The Syndicate

I was gonna write some romanticized bullshit about the beauty of fall, but honestly? I live in Texas, where the season is heralded by the outside temperature becoming somewhat tolerable and the trees staying exactly the same until they simultaneously shrivel up and drop a bunch of sickly brown leaves in sometime around late November or so. But hey, if you're from the Northeast, feel free to insert some of your favorite deciduous imagery here.


Y'all know how Walrus works by now. Below, you will find 8 categories, with example songs provided. Please send me your best song that falls within each of these categories.

Category 1: A Torrent of Leaves
A maelstrom of orange and gold beckons the arrival of the new season as nature is encompassed in a whirlwind of change. Send me a turbulent song.
Giraffes? Giraffes! - Werewolf Grandma With Knives (Part Two: Don't Die)
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Robot Stop

Category 2: Back To School
I'm not the only one who still gets nightmares where they've forgotten to turn in schoolwork, right? Send me a song you listened to in grade school (K-12 or non-American equivalent). If you're still IN grade school, consider this a free space.
Rush - Tom Sawyer
Muse - Uprising

Category 3: Finally, We Can Go Outside Again
Whether it be the annual excitement of the temperature no longer being triple digits, or the current worldly environment where Covid restrictions are gradually starting to loosen (regardless of whether or not they should be doing so COUGH COUGH HELP I'M IN TEXAS), it's nice to be able to leave the house. Send me an upbeat song.
Vulfpeck - Disco Ulysses
tricot - Melon Soda

Category 4: Spooky Scary
If you thought I wasn't including a category for my favorite holiday, you didn't stand a ghost of a chance! Send me a spooky song. This can refer to a sonic quality (which the examples demonstrate) or it can be more literal - your call.
Bent Knee - These Hands
We Were Promised Jetpacks - The More I Sleep, The Less I Dream

Category 5: Fall Guys
...is a delightful game for the PC and PS4 that provides us an excellent pun opportunity. Send me a song originally written for a film, television, or video game soundtrack/score.
Takeru Kanazaki - The Scions' Dance In Purgatory (from Fire Emblem: Echoes - Shadows of Valentia)
RADWIMPS - Sparkle (from Your Name.)

Category 6: Give Thanks
In the US, we take a day each November to celebrate family and to express gratitude for the positives in one's life. Send me a song introduced to you by someone else. If you like, you can include who introduced it to you with your submission, and I'll add it to the reveal.
Neutral Milk Hotel - Holland, 1945
Diablo Swing Orchestra - Kevlar Sweethearts

Category 7: Sad Girl Autumn
As the leaves change, so too do our moods and outlooks on life. Send me a melancholy song. The vocalist doesn't have to be female (or exist at all).
Mitski - Class of 2013
boygenius - Ketchum, ID

Category 8: The First Snowfall
The temperature drops, orange gives way to white, and the world continues to turn. Send me a song that promises more to come.
Thank You Scientist - Wrinkle
Nickel Creek - Destination


My tastes are fairly broad and have only gotten moreso over time - I expect this to be a fairly high scoring walrus. I find most music to be somewhere in the ballpark of listenable; notable exceptions are harsh noise and most songs with exceptionally harsh vocals. My favorites tend to fall somewhere adjacent to words like "rock", "indie", "jazz", "funk", and "progressive", but that's by no means a comprehensive list.

For a more biographical background, I'm 24 and have lived in Texas my entire life. I didn't really start getting into music until high school, and initially did so largely through playing Rock Band with friends. Since then, I've been trying my damnedest to make up for lost time.

Please do NOT submit any artists featured in the example songs, as I'm already quite familiar with their discographies.


Scoring will be done on a scale of 1-10, with up to one decimal place. There will always be a degree of inherent arbitrariness to scores, but here's the rough grading scale:

10 - Extraordinary. A song that blows me away and will be played on repeat for years to come. Very rarely given out.
9 - Exemplary. A song landing here likely finds itself a staple of my rotation sooner or later.
8 - Excellent. Songs receiving at least an 8 are added to my huge Spotify playlist where I keep all my tunes - 1700 tracks and counting!
7 - Enjoyable. Some aspect of this song keeps it from moving higher, but that doesn't mean I dislike it - I might revisit it for non-walrus reasons sometime in the future.
6 - Decent. There are some things going on that I enjoy, but I'm probably not coming back to it.
5 - Extant. Songs that just... exist, and make me feel no strong way about them in either direction.
4 - Questionable. Songs that are either a hard whiff stylistically or have some aspect that grates on me land here.
3 - Bad. Songs here are songs I actively dislike for whatever reason.
2 - Unlistenable. Songs that were a legitimate challenge for me to listen to all the way through land here.
1 - Painful. This score is reserved for songs that make me feel physically ill - and yes, it's happened before.

A song I've never heard before will receive a 0.5 point bonus.

Reveals will be on a rough once-a-week pace, pending personal scheduling conflicts and ability to judge in a timely manner. I'll likely not be finalizing dates until the conclusion of the prior week, but I expect to aim for weekend evenings US time (so roughly around when MacDougall conducted reveals). I'll announce the date of the first reveal when I've received all submissions.


Please submit all 8 categories by the deadline, Sunday, September 6th at 11:59 PM CDT.

When you submit your songs, please submit only a link, not a full youtube video and don't write out the song name. This is so submissions can remain as anonymous as possible. So if it's a youtube video, copy the link to your clipboard, and bracket it with the url tag like so (and this should go without saying, but please submit songs via Syndicate PM rather than Discord, so as to avoid embed spoilers)

To ensure my own sanity, this Walrus will be capped at 25 entries. The list of signups is as follows:

1. [mention]MacDougall[/mention]
2. [mention]NANOOKTHEGREATANDFEARSOME[/mention]
3. [mention]Timsup2nothin[/mention]
4. [mention]cayvie[/mention]
5. [mention]Hally[/mention]
6. [mention]vanity.[/mention]
7. [mention]Keldeo[/mention]
8. [mention]nutella[/mention]
9. [mention]LordQuas[/mention]
10. [mention]TonyStarkPrime[/mention]
11. [mention]Ranmilia[/mention]
12. [mention]Boomslang[/mention]
13. [mention]M Plus 7[/mention]
14. [mention]G-Man[/mention]
15. [mention]JaggedJimmyJay[/mention]
16. [mention]birdwithteeth11[/mention]
17. [mention]Sloonei[/mention]
18. [mention]Queen Pink[/mention]
19. [mention]Epignosis[/mention]
20. [mention]Enrique[/mention]
21. [mention]motobot[/mention]
22. [mention]Marcher Jovian[/mention]
23. [mention]Turnip Head[/mention]
24. [mention]dobby[/mention]
25. [mention]Mistyx[/mention]

Please contact Mixolydia#8907 on discord with any questions/comments/concerns.

hheeelellllllyyeaaaahhhhh

Count me in.

Are you docking points for subbing normie artists that most people have heard of? Asking for a friend...

G-Man wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2020 11:15 pm Count me in.

Are you docking points for subbing normie artists that most people have heard of? Asking for a friend...

No, but please don't submit any artists from my example songs; furthermore, know that you'll probably be missing out on the 0.5 bonus for a song I've never heard before.

What is the expected and anticipated time commitments for Walrus games?

Hell yeah

Do we have to submit our songs in order to reserve a spot on the player list? And when do you think we'll be doing live reveals?

I am in.

Mongoose wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2020 11:23 pm What is the expected and anticipated time commitments for Walrus games?

Theoretically, it could be as little as "however long it takes you to find 8 songs" or as much as "that + attending 8 live reveal parties of multiple hours each". Entirely up to you.

Turnip Head wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2020 11:26 pm Do we have to submit our songs in order to reserve a spot on the player list? And when do you think we'll be doing live reveals?

Yes.

As stated in the OP, I'm hesitant to nail down an exact time for reveals this far out; however I EXPECT it to be a fairly similar time to when Mac did his (weekend evenings US time). Reveals should start roughly 2 weeks after the submission deadline.

Sprityo gonna boss cat 5.

Are submissions final once sent or can they be amended before the deadline?

I subbed 2 hrs ago get gud nerds

NANOOKTHEGREATANDFEARSOME wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 1:05 am Are submissions final once sent or can they be amended before the deadline?

I will accept amendments up to the deadline.

Okay, cool. I’m in.

[mention]reywaS[/mention]: try to beat me in this game, husband.

Oh fun Mongoose is going to play!

This looks fun! I would love to sub.

When do you want da songs by?

itt: people who can't read the op

(september 6th)

I will do this.

done

done!

MacDougall wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 1:39 am I subbed 2 hrs ago get gud nerds

I am a Walrus rookie and I got mine done. Where do I get my gud nerds?

surprise!

i have a syndicate account! AND I CAN STILL ACCESS IT!

/subbed

did the thingz

the details of my arrangement have been worked out with amy

but I will be submitting in some way

Woo, another Walrus! I want in, and hopefully I'll be better about attending reveals as the fall and winter cuts off outdoor things...

im in

Fallrus? More like failrus

Haha go me

i already submitted btw i'm just here to exist

LordQuas wrote: ↑Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:09 am Fallrus? More like failrus

Haha go me

yo quas!

LordQuas wrote: ↑Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:10 am i already submitted btw i'm just here to exist

I exist to be here.

Subs coming your way...

That's what the Soviet navy said!

i can never find this site b/c i always get redirected to crime syndicate wikipedia pages when i try to look it up

and i tried typing "mafiasyndicate.com" once and got a bunch of chinese characters to pop up in my bar

gg

LordQuas wrote: ↑Wed Sep 02, 2020 11:33 pm i can never find this site b/c i always get redirected to crime syndicate wikipedia pages when i try to look it up

and i tried typing "mafiasyndicate.com" once and got a bunch of chinese characters to pop up in my bar

gg

“Mafia the syndicate” in your google search should do the trick, at least until you’ve bookmarked

Finished my subs!

My submissions are in. Cat 3 and 4 may cost me, but I think I put another solid list together. I went for the bonus points as much as I thought possible, but that's probably a pipe-dream for a normie like me.

I have sent some songs.

Ranmilia wrote: ↑Fri Sep 04, 2020 3:09 am I have sent some songs.

hey ran!

hey hally!!

I'm hoping to get my songs in today at some point.

Reserve three spots for us s'il vous plaît. We'll have everything in on time.

dobby is in tbh, working on the last two subs

dobby wrote: ↑Sun Sep 06, 2020 10:54 pm dobby is in tbh, working on the last two subs

\o/

Hype!

And that's filled! Thanks to everyone who submitted. I'll announce planned time for first reveal Soon (tm).

kinda forgot this existed oops

hyyyyyyyype