptions.
4th - TojesDoLan – This song reminds me of the cream I put in my coffee that I drink in the morning; it’s half and half. I really liked the first couple of stanzas, and I especially enjoyed the third stanza. They do an excellent job of setting up what looks to be a semi-creepy view of the destruction of man. However, you falter in letting your ending live up to the expectations you give us in the first half. Instead of vividly depicting the aftermath of said destruction, you rely on weighted words and silly imagery (“Black water exudes from corroded tubes”). All in all, this was a disappointment, because I could see that you could have taken it to a much more satisfying place in the end.
9th - Littlejohn – Already critiqued this in the S&L forum. You know the gist of it...it's bad.
7th - RunAmokRampant – I laughed when I read the title. I had just gone over the Little Albert research in my Psych for Human Relations class a couple of months ago. I give you points for an original topic. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything about that experiment in song form. The first lines grabbed me by the throat because we had a discussion about the ethics of such an experiment. Your song captures just about all of my thoughts and put them into neat, structured little quips. With that said, the song as a whole is not as strong as its individual lines. You had plenty of excellent lines placed throughout (“Such is the effect of slapped conditioning” is golden) and you ended on a strong note. But even though I can relate to it, because they’re pretty much my own thoughts, I still feel like it’s all a bit too rigid. The emotions that I should feel are stifled by the classroom debate structure that it has. Maybe I only see that because I’m relating it to my own experience, but it just kind of took me out of it emotionally.
10th - ITRIEDVOODOOONCE – Odd isn’t the word, but it is the first that comes to mind. This is the problem that I find with such short songs: when you try to use only a few lines to tell a story, it’s tough to flesh out the details. What you’re left with is the skeleton of a song. You give the reader too many blanks to fill in. That mean’s you’re relying on your reader’s imagination to paint the rest of the picture for you. Basically, I see it as laziness. I know that may not be the case with you, but in most cases that’s what I’ve found. It would also be different if it felt like every word was needed and aided in the overall meaning of the song, but it doesn’t. You could easily take out several words without having any sort of adverse effect on the song. With such a short length, that’s not a good thing. Basically, I would just suggest trying to flesh out more details and show us what is happening instead of making us figure it out for ourselves. If I wanted to do that, I would write a song about it.
2nd - Conniption – Hey, look at that, another song about the destruction of mankind. Actually, this is very well written. What I most admire about this piece is that you made a short, tightly woven song with a good overlaying tone that also had some great, standalone lines. Some of it seemed out of place (not sure what “Stick to stone!” means) but then you quickly reel it back in (“Boulder to bone!” is a great line). However, your opening stanza, with the exception of the last line, didn’t do all that much to draw me into it. But not to worry, the rest of it made up for it. It’s good to see something from a new competitor that doesn’t suck.
12th - Jonney Blazes V1 – First thing: don’t use the challenge word as your title. It’s just lame. Second thing: stop repeating, stop repeating, oh my god, stop repeating! I’m sorry, but Edgar Allen Poe you are not. There’s no need to smack us in the face with repetition unless it stands to either reinforce your idea and give it more of a punch, or to make it flow better. In this case, it does neither. Now onto the actual song: I give you a gold star for an original topic, which is something that lacks in a lot of these challenges. But if you’re going to do a biographical song, you need to at least give a few allusions as to who the song is about without simply tossing the name in there. And I think you managed to use just about every single cliché about death possible. Basically, since you know that this isn’t very good (you said so yourself), you probably shouldn’t have entered it.
6th - WhatILivefoR – I’m intrigued about the title of this piece. It makes a few cameos in the song but never really explains itself. Does it even have any significance? Perhaps you could answer that for me. In any case, you did a rip-roaring job of opening on a spellbinding note. That first stanza is golden. Seriously. And you did a commendable job of leaving the song with somewhat of a cliffhanger, which is also a pretty harsh realization on behalf of the character. So you’ve got the beginning and the end taken care of. But I’m afraid I can’t say the same for the stuff in between. It goes from being mysteriously intriguing to being recklessly direct. In the midst of such a folklore induced song, you throw in lines like “spin like a worthless whore.” Don’t get me wrong, not all of the song seems that way, but the parts that do make me switch mindset in midstream. Certain words can either effectively punctuate an important part of a song or they can inadvertently disrupt its flow. Your case just happened to fall into the latter category.
1st - Crimsonpunk – This was actually kind of touching. I’ve read so many songs about death in this challenge that I started getting a bit depressed, but yours is something different. I can’t even point my finger at exactly what I like about it. Looking back over the song, this should have depressed me more than most of the other songs combined, but something about it gives off a small impression of hope. Not to mention that you have some beautiful imagery in the first and third stanzas. Sure, you could have made better use of the challenge word, but I could say the same thing for everyone else who entered. The weak spot is definitely the second stanza, because it fails to grip me the way the rest of the song does. Oh, and kudos on doing a good job wrapping up the song with a circular conclusion.
5th - k.s.e. – As one of the lengthier songs in this challenge, there was no way that it couldn’t seem a bit wordier than it needed to be. Although some songs need that kind of length to flesh out everything you need to say, I think that a more concise version of this would have helped. In some places, your words seem to stumble aimlessly, as if you’re searching for what you’re trying to say while you’re writing. Nothing in particular stands out as incredible, but that could be because you didn’t rely too heavily on imagery. I think this is one of the most solid songs throughout, but it just seems to meander at times. I don’t know if that makes much sense, but that’s how I feel about it.
8th - ATC – With a title like “Tape-worm” I had no idea what to expect from the proceeding words. What I got was weird. In all honesty, that’s pretty much all I can say about it. Some of it seems like I should be able to figure out your crazy *** hidden meaning (whatever it is), but then you throw out lines like “she wouldn’t complete daily ritual hand-clasps out through iron” and I don’t know what the hell to think. Damn you ATC, make sense! But even though I couldn’t really understand it with the rest of the song, in its own context, I like the ending.
Changed rank after you told me what your song was about. Left crit for nuts of it.
11th - Silenceevolves – Please, don’t use that same line over and over in a song again. Too much of not such a good thing… is not such a good thing. You seem to be incredibly sporadic with the ideas that you’re tossing into your song. Either I am just too dumb to see the overall message (which is quite possible) or all of your meanings are of the hidden kind. I understand the general meaning: death. I get that. However, some of the lines have nothing to do with the ones that come before it. For the best example, look at your third stanza. What do “holiday shoppers” and a “holy necrosis” have to do with each other, let alone with the rest of the song? In places, I can see some great individual wording (“Heat themselves by a science fire”), but taken into context with everything else, it does little to help explain things. Take some time to more clearly show your ideas and connect them in more than just a series of vague descriptions.
4th - TojesDoLan – This song reminds me of the cream I put in my coffee that I drink in the morning; it’s half and half. I really liked the first couple of stanzas, and I especially enjoyed the third stanza. They do an excellent job of setting up what looks to be a semi-creepy view of the destruction of man. However, you falter in letting your ending live up to the expectations you give us in the first half. Instead of vividly depicting the aftermath of said destruction, you rely on weighted words and silly imagery (“Black water exudes from corroded tubes”). All in all, this was a disappointment, because I could see that you could have taken it to a much more satisfying place in the end.
9th - Littlejohn – Already critiqued this in the S&L forum. You know the gist of it...it's bad.
7th - RunAmokRampant – I laughed when I read the title. I had just gone over the Little Albert research in my Psych for Human Relations class a couple of months ago. I give you points for an original topic. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything about that experiment in song form. The first lines grabbed me by the throat because we had a discussion about the ethics of such an experiment. Your song captures just about all of my thoughts and put them into neat, structured little quips. With that said, the song as a whole is not as strong as its individual lines. You had plenty of excellent lines placed throughout (“Such is the effect of slapped conditioning” is golden) and you ended on a strong note. But even though I can relate to it, because they’re pretty much my own thoughts, I still feel like it’s all a bit too rigid. The emotions that I should feel are stifled by the classroom debate structure that it has. Maybe I only see that because I’m relating it to my own experience, but it just kind of took me out of it emotionally.
10th - ITRIEDVOODOOONCE – Odd isn’t the word, but it is the first that comes to mind. This is the problem that I find with such short songs: when you try to use only a few lines to tell a story, it’s tough to flesh out the details. What you’re left with is the skeleton of a song. You give the reader too many blanks to fill in. That mean’s you’re relying on your reader’s imagination to paint the rest of the picture for you. Basically, I see it as laziness. I know that may not be the case with you, but in most cases that’s what I’ve found. It would also be different if it felt like every word was needed and aided in the overall meaning of the song, but it doesn’t. You could easily take out several words without having any sort of adverse effect on the song. With such a short length, that’s not a good thing. Basically, I would just suggest trying to flesh out more details and show us what is happening instead of making us figure it out for ourselves. If I wanted to do that, I would write a song about it.
2nd - Conniption – Hey, look at that, another song about the destruction of mankind. Actually, this is very well written. What I most admire about this piece is that you made a short, tightly woven song with a good overlaying tone that also had some great, standalone lines. Some of it seemed out of place (not sure what “Stick to stone!” means) but then you quickly reel it back in (“Boulder to bone!” is a great line). However, your opening stanza, with the exception of the last line, didn’t do all that much to draw me into it. But not to worry, the rest of it made up for it. It’s good to see something from a new competitor that doesn’t suck.
12th - Jonney Blazes V1 – First thing: don’t use the challenge word as your title. It’s just lame. Second thing: stop repeating, stop repeating, oh my god, stop repeating! I’m sorry, but Edgar Allen Poe you are not. There’s no need to smack us in the face with repetition unless it stands to either reinforce your idea and give it more of a punch, or to make it flow better. In this case, it does neither. Now onto the actual song: I give you a gold star for an original topic, which is something that lacks in a lot of these challenges. But if you’re going to do a biographical song, you need to at least give a few allusions as to who the song is about without simply tossing the name in there. And I think you managed to use just about every single cliché about death possible. Basically, since you know that this isn’t very good (you said so yourself), you probably shouldn’t have entered it.
6th - WhatILivefoR – I’m intrigued about the title of this piece. It makes a few cameos in the song but never really explains itself. Does it even have any significance? Perhaps you could answer that for me. In any case, you did a rip-roaring job of opening on a spellbinding note. That first stanza is golden. Seriously. And you did a commendable job of leaving the song with somewhat of a cliffhanger, which is also a pretty harsh realization on behalf of the character. So you’ve got the beginning and the end taken care of. But I’m afraid I can’t say the same for the stuff in between. It goes from being mysteriously intriguing to being recklessly direct. In the midst of such a folklore induced song, you throw in lines like “spin like a worthless whore.” Don’t get me wrong, not all of the song seems that way, but the parts that do make me switch mindset in midstream. Certain words can either effectively punctuate an important part of a song or they can inadvertently disrupt its flow. Your case just happened to fall into the latter category.
1st - Crimsonpunk – This was actually kind of touching. I’ve read so many songs about death in this challenge that I started getting a bit depressed, but yours is something different. I can’t even point my finger at exactly what I like about it. Looking back over the song, this should have depressed me more than most of the other songs combined, but something about it gives off a small impression of hope. Not to mention that you have some beautiful imagery in the first and third stanzas. Sure, you could have made better use of the challenge word, but I could say the same thing for everyone else who entered. The weak spot is definitely the second stanza, because it fails to grip me the way the rest of the song does. Oh, and kudos on doing a good job wrapping up the song with a circular conclusion.
5th - k.s.e. – As one of the lengthier songs in this challenge, there was no way that it couldn’t seem a bit wordier than it needed to be. Although some songs need that kind of length to flesh out everything you need to say, I think that a more concise version of this would have helped. In some places, your words seem to stumble aimlessly, as if you’re searching for what you’re trying to say while you’re writing. Nothing in particular stands out as incredible, but that could be because you didn’t rely too heavily on imagery. I think this is one of the most solid songs throughout, but it just seems to meander at times. I don’t know if that makes much sense, but that’s how I feel about it.
8th - ATC – With a title like “Tape-worm” I had no idea what to expect from the proceeding words. What I got was weird. In all honesty, that’s pretty much all I can say about it. Some of it seems like I should be able to figure out your crazy *** hidden meaning (whatever it is), but then you throw out lines like “she wouldn’t complete daily ritual hand-clasps out through iron” and I don’t know what the hell to think. Damn you ATC, make sense! But even though I couldn’t really understand it with the rest of the song, in its own context, I like the ending.