Feedback Needed for Indie Rock

[billhewett]

Hey John,

Thanks for giving it a listen. I've got a great drummer who records tracks against a guitar scratch and click, and I am just starting to dip my feet into the realm of virtual instruments so almost everything here is played by a person*... I think those two things help keep the "real band" vibe. (*I doubled the bass in the chorus with a synth bass, and I'm not a good enough accordion player to play the part in the chorus smoothly so I recorded two tracks, one finger at a time!)

In the end this one got returned, and this is what the screener had to say:
"I felt the melodic content wasn't at the impact level this listing is asking for. The example artists mentioned tend to feature more twists in melody and a more obvious chorus structure than what you have here in my opinion."

I have gone back to check the references and in my opinion the only one with a really interesting melody is the Darwin Deez track. I also didn't feel that any of them really has a stand out chorus, with Darwin Deez again being the exception sort of, but even there I had to listen a few times to really figure out which part was the "chorus".

That said... in hindsight my melody *is* pretty flat so I can't really argue with the return, but given what the screener was looking for I'm not sure why they chose Vampire Weekend at all (they seem to specialize in vocals that are more interesting rhythmically than melodically, and their first handful of singles have no chorus or sort of an anti-chorus), and this particular Foals track where the verse and chorus are barely differentiated in the music or the vocal. At the very least they should have put the Darwin Deez track first in the list of references.

There is an "Indie Instrumentals" listing with the same three references due next Friday, so I am working on this track again but trying to add some instrumental melody that matches the level of the Darwin Deez track... so far I'm not quite finding it.

-Bill