Sign Up for Walrus Grab Bag 5—More music based shenanigans

Sports & Other Games
103

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:

  1. Rizzle Kicks - Down with the Trumpets
  2. El Cuarteto de Nos - Ya no sé qué hacer conmigo
  3. No One Is Innocent - A La Gloire Du Marché
  4. Phoenix Rise – Protest
  5. grandson – Stick Up
  6. Backxwash – Deviancy
  7. The New Pornographers – Crash Years
  8. Virgin Snatch - Face In The Dirt (1:17-5:07)
  9. Propagandhi – Victory Lap
  10. 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.

6 Likes
104

Obvious pandering for Bob

1 Like
105

As I read the list, I knew that I had none of them. But I have other virtues. Ambition, resourcefulness, devotion.

2 Likes
106

Bob gonna shock everyone by submitting some Cuban shit.

107

Gonna be weird when I pick a band from Christmas Island.

2 Likes
108

I’ll start WW3 by submitting a Taiwanese artist.

5 Likes
109

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.

5 Likes
110

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
111

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
112

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.

113

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?

114

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.

115

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.

116

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.

117

Oh, I think we agree. I had your category in mind. I didn’t think there was still any argument about the country category.

119

My category is one of the larger categories posted so far.

120

No offense taken :-)

If I relate my own experience to this Walrus:

Pauwls Category - I listen to very little country, but I do like a few Townes Van Zandt tracks. So I am going to look for stuff adjacent to his. Perfectly fine with the category, its been left quite broad by Pauwl which I think allows me to connect with something I like. If the category was “Country song that starts with Y” or something else that distills down my choices more than what he has presented, I’d be putting in 15 minutes and moving on.

Microbet’s Category - He’s looking for music from before my parents were born. I couldn’t name any off the top of my head, nor do I particularly enjoy music from that long back. I found a parameter to try and connect this time period to stuff I came to like later, did a quick search, and submitted something I listened to that I didn’t dislike. I’ll be honest, I am not particularly excited about this category personally but two decades is a long period of time, and in the 5-10 minutes I spent trying to get a feel for music of the time I did learn a little something.

SuperUberBob - It just so happens Ive been sitting on something for a while with a spoken word component but doubted I would find a category to submit it to. So, for me this one is relatively easy.

So like, those are categories that I can see people might find tricky, but I don’t have much trouble submitting for.

Contrasting with your category (respectfully, just explaining my thought process here) - It is requiring me to be familiar with video game sountracks (I am not) and also know enough about its reception to feel it is underrated. I do appreciate the thought you put into the category, really I do. I can see you are looking for something that plays into a genre and time period that you are familiar with, and you took the time to post examples. But for me there is a big difference between what your category is asking me to do and what the other ones I listed earlier are asking for from me.

Oh and just for completeness, I am totally unsure on smrk4’s category at this point. Reading it, I don’t immediately connect anything to submit, but I have a feeling that when I actually start looking through my playlist I’ll spot a few things. It helps that I think he and I have a decent overlap in our musical preferences.

Everything else I’m confident I can find stuff to submit easily and will just be spending my time looking for the best fit I can.

121

All I’m asking you to do is name a game that you remember having good or even just memorable music. You’re telling me that you never noticed that, say, the Mario and Zelda games had incredible soundtracks?

122

Only played one Mario game in the 80s (music was bleep-bloop). Never played a Zelda game.

123

Fortunately there are thousands of other games with great music which works out well since you’re a gamer.