Walrus Grab Bag 6 - Sign Up and Categories

Sports & Other Games
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In a timeline where many things seem to be going down the shitter, there are a few constants we can anchor ourselves to:

  1. Everyone elses musical preferences belong in the shitter, and
  2. We have Rivaldo to help us unclog said shitter.

Walrus celebrates these constants, and it’s back…in pog grab-bag form.

Since we are talking animals, here is some text I have copied from the goat aka @pyatnitski who has done most of the work of running these in the past.

It’s a contest where participants submit one song (youtube/spotify link) to each of a bunch of categories, and the ‘Walrus Master’ ranks those songs, reveals them one-by-one in the results thread and awards points. When the dust settles and all the categories are correctly scored, the one with the most points lost the least.

This time it’s a ‘Grab Bag’, so everyone taking part picks a category, gets the songs submitted to it and does a ranking.

After this post will be a more detailed one with various shite I squeezed out previously to try and bring some order to this grotesque gathering.

The following have indicated they wish to participate, and I dare say we could fit 1 or 2 more. Beyond that we can take names for substitutes in the likely event that somebody comes to their senses and drops out.

@skydiver8
@CanadaMatt3004
@Rivaldo
@superuberbob
@anon29622970
@Yuv
@Tilted
@suzzer99
@eyebooger
@Pauwl
@miliboo

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A rundown of how this will work:

  • Each participant hosts and reveals a category of their selection.

So that means if you enter you will have to choose a category for everyone else to submit a song to. More details on categories below.

Please make sure you can meet your commitment to doing a reveal before entering. It 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 around 16 entrants maximum . That means 16 total reveals, and everyone will have to submit 15 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 be quite a few songs for everyone to think of, it will 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” might be too specific.
  • “A song from the 90’s” is ok. “A song from 1991” is too specific.

Think of categories as a way to have someone connect something they like to something you want to hear.

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.

Scoring Rules:

In general in each category bottom place gets 1 point, second bottom 2 points, and so on.

Exciting additional scorung rules:

  • Your 2 lowest scores will be discarded for the final total, to allow you to go for some some high risk / high reward submissions (e.g. Melt Banana)
    • If there’s fewer than ten contestants we’ll probably only discard one score, but I trust that won’t be the case.
  • You will pick one of your submissions to be your ‘joker’, and it means you’ll actually score 1.5x your points for that category in the final reckoning.

Next steps:

  1. Signups. Just post here.
  2. Your category should be submitted in this thread by end of day Monday (29th of November), but the sooner the better. Once that deadline passes sign-ups are over and everyone is LOCKED IN .
  3. At that point I’ll follow up with a time frame for us all to send our entries. Generally I am going to recommend sending a youtube link for your submissions if you can since it’s more accessible to everyone, but many of us also appreciate a spotify link.

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!

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Admin note - since the last grab bag had the joker and lowest scores discard I kept it in here, but if there is anything resembling a consensus to alter that I’m happy to do so.

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Lets make this simple. To celebrate my namesake, give me a song from a Canadian band, not a solo artist, but a band - with apologies to Bryan Adams

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just my general view on categories - try to pick ones that you think will be fun for the other ~13 people to explore. like kpop songs featuring ukuleles might not be fun for some weirdos. Walrus should be fun and exciting before it starts, only to inevitably turn into a hellish parade of stupid judges with stupid taste.

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This.

I tried to capture that spirit in the second post with some new text:

There are some exceptions, but mostly people I think people prefer to figure out how stuff they really like might fit with categories people submitted, rather than having to google to even find something that meets the category.

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Matt’s category intrigues me enough that I’d like to sign up. I’ll try and think of a category by the weekend.

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image

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There’s only one category announced so far, but I’m going to go with this anyway.

Category host name: eyebooger

Category: A song that fits another category in this grab bag, but you think it will do better with me. (Please tell me which category you are submitting for, as I am a stickler about category fit, and this isn’t intended to be a license to submit absolutely anything)

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 1-5:

  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. Pierre Kwenders and Jacobus - Mardi Gras
  8. The New Pornographers – Crash Years
  9. Despistado - A Stirstick’s Prediction
  10. Virgin Snatch - Face In The Dirt (1:17-5:07)

Three of those are in another language, and I do always appreciate that.

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I’m so excited to adjudicate Anthems Part 2! This time we’re gonna get it right!

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Category host name: meb
Category: Modern Bubblegum Pop
Category definitions: The phrase Bubblegum pop originated in the 1960s, but we’re looking for the modern version here, so songs must have been released after the year 2000 to qualify. As for a definition: pop music in a catchy and upbeat style that is considered disposable, contrived, or marketed for children and adolescents (key note: focus on the upbeat and catchy parts of the definition)
Other judging notes: my preference is for submissions to feature a female solo artist or band with a female lead singer. Also there will be major bonus points for bringing something under the radar that I haven’t heard before to the table as long as it is a good listen and super catchy. For example: Call Me Maybe would be a great category fit but would lose points and rate poorly for being too obvious and well known.
Musical tastes: I hate country. I love pop, alternative, indie rock, EDM, folk rock, some rap and r&b. My musical tastes are eclectic and tend to boil down to just finding something enjoyable and often catchy to listen to. Partly why I thought this would be an interesting category.

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Category host name: suzzer

Category: Supergroups (but not the kind you’re thinking of)

Category definitions: Ok, here’s the game: I want you to put together two bands/artists where the end of one artist’s name flows into the beginning of another.

For example:

  • Clint Black Sabbath
  • U2 Live Crew
  • Peaches and Herb Alpert
  • Captain and Tennille Young
  • Blood, Sweat and Tears for Fears (I don’t mind giving this one away because I hate Blood, Sweat and Tears)

If you can somehow figure out how to string three artists together, feel free. Verbal puns. alternate spellings, acronyms, and partial words are all allowed. As long as the two artist names share at least one syllable, and flow together from a verbal reading of the printed letters, it will count. I won’t get nitty about pronunciation of stuff like Herb the name vs. herb the plant.

One caveat: one artist’s name cannot be fully enclosed in another. For example Captain BeefHeart does not count, even though Heart is obviously a well known band. An out-loud reading of the name needs to make it obvious that two artists are being combined.

Scoring: You will send me one song from each artist. Scoring will be 1/3 on how much the band name makes me laugh, 1/3 if I think you picked the best song by the two artists, and 1/3 how much I like the two songs. So even if I don’t love the songs, if the supergroup name is funny, and I think you picked the best songs, you’ll do ok.

If you pick artists I’ve never heard of, I’ll just do half funniness and half how much I like the songs, since it will be too hard to judge if it’s the artist’s best song.

My examples would all rank very high on the funny scale FWIW. Generally the less the two artists have in common, the funnier the juxtaposition. At least based on me and my stoned friends when we giggled all night coming up with these things 25+ years ago.

Musical tastes: I’m pretty all over the map, especially for this category. I’ll give a lot of latitude for stuff like Young Country that I’m not normally into.

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Oh hell yeah, number 3?

I love love love that song

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I’d play, if possible.

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Category host name: Yuv

Category: New song. Send a song you’ve never heard until the moment of reading this post.

Category definitions:
To me the best part about Walrus is finding new music. If it’s by listening to other entries, listening to your own category or researching others.
It could be a completely new artist for you or one you are familir with but a song you were not.

Musical tastes: i tend to like stuff with some “groove” more, but not necessarily. Avoid things appear grandiose. No symphonic metal, no progressive rock. Also if the time stamp is super unique it will be lost on me cause i’m dumb.

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Not only is it possible, it’s damn well necessary.

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Excellent category idea.

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It’s your call of course - just wanted to mention that people who have run “worst of” categories before have generally not enjoyed themselves. You’re kinda asking music lovers to find music they really didn’t like, and then you have to listen to it all.

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+infinity

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