Shop Demo
Arbury Whistles
side A
It's Going Down Now is fine but a bit disappointing for a Persona vocal song. Feels like it's in an awkward middle ground between high-energy and mellow and ends up not leaving much of an impression. I think the intro to Shop Demo goes a bit too long, but it is good at what it does, and the second half of the song is pretty fun.
Arbury Whistles is fun and whimsical, but for my tastes it leans a bit too heavily on recorder--an instrument I sometimes don't like much. Still good, but I would like it a lot more if it were like clarinet or something else. On paper I should probably like Farde Mal Diavolo, but I apparently just don't? If I had to guess I'd say that this instrumentation isn't really suited to the focus on long, epic, held notes like you see here, but idk. The last minute is probably the best part.
MK8 main theme is a fun big band song, albeit a bit trite. I don't really know what to say about Side A as a whole, but it has gong percussion and I like that, even with the low sound quality. I think this would be number 1 for the day by a lot and one of the best in the contest if the same composition was just played by a percussion ensemble with typical modern recording, instead of whatever compressed(?) sound we have here.
Ok you know what screw it I'm a believer--side A still at least in the top 20% of the contest anyway.
These writeups ended kind of negative for some reason, but every song is solid or better.
Side A > Shop Demo > Arbury Whistles > Mario Kart 8 > Farde Mal Diavolo > It's Going Down Now
I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.