The Syndicate

At long last, it's time to reveal the schedule and themes for the tournament round. Everyone from the prelims gets a spot in the opening round, but it's single-elimination this year. Losers will be eliminated.


ROUND 1: HEADLINES- Everyone will have to submit a song the is about a real-life event. The best song in each match-up will win and advance. Losers will be eliminated from Madrus. To clarify real-life event: I need to be able to learn more about the historical event via a Google search or the artist's / song's Wikipedia entry.

Samples: "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple and "American Pie" by Don McLean
Also Prohibited: "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel

Submissions Due: March 10th
Reveal Night: March 17th


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ROUND 2: POLITICS- Those who make it past the first round will have to submit a song with a political message. It can be liberal, conservative, or even antidisestablishmentarianist. It just needs to carry a clear political statement.

Samples: "God Save the Queen" by the Sex Pistols and "American Idiot" by Green Day.

Submissions Due: March 24th
Reveal Night: March 31st


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ROUND 3- Four contestants will make it this far. Each of them will have to submit one song from each of the following two categories:

BUSINESS: Give me a song about commerce/money/employment.
SAMPLES: "Money" by Pink Floyd and "Career Opportunities" by The Clash

POLICE BLOTTER: Give me songs about crime.
SAMPLES: "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash and "Country Death Song" by Violent Femmes

Submissions Due: April 7th
Reveal Night: April 14th


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THE FINALS- Our two lucky finalists will have to submit three songs, one from each of these categories:

SPORTS: Give me a song about any sport or athletic pursuit.
SAMPLES: "The Distance" by Cake and "Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song)" by Warren Zevon

OBITUARIES: Give me a song about grappling with death. No murder songs allowed.
SAMPLES: "In My Time of Dying" by Led Zeppelin and "Jack the Lion" by Harvey Danger

FUNNY SONGS: Give me a song that amuses you. No parodies allowed.
SAMPLES: "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" by Monty Python and "My Ding-a-ling" by Chuck Berry

Submissions Due: April 21st
Reveal Night: April 28th

Woo hoo! We've got 16 participants for Madrus 2023!

Thank you all for your submissions! My wife is taking part this year, but she didn't even want to look at the sample song lists I gave you all before committing to her selections.

I'll start listening to the first category tunes this week.

Five days left. Don’t forget to send your subs in!

Happy Christmas Eve folks! Just one week left to get your submissions in for Madrus 2023!

Only three folks officially signed up and submitted. December 31st will be here before you know it, folks!

That's right folks! My trial run at this concept in 2022 worked well enough that I have made a few revisions to the format and will offer a new challenge for your listening pleasure next year. Here are the basics:

1) Once again, there will be a qualifying phase, in which all participants submit songs for scoring. As this "season" progresses, the cumulative scores will be used to rank and seed participants for the tournament phase.

2) This year, the qualifying phase will be longer- 6 rounds. All qualifying phase songs must be submitted by December 31st, 2022. See below for the categories.

3) During the first half of January 2023, I will vigorously listen to all of your lovely submissions and score them according to my rating scale:
4) Between late January and March 12th, 2023, I will host reveal nights for each of the qualifying phase categories.

5) Around the 4th reveal night, I will unveil the categories for the tournament phase of Madrus 2023. Submissions for the first round of the tournament will be due by the last reveal night for the qualifying phase.

6) All participants will be seeded for the tournament phase, but this year the tournament will be single-elimination. The double-elimination format was fun but a bit unfair to the folks who dropped down into the second-chance bracket. The tournament phase will feature reveal nights spaced out two weeks apart. This will afford winners a full week to search for a song to submit for the next round's category.

7) In the end, there can be only one winner and their victory will be glorious!



About My Musical Tastes:

In past walrus competitions that I have submitted to, my submissions (and my taste in music by extension) have been called crusty, 'boomer,' cringe, uninspired, predictable, and normie. I may be biased, but I think these people are wrong. While I admit that my tastes are very consumer-radio and major-label friendly, I have surprised plenty of folks with gems from some pretty random and far-flung corners of my playlists and CD collection.

To give you a better sense of my preferences and biases, consider this: I grew up riding around in the family car listening to the music of my father (a punk rock aficionado in his teens with hints of new wave and the slightest essence of early glam) and my mother (she owned a delightful collection of 45's heavy on bubblegum pop and disco). Blend those sensibilities together and pour in a heaping dose of 90s grunge and post-grunge influence for my childhood and formative years. Top it all off with the fact that I searched backwrd in time during my college years to discover the amazeballs rock sounds of the 50s and 60s and you get weird little old me. Folks may call me a normie, but I have a pretty broad appreciation of genres, time periods, and sounds. While I would say that much of what I typically listen to falls into the 'rock' classification, the examples provided for the qualifying categories below should highlight some of my breadth.



This Year's Theme:

Last year, Madrus was loosely focused on a sports theme in an attempt to go along with March Madness. This year's theme is 'News of the Walrus' and all the themes will relate to journalism and the news. The qualifying rounds will cover the Five W's and One H of putting a story together. The tournament categories (to be revealed later) will all draw from sections of a newspaper (Google that outdated technology if you've never heard of it, or better yet- go to your local library and look at old issues on microfiche!).

Without further ado, here are the qualifying categories- all of which are due to me by December 31st, 2022!


CATEGORY 1: WHO?
Every story needs a subject. In this case it's a person or people. All songs submitted to this category must have song titles that readily identifies a person or group of people. This can be a formal name, a title, or something more conceptual. Examples:

"Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson
"Knights of Cydonia" by Muse
"Motivational Speaker" by Cut Chemist
"She" by Green Day



CATEGORY 2: WHAT?
Every news story covers some kind of event. The song title for these submissions must describe an action that is performed or experienced, or an event that is witnessed. Examples:

"Bicycle Race" by Queen
"Sabotage" by Beastie Boys
"Spontaneous Apple Creation" by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
"Walking on Broken Glass" by Annie Lennox



CATEGORY 3: WHERE?
Location is everything! All songs submitted to this category must have a title that refers to a place of some kind. It can be specific or general, real or fictitious. Examples:

"Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan
"Land of the Freak" by King Khan and the Shrines
"Our House" by Madness
"Portland Oregon" by Loretta Lynn and Jack White



CATEGORY 4: WHEN?
Time is of the essence. All songs submitted to this category must have titles that refer to a specific time. This can be a precise time, date, season, year, etc. Example:

"1979" by Smashing Pumpkins
"5 O'Clock in the Morning" by The Donnas
"Month of May" by Arcade Fire
"Yesterday" by The Beatles



CATEGORY 5: WHY?
A more difficult category for sure. All songs submitted for this category must proved a reason for why something happened. It may be a reason or an excuse, but it must be able to stand as an explanation for why something happened. Examples:

"Because I Got High" by Afroman
"Born This Way" by Lady Gaga
"Insane in the Brain" by Cypress Hill
"One of Us Is Gonna Die Young" by The Ark



CATEGORY 6: HOW?
This could be the most challenging category to find a match for. The song titles for all submissions must act as adverbs, describing how an action or event was done or occurred. Examples:

"Ducking and Dodging" by Parquet Courts
"In a Silent Way" by Miles Davis
"Truly, Madly, Deeply" by Savage Garden
"With a Little Help From My Friends" by The Beatles / covered by Joe Cocker



As you can see, the categories are a little more focused this time around. As such, there will not be any additional points awarded for catfit. You will, however, be docked points if any of your submissions fail to satisfy the category. Otherwise, all scoring will be purely subjective per my musical tastes and the aforementioned rating scale.

None of the songs offered here as examples may be submitted for any category during this walrus event.



PARTICIPANTS (so far):
1) Bloobird
2) outed wolf
3) falcon45ca
4) nutella
5) Marmot
6) Hollowkat
7) mansnicks
8) Spacedaisy
9) Syn
10) Epignosis
11) Simon
12) NateTheLesser
13) TonyStarkPrime
14) Schiavetto
15) Sabi
16) G-Man's Wife