Don’t like the sound of that. Hope you’re doing ok.
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Category coming in a little while
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Category host name: crash_face
Category: Electronic music. I am pretty unfamiliar with this category and I am just looking to expand my horizons. I know it’s a broad category, and I don’t even really know what is included. Basically–what would you have someone listen to in order to convince them this genre can hold its own, artistically speaking
Musical tastes: I like a lot of stuff, slanted toward old man music. Very familiar with 60s 70s 80s pop and rock. 90s sort of. Last couple decades not so much. I listen to a lot of jazz and classical, some blues and reggae. Love old Stones, Kinks, Beastie Boys, Clash, Bruce, VU, Neil Young, Pretenders. 80s college radio stuff like REM/Pavement, old country (Bob Wills on up through Willie/Waylon/Merle/Cash). Alt-country stuff like Lucinda Williams, Lyle Lovett
Any other judging notes: I am basically looking to learn about the genre and find new stuff to listen to. I know it’s a broad category, but hoping to get a variety. Unsure if beautiful haunting slow songs would do better, or rockers, or (ahem) bangers, or what. Somewhat suspicious of EDM, but maybe that is just prejudice and someone can convert me. You probably don’t run the risk of submitting something I know well, unless it was from the 80s, or was so popular in the last couple decades that I would have just heard it around somewhere. If it is somehow overly familiar it might drop a little, but if it’s still good I wouldn’t drop it below a song I don’t really dig. Not looking for Kraftwerk or Einstürzende Neubauten or anything like that. Two songs I like a lot:
I love this song, hard to explain why exactly. It seems to be more of a “traditional” pop song with chords, verse, chorus, solo. I would say that a droning or techno-trance type song would be a riskier bet, but then again I also like this song, so who knows (probably first heard it on West Wing):
Deviating from “normal” songs could be a high risk/high reward thing. Oh and I don’t really know songs from previous Walri (?) so a repeat would not be penalized, although I assume other veterans might bust your chops.
As you can see I am a wordy motherfucker
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Then you fit right in 
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Category host name: Louis Cyphre
Category: A song that DOES NOT feature an electric guitar. No acoustic/cover versions of songs with electric guitars.
Musical tastes: I mainly listen to rock and metal (from vanilla to extreme) and their siblings, cousins and bastards. I also listen to pop, hip-hop, some classic, a tiny bit of opera and I can generally find something I like in most genres.
Basically no-hoper genres: hardcore techno/gabber, Operetta
Dubious genres: Electronic (although some electronic music did well in the previous categories I judged), Jazz, country/western, disco, RNB, Soul
Any other judging notes:
There are two rules that if broken will lead to a low score.
- The song should not annoy me.
- The song should not bore me.
Warning: I might judge very well-known songs harshly.
If possible include a Spotify link in your submission.
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Yeah, I’m liking the cut of this guy’s jib.
As nearly always I will be in for the lurking/railing/hearting whilst praying for copious butthurt.
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These categories are hard and I think I’m going to end up punting a lot of them due to time constraints.
I don’t mind harder categories at all, but I think we should give more time with the submission deadline.
The deadline is just for coming up with a category, not submissions. That said I don’t know if I’ll have time to participate at this point; I’ll make a decision by Sunday but thinking I might just go back to my usual role of railing. Would recommend people not worry about my category until Monday.
Which ones are the hardest? I’m thinking 1930’3-40’s and spoken word? Most of the others seem pretty broad.
Hard is the wrong word; more that I don’t really know where to start and don’t have that much time to put in figuring out what I want to submit for them. I forgot that I don’t actually listen to much music and most of what I listen to I got from previous walruses.
FUCK YEAH I HAVE FANS
to clarify something in my category, “bangers” was used kind of as a joke since I don’t really know what it is, I’ve just seen the term. After one minute of research, it looks like it involves Pitbull and Bud Light–Party/dance music, I guess? I looked up one of his vids (a billion views!) and it would… not do well
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Category host name: Lawnmower_Man
Category: Video Game OST (1990-2005)
TLDR: Pick a video game released between 1990 and 2005 that you think has an underrated original soundtrack.
Provide an original video game soundtrack from this time period. I’m asking you to pick an actual game, not an individual track from that game. Individual video game tracks tend to be rather short and repetitive, and I don’t want the judging to be between different tracks from the same game. You can certainly base your pick on just a single track, and that’s probably a pretty good rule of thumb since all of the music in a game tends to be written by the same composers in a similar style. The game can be of any format (console, PC, arcade, portable), and the soundtrack should be original music composed specifically for the game.
Why these dates? In the context of video games, part of the reason is hardware related: this is roughly the time period beginning with 16-bit home consoles and extending up through 64-bit consoles. For art and music in general, I feel like there’s something in this (approximate) time period that is distinct and worthy of appreciation.
Musical tastes: Jazz, blues, electronic, rock, metal, fusion, pop, hip-hop but there are no dubious or hopeless styles for this.
Judging notes: I will give very strong preference to anything that isn’t obvious, familiar, or popular. Duplicated submissions automatically go behind all other submissions. I’m looking for underappreciated soundtracks that I and most others may not be aware of or valuing properly. Trap warning: if your game appears near the top of most video game soundtrack listicles then it’s probably really obvious even if the game itself seems obscure.
Here are examples of some of my favorite soundtracks that I would consider strong picks representing a variety of sounds and styles from the beginning, middle, and end of the period:
Sword of Vermilion (Sega Genesis, 1991)
Street Fighter III Third Strike: Fight for the Future (Arcade, 1999)
Perfect Dark Zero (Xbox 360, 2005)
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that doesn’t seem like a walrus category. we pick songs. are you a communist? we had a video game soundtrack category two grab bag’s ago.
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I’ve never played a video game with a soundtrack, I would be lost
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I play video games and you can add that to the list of categories I don’t have a good place to start and don’t feel like dealing with.
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I play video games and I couldn’t name a single game for this category. I’d have to listen to a bunch of soundtracks which takes countless hours.
You can’t name a single game that you think has good music? That’s extremely weird to me. I can probably name dozens that I haven’t played in over a decade or longer.