Unofficial BONUS PRIZE for original songs in English in Open Mic Week 100

I give out a small unofficial award for some of my favorite original songs in English that are part of the Open Mic contest.

How do I participate?

• Make a valid entry to Open Mic.
• Make sure the title makes it clear that the song is original and in English or an instrumental.
• Be someone other than me.

(Sorry Spanish musicians. You guys are great but I don't understand well enough to evaluate the songs.)

Everyone I select gets these prizes:

• A full upvote from me on their post.
• Their portion of a 12 SBD prize pool, depending on number of winners.
• One more full upvote if they comment on this post.

There was one song that stood out above all the rest to me this week, by a brand new entrant and Steemian, so let's just get right to it:

"July" by @arigenevieve

This is not by any means my favorite style. There have been a few songs in it that I've enjoyed, but none that have really stuck with me. This one, though, is compelling in a way that I haven't found in this particular sort of vocal work before. It manages to get to the point and hit hard emotionally while musically being almost the exact opposite of direct and forceful, and I found that really impressive. This isn't a song that I'm fine with because it's on a Stars album that's otherwise really good, it's strong and deserves to be central, and I really did not expect that from my first impression of the sound. A happy surprise is always a good way to attract notice.

Winners in no particular order:

Open Mic Support

I have a challenge for other people to do just what I'm doing here: create a nonprofit curation post featuring songs that you love from Open Mic and giving the post rewards to the performers. I'd really love it if we could get a whole bunch of these going. Basic details are in this post. I'm pledging a 100% upvote to help get your posts' growth started, and to make sure you get something out of it, I'll buy you a @steembasicincome share (worth 0.5 Steem) every week you participate.

Feel free to take my format or create one of your own. Mention me in the post, or come to the SBI Discord where I have a channel just for this project, or hit me up on the Open Mic Discord or anywhere else you happen to see me. The tag for this project is #openmicsupport

Hey! Before you upvote this post!

If you want to upvote because you liked the songs, go upvote their posts!
(If their posts have paid out, see if they've commented here and give them an upvote.)
If you want to upvote this one also that's fine but please reward the songwriters first.