SMWCentral Official Annual Music Tourney #1 2021 - end - Old Contests & Events

RednGreen - Breakbeat Darkness
Ben Prunty - MilkyWay (Battle)

Well no honourable mentions because the other songs were kinda obnoxious.

my rankings are

1. ftl
2. breakbeat darkness

and the rest
sealed vessel, good girl, hov arek, handbrakes, canto estinato

no strong feelings this round, just kind of not my thing for the most part

I must say, this set sure is,

1. Ben Prunty - MilkyWay (Battle): Ooh, I like this one a lot. Very atmospheric song. Makes me wonder what the source game is like, and how the song's used in it.
2. RednGreen - Breakbeat Darkness: This is easily the best song in A Plumber For All Seasons (although Light Drizzle is a close second; either way, great choice).
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3. Sega Sound Team - Lava Reef Zone Act 1: I generally don't care for widely known songs like this in a tournament setting, but I genuinely like this more than most of the other stuff in this set.
4. Youngblood Brass Band - Nate Mccavish Handbills For No Man: I want to like this a lot more, but the instruments that just sound like someone's stomach growling are incredibly offputting to me.
5. Christopher Larkin - Sealed Vessel: It Was Okay, I Guess
6. Simeon ten Holt - Canto Ostinato (Live Piano Ensemble): @Whoever nominated this I just want to talk. I just want to talk. I just want to talk about Canto Ostinato. I just want to have a friendly conversation. I just want to have a little discussion. I just want to talk- I just want to talk to you about why you nominated a piece that's 2 and a half hours long. I just want to talk about it- I just want to talk, that's it. I just w
7. Tigran Hamasyan - Hov Arek Sarer Jan (Live Ver.): Yeah, uh...this was pretty boring, honestly. I didn't get much out of it.
8. Panda Bear - Good Girl / Carrots: I liked some parts of this, but it's WAAAY too long. The part towards the end was also really annoying.

Check out my WIP romhack!

Tigran Hamasyan - Hov Arek Sarer Jan (Live Ver.)
Panda Bear - Good Girl / Carrots

Not gonna lie, Ostinato was an option but even for me, a dumb fuck who enjoys long songs, felt a single 2.5 hours tune was a little bit off limits, at least in this context.

Ben Prunty - MilkyWay (Battle)
RednGreen - Breakbeat Darkness

1. Ben Prunty - MilkyWay (Battle)
2. RednGreen - Breakbeat Darkness

3. Tigran Hamasyan - Hov Arek Sarer Jan (Live Ver.)
4. Christopher Larkin - Sealed Vessel
5. Panda Bear - Good Girl / Carrots
6. Simeon ten Holt - Canto Ostinato (Live Piano Ensemble) [yes i listened to the entire thing]
7. Sega Sound Team - Lava Reef Zone Act 1
8. Youngblood Brass Band - Nate Mccavish Handbills For No Man

i liked all of these, from the 90 second track to the song that's 2.5 hours long

Ben Prunty - MilkyWay (Battle)
Simeon ten Holt - Canto Ostinato (Live Piano Ensemble) -- A pretty ballsy nomination right here, though I listened to the whole thing and honestly found it really fascinating to listen to. Could it have been much shorter? Yes, definitely, but I can't deny 1) how much I love this style of music in general, and 2) how much this song felt like it was consuming me (in a good way) over the course of those 2.5 hours.

Sega Sound Team - Lava Reef Zone Act 1
RednGreen - Breakbeat Darkness
Youngblood Brass Band - Nate Mccavish Handbills For No Man
Tigran Hamasyan - Hov Arek Sarer Jan (Live Ver.)
Christopher Larkin - Sealed Vessel
Panda Bear - Good Girl / Carrots

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Simeon ten Holt - Canto Ostinato (Live Piano Ensemble)
RednGreen - Breakbeat Darkness

Feels a little selfish voting for my own nomination *again*, but competition is fierce, and it really is the way I feel. All songs this time were good though!

(I listened to the first ~10 minutes of Canto Ostinato and then skipped around, and I hope I'm justified in deducing it's pretty cool.)

Christopher Larkin - Sealed Vessel
Tigran Hamasyan - Hov Arek Sarer Jan (Live Ver.)

Honorary Mention:
Simeon ten Holt - Canto Ostinato (Live Piano Ensemble) - I like it and listened to all of it but a two and a half hour song doesn't belong in a tourney where we're expected to listen to and vote over eight songs every few days.

Simeon ten Holt - Canto Ostinato (Live Piano Ensemble) | long winded and bouncy, but cathartic. enjoyed it.
Panda Bear - Good Girl / Carrots | entrancing, my little animal collective man

Tigran Hamasyan - Hov Arek Sarer Jan (Live Ver.) | decent but after canto it feels too short

Christopher Larkin - Sealed Vessel | well composed but standalone didn't do much for me. haven't played hollow knight either.
Sega Sound Team - Lava Reef Zone Act 1 | people may fight me for this but it sure is just sonic music
RednGreen - Breakbeat Darkness | its good and well composed
Ben Prunty - MilkyWay (Battle) | i think this is the best vgm of the round tbh.
Youngblood Brass Band - Nate Mccavish Handbills For No Man | i kinda loved this tbh. it was so funny

This is the longest collection I've seen so far.

Here are my picks...

Christopher Larkin - Sealed Vessel
RednGreen - Breakbeat Darkness

Commentary follows...

I'm aware it was recorded as Sega Sound Team (and I let it fly), but for Sega Sound Team - Lava Reef Zone Act 1... there is a huge list for me to sort through, and there are eight credited in the game itself under Music Composers (with numerous more under the sound team).
Simeon ten Holt - Canto Ostinato (Live Piano Ensemble) was so long that I initially decided to just look up some snippets of it, particularly since it was pure piano, which also means it is in competition with Tigran Hamasyan - Hov Arek Sarer Jan (Live Ver.). Eventually I went through the entire song for the sake of getting a bigger picture... and this song seems like it consists of a marathon of riffs being repeated multiple times and slowly changing over time. I also can't believe that this was actually done in a marathon session: that's a pretty impressive feat for the piano players. Both of these songs ultimately ended up defeated in my ears by others.
I decided that RednGreen - Breakbeat Darkness defeats Sega Sound Team - Lava Reef Zone Act 1 and Ben Prunty - MilkyWay (Battle) in direct combat. I also decided to pick one out of this group against all of the others (except for a different solo one, which I also accepted). Plus, I'll admit it has a slight SMWCentral flavor advantage going for it.

Panda Bear - Good Girl / Carrots (very long but it works great, kinda gives me a modern Pet Sounds vibe)
Ben Prunty - MilkyWay (Battle) (good OST)

HM to RednGreen, still gotta finish that hack. Also I definitely listened to all two and a half hours of piano man!!!

Panda Bear - Good Girl / Carrots
Simeon ten Holt - Canto Ostinato (Live Piano Ensemble)

i wasnt sold on poiano until 1 hour fourty five minutes in, then i realized that its the best song of all time!

ask me if i give a f*ck...

Christopher Larkin - Sealed Vessel
Sega Sound Team - Lava Reef Zone Act 1

Ooh, a round with one of my submissions in it. Wonder how it’ll turn out…

Every dream is but another reality, never forget…

My In-Progress Hack

Simeon ten Holt - Canto Ostinato (Live Piano Ensemble)

Christopher Larkin - Sealed Vessel

RednGreen - Breakbeat Darkness
Christopher Larkin - Sealed Vessel

Originally posted by DeppySlide

As a reminder it is highly recommended but not required to listen to the entirety of each nomination. No reason I'm mentioning it for this particular set.

(My honorary mention goes to Canto Ostinato, I listened to the entirety of it and thought it was nice music to have playing in the background.)

1. RednGreen - Breakbeat Darkness
2. Ben Prunty - MilkyWay (Battle)

What is a Lunar Magic, and can I eat it?

1. Simeon ten Holt - Canto Ostinato (Live Piano Ensemble) (honestly, I hate that I liked this as much as I did, especially considering the sheer length this has, but this is actually extremely cool lol; in fact, I might use this for general "chill time" music cuz of how easy it is to just zone out to this haha, didn't even notice time passing by listening to it, really cool stuff

)

2. RednGreen - Breakbeat Darkness (honestly, I'm fucking mad that this isn't actually breakbeat, but yeah, hard to argue with Redngreen honestly

(also fuck you for posting this when I haven't even started playing that hack yet >:[)

3. Ben Prunty - MilkyWay (Battle) (definitely pretty cool, but sadly it isn't much other than a solid 3rd place for me; not that it's a bad thing, but still)

4. Panda Bear - Good Girl / Carrots (honestly enjoyed this a lot more than I was expecting lol, sounded a bit like something Sepultura would do at the beginning, but honestly it just never evolved all that much, which kinda sucks because it could've been much better otherwise :V)

5. Christopher Larkin - Sealed Vessel (the way the orchestral instruments swell like that at the beginning was kinda cool, but otherwise it wasn't too remarkable still need to fucking play this game ughhhhh)

6. Tigran Hamasyan - Hov Arek Sarer Jan (Live Ver.) (pretty good, but honestly it kinda suffers from the same problem as the Oscar Peterson track in that it doesn't sound as good on it's own; also why I don't tend to enjoy solo piano pieces like this as much :V)

7. Youngblood Brass Band - Nate Mccavish Handbills For No Man (honestly, I almost want to like this, but once again this is just one of those tracks that I just don't know what to think about LOL)

8. Sega Sound Team - Lava Reef Zone Act 1 (...really couldn't pick a less boring Sonic song could you lmao; honestly, if this was the Mania version of the Act 2 theme I would've put it much higher than this, but it's not that, so... yeah.)

Layout by Mathos

RednGreen - Breakbeat Darkness
Christopher Larkin - Sealed Vessel

Yeah I'm a shameless RednGreen stan, what can I say? And I probably know too much behind the context of Sealed Vessel's dynamic functionality in the game to be swayed away from it. Really like the concept of Canto Ostinato though, and I have big respect for the Youngblood Brass Band pick due to high school band nostalgia for their song Brooklyn.

Sega Sound Team - Lava Reef Zone Act 1 - Sorry for being basic but I love this song and I always want to dance to it. (Also, the rip in question of this song seems to be really low-quality? The bells are much more muffled than they should be.)

RednGreen - Breakbeat Darkness - Not a fan of the noise samples at first, but I grew into it. The SMW samples are used really well. 1:07 onwards really slaps.

Ben Prunty - MilkyWay (Battle) - Cute, even if a bit plain. The second half of the song is really neat!

Simeon ten Holt - Canto Ostinato (Live Piano Ensemble) - Ok mais genre c'est ben long. While this sounds nice, I feel like there's a lot of needless repetition which makes the buildup so slow and stressful, especially considering the dissonant notes. Otherwise, it's a very nice song compositionally, and I love the overall mood and tone. Also props to the performers for going on for two and a half hours because holy fuck I burn out after 5 minutes.

Tigran Hamasyan - Hov Arek Sarer Jan (Live Ver.) - Cute and kind of melancholic, though a bit plain I suppose. The performer's pretty good though, good for them.

Christopher Larkin - Sealed Vessel - This takes 46 seconds of buildup and dissonant strings for something that's ultimately kind of... unappealing. I get it's supposed to be dramatic, but I just don't vibe with it, sorry. The hopeful string section in the middle is nice though.

Youngblood Brass Band - Nate Mccavish Handbills For No Man - This is very... unique, I'll give it that. It sounds good in places, but also very... farty.

Panda Bear - Good Girl / Carrots - This is definitely some noise. Too busy for my taste. I don't understand the song structure here, is the intro really almost 5 minutes long? Honestly it feels like it's four songs in one given how drastically the tone changes. The last section sounds like... dementia as a song. It's unsettling.