an okay song will be easier
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Let’s not get ridiculous.
You’ve played the GTA games right?
If you’ve put on the radio, you listened to a game soundtrack.
I‘ve played half of GTA IV. It was released after 2005 and mighf also be disqualified for obviousness.
Update to my category: it should also not be from a musician or band that you can assume everyone on the forum has already listened to music from e.g. The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Beyonce, etc despite there not having been many previous walrus submissions by them. If it’s someone that one or two other people have submitted over the entire history of walrus that’s probably fine; the whole point is to make sure we are keeping our walruses from becoming stale.
I’m also definitely planning on participating unless I end up not having time to do any research for songs.
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Category host name: eyebooger
Category: Band/artist from a country that starts with C. This should satisfy everyone. If you have something in mind already from Canada, cool. If you want to take a look at what China has to offer, great. If you want to get ambitious and go for Costa Rica or really go out there for Central African Republic, I’ll be excited to hear that too. Hell, I’ll even take territories, so maybe someone can find something kick ass from Cook Islands or Curacao.
Musical tastes: Modern rock of just about any type and catchy pop, though I can appreciate just about all kinds except country.
Any other judging notes: Really popular songs will be judged harshly. I definitely gravitate towards newer rather than older stuff, and I especially like it if the artist is still active. But maybe the best way to help out is to show successes in the past. Here are my top 10 songs submitted to my categories from Grab Bags 1-4:
- Rizzle Kicks - Down with the Trumpets
- El Cuarteto de Nos - Ya no sé qué hacer conmigo
- No One Is Innocent - A La Gloire Du Marché
- Phoenix Rise – Protest
- grandson – Stick Up
- Backxwash – Deviancy
- The New Pornographers – Crash Years
- Virgin Snatch - Face In The Dirt (1:17-5:07)
- Propagandhi – Victory Lap
- Saian Supa Crew - La preuve par 3
Three of those are in another language, and I do always appreciate that. While I’m not going to explicitly award bonus points for unusual countries, I will give them a bit of an edge if it’s close.
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Obvious pandering for Bob
1 Like
As I read the list, I knew that I had none of them. But I have other virtues. Ambition, resourcefulness, devotion.
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Bob gonna shock everyone by submitting some Cuban shit.
Gonna be weird when I pick a band from Christmas Island.
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I’ll start WW3 by submitting a Taiwanese artist.
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Category host name: cassette
Category: 10,000 Hours: A song that features an expert performance. A lot of songs are great in part because of their simplicity. A lot of punk, rock, and hip hop might be described this way. After a few weeks of practice, a 12-year-old could play most Ramones tunes or at least mumble along with most of hip hop’s greats. But some songs don’t work this way. They require a lot of practice. So pick a song that is great but also has an expert amount of skill needed for the performance. I’ll leave this pretty open. If you think it qualifies, then it does. You don’t need to find a once-in-a-generation virtuoso (though you might), but try to pick something that you think would take at least a few years of dedicated practice to pull off.
Musical tastes: Loud, weird, some bleeps and bloops, punk and metal, rap (mostly 2010 and earlier), anyone with just a guitar, country (think Townes Van Zandt rather than Garth Brooks), quiet stuff too. Pretty much anything goes, but avoid bands that were designed by an executive somewhere if possible.
Notes: All genres welcome. Don’t limit yourself to solo cello performances and the like. Preference will be given to the best songs, will level of skill just being a filter. Pure math rock noodling or whatever isn’t an automatic win.
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No. If I ever do this with T, it will be allowed.
And no Welsh artists either. I don’t care what the name for that place in their goofy-ass language that thinks that W is a vowel and that Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is a reasonable name for a town.
1 Like
Yeah not directing this at anyone in particular but in my opinion, when thinking of your category its good to think of it as something you are making for the contestants benefit moreso than yours. Give them the best chance to submit something they already know and like, that connects somehow with an interest you have already or a category you want to learn more about.
You might think that takes a little edge off your own category because you can’t get quite as niche, but when you think about it, if everyone takes the same approach then all the categories you submit to are likely to be a little easier.
Even though the category crash_face listed is really broad and I don’t have much idea how to cater to them, I quite like the category. A chance to submit some EDM stuff I like that introduces someone to a genre they want to know more about is pretty fun for me.
I’ll find something for all the categories so far. But as a general rule for me if a category is one where I have no idea where to start and have to google, I’m going to put 15-30 mins into it and submit the first thing I find that I don’t dislike.
3 Likes
Unless the categories are completely obtuse, doesn’t this just mean you’re deficient in music knowledge and appreciation? I’m not directing that at you personally. What I’m saying is that if someone’s coverage and exposure is narrow, of course they’re going to have to do more work than somebody who knows tons of music from many genres. That seems like a built-in and fair aspect of the game.
You’re describing a different way to run Walrus. Some people call it the Easyter-egg version. When asked, most people like that version of the game less. Personally, I like those too, but moreso for a single-host Walrus when there are only 5 categories to find for one musical taste. It doesn’t really work for a grab bag, imo, where you’re finding 12-15 catogories for 12-15 hosts.
I also don’t think it’s right to say of someone who doesn’t immediately know a great deep track from a niche genre of music, that that person lacks music knowledge and appreciation. Do you know how big music is?
No one said anything like that. These are fairly easy categories with tons of possible picks except for maybe spoken word. If you couldn’t at least think of a song for each category then I’d say it’s way more of a you thing. People are bitching about country being a category which is a major genre of music with a deep and rich history. If everyone gets two mulligans then no one should be complaining about categories.
That’s the difference I was trying to point to. Most people don’t like that style of game as much. Everyone should be able to think of dozens or hundreds of songs for each category. So it’s a different goal. Instead of finding something that fits a small category, we look for something really great among the many options for a wider category.
Most of these aren’t small categories! The point you are making has almost nothing to do with the size of the categories and everything to do with people’s limited knowledge and appreciation of music. There must be tens of thousands of country songs, yet we have people here who probably couldn’t name one. That’s not a category problem.
Oh, I think we agree. I had your category in mind. I didn’t think there was still any argument about the country category.