The Syndicate

Sloonei wrote: ↑Thu Oct 17, 2019 10:02 pm My main goal was finding things nutella hasn’t heard. We have SUPER compatibility on last.fm. Apparently Jack White is the one artist we disagree on.

Heh, ouch sorry you got 10th twice in a row I didn't want anyone to be last in category 2 though, they were all quite good, so don't feel bad. And I definitely appreciate the intent to show me new stuff!

10th Place



Still Corners - Black Lagoon

This is really nice and chill. Very polished modern electronic sound, with beautiful vocals and a good beat. It's not super memorable though, and feels likely to be relegated to background music. Could have worked for the dream category as well.

6.7


Submitted by: Sloonei

ROUND TWO

2. The Sea - The war is ended and we're off on a journey. For this category, the particular mood/feeling is not as important; just give me a song that is somehow related to the ocean, or some body of water, or sailing or boats or ships.

Awesome job with the first category, everyone!! In a few minutes I'll start category 2, which is an even stronger pool of subs!! Y'all rock.

1st Place



Within Temptation - Our Solemn Hour

This might have been a bit of a pander based on my inclusion of Nightwish in the examples, and that's not a bad thing at all. I never got as much into Within Temptation, but they definitely have a similar sound and it's a sound I love. If I have to listen to metal, it's almost always going to have "symphonic" or a similar qualifier in front of it (that or "folk"). It's exciting and epic while also gorgeously melodic and showcasing vocal talent. This is the kind of thing I can come back and listen to over and over.

9.4


Submitted by: Turnip Head

2nd Place



Blind Guardian - Theatre of Pain

Oh yeah. This is the stuff. The vocal style is not entirely my thing but it's par for the course for this aesthetic, and it does the trick. This isn't something I would choose to listen to, but if it came up on a playlist while I was gaming I would absolutely revel in it. And daaamn that solo is crunchy af.

9.2


Submitted by: Texas Cloverleaf

3rd Place



Delta - Face 2 Face

This is a pretty straightforward cat fit. I can sometimes have trouble finding music of this genre interesting, but I was basically asking for it with this prompt, and this pretty much fulfills what i was going for. It starts out feeling a little cookie-cutter, but the melody takes a unique turn that grabs me, and the bridge/solos/whatever you call that delicious proggy bit is, well, delicious. Them solos are bangin'.

9.1


Submitted by: Dragon D. Luffy

Top 3 podium placers (in alphabetical order):
Dragon D. Luffy, Texas Cloverleaf, Turnip Head

Hype!!!

4th Place



Barns Courtney - Kicks

Dang this is catchy as hell. Everything about this is just solidly... cool. Definitely has the intensity and beat to fit the theme. Great sub.

8.8


Submitted by: Keldeo

5th Place



Nothing More - Go To War

This is absolutely speedchuck's sub lol. It's a really great cat fit, with just the amount of cheese I was expecting in musical and vocal style, if maybe a little too much cheese in the lyrics. I feel like this is the Trump-era incarnation of a particular angry vibe present in some early 2000s music. Good beat, and it certainly works for the prompt, but maybe a little bit too easily and I kind of feel like it's nothing particularly special. It holds up really well on second listen though.

8.7


Submitted by: speedchuck

6th Place



Muse - Knights of Cydonia

Lmao who submitted this xD Not sure if any of you have any reason to be particularly aware of this, but I was huuuuugely obsessed with Muse when I was 14-15, so I have an intimately familiar and complexly nostalgic relationship with their music. And especially with this being one of their more well known and perhaps more cheesy songs, it's particularly hard for me to evaluate from an objective standpoint. It seems like a moderately pedestrian pick for the category, but that the same time that's because it works. I mean anything that's Guitar Hero bait is probably going to be just fine for this category lol -- that riff just makes you want to feel awesome and do some epic moves. Can't say no to this, maybe minus a little on originality.

8.6

Submitted by: JaggedJimmyJay

7th Place



Dream Theater - Overture 1928

Fun fact, Mike Portnoy lives in the town I lived in as a high schooler lol. Anyway. Dream Theater is just fine for this category and this is definitely fun and exciting to listen to, if maybe not the most uniquely engaging. I do appreciate the precision in the drumming and the desire to fit as many notes into one second as possible but other than that it doesn't really stand out that much.

7.8


Submitted by: Epignosis

8th Place



Dynasty Warriors 4 OST - Straight Ahead

Yeah, this works. It's a solidly safe category fit, and certainly would work great in the background while I play a combative video game. Its main flaw is that it doesn't go beyond being purely background music, which I guess is the point for game music, but I find myself wishing the music would go anywhere and it doesn't.

7.1


Submitted by: iaafr

9th Place



Homestuck Soundtrack - Descend

Hahaha there's sprityo with the homestuck eh This is definitely a bit of a different vibe than I was expecting for this category -- it can pass as video game battle music, but kind of dialed down on the intensity. Maybe I'm seasonally biased but I feel like the mood it evokes in me is more akin to a cartoonish Halloween/spooky haunted mansion aesthetic than an epic fight. Catchy though.

6.5

Submitted by: sprityo

10th Place



The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldier

...Can't say I enjoyed this one, sorry. Never been a Jack White fan, and his voice here is incredibly irritating. The guitar is okay; the main thing that salvages this track from being a complete nope from me is the drums -- the drums at least held my interest. Not really getting the cat fit too hard on this one either.

4.8


Submitted by: Sloonei

(Reminder that I haven't spoiled myself for who submitted what until right before posting each entry! This is exciting for me too! )

ROUND ONE

1. Troy - Start me off with your epic battle theme song. Give me something powerful and violent that I can blast while clashing sword and spear against my foes.

Okay, I'm just going to post them here then. But if you find the time I do highly recommend listening through the subs since there is a lot of really great stuff, and discovering music you wouldn't otherwise be exposed to is of course the whole point of this

[mention]Dragon D. Luffy[/mention]
[mention]Epignosis[/mention]
[mention]iaafr[/mention]
[mention]JaggedJimmyJay[/mention]
[mention]Keldeo[/mention]
[mention]Sloonei[/mention]
[mention]speedchuck[/mention]
[mention]sprityo[/mention]
[mention]Texas Cloverleaf[/mention]
[mention]Turnip Head[/mention]

Score reveals for categories 1, 2, and 3 will begin momentarily!

Looking into getting the live reveal set up on discord but the mods seem busy and maybe not enough of you guys would even be around for it(?) If I can't get it set up soon I'll just post in thread unless people feel strongly (in the walruses I've submitted to listening along in chat has been really fun but there have to be people there for it to matter )

Scoring will be on a 10-point system (well, using one decimal place so you could think of it as out of 100). It's admittedly a bit arbitrary, but there's at least a loose basis of a score out of 5 for category fit plus a score out of 5 for my personal enjoyment/appreciation of the track. I'm trying not to overthink it too much lol


So far the first few categories have a lot of really strong submissions!! Really enjoying listening to what you guys sent in.

I'm currently doing something closer to what iaafr is describing but a little less organized lol. Doing my best to randomize the order so I don't even know which tracks in different categories were from the same submitter.

Anyway. I'm calling it officially closed now; sorry to anyone who missed out. There are 10 participants:
[mention]Dragon D. Luffy[/mention]
[mention]Epignosis[/mention]
[mention]iaafr[/mention]
[mention]JaggedJimmyJay[/mention]
[mention]Keldeo[/mention]
[mention]Sloonei[/mention]
[mention]speedchuck[/mention]
[mention]sprityo[/mention]
[mention]Texas Cloverleaf[/mention]
[mention]Turnip Head[/mention]

I'm going to aim to do the first round of reveals (probably the first 3 categories) this Thursday, 10/17 around 6 pm PST / 9 pm EST. For those of you familiar with the live discord reveals, I'm prooobably not going to get that set up for this (likely not that many people would be there and there's only 10 contestants anyway, plus I don't really know how to do it haha), I'll just post the links and scores here so feel free to listen along on your own time.

Sprityo chill this takes time, this was just the deadline, the reveal doesn't happen until I have time to score. I'll aim to reveal maybe the first two cats this Thurs maybe

[mention]112[/mention] yes of course there's still time!! and omg omg [mention]Turnip Head[/mention] so glad to see you!!!

G-Man wrote: ↑Mon Oct 07, 2019 6:54 pm @nutella Must submissions be songs with lyrics or may they be instrumental/orchestral pieces?

They can be anything, lyrics not necessary!

Extending deadline to the 13th, or if everyone who has expressed intent to submit does so before then I may get started.

hmm already? lol probably gonna extend it another week, would be cool if at least a couple more people subbed

Sloonei wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2019 1:45 pm Are we allowed to repeat artists?

Not that I would want to, I’m just askin’.

Yes

Fellow music nerds! I have traveled afar in distant lands such as Mafia Universe and have brought back with me knowledge of strange rituals. I'd like to try running a "Walrus" here (I have yet to be enlightened on why it's called that).

Wait, WTF is this?

(Bear with me as I'm quite new to the concept as well and might miss something.) Basically, Walrus is a way to share music recommendations based on prompts. It's set up as a competition, and contestants will score points based on the quality and category-fit-strength of their submissions, but you don't have to view it as such if you would rather just think of it as a structured but fun outlet for exchanging tunes.

How it works: One person, the host/judge, decides on a set of categories (themes, concepts, technical specifications, whatever). The norm seems to be to have around 8-12 categories, and they can be anything from specifications such as "shorter than 3 minutes" or "cover songs", to silly criteria such as "has a color in the title" or "features an unusual instrument", to descriptions of vague conceptual feelings or aesthetics that may result in a variety of subjective interpretations. The host may provide sample tracks that would fit each category to give the players some frame of reference, and the host may also specify some of their particular tastes (potentially even banning artists or genres they particularly despise) but otherwise variety/uniqueness in genre is highly encouraged!

For some examples of categories and host guidelines check out these two that I have submitted to: Shad's (aesthetic-based categories with somewhat of a loose chronology/storyline) and KoC's (categories all based on titles of songs by one artist). To see a completed walrus game with the reveals of winners per category, skim through here or here.

Players will have some amount of time to select one track for each category and PM them to the host (for each one just send a simple URL for youtube, spotify, bandcamp, soundcloud, what have you). Submissions may be changed up until the deadline. Then the host will listen to each submission, preferably multiple times until they get a feel for the songs and can judge them fairly. Now, I don't think the following is strictly required but I got the idea from Shad and it sounds ideal: while listening through, the host should somehow set aside and randomize the links for each category such that they don't know which is whose until the reveal, so that there's no bias or preconceptions based on who submitted what.

Then, the host will score each submission according to how well it fits the category and much they like it overall, and reveal each submission publicly from worst to best. There is a Discord server in which the reveals happen live with the songs actually playing over audio chat -- I haven't witnessed this firsthand yet and am not entirely sure how it works or if we'll make use of it, or just post the links on the forum so people can follow along at their leisure. Depending on the host I think the whole process can take up to a month or two, with a couple weeks open for submission and then however much time the host needs to listen and sort through -- reveals can happen one category at a time, so the host may choose to reveal the scores for the first category before finishing listening to the later ones.

So, I hope that all makes sense (I recommend checking out the example links above). I'm going to go ahead and start one up in the next post so I hope there's enough interest.

Tagging some people who may be interested: