JustOrdinary said:
... I'm sorry, but I did not like this at all.
I'm going to sound a bit pretentious here, but there's a whole lot more to music than just the melody. The original song actually evokes a certain mood with its use of instruments. It builds atmosphere and conjures images of 'purity' and 'beauty' in your mind. The clean vocals serve to exemplify this further. The use of a feminine voice conveys a sense of vulnerability and isolation here, but the artist manages to add a fleeting sense of hope and optimism to the song by the tone and pitch she chooses to sing in.
Your rendition on the other hand... pretty much conveys nothing but the original melody. It's devoid of the emotion that made the original stand out, and because of that, it comes across as bland as forgettable with nothing that really stands out... except for maybe the electric guitar, but that's only because it sounds completely dissonant when played alongside the strings. The drumwork is fairly generic too and feels like it's just there for the sake of being there.
Personally, I think it'd help if you tried to create a different spin on the original song. Put your own stylistic twist to it so that it feels less like a bad rendition and more like your own personal tribute. I've heard someone make the Prince of Bel-air theme sound like a heart-felt reminiscence of their younger days, so don't be afraid to experiment with your approach. And it's okay if you have to play around with the melody a bit. It's not that great a sin if the cover does the original song the justice it deserves.
Anyway, those were my two cents. Sorry for being overly critical, but that's only because I'm very fond of the original.
Well, you don't have to excuse yourself for constructive criticism. I can see where you coming from and I'm glad that finally there's someone who actually gives me a critique (though I'm happy for everybody who likes my music, of course).
Our interpretation of the original song might differ from each other, though. I don't feel like the original song is actually conjuring "purity" and "beauty" - and if it does, it's a very superficial beauty given the context of the game. In my mind the song sounds more like somebody mourning someone who has changed for the worse; like Faith lamenting what has become of the city that once was full of life and freedom, or you could even expand this to a couple that is arguing because they have themselves estranged from each other. It's not only to find in the lyrics, but also in the main melody: the melody is descending. Things are going down in the city/relationship, which in my opinion is the main attraction of the song. That's my point of view, and it's a situation that you for example can respond to with rage (so maybe I should have done a black or thrash metal cover, hehe). Just to explain where I'm coming from.
On the other hand, I agree with the "fleeting sense of optimism", and that a lot of the feeling of the original is conveyed through the female voice. There's no denying. Sadly, I don't have a female voice at my disposal at the moment; it's now that I wonder why I wasn't going for an instrumental cover, but maybe I wanted to keep it open for an eventual voice addition. I agree with the dissonant guitars, but at the evening I recorded them I was too lazy to set up a new set of strings (so it isn't the case on a regular basis) and as long as it sounds passable to me and most people, I'm happy with it.
As for the experimentation part: yeah, doing experiments is what I always do when writing music, so I was happy to find a song that I just could strum along to. Sometimes I find this relaxing. And to be honest, although I think the original song is a masterpiece, I don't think it is a very complex masterpiece. It has a very simple structure and a very basic set of melodies and chords, with a lot of the emotion - in my opinion coming from the voice, the main melodies and the backing synths. I don't mean that as an excuse, but for all its awesomeness, it also very simple from a pure musical point of view in my opinion.
To close my explanation, another point why I did no further experiments with the song is because I didn't want to rape it (other than the Elder Scrolls theme, which I#m screwing currently). I have to much respect for the composition and yes, it still conveys a lot of emotion to me. I greatly thank you for your criticism, though; it made me think about my version of the song and the original. I can also see that my version might come along like a stupid party version of a godlike original, so sorry for that.
Greetings, and by the way, did nobody tell you not to annoy a German?
