I have not seen anything else by this artist, so I'm going to assume this is his first release.
As always, the opinions on this blog are that of a biased classical worker monkey (myself).
Here it goes:
The Negative:
1-The album cover = it makes me nauseous, it is for too busy (yet again, 99% of art makes me VERY nauseous). Whoever did this does have talent, just needs to work on making things a little less busy (in my opinion), it will make more people listen, and generally make his life easier!
2-The sound he uses from the gameboy. It sounds too close to the default. Just look at all of the possibilities there are with gameboy sound:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka1L5pSMvxE
(bitshifter-esque)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmwfHppAjUY
(nullsleep-esque)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRiP-8lLi68
(An0va-esque)
http://frostbyte1.bandcamp.com/album/synesthesia-101
(The frostbyte tracks are done with LSDJ)
point is, the sound is far too rough for the fun he wants. If he wants fun, I highly suggest he listen to more bit shifter and frostbyte and see how their sound is produced
3-The melodies:
The melodies seem rather like the same theme/melody in a different key (minor 2nd up to create some tension for the song). He has some really interesting, melodies in the back that are drowned out by the percussion. Much more interesting than 2 notes played over and over again. Now, if he really wants to go with "my melody is my theme and I keep that theme throughout most of the song with repetition" deal, he should look at Parov Stelar. His melodies are really really catchy, and the beat isn't drowning them out because they work more with the beat than a minor 2nd up and repeat it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRtHYiWmsoA
The positive:
1- He understands song form:
Whenever I listened to one of his songs, he seemed to always really bring back that original melody/theme he wants us to like (thinks of example of this)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFQLFp5FuD4&feature=related
at the beginning of this movement, ravel starts with some fun chords and a roll on the snares(?). I only have the score in french, so I don't know what exactly that drum at the beginning is.
At the end of this movement, Ravel uses that same little passage of chords VERBATIM. He also creates variations on it to move onto different sections (as in the same passage, just a different key).
Why is this important?
It lets you feel a song ending. A song with a solid amount of repetition at the tail end lets us go "yay! the ending, this was awesome!"
2- He understands how to write fun music
really, the music on this album is quite fun. Fun City sounds like a fun place. He just needs to work on the synths he uses.
3- His sound is original
honestly, if he can make his fun sound a little less rough, and make sure the songs on the album sound more different he will do well
Overall
7.5/10
for those of you who like chip-electronic dance stuff more than me, you'll probably think "8.5/10" maybe even 9. I hope he can really make his sound a little bit smoother. Fantastic job considering he is a newcomer though. He just isn't on par with the greats yet.
homework for this man:
Checkout Bubu's "I am a pirate" that is a fun song. Listen to more bitshifter and frostbyte as well. All of these artists I mentioned are really fun!
No comments:
Post a Comment