Agreed with the others that the arrangement, while enjoyable, is too conservative. I love the source tune, but the arrangement here didn't do enough to distinguish itself from the original, IMO. The claps sounded super flimsy and stapled underneath the rest of the music with no synergy. It's a solid conservative cover, but there needs to be more personalization to the arrangement, whether it's interpreting the melody, changing the textures more, or other writing and production techniques to differentiate the presentation even further. I liked the strings at 4:16 as an idea, although that was so brief at the end. On the production side, the mixing was serviceable, but could have been cleaner/sharper; nothing a more interpretive arrangement couldn't have overcome though. Can't go wrong with this source tune, and again, this was an enjoyable listen, Dave, we just need more elements of interpretation/arrangement for the Submission Standards here. I hope we hear from you again, even if it isn't a resubmission of this piece, because you're already putting together solid-sounding work.
NO (resubmit)