Walrus is back, you just can’t keep a pointless excuse for argument down for that long. It’s a contest where participants submit one song (youtube/spotify link) for a bunch of categories, and the ‘Walrus Master’ ranks them, reveals them song-by-song in the results thread and awards points. When the dust settles the one with the most points lost the least.
This time it’s a ‘Grab Bag’, so we’ll all get a chance to judge harshly the sincere efforts of others. Everyone taking part picks a category, gets the songs submitted to it and does the ranking.
Anyone welcome, especially new blood. Coming next will be a post about all the detail courtesy of the great @seities. For now though, just savour it.
Each participant hosts and reveals a category of their selection.
This requires a sub-point: Please make sure you can meet your commitment to doing a reveal before entering. This will take hours of your time to listen to all the entries, likely multiple times, then do a writeup for the reveal.
I think we need to cap this at 15 entrants maximum . That means 15 total reveals, and everyone will have to submit 14 entries.
We will set a timeframe by which everyone needs to do their reveals. This will depend on how many entrants there are.
Since there will likely be more submissions required than usual, it is going to be best to not get too specific with your category. For this format it is better to have a broad category where people can easily recall songs they like that will fit, rather than defining a really specific category where people feel like they are just searching for something they don’t care much about to meet the category. For example:
“A song in any language other than english” is probably ok. “A song in French” is too specific.
“A song from the 90’s” is ok. “A song from 1991” is too specific.
If you are unsure about your category just ask for feedback in this thread. People will be happy to help.
Here is a template to use for posting your category :
Category host name: I would put seities here. Because my name is seities. Category: Words to explain your category Musical tastes: Optional, but I like to give a very general idea of stuff I like or don’t like. Any other judging notes: For example, some hosts penalize for overly familiar songs, some don’t. Let us know if you have preferences.
Next steps:
Signups. Will stay open for signups until Thursday Morning euro time. (Jan 21 or until the limit is reached.)
Your category should be submitted in this thread by end of day Friday. (Jan 22nd.)
After all categories are submitted I’ll follow up with a time frame for us all to send our entries, and who to send them to. Generally I am going to recommend sending a youtube link for your submissions if you can since it’s more accessible to everyone.
Last, despite the mundane, rule-laden post that this is, Walrus is meant to be fun. Try not to take any results seriously, and do yourself a favour and don’t take the reveal for your category too seriously either. The fun in this game should be found in the fact that musical tastes vary wildly. Whether your submission gets roasted or toasted take pleasure in the fact that you made them listen to it!
In a grab bag, you submit for all other categories and have to host one of your own. It`s much less daunting than running a whole Walrus, but make sure if you enter that you can do a write up for your category within a couple weeks.
I think I have my category: A song about a historical event (interpret that was narrowly or widely as you like, but the event should be something that at least returns a few google results). Some of the obvious choices will be punished severely.
Welcome 3 new contestants, and our first 2 categories. Both look like fine efforts to me.
I would say (@smrk4 & @CanadaMatt3004 ) that it’s worth following the template in the second post of the thread (repeated below). It asks you to say a little about musical taste and judging attitude which I think is well worth doing, if only to avoid getting sent 14 songs that you will actively hate listening to.
You can see the examples from the last Grab bag in this post:
Category host name: I would put seities here. Because my name is seities. Category: Words to explain your category Musical tastes: Optional, but I like to give a very general idea of stuff I like or don’t like. Any other judging notes: For example, some hosts penalize for overly familiar songs, some don’t. Let us know if you have preferences.
Category host name: Pauwl Category: Old Music (to be kind to millennials, I’ll set it to older than 1990). Musical tastes: I don’t like 80’s hair metal or hard rock. I like new wave, no wave, dark wave, proto-punk and other weird 70’s/80’s music. Older than that is wide open genre wise. Psychedelic, folk, soul, country blues, ragtime, gospel. Even old school country. Any other judging notes: Overly familiar songs will be downgraded in ranking. Don’t enter hits by Zeppelin or classic rock standards.
Category host name: meb Category: A song performed by someone who is more famous for something other than their music Musical tastes: Likes: BANGERS, Pop Music, Indie Rock, Folk Rock, EDM
Dislikes: Country music, Radiohead, Songs with no lyrics Any other judging notes: Must be an original song to that performer (no covers), anything from a musical live, animated, or filmed is ineligible, and if I have to put in deep research to figure out why the performer is famous your entry will be downgraded.
Looks good. I feel like I’d maybe suggest dropping the word ‘more’. Just so there’s no need to care about close judgement calls and the category then obviously includes people who are also famous for their music (and thus presumably good at it), but possibly that’s not in the spirit of what you mean?
Penalising tenuous claims to non-musical fame seems fine.
I think I’m good giving the benefit of the doubt on this sort of thing, but the general spirit of the category is you shouldn’t think of the person as a music artist first.
Category host name: NotBruceZ Category: A cover of a song originally by the Beatles or originally by one of their members solo or a cover by the Beatles or one of their members solo of a song not originally by the Beatles Musical tastes: Very eclectic. See the Unstuck playlist thread. The major sub-genres I am least likely to listen to are probably metal and hardcore/gangster rap. Any other judging notes: LOL if you pick a cover of a song that the Beatles recorded but was not originally by them
I’m definitely sure that this is not too narrow of a category as I have a few albums in my collection (both single artist and compilations) that are purely covers of Beatles songs and it wouldn’t be hard to generate a list of 100s of candidates. If you look at the lists of most-covered songs, they are dominated by the Beatles.
Category: A song about a historical event. Allowing a fair bit of latitude about what counts as a historical event i.e. it doesn’t have to be like a jazz flute sonata about the Treaty of Westphalia. Please identify the historical event in your submission; if you have a history take to go with it that’s encouraged but not at all required.
Musical tastes: I like metal (but not the screamy stuff), most rock, some blues, some pop. Also into a lot of new-age electronic stuff, but not dance music per se. Neutral on punk and hip hop. Country is generally a no go, although with this category I can’t rule it out. I don’t like huddle around the campfire folky stuff, sorry.
Any other judging notes: I will try to be open to submissions I don’t necessarily love but that have musical merit (as I understand it). Won’t be too harsh on popular songs if the historical connection is good, but stay away from lol obvious choices as I already have a few songs in mind that are going to be instant nodiums.
