Fun idea for a thread, Andrew.
I've only been around maybe 4 or 5 months in the Taxi community, so got a long way to go yet. But of my returns so far, I think I'm most proud of the second one that got returned for a modern noir listing, 'Dark Corners':
https://www.taxi.com/members/2aaNhPU3TW ... rk-corners
At the time, I was mostly just trying to learn how to write to a brief, and setting off into a genre that was new for me creatively speaking. The references were full of muted trumpets and sax, so very much a tense, gumshoe, Private Eye vibe, with a modern dark twist was what I was getting from the references. I don't play trumpet or sax, so I knew this was gonna be a long shot for me on a bunch of levels. (New to writing to a brief, new to taxi, new to trumpet etc), but while this was a out of my normal realm of creativity, (dystopian scifi alt. rock), the wider tools and instrumentation together with the dark vibe that was required felt really familiar. So I took a punt and gave it a shot (to completely mix up my sporting metaphors).
The feedback was REALLY good. The only thing that let me down was the quality of the trumpet/sax samples I was using, in that they didn't sound realistic enough. Completely fair feedback, and to be expected, all things considered. But essentially everything that was composed and placed in this piece was spot on and what was being looked for. If I just had some higher quality samples, or was able to make them sound more realistic, I might have been forwarded. Everything else was there: compositional quality, fitting the brief, broadcast quality in the mix/master etc. So, even though it didn't get through, I'm really proud of it. That rejection/return felt like a solid encouragement that given enough time and the right tools, I can, in fact, do this making music for a living thing.
Plus, it feels like a piece that I could potentially resubmit to another listing, once I take care of the issues raised in the feedback, so it might come good yet!