I'm chillin' rn with this song, thanks :)
Reviews for "AIM - Thingamabob"
Nice, kinda gave me persona vibes.
Listen to this at 6:30pm for the full experience
Very chill and groovy btw
Quarl AIM 2022 Review
Composition/Structure (0-10), Production (0-10), Emotion (0-10), Relevance to Artwork (0-10)
MetalBlinga, Thingamabob 7,8,7,5 (27/40)
I looked at the art and was curious how you'd interpret that imagery. Since I'm a little more familiar with your work than many of the other artists in this contest I wasn't terribly concerned you'd be capable but the thought "how the fuck is he going to convey minimal imagery with maximum music" crossed my mind. After giving the track an initial listen I feel like "relevance to artwork" is going to be the hardest subject to address. Your work is very technical and interesting to listen to so you'll receive high marks on composition, structure, and production. I'm impressed with how much work you put into the percussion but given how you got this whole classic funk and jazz fusion jam session going on, I'm wishing you included some modulations to make the drums sound more alive as well. You have techy but repetitive drum patterns that get a little boring after a while. Modulating the volume knobs over time can give you the illusion that a drummer or drum machine is trying to be more emotive. Dynamic volume control is often a percussion instrument's only means to convey emotion. When all the hits happen at the same velocity over and over, I'm going to get a little sad after a while. Since I'm really hounding the drums, let's talk about additional perc you could have used! Bells, vibraslaps, chimes, ball whistles, tambs, egg shakers, güiro, wood blocks... I wish the percussion was as natural and comfortable as the other instruments you wrote with.
Forgetting about percussion for a minute, let's talk about some visual cues you could have taken from the art. The figure is standing in what looks like a posh residential city scape. There could be samples to convey setting such as traffic or foot steps, crowded spaces. A city, even at it's most relaxing, has a lot of ambient noises and sounds. The girl is clearly comfortable in shorts and looks happy, so it must be a good part of the city or a nice neighborhood. Your breezy and uplifting jazz might fit into the neighborhood well with some polite buskers quietly jamming. The sun seems to be setting so it wouldn't be too warm nor too cold. It's a nice time of day, your music would be a pleasant backdrop at this temperature. I see some birds in the picture which would add a natural element to the art that I'm not necessarily finding echoed in the music. I'm not calling for samples of birds cooing and cawing but something like that would have fit this setting nicely. The half step intervals and chromatic inventions don't always feel pleasant or natural, the notation is more showy than it needs to be to accomplish something that could have been said with less notes.
Please don't burn me for saying that, artists like Mozart and Thelonious Monk coined unapologetic levels of creative integrity when others tried inferring that there are notes in too great of quantity or even "wrong" sounding. A healthier music philosophy worth addressing is the classic jazz adage of “it’s the notes you don’t play that are as important as the ones that you do." The illustration artist conveyed an amazing setting and style using minimal elements and colors. I could argue that you also used a select few instruments to convey your ideas but the constant flourishing and evolution in that lead melody might have conveyed the wrong degree of complexity. Truthfully, I got worn-out listening to this on repeat. Take the "notes you don't play" adage to heart, even heavy hitting genres like dubstep need breathing room from time to time. Outside of an endurance one-hour club mix, every good EDM song has a gentle breakdown, intro, or outro. This work is unrelenting and complex and could benefit from a cooldown period of some kind. TEMPO CHANGES!! Life in a city doesn't always move at the same speed! Sometimes you stop to tie your shoe, read a magazine cover, or wait to cross a street. That calls for tempo changes and more variety in the rhythm section!
I need to stop to convey the fact that you really challenged yourself with the complexity of your music and I can hear it. I love what I'm hearing, but maybe my respect for you is why I'm hitting all these tough points. We can always do better, there's always room to improve but at some point I want to hear something that makes me speechless. Your goal should be to get Quarl to write a review with the least amount of words possible. That's a tough platitude to hit but identifying these things is the only way I can feel like I've justified the scores I'm handing out to my peers. Good luck with the other judges and live beautifully Metalblinga!
metalblinga responds:
Hey Quarl! Long time no see 😄
Man you really went all out on my submission haha. I really appreciate your detailed analysis and feedback 😊
Ah yes, the drums, I actually planned on doing more with that, but literally everything else in the song took up all of my time 😭
About the art, a lot of people in the comments mentioned the song was very reminiscent of games like persona, and they were very much on point with that observation. When I first saw the artwork, I thought, This looks like a really cool still-frame image from an rpg or visual novel. Like the kind of image that would show up during a dialogue scene with a character. And so my song became more of a character's soundtrack conveying their personality and mood rather than focusing on the ambience feel of the environment. I did consider the enviornment, I just didn't focus on it.
Also I focused on jazz because, one, I love jazz lol, and that's just the kind of vibe I got from her appearance, the color palette and even the background. And I deduced from her posture, that she has a very spunky personality, hence the upbeat and somewhat restless nature of the song.
When I made this, I was really tired of making "regular" songs so I made a llllot of questionable creative choices, and for the most part it was hella fun! Although I definitely wouldn't put this in my top 5 songs I ever made.
My plan was to make this for fun and then make a 2nd entry using a cyberpunk themed artwork. That way I could also make a song in the genre I'm most comfortable with (synthwave) and actually get mainstream listeners interested in it. But I kinda lost motivation for that, probly cuz of the Audio Tag Team contest being terribly managed and eventually cancelled, or I just got lazy idk.
One thing's for sure, I had no idea I'd be getting a Quarl review 😳
I definitely would have spiced up the drums AND made a second entry if I knew that 😄
(pardon any typos, I'm a clumsy typer 😛)
Reminds me of SMT Soul Hackers a bit, or Persona. I recognize that Saxophone sample too...really powerful VST for a freeby. Nice work!