I haven't heard the first version that was voted on, so I'm hearing this fresh. As soon as this started, the structure, instrumentation, and tone were all super close to the original source tune, so I'm waiting to hear how this breaks out from that, since the opening just sounds like a sample upgrade.
Immediately, you hear that the mixing's cluttered and muddy, so that would need to be cleaned up as well. It's more obvious at the chorus at 1:09. Also from the chorus, you can tell how rigid, static, and relatively soft the drumwork sounds.
It wasn't until 1:47 that we hit anything resembling a higher level of interpretation with the jazzier section, which sounded nice and would have been a cool overall approach to go with instead of the sound upgrade from the first half. Back to more of the sound upgrade + SFX for the closing section at 3:19.
In terms of what we're looking for with the Submission Standards, the whole arrangement should have been the jazzy section, which was pretty strong, then it would have been on solid ground in terms of personalizing the presentation of the theme.
Beyond the arrangement not feeling creative or distinctive enough from the source for the first half, the mixing being so muddy and lacking high-end clarity also pulled this down below the bar. Not trying to browbeat any YES's, and no hate on Matt, but the bar's higher than this and I'm not seeing where this rises to the level of what's typically approved.
NO (resubmit)