The Syndicate

The Host + Judging + Song Preferences

Hi! I’m Syn! People tend to come to my walrus reveals because of the banter and my (sometimes bad) attempts at making mean write-ups sound fun. What this means is that I don’t try to find the good in every song, and I make full use of the 0 -> 10 number range when scoring. Category averages between 4-6 are not uncommon.

But! You are welcome to ask me to be nice when you submit, and I will do so. I don’t want anyone to feel bad after a reveal; I want them to enjoy themselves and to want to come to the next one. If having your song judged kindly is what will make it fun for you, do not hesitate to ask for that.

Everyone’s worst score will be dropped at the end of the walrus. I will score songs between 0 and 10 with allowance for overages on the 10s if I have a particularly strong podium. I make use of a single decimal place, so expect to see 3.1s and 8.5s and such. There is no science to my scoring and I mostly go by vibes in the moment and upon reflection when seeing the surrounding songs in the same score cluster. I generally do not judge cat fit closely unless I feel the song is wildly divergent from the spirit of the category.

I listen to each song at least twice.

Lastly, I usually do not offer hints for what to submit. I use walruses to broaden my music tastes, so biasing everyone toward songs I already love always felt wrong. Still, I want to give people a better chance of submitting something I enjoy. Please try to avoid submitting songs over 8 minutes long.

I’ve created a Spotify playlist of songs from previous walruses that won or that ended up on one of my playlists for a while. Check it out!



The winner gets a prize.

Submitters

1. Lyris (Submitted)
2. tutuu (Submitted)
3. Harun (Submitted)
4. WIM (Submitted)
5. Frederico (Submitted)
6. Red (Submitted)
7. marching_hats (Submitted)
8. hollowkatt (Submitted)
9. Yagni (Submitted)
10. Dobby (Submitted)
11. nutella (Submitted)
12. 112 (Submitted)
13. Wisdom (Submitted)
14. falcon45ca (Submitted)
15. Roxy (Submitted)
16. Razane (Submitted)
17. Razane 2 (Submitted)
18. Alexandre (Submitted)
19. Marmot (Submitted)
20. Aoitsuki0 (Submitted)
21. DeadlyEssence01 (Submitted)
22. FrostburnPhoenix (Submitted)
23. local_hero (Submitted)
24. Ola (Submitted)
25. ignoramus (Submitted)
26. Johanna (Submitted)
27. Chocoportals (Submitted)
28. Cuthalion (Submitted)
29. JB (Submitted)
30. Bloobird (Submitted)
31. Dunia (Submitted)
32. Raskolnikov (Submitted)
33. Jambi (Submitted)
34. NateTheLesser (Submitted)
35. Simon (Submitted)
36. Epignosis (Submitted)
37. Tehanu (Submitted)
38. Spacedaisy (Submitted)
39. Made (Submitted)
40. EdwinQ (Submitted)

Categories

Category 1: Things have gone muted, not because you are at peace, but because everything is a little too much. You’ve separated from your body, more observing than experiencing. There’s a detachment to this, though you still feel and think.
What song brings you back to earth?

Category 2: You’ve just undergone something tremendously stressful. It could be anything, but you’re done with it. Loss, struggle, recovery. Now you have to pick up the pieces.
What song gives you the strength to persevere a little longer?

Category 3: Everything has fallen into place, by either luck or just great planning. All you know is that you are having a great time, and you’re having a day or night that you know you’ll look back on fondly as something unique and memorable. Times like these don’t come often.
What song is the anthem for this feeling?

Category 4: You are in love with someone, or you love something. The way you feel for this person (or thing) is incomprehensible, but you embrace it completely. It’s special and unique, something only you feel in your own way.
What song describes what love is for you?

Category 5: You’ve had this song on repeat more than once, and you’re wondering when it’ll finally grow stale. It never does.
What song has stuck with you through it all?

Category 6: Meaningful music is great, but sometimes you just want to bop your head along to something that scratches your brain in the right places.
What song may not be totally insightful or technically complex, yet you consider to be great anyway?

Category 7: Sometimes the darkness wins. It sucks, but it’s inevitable, and it’s something we must accept. Our minds go to places we’d rather not visit. It’s difficult to go through this and come out the other side unscathed. But we survive, and we adapt.
What song spoke to you during a dark time?

Category 8: It’s good to broaden one’s music horizons. Listening to artists from outside our little corner of the world is smart. Let’s back away from English for a moment here.
What non-English song (or not native to you) do you think is particularly good?

Category 9: It is time for blip blop music. You’re in a club. You’re driving. You have a subwoofer. It doesn’t matter; you just want to listen to something electronic that gets your leg bouncing.
What song gets you moving?

Category 10: The wildcard. Maybe a prompt gave you an idea for a song but it didn’t quite fit. Maybe there’s just a song you really like lately. Consider this a freebie category where you can send anything that you believe I will like or resonate with. To keep within the spirit of the prompts…
What song do you want to send me, the host, specifically?

How to Submit + Reveals

You can submit to me on The Syndicate (via PM) or via Discord (Syn#1702). I do not require anonymized subs, but for the sake of easy data entry, removing the embeds would be appreciated. On TS, you can do this by using URL tags. On Discord, you can do this by enclosing each URL in <>.

Please submit YouTube links (this is what the bot can play).

Multiple submissions are accepted. Alts are accepted. That being said, if I receive an ungodly amount of subs, unique submitters will be prioritized over extras. Tentatively, I have no submission cap.

Reveals will be held in the Syndicate Walrus server on Saturdays at 1:00 PM PST / 10:00 PM CET. The first reveal will be at some point after the completion of Wisris, which is currently ongoing.

Submissions close April 9 16.

/in

also signing up for @raz_zaa @ola and jb!

the dunya clan will dominate as usual, razane will probably win because she cheats

@Le petit poussin sign up!

/in to beat the crap of the other JB!

again??

/me in

These cats are… hard

nutella wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 11:49 amagain??

once a year baybeeeee

@Sabiplz look at all these vibey cats smh

nutella wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 1:26 pm @Sabiplz look at all these vibey cats smh

Vibey cats >>>

Sign me up @Syn

falcon45ca wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 3:05 pm Sign me up @Syn

no canucks fans allowed sorry

(confirmed)

Syn wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 3:19 pm

falcon45ca wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 3:05 pm Sign me up @Syn

no canucks fans allowed sorry

(confirmed)

Will check with Simon on this. We'll likely both participate.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 10:00 pm Will check with Simon on this. We'll likely both participate.

Yay!

Syn wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 10:27 pm

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 10:00 pm Will check with Simon on this. We'll likely both participate.

Yay!

I asked and he said probably not because your categories were weird: "What? I'm sitting in a McDonald's parking lot?"

I told him Marmort's categories were weirder and he is reconsidering his options.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 10:31 pm

Syn wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 10:27 pm

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 10:00 pm Will check with Simon on this. We'll likely both participate.

Yay!

I asked and he said probably not because your categories are weird: "What? I'm sitting in a McDonald's parking lot?"

I told him Marmort's categories were weirder and he is reconsidering his options.

Hey, there's no McDonald's parking lot to be found in this one!

Changed my post from "are" to "were" to more accurately reflect his meaning.

save me a slot my dude I'm 3/4 done with subs

Marking

I'm going to guess I don't need to take some of these cats literally. (5, 7)

FrostburnPhoenix wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 10:16 pm I'm going to guess I don't need to take some of these cats literally. (5, 7)

It can be theoretical or just a song you think fits the tone well!

.

maybe

/subbed gl