Suggestions for the still alive cover:

• Decrease the attack on the strings so they come in more on-beat
• The ornamental melody instrument with the delay is probably a guitar with a lot of pedals on it. It has delay, reverb, tremolo, and maybe rotary (a pedal that simulates a rotary organ)

Suggestions for idea:

• For the lead, use louder percussion, sidechain it to the kick, make the snare loud, reduce volume a little.
• Add reverb to the high-end synth on the lead so that it feels more expansive but not so much that it takes over everything, so that it gives the listener a sense of what space they are in
• Layer a piano, like the one I used for the something comforting track, with the melody.
• Cut low end to cut frequencies 400hz and lower and add more distortion, to get the effect of someone speaking into a microphone.
• Add a cymbal to the drumbeat like in still alive
• If I keep my drum kit the same, i could have a neurofunk section that feels part of the song.