William Fitzsimmons - "Goodnight"

[Say Anything]

William Fitzsimmons - "Goodnight" (Acoustic/Folk)​

It's quite easy these days to stumble across artists that can make millions writing music that an overwhelming amount of people find unbearable - just check out WanderFreak's "warning" of a band who seems to get quite a lot of attention. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.126274] Most people who listen to music can accept that. The trouble comes when a very talented artist can't live off the proceeds he makes from his music, and must work another job.

William Fitzsimmons is talented. He's the son of two blind musicians who taught him how to play various instruments growing up. Their musical expertise led to "Goodnight", a CD recorded and produced by himself with absolutely no help. The CD runs one hour and six minutes and consists of thirteen tracks.

William's music is very spiritual and soft, focusing on an acoustic guitar and soft vocals. His voice is very calm and soothing, almost a whisper, which helps convey the general sadness he displays in his lyrics. The album has a variety of different instruments, every one played by William himself.

William opens with "It's Not True", a song of a man whose lover has left him for his misdoings. The lyrics are very similar to the songs you'll hear on the rest of the album, most of which deal with a lover or close family member. The similarity in lyrics actually creates a problem for William's music, however, because his formula for composing a song doesn't stray from the path, either.

It's Not True​

William is an artist belittled only by his repetition. Every song follows the same formula: Verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus. His clean, beautiful vocals always remain in that sort of "whisper", never once breaking out for an extremely powerful lyric. His calm melodies in the earlier tracks sound similar to those in the second half. It becomes hard to tell where one song ends and the next one starts.

I liked the first few songs I head from William, but listening to this entire album in one run as I'm used to was difficult. Each track runs at least four minutes, and half way through the music really starts to drag. William's best served in small doses - an hour was just too much for me.

Recommendation: Check his MySpace. If you like him, you can go back to it every once in a while and listen to a track. The CD itself is a waste of huge talent, unfortunately not justifying a $12.00 pricetag.

 

[pigeon_of_doom]

Might be worth following your own advice in this review on repetition insofar as the first word "William" at the start of four of the paragraphs. Even if it's meant to be a witty demonstration of the repetition you say is commonplace in the album, little aesthetic quirks like that aren't too well suited for reviews imo and are best left for other efforts.

I'm not really in the practise of reading music reviews, and I don't have the critical knowledge to make any meaningful comments about music, but this review seems accurate although it doesn't deliver any mind-blowing insights. Paragraphs too brief for my liking, but more detail could alienate people, and deeper discussion of some of the more technical elements like the song structure could also put people off. I like the level of explanation you have here (I can understand it, but don't feel condescended to), but the brevity of the paragraphs just made it strike me as feeling (although not necessarily being) insubstantial.

You've always seemed to be one of the more serious reviewers on the site, or at the least, an advocate of the 'make an effort' philosophy so maybe stating my opinion on the writing of the review is worthwhile. At times the writing seemed a bit choppy and seemed to lack a sense of progression.

Compare:

William's music is very spiritual and soft, focusing on an acoustic guitar and soft vocals. His voice is very calm and soothing, almost a whisper, which helps convey the general sadness he displays in his lyrics. The album has a variety of different instruments, every one played by William himself.

to

William is an artist belittled only by his repetition. Every song follows the same formula: Verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus. His clean, beautiful vocals always remain in that sort of "whisper", never once breaking out for an extremely powerful lyric. His calm melodies in the earlier tracks sound similar to those in the second half. It becomes hard to tell where one song ends and the next one starts.

The first paragraph I quoted just reels off individual facts with no connection made between them except the implied general theme of that paragraph, also imo overusing variants of the verb 'to be' which is something to be wary of. Just mix it up a little. The second paragraph seemed much better to me.

As for the music itself, seems like a decent album to chill out to, but I can't imagine it replacing Nick Drake, Air, Kings of Convenience, David Gray or Damien Rice when I want to listen to some relaxing, somewhat mournful music.

Edit: Jesus fucking Christ, is this comment bigger than the actual review?

 

[Say Anything]

My post was only 411 words, so there's a good chance your post was longer. Your statement with the two quotes definitley makes sense; when I was reading over this, I too thought it was choppy - admittedly, the last sentence in the first quote was not supposed to be in there. I added it because the paragraph and review as a whole looked weak because of it's short length.

The problem I had with this review is I knew exactly what I wanted to say - pretty much every song sounded the same. Because of this, there wasn't a whole lot I could get into, and that made me write a few irrelevant and miscellaneous sentences. Perhaps, as with my Jonny Craig review, this was a poor choice. I just feel the need to get back into reviewing, so these are my attempts. Thanks for your thoughts; I'll try to work on being a bit more descriptive in my next review.

 

[pigeon_of_doom]

My post was only 411 words, so there's a good chance your post was longer. Your statement with the two quotes definitley makes sense; when I was reading over this, I too thought it was choppy - admittedly, the last sentence in the first quote was not supposed to be in there. I added it because the paragraph and review as a whole looked weak because of it's short length.

The problem I had with this review is I knew exactly what I wanted to say - pretty much every song sounded the same. Because of this, there wasn't a whole lot I could get into, and that made me write a few irrelevant and miscellaneous sentences. Perhaps, as with my Jonny Craig review, this was a poor choice. I just feel the need to get back into reviewing, so these are my attempts. Thanks for your thoughts; I'll try to work on being a bit more descriptive in my next review.

I didn't really find many of the comments to be irrelevant, but they just don't always seem woven together very well or fully realised. Obvious statements like "the album has a variety of different instruments" don't help, although its inclusion could have been justified by listing which other instruments he plays and to what effect, if any. There's no need to be very descriptive, but precision sometimes calls for a little extra length, and I'm just a sucker for justifying points (comes out of my essay habit I suppose).

I'm having the opposite problem to yours with my current review, I don't know what to say but I'm determined to give it a shot. Game reviews are doubtlessly an entirely different endeavour to album reviews though. Glad to hear you're going back into reviews, although I'm not sure how much feedback you'll get reviewing what I assume (if he requires a second income) are fairly obscure albums without the gamer niche popularity of musicians like Jonathan Coulton.