At long last, the results for the 10th annual Art-Inspired Music Contest are here! Sorry this took a while longer than usual. Without further ado, let's get to it!

TOP 3

First Place

This composer uses orchestral instruments to portray the harrowing journey of a traveler, with attention to detail in regards to the art right down to its production.

Bellowers of Grief by @Everratic (inspired by "Bellowers of grief" by @themefinland)

Second Place

Using a wide array of sounds created from scratch, this entry is as haunting as the creature who lurks in the depths.

Beneath by @JazzDew (inspired by "Sea monster" by @Seath-Lorkencrain)

Third Place

With catchy melodies and a cute, comforting sound design, this entry is a real pick-me-up that complements the adorableness of the character it's inspired by.

Harmonic Dispersion by @LordAndiso (inspired by "Harmony" by @Grizzace)

RUNNER-UPS

Give it up for this year's runner-ups!

Necroswamp Abomination by @LD-W (inspired by "The Boil of Bogwater Swamp" by @HappytoDraw)

Elegy to a Fallen Star by @ForgottenDawn (inspired by "SideTrip : He's Gone Forever" by @ErrorCell)

THE YEAR 2000 by @TeffyD (inspired by "sploong" by @Splootulu)

Routed Cerebrum by @CryNN (inspired by "high on the illusion" by @foxglovefaun)

Contrasts. by @ALGOfficial (inspired by "I Stopped To Daydream And 20 Years Passed Me By" by @ericinprogress)

Delusion by @Veryfakeguest (inspired by "high on the illusion" by @foxglovefaun)

Shark Dude Shanty by @CrossCarrasco (inspired by "Shark dude" by @Daker777NG)

Sun Diver by @PredatorMusic (inspired by "Sun Diver" by @Flooko)

babait // home by @arbelamram (inspired by "We Both Escaped" by @paperinvader)

The Mummy's Wrath by @PythonBlue (inspired by "The Mummy's Wrath" @Ztoons)

Deep Sinker by @LucidShadowDreamer (inspired by "Sinking Deep" by @JoaoVaz)

Misery Haunt by @Codefreq (inspired by "Mizore Ito (Misery-chan) - Corridor" by @SketchMeNot)

Sweeping by @littlbox (inspired by "Sweeping" by @idontknowcorp)

Magical Rupture by @NASHqp (inspired by "Magical rupture" by @themefinland)

Aztec Reaper by @Ryzmik (inspired by "High Priestess Maya" by @Dethaners)

Spiral - A song about losing your mind by @NahuPyrope (inspired by "Alone" by @A2Des)

omnipresent by @WakerLink (inspired by "Tamiel, Who Tempted" by @PostmodernOuroboros)

FAN FAVOURITE

This year, 11 of you ranked 5-10 entries as your favourites. Points were calculated and with winners removed, the Fan Favourite award goes to a composer whose other entry did place in the runner-ups. And that entry is:

Soaring by @PredatorMusic (inspired by "Soaring Eagle!" by @Bagplants)

Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to everyone who participated and helped this compo going.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to @BingoWaders for creating the promo and cover art this year!

Thank you to this year's judges for taking the time to rate and/or review the entries: @damifortune, @Zechnition and @X3LL3N.

• Also wanted to give a special shoutout to @damifortune for leaving a review on every entry!

Thank you to the Pico-Cross Collab Team for donating $100 USD of their winnings as prize money for this year's AIM.

Thank you to Turtle Pals Tapes (Turtlepalstapes.com) for making the possibility of a physical CD prize possible this year.

TO BE CONTINUED (ran out of characters...)

BONUS SHOUTOUTS

AIM co-founder @ThatJohnnyGuy wanted to shout-out a few entries this year for the 10th anniversary of the compo. Here is the message:

Original co-creator of the AIM contest here! I've thoroughly enjoyed listening to everyone's entries as always, and there are some really beautiful songs as always! I thought I would contribute this year for the 10th anniversary of the contest's creation, by giving my top 5 favorites list! Here are the ones I enjoyed the most, happy 10 years Art-Inspired Music Contest! Keep making amazing music, everyone!

(please note that no prizes are awarded for this shoutout; sorry about that)

SCORESHEET

View all scores here: https://airtable.com/appPKz1Ay2pmJA181/shrkuojFRW47wgq8B

I created several tables that show rankings by judge, as well as the Fan Vote results. Feel free to hide columns, filter and sort the data as you wish. It reverts to normal once you leave or refresh the page, so you won't break anything by accident.

You'll notice that there were actually two ties this year: one for 3rd place and a 5-way tie for runner-ups. I ended up breaking the tie by taking the total score after eliminating the lowest judge score, if that makes any sense. Those entries have a "Notes" section with a link to a spreadsheet that shows what I mean. It was really close this year! I want to make a news post that goes more into retrospect about this, but that's all I'll say about it here for now.

HOW DO I CLAIM MY PRIZES?

If you placed in the top 3, please fill out the Newgrounds Payment Address form for prizes so that they know how to get the prize money to you. Here's how the winnings are distributed (in USD):

• First place: $50
• Second place: $30
• Third place: $20

For all winners (top 3, runner-ups and Fan Favourite) - we'll need a few more details from you before we can start getting the CDs produced. I'll be sending you a DM some time next week to let you know what we need to get this thing rolling.

And yes, you can finally modify your audio entries on Newgrounds if you'd like. However, for winners, please be sure to keep a copy of the audio file you originally submitted in a high-quality format like WAV. This will be needed for the CD, and I'll most likely use that version (whenever possible) for the compilation album on Bandcamp. 

Woo Runner Up! Was fun this year, and thanks for all the hard work!

Gawd damn!!! 😳

Thanks to the judges for all the hard work :D

Congrats to the winners!!

Whew, Judging all these pieces was quite a marathon, but boy have you all gotten so much better at this since last year!! Despite the work, I definitely don't regret being a judge & I'm quite glad how the results ended up!

If you'd like a review on your piece, please send me a DM and I'll try to get around to it over the next month, since I have a paragraph or two on everyone's song anyways.

Thanks a bunch to everyone who participated, and see you all next year :)

Great stuff, well done everyone! it's so cool to see how many skilled musicians there are here :')

Congrats to the winners! Competition was really tight this year. It makes even just landing on the CD feel all the more special. Still, exceptionally solid entries all around.

Congrats to the winners! And thank you to RSK and the judges for making this happen!

Congratulations everyone! All of the music was great, and it was awesome to see what everyone did with the artwork they chose.

Can’t wait to participate in AIM next year :)

I knew I would get the lowest score in AIM 2023 (maybe the lowest in all AIMs) and that's due to my mixing issues. Still, congrats to the winners!

Huge congrats to all the winners!!! Especially congrats to my NG homies JazzDew and CrossCarrasco; y’all rock and I’m so excited for you guys! Can’t wait to buy the CD lol

I WILL win one of these someday >:o

Regardless, congrats to all the winners! You all make awesome work in every regard :)

glad to be apart of this ! :D first one of these i've ever done, gonna take a good nap after this

Wow! Runner-up and a shout-out. Thanks! Congratulations winners and good job everybody. Amazing music for amazing art all around.

yooo, wasn't expecting runner-up and a shoutout for my first time participating in AIM. huge thanks for the opportunity, i had fun participating and i look forward to trying again next year. i also really appreciate the reviews and feedback left by the judges.

congrats to the winners!!

Wow. I knew I wouldn’t be in the top three, and didn’t expect to get any placement whatsoever, but I appreciate that my effort paid off enough that I made it into the runner-ups! Thanks for that, and congrats to everyone else as well!

Runner ups gg!!!

At least in the runner-ups, feels like I achieved an important place for the first time in any contest. Thank you all the hosts/judges for making this possible, and I have to thank @Dethaners once more cause if it wasn't for her art I couldn't have thought of making a composition like I did!

Those orchestral pieces are fantastic, and Beneath really threw me for a loop. Y'all are insane. Congrats everybody!

LETS GOOOO SPOT 35!!!! YEAHHHH

also: shout out to everyone, awesome work!

I'm rooting for you! 😎

40th out of 82… not bad for first time participating :D

Congrats to everyone, y’all did great!

thanks RSK for having me as a judge, the other judges, and everyone for making cool music! the sheer amount of diversity in all these entries was wild and beautiful, and there were so many wonderful and memorable songs. it's great to see newgrounds still flourishing like that - my account may be pretty new but i was browsing ng audio as a teen in 2004 or so!

cheers all, keep being awesome and keep practicing your art. everybody has a unique voice that's theirs and only theirs. refine it, and embrace what it is you love about it no matter what others might try to make you feel bad about. rock on

These are awesome to see! Thank you to the judges for putting in the work involved with this kind of contest, and thank you for everyone who submitted and made this year especially great! :D

It was awesome to even compete.

Congratz to all the winners!

Judges, you all deserve a big pat on the back for your dedication and sticking it out all the way.

Hell yeah! Until next time!

As always, this contest brought us a ton of cool music and pinpointed some cool artists to follow. Thanks to everyone who organized it and contributed to it!

Hey everyone, I just wanted to give another general update regarding the CD prize. Right now, I've sent out DMs to all the winners asking for the proper files needed to make the CD. I'm still waiting to hear back from a few people, so please let me know if you were a winner and haven't received any messages yet.

I'm getting ready to go on a short trip next week, so I won't be making additional follow-up messages until after I come back, which should be around the first full week of September. However, if you message me sooner than that, I will do my best to get back to you as soon as I can. I only plan to update this thread from here-on when something major happens, like the production of the CD or when additional copies go on sale. Note that it may take a long while (i.e. months) as we need certain files from the winning composers to make the CD.

Sorry, I've been juggling so many projects and didn't yet get a chance to denoise my track.

Hi all, just wanted to give another update on the status of the CD. Over the past couple of months, I've been reaching out to the winning composers and artists for some files needed for the CD. Artists are included too as we're hoping to include the art inspirations used in the CD booklet, along with some short descriptions from the composers about their process of creating the track.

So far, I'm still waiting on one composer to provide their blurb and am trying to reach out to two more of the artists for their permission to include their art. The trouble has mainly to do with getting ahold of the artists, as some haven't been active on Newgrounds in years and appear to not have any contact information outside of Newgrounds that I'm able to find.

At the very least, I now have the WAVs for all the winning entries and am going to use them for the digital version of the compilation album. I realize this album is coming out much later than compilation albums from previous years. I figured I would incorporate the WAVs for the CD into the compilation album that will be on Bandcamp and now that I have them, I can start uploading and rearranging everything for the digital release, which I'll link here once it's available.

Thanks for your continued patience on the outcome for this compo.