Your thoughts on a Christmas song

[RustyP]

Hey friends,
I recently got a return which bothered me so much that I'm HERE for your feedback!

The song was submitted to both the Taxi Christmas compilation listing and the Indie Christmas song listing. I'll paste them below.

Here's a link to the song.
https://on.soundcloud.com/jfnza

I know that everyone has an opinion and that this is in many ways subjective.

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Compilation listing
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Lots and Lots of ORIGINAL CHRISTMAS SONGS in ALL GENRES with Male or Female Vocals are needed for a TAXI COMPILATION going directly to A WHOLE BUNCH of our favorite Music Licensing Companies, Music Supervisors, and Ad Agencies for Film, TV, and Advertising placements!
As always, we hold the bar high for these compilations, but the end result is that virtually every Song on our comps gets signed. It's not uncommon for several companies to offer deals on the same piece. It's also not uncommon for the companies to ask our members to create new music for them, especially if they weren't fast enough to nail down a deal before their competitors did
We’re not giving references for this request, as we think they may be too limiting. Mid-to-Up-Tempo Songs are usually more easily placed, but if you have really strong Ballads or Down-Tempo Songs, those could work as well.
Genres that could work: You’d be wise to go with popular genres for Christmas music like - Singer/Songwriter, Adult Contemporary, Traditional Pop, Jazz, R&B, Indie Folk, Pop, Country, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Crooner, Big Band, Soul, Gospel, Vintage, Retro, Children's, etc. You’d be smart to avoid genres that aren’t commercially viable or relatable to a wide audience. Death Metal is not recommended
We’ve compiled a list of concepts, keywords, ideas, and phrases we think are a good place to start and could get your creative gears turning, but please don’t limit yourself to just these! We encourage you to come up with some of your own!
Concepts and keywords:
• Christmas
• Happy Holidays
• Winter
• Spending time with loved ones
• Home for the Holidays
• Joy
• Snow
• Staying warm by the fire
• Santa Claus
• Reindeer
• Mistletoe
• The hustle and bustle of the Holidays
Please submit top-notch, original Christmas/Holiday Songs that capture the spirit of the holiday season! Captivating melodies, engaging arrangements, well-written Christmas/Holiday-centered lyrics, and compelling vocals are all musts for the listing. Your submissions can range from stripped-down to more complex productions, as long as they are competitive with other Holiday Songs in your chosen genre. Please make sure any virtual instruments or samples you use are high-quality and appropriate for the era they're from.
TAXI Tip: Incorporating some Christmas-y accents like a glockenspiel, sleigh bells, or tubular bells could give your submissions some additional Christmas cheer, but we’ve typically found that it’s best not to overdo them. Less is more, and they're not mandatory for this pitch!
Our A&R team will have a simple mandate: Are they GREAT? Do they sound ready to go as is? Would they work well for placements in Film, TV, and Advertising? Would TAXI's clients be happy to hear them on the playlist we send them? The bar will be high for this request.
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What I like most about this song
I really like the driving drum groove, chord progression and overall vocal delivery you bring to the canvas here.
I think you could improve this song by
However, I do think you could button up this chorus with a tighter melodic shell as well as some catchier phrasings and landing onto the main idea more upon conclusion of the chorus section.
I returned or forwarded this song because
This just isn't quite chorus strong enough to align here and would need a more standout epically charged melody come that second half of the section when going to the minor 6.
-- With Love
Listener ID: 451

OK, that last bit was mine.
The return on this one bothered me the most, partly because of the vague verbal stylings in the response, and because I think part of what was said wasn't actually asked for in the listing.

First of all,
My questions to you dear readers:
What is a "tighter melodic shell?"
Where did this listing ask for "epically charged" Christmas songs?

Most kidding aside, how could I have met this listener's expectations for a better ending to my chorus?

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On to the indie listing. The response didn't bother me as much here because it was clear and direct.

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INDIE, SINGER/SONGWRITER CHRISTMAS SONGS with Female or Male Vocals are needed by a really impressive Music Licensing Company with a very long list of great Film, TV, and Commercial placements!
NOTE: As you can tell by a couple of the references, having some Indie Pop influence in your Songs is perfectly acceptable, but NOT a requirement. No matter which way you go, sounding "Indie" is a good thing in this client's eyes.
NOTE: Your submissions can EITHER be original compositions, or public domain Christmas Songs!
This Company is searching for Songs that could be heard on a playlist with the following references:
"Holiday Dreaming" by Molly Burch
"Christmas Again" by Drakeford
"It's Not Christmas Without You" by Roses & Revolutions
"Wonderful Christmas Time" by Kadhja Bonet
Please submit top-tier, Christmas Songs that incorporate Indie Pop or Singer/Songwriter stylings with plenty of good cheer! Your submissions should have catchy melodies, memorable choruses, solid musicianship, and well-crafted lyrics with lots of Holiday spirit! Instrumentation may vary based on which stylistic direction you go, but should be in the general wheelhouse with the references or other Songs within your chosen genre. Your productions should be polished, and any virtual instruments or samples you use should be high quality and not dated-sounding. Expressive Male or Female vocals are the way to go for this pitch!
Lyric Tip: For this pitch, we think sticking with positive, upbeat themes, and avoiding submitting anything that's sad or melancholy will likely work best.
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What I like most about this song
I like the chorus release energy and how it contrasts nicely from verse.
I think you could improve this song by
The production/mix could be finessed to convey more current indie pop or singer/songwriter flavor. Dialing closer to songs like "Holiday Dreaming" by Molly Burch is a suggestion.
I returned or forwarded this song because
The production/mix could be finessed to tie closer to the current sounding ref tracks.
Listener ID: 374

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I accept the critique as completely valid. My song is a bit vanilla, by some standards.
What suggestions would you have for bringing this song more in line with a current indie singer/songwriter aesthetic?
Or, is there something inherently non-indie about the DNA of this song?

Thanks for any thoughts you've got on this.

Thanks!
Rusty

[AlanHall]

I returned or forwarded this song because
This just isn't quite chorus strong enough to align here and would need a more standout epically charged melody come that second half of the section when going to the minor 6.

Just my 2C, but I think what the screener is getting at is with the line "I hope this Christmas magic", the melody could move up a step or two to emphasize the changes - the chords of the turnaround - that are providing a bit of harmonic tension. From a vocal performance standpoint, raising the melody will also increase the physical tension in the singer's vocal cords; further hammering home the (poetic) desire for a Christmas miracle. Hope this helps.

[cosmicdolphin]

I accept the critique as completely valid. My song is a bit vanilla, by some standards.
What suggestions would you have for bringing this song more in line with a current indie singer/songwriter aesthetic?
Or, is there something inherently non-indie about the DNA of this song?

Thanks for any thoughts you've got on this.

Thanks!
Rusty

Not enough hooks for me , like you say a bit Vanilla. It has it's moment when I thought it was gonna lift off but then it doesn't quite manage it. The chorus lyrics don't quite flow for me and I think when they use bs phrases like 'melodic shell' I think basically the are trying to say it needs to be not only memorable in the chorus there but also encapsulate the whole gist of the song too and feel like a complete idea. Make it feel like the chorus ands with a definitive statement rather than just the section before the next section. But a statement that gives us the whole reason for the song.

Production although not bad comes across a little demo-ish , I feel that way about the whole track really, It''s like a first or second draft that needs workshopping. More repetion in phrasing and melody may help it feel more catchy and as for the indie vibe I normally relate it to use of reverb / delay to get a more vibe-y sound.

For contect I've only ever worked on one Xmas song with a young singer who's the Daughter of a friend but I feel it would fit this Listing better having more of that indie vibe. ( I did lyric tweaks, some keys , christmas FX , strings, bells and did the production/mix/master ) It's signed to a few good non-ex libraries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTBFeAc ... EmmaHalpin

Mark

[VanderBoegh]

Hey Rusty - good bones here, but I'd have to agree with the return (although maybe not the reasoning). Echoing what Mark (Cosmic Dolphin) said, this comes across as just a bit too demo'ish, which I noticed from the outset. But the clincher was the vocal, which was good, but not a stand-out performance. And this Christmas stuff - man, there's so much of it, that you really have to have a slam dunk singer to rise above the heap. Think you could find a hot-shot vocalist to step behind the mic for another run at this song, and maybe rethink the melodies of the vocal lines?

Take a listen to Mark's song he posted the link to - that's a great example of a vocal with that "wow" factor.

~~Matt

[Casey H]

Hey Rusty
I really like this song! A song/production could be really good but just not enough for very high bar listings. I agree that a better vocalist (not that your vocal is bad) could make a big difference. I'm not the right guy to tell you how to get a more indie production, but maybe there's a collaborator out here in Taxi-land that could help with that.

Don't sweat the returns too much. You have a really good song here that didn't meet the highest bar but has A LOT going for it. See that as an opportunity!

Best,
Casey

[RustyP]

Thanks all! I appreciate you listening to it.

Mark and Matt, In the interest of improving my production skills, could you please give me a couple of details, aside from the vocal, that make it feel demoish to you?

Thanks so much!
Rusty

[cosmicdolphin]

Mark and Matt, In the interest of improving my production skills, could you please give me a couple of details, aside from the vocal, that make it feel demoish to you?

It's a combo of things really - I couldn't put my finger on one element but a few things to think about:-

Choice of kick drum...it's featured quite prominently at the start but it's kinda flappy/boring and has no depth or character - could also be a production thing, one of those sub bass generatators and the right reverb can maybe help

The guitar part sounds fake, it's a bit robotic and stiff,..would guess its a Kontakt type library or similar ?

Piano sounds kinda small, I think a bigger richher deep piano sound would help

The pad type sound feels kinda dated

The drum pattern at 27s doesn't work for me it kinda kills the momentum, you might be better just having the vocal and piano if you want to lose the kick pattern in the build up to the chorus

The main drum kit sound and pattern doesn't really support the song for me ...those cymbal crashes don't really feel like they fit either and wouldn't be what a drummer would do

Vocal production could be better as the others mentioned although I feel you can sing well enough to nail it

Mix seems kinda small / closed in and I feel the arrangement is a bit off and not supporting the song properly.

Hope that helps ! A lot of this stuff is production and also taste in what sounds good. The more music you make and the more you listen to contemporary songs the more your taste will align with the folks making the decisions. The best advice I can give is use reference tracks and constantly A/B your tracks using MetricAB or similar as you write and mix. Steal the production ideas of the references , make your kick sound like theirs, use a piano and process it like they do..is it wide ? narrow ? deep ? scooped ? is it smothered in reverb or is dry ? What vocal FX are they using ? is it hyper compressed and obviiously auto=tuned, or does it sound open and natural ? All things to listen out for in the ref tracks and emulate.

Mark

[VanderBoegh]

You might think me crazy for saying this - but with the opening few bars, I was reminded more of an "office / corporate training" track, rather than a Christmas song. So, to me, it's doesn't sound like Christmas Magic as much as it sounds like, "this is how you report sexual harassment in the workplace", or "how to input your sales into this new software." That's what probably initially tainted my ears, and I'm curious if anyone else thought the same thing.

On a production note though, the things that make this sound more demo'ish than I'm sure you'd like, are the reverb treatments on the drums (which sound pretty distant), the scoops and wobbly notes on the vocals, and the overall lack of sparkle on the mix. One easy fix to add that sparkle is to add a tambourine shaking away on 8th notes during the choruses, and a less-busy pattern during the verses, which will give you a nice 15-20K boost in the sparkle region of the EQ spectrum which right now is only occupied by your hi hats, which, again, sound distant almost to the point of imperceptibility (or maybe there's just no hi-hat at all in this song?) due to the reverb.

Just some things to think about!

~~Matt

[RustyP]

Matt, that is hilarious!


"Your nightmare before Christmas might just have been some one else's Christmas magic. Here's how to report sexual harassment at an office party."

Thank you both so much for your insight. It's really helpful as I take another pass at this one, and do others.

Just a couple of comments on my production.
My initial style target was "Missing Piece" by Vance Joy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atka_0TUTLM
As I listen now, I missed the mark, partly because I was afraid of being accused of copying.
I really need some constant rhythmic 16th notes

The listing was for an indie song.
I hear a lot of reverb drenched indie / folk / pop, so, I wanted to create those reverb drenched drumbs that I hear in that song.
But Matt I agree that in comparison to the Vance Joy song, my drumbs disappear in the reverb.

Thanks Mark for the complement, maybe. My guitars are not a Kontakt library, they're real, rubber-bridge guitar, but maybe they're a little too robotic and muted for this context. Plus, the target song I used had 16th note patterns on the guitar and they were played with a pick so it had a way different character. As I listen to the Vance Joy track, his guitars are much more present, again adding to the sparkle.

OK, all in the name of learning.

Thanks so much guys!

Rusty

[SusanAnnNorberg]

I probably shouldn't reply since I only have had one placement but it happened to be on Christmas compilation disc last year. I think I agree with the last person I didn't really feel emotionally Christmasy that's about as technical as I get. This was my Christmas song that was accepted.

https://youtu.be/_h3S2zsBDgs