About the review

Title: Robbie's Rocketship (WIP)
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Artist: Warrior Bob
Genre: Rock/Pop: Pop
Reviewed by: Spectra on November 07, 2007 (All reviews by Spectra)

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1Overall Description
Uplifting, upbeat pop song loaded with melodic hooks...using very creative leads to overcome the monotony of 4-chord backgrounds. There are few quite overly loud instruments and ones that need touches like vibrato to loses them up...but the mood of this track still manages to be as potent and confident as anything Goo Goo Dolls or Smashing Pumpkins would turn out. :-)
 
2Creativity Description
I'd say three just judging it as "sheet music", 1:14 changes two of the chords on the main theme for an outro part...which on the surface you'd think would be cheezy, but at 1:50 a haunting synth melody comes in an "shifts" the chords to a darker, more determined feel that makes the mood, rather than the technical melody, help the song avoid repetitiveness. The melody at 3:00 seems to just drone a bit, notes hit slowly without much momentum (quicker notes with more harmonic changes would help)...but at 3:08 an simple both anthematic two note riff hints very well that the main theme is coming back...smart little transitions and mood "add-ins" like this are what makes this song special.
 
3Artistic License Description
Wow...to think I'm giving this to both this guy's first song and a "4 chord wonder". Here's why...this song may not be very "multi-chordal" but instead it's very "multi-mood-al" :-) ...look at all the moods covered thanks to the "clever add-in melodies" I described before
1) 0:00 The intro/theme, with a confident resolved feel
2) 0:30-0:50 A "challenged" feel, almost like you're looking up at huge mountain and preparing to climb it
3) 0:50-1:07 Mix of the two above emotions, coming to terms of confidence with the challenge
-------the main theme again----------------
4) 1:25-1:50 more tension is added to the main theme, almost as if to say something is going wrong
5) 1:50-2:11 has a kind of "hero running through a battle-field feel"...kind of succeeding at breaking through the challenges
6) 2:49-3:00 sounds kind of melancholy a bit like "I succeeded but, come to think of it, is this the goal I wanted to succeed at"?
and then the theme re-enters with a hint of #6
 
4ArrangementDescription
The changes I mentioned in #3 essentially define what makes the arrangement work for me. For the sake of improvement, though, here are some quirks I found that could be fixed fairly easily
1) the drums have no either swing or add-ins to it, making it sound too mechanical for the rock feel it's going for. Adding ghost notes (very soft notes right before and after drum hits) and using slight quantization/"swing" on the drums should help alleviate this
2) A lead enters at 0:15...it sounds a bit sharp/thin, one solution may be to A) add chorus to thicken the sound B) experiment with band elimination filters to kill any parts of the chorus which add to dissonance.
3) 0:30...I "Rush" (the Canadian band) style lead enters, but it sounds a bit off style considering the mood is much stronger than the instrument...a harmonized lead guitar sound would fit much better even if that means playing the entire guitar lead track on an acoustic and adding the effects with software.
4) 2:30 a portamento synth enters and some of the portamentos are too slow thus adding dissonance/tension to a part which I doubt is intended to sound so tense...sounds like the auto-portamento on my cs6x synth...best advice I have is to do this portamento programaticly or with the portamento wheel (if you have a synth/sequencer with one).
Also the lead here could use some subtle vibrato for depth and adding mystery to the part.

Aside from these "polishing" issues, this all sounds quite solid and, with the exception of the part in 4), the mood generated by the arrangement sounds quite balanced and varied.
 
5Sound QualityDescription
This section is often used by sharp producers to torture newcomers because they don't know their "stuff" quite as well yet. I'm just going to leave it at that any sound quality issues (like those above) are far from bad enough to ruin the mood.

No it's not "clean" enough to play live, and that much of the improvement could be attained with thicker/cleaner/better/more-expensive samples which may or may not be available to this artist. In the meantime hammersound.net and oneshotsamples.com are two options for finding better samples.
 
6Does it work as a piece of music Description
This song is a fantastic example of how little touches of emotional add-ins can make a 4-chord song feel, emotionally, more like a mix of 3 individual pop songs (yet every bit as follow-able as a four chord song). This song, though strictly pop, is subtly quite forward-thinking in terms of mood...and Warrior Bob is really on to something with the original way he can bend a single hook/theme in so many ways.
 
Comments
Nov 08 2007 10:11 am
by Spectra
----but you did it for a song that is so fundamentally different from your own work. ----------- Wow, thank you...I try my best to take a hint from Space Walk's attitude and appreciate music for what it is and aims for rather than what it isn't...all I can say is you have your own way of achieving emotion that's completely different from mine or any other artist's and, in a way, that just means we both have artistic license in such differences (something I wish other reviewers would recognize: that differences, in the end, are actually what makes music evolve in the first place). I'll definitely be looking for new songs from you as well. :-)



Nov 07 2007 7:55 pm
by Warrior Bob
Wow, Spectra... I know you write good reviews, but this is especially good. Not only do you provide some extremely helpful and insightful commentary and suggestions and describe the song for prospective listeners, but you did it for a song that is so fundamentally different from your own work. I find that very impressive and inspiring. I'll be referring to this review quite a bit as I try to improve. What it comes down to, really, is this is the kind of review that I would show to new reviewers and say "See? This is how you do it," and frankly I'm honored that it was for a song of mine.