Final Fantasy VI "Bringer of Ruin" 6:34

Happy birthday to the one, the only, Nobuo Uematsu! To celebrate him turning 66 today, there's no better way than with a creatively subversive \m/ version of his Final Fantasy VI magnum opus, "Dancing Mad", tackled by a great group of DoD'ers madly assembled by judge jnWake!

• jnWake (arrangement, synths)
• minusworld (guitars)
• Jabo (guitars/bass)
• Unknown Pseudoartist (Kefka laughs)

Wake's challenge: thinking outside the box to put his own stamp on the theme AND keep... it... tight:

"As usual, another DoD month means another submission! Progressive metal remix of "Dancing Mad". This was arranged for Dwelling of Duels' Free Month in July 2024, where it placed 6th of 32 entries. This time, I decided to tackle one of those ridiculously overcovered VGM tunes: "Dancing Mad"! There are a huge amount of covers of this track already, so it was a challenging prospect... OCR already has a couple metal takes on the track from awesome mixers like PuD, zircon, and Lashmush, while DoD had already seen its own versions from the likes of Cory Johnson and Pokérus. If you also just look at YouTube covers, you'll find takes from GaMetal and other metal artists, but also more creative takes like Shnabubula's reversed tiers remix.

Since this theme is one of the most covered tunes in VGM (especially metal), with so many covers, what could I add? Well, for my take, I decided to not follow some principles that many (but not all) covers seemingly follow: begin with a long build-up, have the main melody of Tier 1 be a slow part likely featuring a singer, follow the tier structure of the source and, finally, be very long! One of my main goals here was in fact to make something shorter, haha, as the usual "Dancing Mad" remix is like 10-20 minutes long. Hence, I tried to make it unique by making it much shorter and more upbeat than the usual cover of it. I decided to make something more action-oriented and less long (not short!) as my guiding principles. I skipped having a long build-up and went straight into action, for example. I also decided I'd not necessarily follow the "tiers" structure of the original too much, and instead mixing parts and throwing riffs from each tier wherever I felt they fit the most!

As usual, I recruited collabers to help me. Jabo and minusworld both played guitars here, each having a solo and each playing one side of the rhythm double-tracking. Jabo also played the bass. Finally, I recruited the awesome Unknown Pseudoartist to do some Kefka laughs in a couple of spots at different parts of the arrangement, which he nailed awesomely. Thank you for those dope maniacal laughs!

Anyway, I think this came up pretty well, so I hope you enjoy!"

Usually when an arrangement breakdown's this extensive, I'd forgo it and suggesting going through the MP3 comments, but you never know if Charles Cornell or some other music aficionado would geek out over this, so why not! Wake lays out how he restructured "Dancing Mad" to not flow like your "typical" 10-minute-plus presentation:

"0:00-0:05: Starting with a bang! Chord progression is a modification of the main "Dancing Mad" one, just with funny synth arpeggios on top!

0:06-0:36: Guitar riff is a variation over the main riff of Tier 4 (7:03 of the source, basically changing it to just straight 8ths). The "Dancing Mad" chord progression returns on strings/choir soon after.

0:36-0:42: Basically, a sped up version of the chords at 0:30 in the original.

0:42-1:00: Main melody of Tier 1 on guitar (0:55 of the source). On the usual "Dancing Mad" cover, this part is slow and usually sang, but screw that!

1:01-1:25: The part that follows directly after the main melody (1:23 of the source), but I changed the time signature to 12/8 for a triplet feel which is super-heavy. Melodies had to be adjusted accordingly.

1:25-1:40: A variation over the original chords to create some drive as we return to 4/4. We also move from C minor to C# minor. 1:36 is a repeat of the 0:36 section, now on C# minor.

1:40-2:05: We return to 12/8 for a heavy take on the first riff of Tier 2 (2:43 of the source).

2:05-2:36: This is the part that follows (3:16 from the source). For extra chaos, I added some modified melodies from Tier 3 here (4:47 and Kefka's theme are played on harmonized guitars with a heavy flanger effect, while 5:04 and 5:09 are played on organ).

2:36-2:51: Parts from the ending on Tier 2 are adapted here, first 4:06 from the source and then the chords at 4:39. I was aiming for a Symphony X sound here! They're another prog. band from the 90's, usually speedier and less prog-ish than Dream Theater, but still awesome.

2:51-3:12: Main melody of Tier 4 (8:27 of the source) on piano and later trumpet. Usually, this part is left for an emotional ending and guitar solo, so I thought it'd be neat to feature it earlier.

3:12-3:16: This is the buildup that begins Tier 4 (6:33). First, you have the stacking of 4ths and then the staccato augmented chords. UPA's Kefka laugh hits there as a transition to the following section. I like to think that, if this was the actual soundtrack of something, it'd be the transition to the second, crazier, phase.

3:16-3:30: On this part, I took the organ arpeggios of the original (at 8:00) and modified them to fit a 4/4 feel but on triplets. Every 4 bars, there's a break where the organ plays the chord progression that plays just before this section in the original (7:54, for example).

3:30-3:41: Lots of playing around Kefka's theme, first on bass, then on synths, then on rhythm guitar, and finally on lead guitars. Piano in the backing is playing melodies from Tier 3 (4:59) and, when the synth hit, a trumpet does the harmony from Tier 4's take on the Kefka melody (8:06, for example).

3:41-3:45: Transition is the part from 8:22 but on straight 8ths and repeated many times.

3:45-4:11: Jabo's guitar solo! Backing is a modification of the first riff of Tier 4 (7:10, organ is the most evident quote).

4:11-4:16: Mini keyboard solo, chord progression is the same that the organ played on the 3:16-3:30 section.

4:16-4:37: minusworld's solo! The riff is basically a faster version of the one from 2:05-2:36.

4:37-4:44: Keyboard solo is a quote from Dream Theater's "Octavarium". This was Jabo's idea!

4:45-5:01: Here, guitar plays arpeggios from Tier 3 (5:39) while the trumpet plays the bass from that section as a melody. This is followed by some diminished chords and arpeggios taken from 6:04.

5:01-5:28: Repeats from the first half of the song, the main riff and the sped up chords! There's some slight variations over their first appearances.

5:28-5:50: Main melody from Tier 4 returns on full force, now on guitar! Piano melody is playing a variation of the main melody from Tier 1 and the harp is doing the classical FF arpeggio over the chord progression of this section, which first follows the source but then dips into "original writing".

5:50-6:12: A repeat of 1:01-1:25, now on C# minor. On the second half a trumpet plays a variation of the main melody from Tier 4.

6:13-end: Chords of this section are based on the chords that end the first half of Tier 1 (0:39 in the link), but with some variations. Source begins with chords over D and then C, while here we begin with C# to D# then back to C and finally on D. However, the idea of the source's riff (ascending chords over a pedal tone) is kept.

Whew... that's a long breakdown."

Yeebus, you either made it through or skipped through, but "through" is where we've ended up! Maybe the breakdown was longer than the song itself. :-D Thank the good lord we've got prog fan prophetik music to digest this and make sense of it all -- it sounds like he was dancing to this, although he certainly wasn't mad about it:

"indeed starts with a bang. so much of a DT vibe on this immediately off the jump - octavarium and the astonishing both are showing up here to my ear. i really like the faster approach to the main dancing mad theme at 0:42. switching to 12/8 after that is a great idea to make those chord stabs have more impact, and it transitions back to 4/4 with those sets of three chord stabs - that's a great way to switch back and feels great in context.

2:05's a bit harder to follow, as expected. the flanged effect is nuts, it's really wild and fits kefka's laughing theme well. [...] the laugh is great! what a character-filled sound. we finally get our ragtime fix at 3:31 as it gets into a solo section. the solos are excellent as expected, and while i don't think there needed to be a ton of references to the original, what's there is gravy. love the octavarium quote.

5:01's really heavy and feels very intense. the build into 5:28 is excellent and i love the prelude callout in the background of this section. this whole section is a great build into 5:50, and the switch to 12/8 is great [...].

what an arrangement. this is nuts, exactly what i come back to ocr for. [...] from an execution standpoint, the guitar work is superb, and the mixing is really solid - it's very guitar-forward like the influencing track and drives forward well. [...] overall it's very solid and clear.

this is a super fun addition to the catalog. great job."

The mallet percussion being strongly positioned at 3:30 was a trip, yet there's nothing but intensity throughout, even with something as ostensibly cute as xylos. Kudos to jnWake for scratching the itch to color outside the typical lines here. This brings the ruin, the prog, AND the power -- pretty cool stuff, mad lads!