[WALRUS] Shad Walrus 2021

#1

I'm in a bit of a pickle. I normally run this on MU, but I can't post there until June 1st, and I have a golden window right now starting June 8th to actually knock out scoring a bunch of these. I... am not sure why it took me until today to realize I could just post it here, but here we are. I will still be revealing this on MU, but y'all get a week head start for submissions.

Please send me the urls only. I find out who wins live, with you. You can PM them here or via Discord, but if you send them via Discord, please use the ``` formatting tag or else it will auto-spoil.

Category 1 is due June 7th. If you can try to have the first three to four to me by June 10th, it would be much appreciated. Hard deadline for the full list is June 22nd. But in general I would rather you sub late than not at all. One batch of subs per participant this year, sorry. I was anticipating 35+ subs before the short submission window became a factor, so I still might end up with a lot.

My reveals are a bit different from a typical Walrus. I like to make an event of it. There will be no reveals until I'm pretty much 90% finished with every category, whether that takes me one month or three, at which point I will reveal all 8 categories over the span of about two weeks.

What to sub -- I would highly recommend sampling the tracks I provided. Beyond generic enjoyment, I'm usually looking for whether a tune captures a particular aesthetic I've laid out. The samples should hopefully flesh out a lot of vagueness in my descriptions. I'm known to rely heavily on category relevance for scoring.

Tastes -- I enjoy fuzzy, harsh, and complex sounds that blur together. I enjoy extremes of intensity and meditative calm. I like music that feels organic without trying. I like music that feels willfully inorganic. There's a conventional middle ground that doesn't pass as easily for me. I am more inclined to queue up albums or discographies than individual songs, though the extended mood appeal doesn't factor as heavily in the context of a walrus. On a related note, while I am an avid collector of vgm, individual vgm tracks tend to fair middling when I run these. I struggle to submit to walruses without sending at least one 10+ minute track, and I won't veto anything to mine under 20. Here's some genre preference copypasta from years ago:

Spoiler: show

Onward to the categories, which for better or worse I am extremely satisfied with this time:

This year we're getting the crew together and going on a world tour. I just got around to fumigating the van from 2020, so there won't be any dubious odors and we can all get along for at least the first category.

1. 8am on a Delaware boardwalk
We're kicking off our tour in the sun and sand with a warm ocean breeze. There are some boats on the horizon, but we aren't on them, and we certainly aren't defending the coast from space pi-borgs. Even the mutant squids lounge peacefully this morning. We're just chillin'. I am an adrenaline junkie and prefer a bit of pep in my step, but this is not the place for Alestorm.
Samples:
Chon - No Signal
The Decemberists - Billy Liar
Khruangbin - People Everywhere (Still Alive)

2. 10am beneath the arch of a submerged Atlantic grotto, but humans can't breathe under water so this might be bad
Hours of lying out in the sand fantasizing about adventures beyond inspired us to take the tour to sea. But as it turns out, the ocean actually kind of sucks. It's incredibly lonely, and there's water everywhere and not really anything else. Send me something with an oceanic or nautical vibe. It doesn't have to be bleak or forlorn necessarily, but that's the feel in my head. Drowning, adrift, succumbing to something vastly beyond you. Reflection comes with an acceptance that you might never return. Fancies are esoteric and uninviting. It goes beyond mood though. There's something tonally or rhythmically aquatic echoing the scene. That's the perfect cat fit, but you can play around with it. The samples might be above average informative here. They helped originate the idea and capture it in, I think, very different ways.
Samples:
The Ruins of Beverast - Ropes Into Eden
Isidore - The Privateer
Isis - Hym

3. 11am at a MIDI street performance in Renaissance Spain
I'm not quite sure how we washed up here, but nothing inspires art like the stench of human waste baking in its shallow street-side grave. A wizard tips his hat and plagued vermin scatter off a cadaver resting casually against a dusty stone wall as we set up the Casio next to a nude figure in stocks who laughs maniacally any time we make eye contact. The rabble quickly assemble--ragged bodies dancing to St. Vitus under a filth-blotted sun. Send me something rough and medieval.

I don't mind whether it's holistically positive or negative, and you can sub a poppier tune if you're really stumped, but a perfect cat fit ought to have something harsh, bleak, primordial about it. I'm going to offer a lot of samples, but medieval metal, dungeon synth, neoclassical darkwave, and European folk that's rough around the edges have a home here.
Samples:
A Compendium of Curiosities - Hope Never Dies Forever
Sangre Cavallum - Barbara Carmina A.C.
Mystras - The Zealots of Thessaloniki
Stary Olsa - Drygula
Obsequiae - In the White Fields
Dwarrowdelf - A Pyre For Our Fallen Kin
Dead Can Dance - Xavier

4. 4pm gargling sand at a gas station in post-apocalyptic Nevada
Everyone's a used car salesman in this town. Whether we're staring in awe at the natural stone monoliths on the horizon of the vast emptiness that brought us here or bartering for black market implants next to the Shinra company store, the desert is a harsh and cynical environment with none of its urban counterpart's mechanical pulse. Motion here is a dry-mouthed, sand-blasted fight for survival. No home for the sentimental; nostalgia would require fond memories to look back on. We've never known a world outside of this hell. Similar to cat 2, an ideal fit aims beyond mood and captures the scenery. This is not an urban space. We're the outcasts from that shelter.
Acid Mothers Temple - Blue Velvet Blues (NSFW album cover)
MF Doom - Cellz (Born Like This)
Krallice - Wretched Wisdom

5. 9pm at apparently every Tokyo nightclub
Time to leave the slums behind and jam for the higher casts. We should probably rent suits for tonight's set, but let's face it, none of us have enough class to make it through the door. If you want to keep your jeans on and go for a hybrid, that's fine, but top shelf entertainment is the ideal. I want to hear something that swings.
Samples (No, it doesn't have to be Japanese):
Mamoru Miyano - Last Dance
Ringo Sheena - Meisai
Yoichi Murata - Jump Up, Super Star!

6. 11pm in a Barbi world
Viking warriors waging eternal intergalactic battle to save the anime catgirl race. Unicorns farting rainbows over a pink glitter moon. Category 6 has gone by many names, but it's never really changed. Entertain me immediately and completely. I want ironic aural ecstasy.

Things to send me:
Eurobeats
Speedcore
Meme bangers
Touhou remixes
Kpop/Jpop

Things to not send me:
Moody music unless the mood can be described with the word "squeeeeeee".

Last year I encouraged people to recycle songs I'd been sent before. Going to veto that this time. Samples:
NOMA - Brain Power
Dragostea Din Tei Eurobeat Remix
Red Velvet 레드벨벳 '러시안 룰렛 (Russian Roulette)
Kobaryo - Cross the Finish Line

7. Beyond time at the peak of a mountain worshipped by anthropomorphic bears
Constant touring is the true realization of non-self, and our journey is nearing a close. We unload the yaks and levitate to the height of serenity to perform as one with the gods, eternity stretching out all around us from our transcendent pillar to heaven. Send me a song for mountains. A song that takes in everything and rises with it. A sense of wind and nature and vastness drawn together into a singularity.
Jambinai - Onda
Alcest - Les Iris
Panopticon - Chase the Grain

8. 2am at a dive bar in Cincinnati
And we're finally back. But you didn't save the best for last. You've been going all out since the opener. Your bassist looks like he's in a coma and your drummer's already kicked over half his set. You light your last cigarette and absent-mindedly tug at the volume knob that's already maxed out. One final rush of adrenaline. One final moment of clarity before you fuzz out into half-conscious oblivion. It's closing time.
Engine Kid - Mountain High
Boris - 枯れ果てた先 -Ka Re Ha Te Ta Sa Ki – No Ones Grieve- Live at Wolf Creek
Marble Sheep - The Interval of Recollections and Memory

**http://www.last.fm/user/nutella23** · #2

AAAAAAAA SHADRUS HYPE <3

It's the most wonderful tiiiiiiime of the yearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

#3

I have found a song that I have replayed twice now. I think it is going well.

#4

swag

pretend Moose is also posting something funny below this, he's just too lazy to make a syndicate account

#5

ngl i'm still tilted i tried subbing ringo sheena to you and couldn't get the spotify link or whatever to work so gave up and then you ended up loving her the walrus right after

#6

LordQuas wrote: ↑Fri May 28, 2021 4:07 am ngl i'm still tilted i tried subbing ringo sheena to you and couldn't get the spotify link or whatever to work so gave up and then you ended up loving her the walrus right after

I did finally set up a spotify account a couple weeks ago to link a song to someone that had been purged from youtube

I don't think I've ever listened to anything else on it, but I should be able to

I have no idea if the music bots can support it though. I'm thinking they probably can't or I'd have noticed people subbing Spotify links to other walruses by now?

#7

I don't make any conscious effort whatsoever to use prior subs in my samples, but as it panned out, twelve of them here are from subs I got in previous years. That's pretty cool.

**http://www.last.fm/user/nutella23** · #8

the bot does actually work with spotify links yeah, shub used a couple for mine

#9

yeah music bots absolutely work with spotify

#10

Any Banned artist?

**http://www.last.fm/user/nutella23** · #11

extremely happy with all of my subs glgl

#12

Shad wrote: ↑Thu May 27, 2021 10:06 pm medieval metal, dungeon synth, neoclassical darkwave, and European folk

#13

Made wrote: ↑Sat May 29, 2021 8:09 pm Any Banned artist?

Just the sample tracks.

Music I'm super familiar with tends to be at a slight disadvantage for scoring.

#14

i'll sub

#15

#STANLOONA

Kpop has arrived!

#16

You're going to have some tight competition with that Ace Marvel guy.

#17

i will probably sub to this and lose, but sub i will. remining myself.

#18

Reminder that I would very much appreciate cat 1 by tomorrow! By all means take your time on 4-8, and all submissions are welcome through 6/22, but I'm going to start listening to cat 1 subs on Tuesday.

#19

#20

Last day for submissions!

#21

Sorry I couldn't submit for this Shad, I would have loved to

#22

You can still send something if you want. The first three categories might score lower by default. It will be a while before I even touch anything past 4.

#23

I'm at the half way hump now, and 5 and 6 tend to go the fastest.

Thinking full reveal should start no later than 8/18 pending the unforeseen.

#24

I'm currently looking at 8/18 through 8/22 and 8/25 through 8/27 for reveal nights, on MU discord.

#25

Reveals start in about an hour, MU Discord.

#26

1. 8am on a Delaware boardwalk
We're kicking off our tour in the sun and sand with a warm ocean breeze. There are some boats on the horizon, but we aren't on them, and we certainly aren't defending the coast from space pi-borgs. Even the mutant squids lounge peacefully this morning. We're just chillin'. I am an adrenaline junkie and prefer a bit of pep in my step, but this is not the place for Alestorm.

#27

41st place:

staypositivefriend

Rilo Kiley - The Execution of All Things

I remember Rilo Kiley being a common talking point in the early 2000s indie scene, but I never got deeper than a sample track here and there. If this was one of them, I wouldn't be surprised. It seems like an odd song to put last, but eh. It's extremely repetitive while being too rock and rolly to land on the sort of meditative repetitive that appeals to me. The instrumentation is very basic, and the lyrics, while promising, don't quite reach a level of continuity sufficient for her bear genocide to feel any more cleverly absurd than her trip to Omaha. There's almost no vocal variation in how she presents them, and that wears on me quickly too. Plus I don't get the beach relevance beyond indie-rock has it kind of as a genre. It's got the trappings of a genre and attitude that would work for me sometimes, so I'm sorry if you were mislead, but I kind of actively dislike it.

4.0

#28

40th place:

Made

Amnesty - Liberty

Libery Liberty Liiiiiiberty... Ok, that's unfair. But the guitar in this is so dull it might as well not exist. They can sing, and that's cool, but it's not doing much of anything for me, and repetition is anti-helping. I mean, I think it's a thoughtful sub in that I'm known to enjoy this sort of bare bones stuff. But there's lofi with the sense that you could aim higher but don't give a fuck, and then there's lofi because you just don't know what you're doing. This sounds like a guy who was shown how to strum a power chord for the first time an hour ago and is trying to not make mistakes. My ears can't get past that. The vocals spared it last place.

I periodically come back to this going should I have REALLY given it a 4.5 considering what I'm putting in the 5 range elsewhere. Perhaps not. Each collection of songs is its own beast, and the vocals in this alone outclass most subs in that point range, but God the guitar is just so so bad. It's so bad. They could have done almost anything else there and been better off for it.

4.5

#29

39th place:

PunchyTheCat

Taylor Swift - The Last Great American Dynasty

This is the first time I've ever heard Taylor Swift, so I had a pretty blank slate walking into it. The instrumentation is pleasant and loosely functional in a beachy context, though more secluded wilderness than tourist town--a nitpicky point I'm sure I'll revisit down the line. But the music is very focused to highlight the vocals, and the vocals are very simplistic to highlight the lyrics, and the lyrics are very direct to highlight the story, and the story is very Wikipedia entry to me. I don't feel like there's much artistic inspiration here on any level on Taylor's part. I worry that I'm being overly harsh because she's a pop star, but I mean, story-telling is clearly what this song's all about. This is being shipped as a singer-songwriter sort of thing that rises or falls on her ability to lyrically and vocally captivate, and that's the level my head's going to process it at.

So I guess it's not that I dislike the music more than 39 other subs. That much is in the unobtrusive average sphere for me. I just think the lyrics are extremely forced in a song that heavily draws attention to them, and it's a game-ender for me.

4.8

#30

38th place:

Bloobird

Cayucas - Jessica WJ

Something about playful songs artificially relating shallow love interests... In the absence of cuttingly clever lyrics or a massive dose of relatable innocence, I always end up taking them slightly more seriously than I ought to and hearing it like, me like girl, girl leave, me sad ... I recognize they're just having fun, but this is a presentation I usually struggle with. And the music bores directly into that zone I vaguely described in the op between organic and inorganic that just does nothing for me. I do get its relevance to a beach category.

5.0

#31

37th place:

Aladyyn

Blue Effect - Čajovna

This one gets the chop next for its limited replay value. It started out pretty high on my list; it's certainly my style. But there's very little variation branching off from the opening 7 seconds of the song. My first impression was a chill ride. By the third or fourth I was starting to notice that nothing was happening. By the time I sat down to write about it I was kind of like, god play something else already. And maybe that shouldn't be cause to completely tank it. Maybe first impressions should have value in a game where each track only gets revealed once. But I just can't keep listening to this; it's starting to actually irritate me.

5.2

#32

36th place:

KnightsofCydonia

The Desert Sessions - Something You Can't See

I did a triple take and had to start googling when I saw Queens of the Stone Age as the host account. I hadn't listened to them since since Lullabies to Paralyze but couldn't imagine their sound had changed this much. Made sense when I figured out it was a side project.

Hmm... This did trend up for me a little bit once it caught up in plays to the earlier subs, but it's definitely not for me. I warmed up to the Staley-lite vocals as a style, but they get very repetitive in the chorus, and the one-trick drumming isn't helping much. The guitar licks have a nice subtle touch that feel appropriate for the category, but it's a struggle to pry them out of a package I'm not really vibing.

5.5

#33

35th place:

Kane

AJJ - Brave as a Noun

I have thoroughly fallen in love with AJJ over the course of running walruses, but I mean, the song is one minute long.

And that's kind of the end of the story. It's beachy in a Pacific coast bonfire sort of way, but if you're going this short, you just have to drill it unequivocally, lyrics and all. I hate to tank a band I love, but I can't get past the length and limited relevance vis-a-vis so many subs that had five times the content to chew on.

5.6

#34

34th place:

Logic

Lucas Ricciotti - The Last Flight

This would have been an extremely functional submission to cat 7. I'm definitely thoroughly enjoying it. But I just... I don't get it here. It's a sunrise at the end of a journey. If I tried to place it on a beach, it would be on the edge of a forest in complete solitude, not next to carnie rides. I really don't want to tank it, but it's a swing and a complete miss on the category for me.

5.7

#35

33rd place:

LordQuas

Tatsuro Yamashita - Sparkle

This style ought to do pretty well with me, and it took a while to put my finger on why I felt so comfortable shifting it down farther and farther when I needed to make room. It's the vocals. His voice feels very rounded out on the edges, lacking punctuation, almost on the brink of mumbling, in a song that demands crispness all over. It's been bugging me all along, and once I was able to articulate what was bothering me, I didn't feel bad letting it tumble.

6.0

#36

32nd place:

BoKnows

Great Big Sea - The Night Pat Murphy Died

This is fine. I mean, I tend to think of Great Big Sea as folk punk lite, but that's appropriate for the category. I don't know if this is the right track for me though. I get that it's a Newfoundland traditional, but it's got enough pulse to make me want to hear it maxed out Pogues or DKM style. I've listened to Up a fair bit, and I think a track like Run Runaway or Rant and Roar would have done a lot more for me here.

6.2

#37

31st place:

Moose

Jeremy Morris - jermaJam

I ended up watching 20 minutes of rat movie and related videos instead of working, and that's got to be worth something. Having no idea who Jeremy Morris is, I'm not fully in on the jokes in play here. The spoken clips don't really function when the song's taken in isolation, and it could have scored a bit higher without them. But this still bops beachy and helped me learn my ABCs along the way. I refuse to tank you, though you did get outmemed in the end.

6.5

#38

30th place:

vanity.

Punch Brothers - New York City

And this is the last of the great full tanks. When I said chilling on a beach, I didn't mean freezing to death. Snowfall and frostbite aren't a great thematic start. I would love to hear bluegrass approach this category, but it's not the sort of sound I automatically associate with the theme, and this song rather explicitly takes me to New York City in the dead of winter. It's right up my alley on the tastometer and could have top 10'd somewhere if I felt it belonged. I hate tanking this. But it's so far off the mark from the category that I can't really give it a pass here.

Every time I see Nonesuch pop up it's something I like. I really need to explore that label.

I returned to this later on in light of offering more favorable scores to tracks I felt were far off the mark but very enjoyable. I stand by my completely fair and unbiased stance of I don't pay attention to lyrics except when I do, but this tune stuck with me quite a while after finishing up cat 1, and for that I think it merits a bump up into the near-contenders.

6.8

#39

29th place:

soah

Faustian Pact - Saastainen valo lintutornissa

Well, this should be so jarring that no one will remember to say JermaJam was robbed.

A valiant effort. If you shipped this to a snow theme I think you could be in contention for a top 10 spot, with those synth bell tones and that really pretty chorus that seems to descend all around me. Placing it into a beach scene takes a bit more imagination. Any metal was going to be a hard sell in this category. It's got a very calming undercurrent appropriate for a relaxed setting in general. I think it's... maybe the best I could hope for with this style, and I'm amused that you found a way to squeeze it in. I'm really enjoying it too. But it's only a fit in the loosest sense, and I have to hold it back a bit for that rank-wise. We're already into pretty high scores here.

7.0

#40

28th place:

Relm

Chris Coole & John Showman - Battle of Cedar Creek

God I was hoping you would send me something I could tank, because that just makes late subs so much easier. But I love this stuff and almost never get it in walruses.

uh

I mean, if I take a step back from directly enjoying it for a moment, it's really not much of a cat fit. It's the sort of thing I listen to driving to West Virginia. I had a category that practically begged for this sort of music a few years ago. It was fairly estranged from the one we're in now.

uh

But it's still something I'd probably actually listen to en route if I actually went to the beach. I'm not sure if that makes it a modest fit, or if I'd be listening to it for the purpose of imagining myself as far away from the beach as possible. Well, I think I'll tuck this in right at the crossroads from hedgy fits I enjoyed a lot to solid fits I enjoyed more than a little.

7.2

#41

27th place:

Zarathustra

Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To

I don't typically enjoy this sort of cookie-cutter rock formula, but the vocals and lyrics are too gaudy to resist. This is probably a more accurate portrayal of beach atmosphere than any of the songs that get there trying. I had a good laugh, especially with the video, but I prefer to manifest my complete lack of class via GWAR.

7.4

#42

26th place:

fluffy rabbit

fusq - Suiito

This is a short but big bleep bass bloopy blip bloobloo blapple blaa.

7.5

#43

25th place:

marmot

Faunts - Explain

I'm already hitting that threshold where everything is great and it's hard to parse the momentary mood appeal of a genre from the bigger picture of how much I enjoy a track. This song has all the right parts for the scene and delivers them in a style that I connect with in a naturally high-scoring way. Free flowing and well performed, mood-centric and just light enough on emotion to feel relatable without jarring me to the point of having to think about it. It can't just default above everything else that wasn't a perfect 9+. It can't just be a genre thing. There has to be something I can point to and go ok, that's why I like this specific song more. And I couldn't find that hook here. No matter how many times I listen to it, I look at the track title an hour removed and can't for the life of me remember what it sounds like. It's a good sub. It wasn't my favorite in its general spectrum, and I have to make room for tunes that got there by wildly different means.

7.6

#44

24th place:

Psycho666Soldier

Menahan Street Band - Tired of Fighting

This jams in a beachy way for sure. Nothing I can fault there. I found it a bit unmemorable in the specifics. It seems like an ideal background track for the occasion. But maybe it's more in the range of something I'd want to hear an album of than a single track. I'm thinking I want to hear stuff like this all day, but not really this in a unique stand-alone way. For better or worse, that's a relevant element in a walrus. It's also rather short, which adds to the feeling that I just need more.

7.7

#45

23rd place:

Cory

Blood Cultures - Set It on Fire

Here's a song that feels like it was just made for this category. If this isn't a playful morning in the sun then I'm not sure what could be. Something in the repetitive rock core of the song wears on me a bit over extended repetition. Not a game-ender, but it's not something I would ever listen to left to my own devices. But it's catchy as hell and fairly creative within that scope, and I would be lying to myself if I pretended it didn't fit perfectly here.

7.8

#46

22nd place:

tane

Steve Hiett - In the Shade

Hmm... I really dig this, but it feels so isolated. This is some southern beach surrounded by nature, which might be pretty nitpicky, but it's such a distinct difference in my head. We're in more of a people place in this category. Plenty of room for solitude in the categories to come. It's really pretty though.

7.9

#47

21st place:

Frog

Quad City DJs - Space Jam

COME ON AND SLAM
AND WELCOME TO THE JAM
COME ON AND SLAM
IF YOU WANNA JAM

HEY, YOU
WHAT YOU GONNA DO?

SLAM

BAM

THANK YOU MA'AM

8.0 HOOP THERE IT IS

#48

TOP HALF

Ace Marvel
Adam
Ampharos
birdwithteeth11
BLOODYRAIN10001
gbsfranca
Keldeo
ladd
Marcher Jovian
MyNameIsNothing
Newcomb
nutella
Owner Of A Lonely Heart
Roman
roro__b
schadd
shubaka17
Tangrowth
Visorslash
Zack

#49

20th place:

BLOODYRAIN10001

Ichika - Circle

God, this is beautiful. I had to make some hard cuts along the way, and out of the numerous tracks I got like this, this one did just a little less for me over a shorter period of time. But I would count everything in the top half of this reveal as fabulous.

8.1

#50

19th place:

Zack

MGMT - Song for Dan Treacy

This is so cute. It doesn't sound quite like I remembered them from the sub I got last year. I can hear the similarities, but they seem to have a nice range. It's maybe a bit heavy on the Blur worship? But that's not a bad thing. This grew on me more than most relative to where I put it initially, and I think it's one of the most obvious cat fits in the mix. I really need to give this band a proper explore. That's 2 for 2 on subs I've loved so far.

8.2