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Really like the mellow vibe in this one. The production is great as always.

Just listened to the whole thing. It's just so fucking good.

I 100% agree with your disagreement. I'm somewhat doubtful about the summary though. If someone puts the time in, regardless of background, they have a shot at being a contender—commercially successful or not.

Right now, I find myself in between these two perspectives. I mentioned in another thread that I was a classically trained oil painter, and I would say that 95% of my fellow students couldn't branch out beyond what they were taught. Anymore, I don't think this stifled their creativity(I'm still not 100% confident in saying this), as I don't think they had the capacity to be terribly creative. I also saw the top say 5% of the 95% have varying degrees of commercial success specifically because they had a built in audience that was already comfortable with that kind of work. I'm not disparaging their work, is was very good actually, but again not very creative. I agree with thawkins that by making music you automatically know some music theory…and it may not be within the more broadly accepted cannon of music theory. You both seem to be saying that music theory can be a tool in some capacity, and if I'm not wrong that you both agree on that? I think brian trageskin point that writing with a solid background can make the process more efficient and consistent for certain things. That said, I guess I still see some danger in thinking "music theory" is the end all be all theory for all music. I get into learning more theory sometimes, but I get bored easily and get to work. It drips in slowly though. Thanks @brian trageskin for turning me on to Ruslan. I've have been digging his videos.

Advanced facepalm theory shit goin' on here.

This is awesome, and it makes me feel old as fuck.

Really digging Smile and Brooding.

Good and dirty track. I like the slow undulating pace. In terms of production I was wishing there was a little less, or the frequency range was narrowed, or both, for the reverb on the drums. It set them way back in comparison with the lead horn, which is cool, but they felt a little muddy to me. Could just be a personal preference though.

Sounds great!

6:08->6:22

The Gift of Gab has always been my favorite:

I left the US for New Zealand in 2008. My wife and I always wanted to live overseas. It was during the financial crisis, she worked for a major financial firm, and her boss told her she may want to start sending out resumes, so we thought we'd give it a try. Also, both of us have always had a conflicted relationship with US culture. We applied for permanent residence visas and she was able to get a job in Wellington. I've always been a freelancer, so it was hard to land a job while still living in the US, but was able to find work about 4 months after we arrived. We applied for permanent residency because we thought we'd be there long term, but after a few years we realized it wasn't for us. A few of the reasons we left New Zealand were xenophobia, lack of skills in the work place, terrible housing, total lack of art, puke everywhere in the streets, it's a horrible place to be outside, if you're not getting majorly sunburned on a 60 degree cloudy day because there's no ozone layer, you're getting bit up by sand flies, and a little island fever to boot. I still really like a lot about the government agencies in NZ, and we actually had decent health care. We moved from NZ to France. We both really liked it there. We spent three months in Nice brushing up on our French and getting some much needed sun, then moved to Paris, where we spent 9 months. We met great people in France, loved the culture and the cities, but we were only able to get student visas(that we were too old for, but they gave them too us anyway), which only allowed us to work part time. It became clear that my wife and I would have to get divorced and marry French nationals to get any sort of proper visa, so after a great year we packed up again and headed back to Brooklyn. Right now we're looking into moving to Portugal through one of their real estate or investment visa schemes. It will probably take a few years to put something together there though. Why? Portugal is kind of out of the way and nobody seems to mention it much, lots of cheap property, and we both really enjoyed it when we visited a few years ago.

Nice! The sound on the lead is more full now, and the highs are a bit more tame. It sits better in the mix IMO.