Another year of the Art-Inspired Music Contest has come to a close. If you haven't seen the results yet, check out the thread here. There's a link to the spreadsheet with all the results at the bottom of the post, along with some info on what some of the labels and tabs mean.

Last week, I put the compilation album up on Bandcamp, which you can listen to here!

This was a very big year for AIM - the largest compo I've organized thus far with 118 entries, which is HUGE compared to last year's 82. Unfortunately, I was also very busy and also a little burned out as I was still working on helping out with the AIM 2023 CD prizes up until around February of this year.

The entries for AIM 2024 were pretty great - what I really love most about large compos is seeing the wide variety of styles that come from composers whose work I have familiarity with to composers who I never heard of until they entered this very compo.

There were a lot of entries this year that I felt like I needed a lot of time to really listen to and appreciate, whereas I felt like last year, there were more entries that i felt like I instantly connected with on the first listen. I don't think either of these scenarios are better than the other, and part of why it may have taken me longer this year was because I had a lot else going on irl and had to spend more time listening to a larger pool of entries.

Honourable Mentions

In every AIM, there's always so much talent that I hear in submissions and this year, the competition was quite tight. Thus, I want to highlight just a few entries that I really loved that didn't win.

Nechromatic by @Nechromatic

I think this was the entry I was most surprised didn't make the top 20. I really love the way this track develops these seemingly disjointed notes at the beginning and joins them together with the vocal samples and droning bass in a way that pulls me in. The way it musically conveyed the art was very striking - having this sort of alluring feeling that slowly ramps up in intensity that I felt really connected.

G0ner by @sleepFacingWest

This track nailed the look and feeling of the art and the tune is an absolute banger. My only complaint is that I wish the vocals were louder. While I am aware of the intention to make the vocals blend in with the accompaniment, I feel like this would have been more effective if the vocals were actually used more like an instrument rather than having actual lyrics and melodies that are clearly meant to be the centrepiece. Regardless, I love the melody, especially in the chorus and the way that little piano line follows the end of each chorus line just brings it all together.

Failure of a Fanatic by @Kalviter

This is...probably my favourite Kalviter AIM entry, at the very least up there with Galactic Glitter. The distant bass and pads (choir?) work as a strange pairing with the vocals. I found it interesting that the vocals kind of sounded indifferent while rapping about not being ready for this character's "pain of indifference". The backing track really makes this work for me, but I do like the vocals in this, especially the distorted filtered vocals at 1:30. (Hopefully this composer posts the lyrics soon!)

Night Sky by @MusicBySpektral

This track is all vibes and honestly, I really love the vibes. I also feel like the atmosphere here nails the "purple" in the art and I'm not sure why. Could just be visual bias but I thought it conveyed the art well. It is definitely more of a track I'd rather just sit back and relax to. But yeah, I love the sound design, I love the repeating arp pattern and the bassline that descends. It's just a great chill track.

Pond Enjoyer by @Siberg

Speaking of vibe tracks, this entry was definitely one that I replayed a lot. The lead-up to that bassline entering is always satisfying and that melody perfectly encapsulates this nighttime with lights scene. I think it does a great job at keeping the melody floating around while not always making it the centre, if that makes any sense. Like it just knew how to give just enough of that main melody, which does appear frequently, but it's not always like constantly at the forefront. Anyway, this track is another great relaxing listen.

A Lifetime Later by @masterakuma99

This entry is so cozy and comforting and really encapsulates the feeling of being in like a cottage out in a field. I love the setup with the acoustic guitar and the those soft bells that play off it later in the track. Definitely my favourite AIM entry from masterakuma99 thus far.

Good Things Come in Twos

There were a lot of people who showed up with two entries this year, which is amazing and surprising how many people managed to put together some great tracks, some of which were done in quite a short amount of time. I wanted to highlight two particular composers who produced two entries that I think were amazing (and didn't get into the top 20).

@H20Silnava

Nadejda was the track I instantly loved. I thought the softer sort of sound design worked for the art's softer, lineless style while the melodies carried this underlying sense of urgency. It was also really neat hearing those warning siren sounds being used as percussive elements at the end of the track. This was another track that I thought had a great sense of "pull" to it - a musical focal point leading me into the centre of the art.

REDHOT was the slowburner, but I might come out the other end loving it more than Nadejda (not sure yet, but it's pretty close!). I particularly love how this track develops its melodic themes in a way that feels very satisfying from a structural standpoint. And that muted sort of sound with the harsher tones gives off this sense of heat, which works great for the art's glowing red palette.

@BASCUTI

SEEDS AND RAVENS has such a great guitar hook. It feels haunting and dark in a Halloween-like way and the composition really conveyed that art style well. I also love the second section that follows that main sort of melody with that sort of step-wise pattern ascending with the bells I think (it was kind of hard to tell, but still great nonetheless).

TOKYO 606 was a track when I first listened to, I was like "what the heck is this". And then I realized that I couldn't get parts of it out of my head. The development in this is tight - I don't think a single section in this is wasted and the way it hits with all the punches, composition-wise, left a very large impression on me.

Under the Hood

I used Google Sheets this year to keep track of all the entries and their scores. As much as I liked using Airtable in 2023 for its easy ability to link and ensure data is always connected, it's hard to get people used to new platforms they typically aren't used to being on. The added obstacle was that Airtable's free plan only allows for like, 3 other people to be on it at most and I was hoping to have more than 4 judges, but sadly was not the case.

The one thing that I always worry about with Google Sheets or Excel is keeping all the data synchronized in a way that is also easy for the judges to understand and use. Like I could have had all the judges use just one sheet for the scores, which would have made it a lot easier for my basic understanding of spreadsheet formulas. But also, all the other judges would see each others' scores all the time and if not set up properly, it would be very easy to accidentally go and put your rating in the wrong entry or under the wrong judge from what you intended. So I tried to do it kind of similar to what I did with Airtable last year:

1. All data for the entries and their inspirations go on one tab - Entry title, Composer name, links, Art inspirations, etc.
2. For each entry, I have a column in which I will approve or disapprove the entries (if there's something that doesn't follow the rules of the compo).
3. Each judge gets their own tab. If an entry is Approved, then that entry is displayed with yellow highlighting next to the scores.
4. If an entry is Disqualified, then there is no yellow highlighting and the entry's name is striked and greyed out. The links also do not display for entries that are not Approved to prevent a judge from accidentally visiting the track and trying to evaluate it.

I also set up a different spreadsheet for the Master list in which I consistently sync a filtered list of any Approved entries. This way, if someone changes their username, I only need to update the Entry Data spreadsheet instead of going through 5+ tabs updating data, and the Master list is continuously updated (sometimes I have to do it myself with the refresh button, but still).

The only time in which I did end up replacing the formulas with their data is in the Final Judge Scores tab at the very end. Leading up to the end of the judging period, this sheet was also performing a VLOOKUP of each judge's scores and pulling it into this sheet. Because I'm paranoid, I duplicated the formula sheet before replacing the formulas with the values, just in case.

Ultimately, I was pretty satisfied with this setup but it does take more thinking on the formulas to use and how to set everything up. Sadly I didn't get a chance to see who was the most popularly used artist this year, but I did do some light calculations that I later deleted at one point to check. :(

Reviews

For reviews, I did use the same ClickUp system as last year - the only difference was that I changed the status names from "First Thoughts", etc. to "First Session", "Second Session", etc. I tracked my time while listening to the entries, taking notes and writing reviews. For this year, I am coming up with a total of 19 hours and 49 minutes, which was definitely way below the almost 49 hours I took reviewing all 82 entries last year.

The judges this year were a big help in also being a part of the reviewing process, and I put together a Review Tracking tab to help keep track of which entries we were reviewing in an attempt to ensure we don't just review the exact same tracks all the time.

Speaking of which, if you are looking for a review for your entry, please check the Review Tracking tab of the results spreadsheet to see which judge wrote a review for you. This would either be shown as Review in Progress or Review Completed with the column for each designated judge. If there is a judge that has marked your entry as such, please feel free to reach out to that judge directly.

If you do not hear back from them or no judge has reviewed your track, then you can let me know. I did not get the time to write reviews for every single entry this year, but I did take some notes on all of them that I can share. They won't be as detailed as a review but they can still give you an idea as to what my thoughts were when I was rating your entry.

Closing Thoughts

I'm looking forward to next year's compo, but I'm still looking forward to having a longer break where I don't need to have something about it constantly on my mind like AIM 2023 and the CDs. Not that I hated the CD prize; I just wish that I had gone about delegating some of the tasks for it when the opportunity arose. Shoutout to @Everratic and @LD-W for the SoundPaint gift card recommendation.

If I had to mention a couple of things I would change off the top of my head, it would probably be these:

• Judge art inspirations - This was based on a question one of the composers asked and it caught me off guard. Which is weird, because I did think about it before the compo but I didn't really have time to be like "make a decision on it". Ultimately I'm not really fond of the idea of using art by a judge as an inspiration, but I just think logistically, it would be difficult to have this be a permanent rule in the compo just because it's hard to find judges in the first place - most of the judges aren't set until very close to when the compo actually starts and it wouldn't really be fair if someone picked a piece of art far in advance (which is allowed) only to find out that artist is going to be a judge.
• DM'ing to get more judges - I've mostly just been setting an announcement and waiting for people to message me, and I find that it's more difficult to find people to judge this compo each year. I mean, I get it - it's so time-consuming and there's a lot of other music compos going on. But I would probably message at least a few people who have judged previous Newgrounds compos to see if they'd be interested in judging AIM. It would be nicer to get more judges on the panel and do more of an average of scores instead of totals.

If there's anything you wanted to share about this year's AIM, then let me know. Otherwise, see you 'round for AIM 2025!