After a good while of working up higher-quality music productions, I’m now ready to drop more original stuff with higher production values (at least in terms of collaborators) like this one. And this isn’t really a cover or a remix. You know those works by nerdcore folks out there? And I still remember Circus-P’s “How to Pretend” as well. Does that one track I helped make in tribute to Uri’s The Boogie Man count, though? Anyway, they can be passed off as originals, but they are also explicitly shown to be in tribute to established intellectual properties. And while I wanted to release this for free via Bandcamp, as I’m relying a lot on the name of and even some audio samples from an established intellectual property here, I recently set up an artist account there and had my assumptions about its free download system dashed, so yeah, I’m gonna release it still on Bandcamp only, but as a name-your-price thing, though please remember that “Another obvious villain we can cancel anytime” isn’t just some ironic tagline. Sure, I guess those who’d pay me are folks who seriously like me and my stuff for one reason or another on top of having the money for it, especially since stuff like music videos are around to help them decide how much they’d support the stuff, but still, PLEASE, pay and support like someone with a life.
All that aside, I wasn’t really expecting the new Persona announcements when I decided on the upload date for this. What a coincidence, right? Anyway, Persona 4 has been quite on my mind again lately, what with stuff like my sucky and discontinued attempts at streaming it and my desire to accomplish all its Achievements on Steam plus my delays at doing so. As for how I still want to play it some more, I guess it’s also because I’ve been realizing how much of an impact it’s made on my life, especially my art. Maybe I should write up a TRY for it sometime? But I digress.
What, you want me to be more explicit about the identity of this song’s POV character? Well, I think the song’s done more than enough there already. And even if I were quite lax about spoilers, which I am, I’d still recommend playing the game for yourself. To give you an idea without wasting my TRY chance, it’s very story-driven, so much that it borderline overshadows the gameplay, but the story is way more integrated with the gameplay than it seems, and they’re integrated well enough to make quite the enjoyable game. The writing has its flaws, especially considering stuff like how this fan song’s POV character upstaged the heroes, but as a reflection of my actually questionable character, I find them pretty endearing, especially with how they come off as honest through stuff like a mix of personal and public perception being an essential to the formation of the boss Shadows. And I’m further digressing here.
Now, as for other stuff about the song, I did the lyrics and vocals and video. But before that, I commissioned and spoiled fellow “spiral tones” remix contest winner Recoyale into composing and arranging for me here. I don’t think I solidly knew what sort of sound I wanted at the start, actually, and I picked Reco because he was someone I felt I could approach easily enough. But once I heard what he got for me, writing lyrics and working vocals flowed more smoothly than I expected! The result is this crumbling structure that goes from rapping to singing and then speaking, all with frigid and somber tones that both emphasize and engulf the POV character’s personality, complete with the wonderful enhancement that is Shigeru’s vocal audio engineering! And now that I think about how I characterized this song’s POV character, I might’ve also subconsciously drawn influence from certain psychological elements utilized in Persona 5, elements involving some traumatized people, although I don’t think this guy in this song isn’t really someone we can call traumatized. Also, Reco being impressed by the final audio definitely helps my belief that he, Shig, and I were more in sync than we expected here! Now we’re talking, alright!
As for the illustration, I commissioned (and not spoiled so much, I think?) this guy who goes by Riichu. I remember first encountering him when he was streaming with Koneko Monsi, and I eventually noticed his pretty neat art and his availability for commissions. Again, I don’t think I solidly knew what sort of visuals I wanted, and I was picking based on options fresh in my short-term memory at the time. But then again, I was wanting some visual obscuring on the identity of this song’s POV character, and in hindsight, Riichu’s skill at drawing slender figures works real well with the character. Special mention also goes to how he went above and beyond with the coloring!
And then comes the video, where I tried to emulate the Midnight Channel and the TV World as much as I could. Older closed captions here, high-level fog there, reprinted ripped TV World entry transition, weird scenery changes, TV static, all that stuff. Shig also boosted my confidence in my work here, as he liked the “WHAT YOU WANNA SEE” part and the glitching character art part, and speaking of which, my favorite part about my video work here is the intro. Also, I think I finally learned how to work up the typing effect in AviUtl, which I flexed in the chorus!
Now, honestly, releasing this has been taking a lot out of me, and it’s stacking on my other stresses, which I think are mostly self-inflicted, also leading to this being uploaded later than I planned, but gosh dang, I am happy about this. I mean, it’s a more original song with higher production quality than what I’ve done before, and I enjoyed making it with my fellow artists! It’s even got me more motivated to make more full-on originals AND learn further about how to do business properly, despite and through stressful situations! And of course, I’d like to ask for honest constructive feedback, so yeah, gimme that!
The Overlord Bear's Den 