:!: :!: :!: Old man funky jam!

love the handclaps, the funk vibes are really effective and stand out from the pack, and the mix sounds really good. The sax solos are really overdone for my tastes though, maybe this is veering into genre bias but if this was tighter with just a couple of bits of well placed lead work I think it'd be a much better song.

I kind of dig the funky vibe, and while not a big fan of cheesy sax I appreciate it as a slightly unusual instrument amongst this field. I'm not sure if I'd describe this as "upbeat", more like relaxed or laid-back.

I almost ranked this #1 for a while, just to reward your bravery. This is good stuff with you leaning into the silliness. Now, the fake claps are really bad, like white pants after labor day. It sounds like you have a mic and can multi-track so maybe you could just, maybe, you know, record yourself clapping a few times and copy-paste it? Execution: B+, concept: A, hooks: B+

Cool sax but it kinda overshadows the rest of the arrangement. Halving the number of bars in the solos would help tighten up the arrangement imo. I also think the vocal needs more blue notes. This would help loosen it up a bit and help it fit with the funky style you've gone for. Nice period appropriate use of the term groove thang though. I won't be awarding any bonus points for using a date that's within a week of my actual birth, I'm afraid. Some of the other judges might though.

I like the sax in theory, but it's too high in the mix in general, especially those bari stabs that end up sounding kind of farty, and goes on too long for my tastes--would have preferred those sax solos to be quite a bit shorter. This stands out in terms of general sound and happy vibes, but I just feel like the execution of the song overall was off, didn't quite seem like everything was grooving together, and it seemingly just kinda ran out of ideas and ended--you didn't really sell it enough. The lyrics are happy enough but seem kind of tossed off and I'm never really a fan of those braggadocious kinds of lyrics where the narrator talks about how great they are.