well, then, I already have yours ready to go
I have two songs immediately for this category, and at the same time I could see them both not qualifying depending how strictly you view the definition of your category. So this should be a fun decision for me.
What qualifies as being about religion/spirituality?
A song that has the word “god” in it?
A song that uses a random bible verse or includes a theme from the bible without mentioning god?
Users choice? ← preferred ruling.
My preference is that the entire theme of the song is about religion/spirituality (anti, for, satire, whatever).
A song that uses a bible verse to talk about something else (love, sex, etc) isn’t really what I was going for.
Also, doesn’t have to be christian, either.
Here is a summary of all the categories. I think it’s safe to assume this won’t be changing:
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:
- 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
- Pierre Kwenders and Jacobus - Mardi Gras
- The New Pornographers – Crash Years
- Despistado - A Stirstick’s Prediction
- Virgin Snatch - Face In The Dirt (1:17-5:07)
Three of those are in another language, and I do always appreciate that.
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.
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.
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.
Category host name: superuberbob
Category: Guitarless rock bands. Two conditions must be met to fit this category
- The band must not have a guitarist employed as a member
- The song that you pick from that band must not use a guitar (bass okay though). So a normally guitarless band featuring a guest guitarist would not count.
Musical tastes: The topic restricts you to rock music and my music tastes skew towards rock. I honestly don’t know how many guitarless rock bands there are and how much music they’ve produced. I can’t think of one off the top of my head and I’m curious to see what you find.
Any other judging notes: I assume most of what I get is going to be obscure and unknown to me since a guitar is considered an essential tool of a popular rock band. So I doubt it’ll play a role in evaluating the best of the group.
Category host name: seities
Category: Find me a new Rap or EDM song!
note - below is an edited category description which hopefully is more clear than the original.
I have listened to a lot of Rap and “Hard” EDM this year. I would like to find a new song I like from one of those genres. I will list some examples of songs I like below as a guide. So just try to submit something that you think I might like, based on these examples 
Musical tastes:
Rap
I’m going to try and give examples that have been posted previously in Walrus (by me or someone else):
I correctly won a category judged by Louis with this: Too Many Zooz - Talkin Bout feat. Armani White (Audio) | Subway Gawdz - YouTube
Yuv submitted this song that won a category of mine (I had not heard it before): snoop doggy dogg - murder was the case - YouTube
I think it was Swanky who posted this absolute banger in a Walrus gone by: Little Simz - might bang, might not (Official Audio) - YouTube
I (correctly again) won a Louis category with this one: NF - The Search - YouTube
Generally I think I am just looking for a good, catchy flow. More recent artists like Kendrick, Drake, Travis Scott, etc are usually far more miss than hit from me.
Hard EDM
I’m not entirely sure “Hard” is the best categorization of my EDM preferences but its difficult for me to find a better term.
I was incorrectly not given 1st by someone (I think Pyat) when I submitted this: Hybrid - Choke - YouTube
Same again with this: Gesaffelstein - PURSUIT (Official Video) - YouTube
I did well in a miliboo category with this, but of course should have won: roeVy - Blacksmoke (Nadisko RMX) - YouTube
Other bands that play in a similar space that I have been listening to a lot of: Hyper, BT (thanks, Skydiver8), Blanck Mass, The Prodigy
I don’t know enough about EDM composition to describe the commonalities too well - probably just that they have driving beats, dark or atmospheric qualities, and for me its stuff that helps me get into flow.
Any other judging notes: I’m going to penalize stuff that is quite well known. Please don’t submit anything by artists I listed above - it won’t be new to me.
Category host name: Pauwl
Category: A soundtrack song
Category definitions:
It could be from a movie but doesn’t have to be. Just something that you can picture being in a movie or playing during a scene in your life even.
Musical tastes: I tend to focus on how songs make me feel rather than focusing on lyrics. I like songs where a certain part will make me throw my arms back like the Cristo, tilt my chin up and close my eyes. Or songs that build a sense of tension and make it seem like something bad is going to happen. Like in a movie soundtrack.
Any other judging notes: Really popular songs will be judged harshly. I play Walrus to learn new music not to rank the mega hits.
Category host name: Tilted
Category: “I dance best when I dance alone” - Give me the song that you can’t help but to crank it up and dance to even if you are alone and in your underwear on a Sunday morning. This can be a subtle head nod or a full blown disco.
Musical tastes: More into lyrics than instrumentals but I’m open for anything. Some of my favorites lately include: Kendrick Lamar, Badbadnotgood, Polish Ambassador, Tyler Childers, Flo and Eddie, Earl St. Clair, Rancid, Vulfpeck.
Category host name: Skydiver8
Category: A song about religion/spirituality by a “non-religious” artist/group
Category definitions:
This can be satire, it can be hate, it can actually be spiritual/religious…it just has to be by an act that doesn’t do that type of music as their main genre.
Musical tastes: As you may know already, I appreciate good lyrics. I am a lyrics-listener at heart, and I’m especially happy when they are combined with great music. As for specific genres, I prefer rock, punk, post-punk, synthpop, “old school” hip hop (or that style) and even some more modern rock/pop. Things that will get voted down are mumble rap and screamy metal. I need to understand the lyrics, yall. Also, I kind of hate modern pop/bro country.
Any other judging notes: Please submit a song with lyrics. I am sure most classical music from the Romantic period and earlier were all written “for the glory of god” or whatever, but I don’t want to have to research that when judging. Elvis or other acts that were already half gospel will be judged harshly. If the act you submit put out a gospel album at some point in their careers, I will mark you down. Finally, new-to-me is best, ldo. Oh! NO CHRISTMAS MUSIC!!!
P.S. Just to head it off at the pass, I’m going to go ahead and eliminate this from contention by giving it as an example. If I don’t, I fear I will get 10 identical submissions. Don’t submit this. Yes, I love it: <XTC - Dear God>
Category host name: CanadaMatt3004
Category: A song from a Canadian band. Solo artists do not count.
What does everyone think about 2 weeks as a timeline? I’m counting 9 entrants here, so we could say end of day Dec 17 to have all songs submitted? Pauwl will kick off his reveal 5 minutes into Dec 18 in this case.
Also I will need someone to collect the entries for my category to pass them on to me.
3 Likes
When you send in your songs for each category please send them in this format:
Category Owner:
Song:
Artist:
Link:
put the link here, on a new line. use three ''' symbols on each side of the link. This makes it much easier to copy paste
Comments: <optional - use this to describe how your song meets the brief, or is clearly the best, or whatever>
All songs for seities’ category can be sent to me.
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Any info on your music preferences?
Spotify says my audio aura is silly and angsty.
I like fun shit I can dance to or hard shit I can rock to. I generally shy away from rap/r&b/country, but if you look at my old Walruses, some of my top spots have been from those categories. Im partial to the 80s and 90s over more current music, but again, new stuff vibes with me from time to time.
My top genres in 2021 were Comedy, comic, show tunes, alternative metal, and punk. And my top artists were Ninja Sex Party, KDA, Garfunkle and Oates, Bad Religion, and Sevendust.
Hope that helps
Have we confirmed that a rock band that doesn’t employ a guitarist exsits?
Google suggests they do.
33 Rock Bands Without Guitars | Articles @ Ultimate-Guitar.Com
I count electronic rock as rock music. Note: Bass guitar is allowed.
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My question for @superuberbob is what about bands who didn’t start with guitars (like, their first albums didn’t have them) then added them later as they evolved, or vice versa?
He just asked for a rock song without an electric/acoustic guitar. Why are we complicating this?
“1. The band must not have a guitarist employed as a member”
I would say if the wikipedia color code thing for when members were in the band shows no guitarist when the song you picked came out, then you’re in the clear.
Or just do what Yuv said and yolo it. Technicality research for walrus is aggravating.
My bad. Can we just use my definition @superuberbob? A guitar-less rock song sounds easier than googling band members definitions
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Fuck it. I’m going with my first thought, which is a song by a band who have reinvented themselves several times, including a guitarless period. Maybe I’ll submit a live version, just to prove it.
When I was on vacation in Mexico at the start of the pandemic, there was a karaoke night. This group of like 20 American Christians (matching shirts) were dominating the karaoke singing shit like “Let It Be” and torch songs. Then this middle aged British guy went up and sang “Dear God” by XTC and then sat back down all proud. I thought it was great!
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Correct.
Are these different?