Walrus Agape's Walrus IS COMPLETE - Won by Granny Pie

We have had dozens of Walruses on Smogon now. (The latin masculine plural suffix -i only applies to latin words.) For the casual Circus visitor, the hype is over. Walrus is no longer a new category of game, and the current new Walrus threads are by non-legendary users. Thus, the new threads will not get any clicks from the jaded circus user who only refreshes the forum once per day to see if signups for Gmax-hosted Apocalypse Mafia 2 are up (only accepting signups via cracked mIRC clients on Earthworm’s intranet server). You totally fell for it, so you might as well sign up for this Walrus since you're here already.


tl;dr sign up plz plz

Although I’ll be cool about it even if there will be only 2 signups. My self-esteem is not tied to a walrus like that.

I started actively listening to music very late, that is during High School. Up to then I was kinda ironic and hipster about me “not listening to music”. Being involved in the My Little Pony fandom, I started listening to the music that the fandom produced and found it quite enjoyable. However, my father is an audiophile and I grew up listening to high quality recordings of wide genres. We had a 7.1 Genelec rig at home, multiple vinyl players and a vast FLAC library. My ear is thus tuned to quality recordings. (Although for some reason there’s a slight gap in my hearing range on the right side in the medium-high wavelength range that was discovered during conscriptions. This is just trivia and has actually no impact on anything ever.) My conscious exposure to different genres is very shallow, though. You are reading this to gain pandering insight, so I’ll just hide blatant instructions inside this paragraph. Anything under high definition video resolution on Youtube is bad but 720p doesn’t automatically imply quality if the initial material is compressed to pulp. Bandcamp, Soundcloud etc. is usually better. Direct files are excellent but I enjoy videos as well! There’s a good chance that I haven’t heard some classics or obvious picks, so you might be able to score great points by sending iconic songs. I’m currently between subwoofers and speakers, as I haven’t installed the two Genelec 1029A’s that my dad gave me. I know I should feel bad about this and I do. Even today I don’t actively look for new music. If I happen to stumble upon something great I add it to my youtube playlist. When playing Hearthstone I used to listen a lot to Nightcore tracks. Even though people tell it’s trash I enjoy it. I’m open to almost all genres and styles, but you’ll have an easier time pleasing me with something musically great than clever memes. I have a very slight preference of appreciating the instrumental of melodic side of songs over vocals. Great vocals are good, but merely good vocals might be just mediocre for me. Especially for pop and rock vocals are very hit-or-miss for me. Sending metal is generally a bad idea, but if you want to try me, quality keyboards are a plus and clear vocals are a must. Death or black metal will give you low scores. For rap, I’ve never enjoyed a non-finnish rap song so sending it is a gigantic risk. I’m a 87% weeaboo, but japanese rock is just bad, although their volcanoes are awesome. My religious background is European Pentecostal, however I appreciate a wide variety of spiritual genres across religions. I’m a sucker for sappy religious stuff like Mary Did You Know. I treat melancholic spiritual music like it was secular traditional finnish music, so probably no extra points there. Spiritual/ideological pandering is probably easier through philosophy than religion, though. I’m a philosophy minor with deep and critical interest in science and worldviews. I dread modernism but haven’t completely embraced postmodernism yet. Soundtracks are safe choices, but due to the scoring system might not net you maximum points. The best song ever at the moment is the Calamari Inkantation Remix from Splatoon 2. The rest of this paragraph is just randomly generated trash to discourage people from reading it to get pandering tips. At an individual level, it would be obvious that music opens itself to the gateway to knowledge and understanding of the ever-increasing disadvantages. It would be obvious that the walrus gives an opportunity to improve the culmination of problem solving. There is no need for in-depth understanding of how to deal with Smogon modeling using the overall picture, for example, the usual uses of general guidelines. It goes without saying that music seems to be true in the expanding market and new inductive production methods. We do not know what is really going on if walrus teaches to internalize the abundance of abundance and unrest. Key ideological principles show that music plays a central part of thinking about the unsuccessful processes that are out of the question.


THE RULES:

You send me songs. I listen to them and score them. The Winners gain five seconds of fame.

No Spotify links.

Ten categories. I will reveal one category per week. I prefer to receive all ten entries. I also prefer to receive them before the first cat reveal, and sending them before that will grant you my favour.

Scoring is not relative. Every category will have three criteria, that will be scored between 0 and 5. A song’s total score is the sum of the three criteria, multiplied by ⅔. At the end of the game four winners will be acknowledged: Best Total Score, Best Walrus, Best Panda and Best Cat. What do these mean?

THE THREE CRITERIA:

Quality of the song. The Walrus has huge teeth. The Walrus is the most objective criterion, while remaining completely subjective. A high Walrus score means that I think that the song is musically impressive and a great representative of its genre. If the genre is obscure, I might need an explanation in PM (I won’t ask for them). A low Walrus score means bad sound and/or music quality.


My enjoyment of the song. The panda is kawaii. Also fluffy. This criterion is all about the experience I have listening to the song. If you don’t know me well enough, you can think of me as a Lightwolf/Walrein/Blazade/DLE hybrid. I’ll leave it to you to figure out just how ironic the last sentence is. :shades:


How well your guesstimate of the cat matches my blurry ideas. Adherence to catness. Telepathy: how well you read my mind. Literal interpretation is usually the way to go, but not always. Getting 3 or 4 in this criterion is difficult, but this criterion is the easiest to get a 5 in.

THE CATEGORIES:

(An artificially extended song or a song that works well when looped infinitely. If the whole song is very long and not repetitive, then I have to listen it through completely and you will gain ±1 bonus cat points.)


(Insight, perspective and philosophy for catness.)


(No explanation.)


(A song or artist that has emerged from a fandom.)


(No cats will be awarded. Double the pandas.)


(Swedish for cheese is ost.)


(No explanation.)


(Classical music will probably give panda minus. Surprise me!)


(I like dubstep, glitch hop and chiptune, but am infuriatingly hipster about chiptune. You can try me with unplugged or otherwise analog songs.)


(That pun just does not work in English. I have a really blurry idea about this cat. Nightcore, autotune, songs about dances, something. Background music that keeps you happy or occasionally makes you feel great or smug. I might be lying here! Something epic will do as well. This category has two secret scoring modifiers. Try to figure them out.)


Signups:
Da Letter El
Steven Snype
Robert Alfons
Lectrys
Myzozoa
vonFiedler
Aladyyn
Walrein
Granny Pie
Lord Gaius
LightWolf
shubaka17
 
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#1 Long Form.


(An artificially extended song or a song that works well when looped infinitely. If the whole song is very long and not repetitive, then I have to listen it through completely and you will gain ±1 bonus cat points.)



Da Letter El
A classic. This one is played a lot at lanparties, which I frequent. This hits home even though it’s a meme. Can’t give it more than three walruses because even though it’s catchy it’s just a tiny sample loop. This is something that I could see myself submitting into this cat. The only minus is that the looping seam kinda stands out. However memeness for the max (nyan)cat.




Steven Snype
Kinda funky and works surprisingly well looped. Gets better.. err less bad when listened to a too long time. Mediocre at best, enjoyable but lyrics are not gonna improve this score.




Robert Alfons
"On thevinyl-format version of the album, the time length for "Expressway to Yr. Skull" was indicated by the infinity symbol (∞); the final moment of the song featured alocked groove, making it theoretically endless."
Triple quotes. +1 cat for cool story. Not really interesting though tbh. The ending fades out nicely over three minutes or so.




Lectrys
The best source of songs that can be looped infinitely, IMO, is video game soundtracks. This is in my Top 2 Kirby Video Game Music Themes (the other is Galacta Knight's theme, which leans towards death metal and generally uses lower-quality instruments), which says a lot considering how many Kirby themes I've listened to. I love this song's use of trumpets and other concert band instruments, and it's pretty bouncy.
Sent a mp3 (they suck) as well as youtube link. Videogame soundtracks indeed make good OSTs I mean loops. This is good, but not great. It’s pleasant to listen to - once or twice. No new vibes emerge from looping it a lot. My standard for greatness is high in regard of OSTs and thus this song barely breaks mediocrity, but breaks indeed. Amazing Mirror best Kirby.




Myzozoa
Only the first 11 minutes. Not really loopable due to the last 3 minutes being a different song? However an 11 minute song is long in itself. Didn’t really enjoy it on the whole, kinda monotonous. This one sounded better on my headphones so re-listen boosted it to 3 pandas.




vonFiedler
10 hours extended (basically looped) Metal Gear soundtrack piece. Ok. Kinda monotonous but gets +1 Walrus due to being Metal Gear.




Aladyyn
A 20-minute long metal musical. Cats for length but this was naturally, not artificially long! Hence only 4 cats. This was kinda tl;dr but I listened to it fully. Not with full attention, though, ie. something that a musical would require. I just don’t have the willpower/interest for it, hence I was unable to place this song over mediocrity. This is a song I’d love to have the interest to enjoy but alas not.




Walrein
I really like the keyboards+strings combination here. This has a 8-bit feel in it while being successfully modern. The melodies are distinct and catchy. Ascends over vidya gaem mediocrity. Also something that I could see myself looping when grinding HS (if I did that). Added to my playlist. RETCONNED TO 555 after listening thru all except shubaka.




Granny Pie
I see we have a panda here. This is one of my favourites. I have fond memories of taking over the high school computer class during the final day of school and looping this nonstop on high volume for hours (in addition to other songs, it was a short playlist). This track is sugar rush in waveform. Listening to this on headbones misses out the bassline. For walrus, I’ll score this as a video game music. In that genre it isn’t the very top. As an actual fighting game soundtrack it lacks some stern epicness that’s needed IMO. Also this track tries to steal your attention from the combos, which isn’t good (really I’m just struggling to find some excuse not to 555 this). I fail. 5 walrus just due to panda. Then again, 555 isn’t such a big deal here in this Walrus, due to ratings being non-relative and margins low. I changed this so many times between 4 and 5. I ultimately settled on 5 because this has made so great waves on me.




Lord Gaius
Touhou is nice. Never played the games (who has?). This is high-pitched, distinct and catchy, just like video game soundtracks that I like. However, this just very barely makes it above average hence only 3 in walrus. It loops quite nicely. This song didn’t really make waves in me. Had it had a decent bassline it’d have got 4 pandas.




LightWolf
LW spends a big gun right from the go. He also missed the deadline (sent this in as I was starting to listen to the songs a few hours ago). I mean this is one of my favourite songs, and I have looped it for an hour or so a few times during my legend grind last year. This is a great song, but it’s difficult to set it in a context. It’s not a videogame song. A fandom song isn’t really a good context for appraisal. Hence I have to think of it as a standalone song in its genre. Difficult to appraise between 4 and 5 walruses. Settled on 5 to have more incentive to hand out 5s in future cats. Pirates and coolest name ever.




shubaka17
joined as we were halfway thru listening to subs on the discord server
this is the first time I listen to this separate from the game
gonna grade this as we go
and use this log as my forums writeup
hiveswap is a kickstarted point and click adventure game by the writer of Problem Sleuth (the kickstarter money was stolen at one point by the gaming company the game was outsourced to so they had to develop it themselves, delaying the project by 3+ years)
this is BGM from that, so basically OST (literally?)
this doesn't excape the dreaded mediocrity pit of videogame music even though homestuck has the best and most talented music team out of all webcomics
night in the woods the game does these vibes better
I think this would grow on me a little bit more should I loop this, it's kinda smooth like that (it doesn't die when derivated)


 
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lol smogon fails at unicode

ok now it works somewhat, uploaded pics manually

Next cat: #2 A Song That Tells A Story tomorrow at 6PM EST. Get those later cats in meanwhile!
 
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Steven Snype had failed at copypasting. This is his real cat 1 song:

It gets 3 walrus, 4 panda and 4 cats. Would have got 5 cats but retcon penalty. Still +1 compared to Shaggy tho. Edited into my score spreadsheet but not to the Cat 1 scoring post.
 
#2 A Song That Tells A Story.

(Insight, perspective and philosophy for catness.)

Da Letter El
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. One of the most iconic 90s shows. I was barely too young not to watch this one. I do recall this opening from my childhood, I just quite didn’t watch many non-cartoons back then. Laziness! You didn’t link the version with the opening video. It’s a vital part of the opening, hence a cat penalty. The song and story itself are ok but no meme pandas from me.




Steven Snype
Quality. Horror. Parody. Great pacing. The quality of this Cat just got so much better. This is really really niche, but 5 walruses for sheer objective quality. Had I watched this before (video is vital) it would have received only 3 pandas, but the first impression boosts it to 5.




Robert Alfons
I started listening to this. I realized what it was, but by listening to it I was actually fighting it. Halfway through, I finally surrendered to it. Its strength is in its weakness. I reclined backwards in my comfortable gaming chair, retrieved a soft footstool and boosted the volume up to immersive levels. By doing this I was able to completely focus on it. Even with perfect, meditative focus my understanding of the words was about 80%, which was enough. By this, I was able to listen to it and to listen to it. The story is abstract, but it is there. It emerges from the incompleteness and subjectively so. I will not tell my interpretation of the story, because it is not relevant. It carries over abstract ideas, connections, feelings. 4 walruses only for difficulty.




Lectrys
Sonata-Allegro in F Minor ("Complexity Within") by Dekkadeci
Two young mage-warriors, teenage brothers, are quarrelling and fighting again. The younger brother is associated with the starting theme, while the older brother is associated with the theme at 0:48-1:20. The younger brother is chivalrous and stately, while the older brother is impish and aggressive. They try convincing each other that their side is correct in the middle of the piece--the older brother tries convincing the younger in 2:43-3:30 and 5:30-6:05, while the younger brother tries convincing the older in 3:30-5:30. (Note how both sections use the second brother's theme in a style that fits the first brother better.) The older brother starts winning the fight at 7:29, but the younger brother drags him back down at 7:42. After the piece is over, their father grounds them both (and he's an extremely powerful mage-warrior, so the grounding is serious).
Wow, classical music made accessible! The writeup made it much easier to follow the piece, although the different sections were distinct enough on their own. A nitpicky cat minus for the story being a sort of “I’ll take your word for it” but I buy it and can hear it from the piece. On the whole I’m impressed and that’s enough for 5 pandas.





Myzozoa
A fantastical song, not fantastic. Themes about a journey, perhaps roles in society. Not about settling somewhere better, but finding purpose or solace in adriftness. A weak 5 cat. Might fall to 4 after listening to others. This didn’t exactly make waves in me, but it’s a quality if artificial construction.




vonFiedler
This musical piece carries with it the certain oomph that old movies had. That is, brass instruments lol. The story of Don Quixote is interesting: a self-sacrificing paladin on a typical heroic quest. However, his enemy, the giants, are actually windmills and he himself insane. A great and thought-provoking story only made more impressive by it being one of the first novels. However, this song doesn’t carry the story, only the classic quest setting and emotion. The interesting contrast in the man’s insanity has to be known beforehand.




Aladyyn
Either you didn’t read my essay or read it and still try to send me Black Metal to try to change my opinion of it. This is fine. I just not enjoy this as a genre, the vocals put me off! The melody and beat was nice, boosting this to 2 pandas. I’ve studied latin and als have interest in greek, so the greek part was a delight - even more so that it was spoken, not sung. Lyrics and Google Translate helped me to decipher the story here. 4 cats instead of 3 for the cool setting and pagan cultural background for the song.




Walrein
This might be a case of walrus sniping gone wrong! True, I sent Aqualung before, but it was because I was really struggling in a cat and opted for something that had been sent to my own IRL walrus before! I don’t actually listen to this. Rock is not really my genre, although I can see that this has something in it to be a classic. The story is there and while it has potential to be strong one (child prostitution) the 70s delivery kinda kills it for me.
Walrein told me later that he didn’t snipe and that Aqualung is his favourite album of all time. Great!




Granny Pie
I didn’t know that the animation had the remastered version. I was going to remark that you posted the animated version just for pandering, but the remaster justifies that. What can I say, really? This is a showcase MLP fandom song. High quality production. 9/10 animation and 10/10 music. The story is the mythological premise of the season 1 episode 1 of a TV show made for little girls. Lauren Faust wrote the setting for a more adventurous show than the slice of life it would become. The fandom picked up the anachronistic high fantasy setting and started working on it in song, animation and fanfiction. The story is strong and well-delivered although on the longer side. Works well as a standalone piece (gateway drug) even to those not into the fandom on the whole. 4 pandas only due to panda overflow, seeing this submitted to my walrus makes me a little jaded, if only because I’ve used this myself so many times on walruses.




Lord Gaius
Funky and chill rap. I don’t really dig scifi but this is ok because it’s funny and cool and not condescending. I especially like the punny and clever lyrics and clear delivery. The beat is nothing to write to the home planet about. I was delighted to find myself enjoying rap hence the boost to 4 in walrus.




LightWolf
LightWolf predictably shoots himself in the leg with a totally random sub (well not totally random - Yu Gi Oh is one of his fortes). This is a mashup that apparently “ is literally the plot of YuGiOh Bonds Beyond Time the Abridged Movie, and serves as the credit song”. I know neither the original song nor the movie nor the abridged version! 2 pandas sounds about right. /r/mildlyinteresting 4 cats because this is basically three stories in one and I gotta give LW a mercy point somewhere so might as well make it a cat since there are no dogs although I can see the walrus being a sea doge. As commented on Discord LW could’ve sent almost anything else by ShadyVox and got a higher score! I found the lyrics for this buried in a DeviantArt journal.




shubaka17
Lighthearted, cute and funny. Not the usual overproduced pop, only about 70% it. The girl point of view is nice as are the random speech comments in the middle and end. More enjoyable than the usual mainstream pop (if only just a little), but doesn’t really make waves. The story is a nice slice of life one with a little bit unusual viewpoint. This song on the whole is a little bit above average.


 
Agape's link to my entry for Category 2 is broken, so here's the real link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MbGsZa5IvTfBI2T4lieEBE1XebwBpfTC/view

Amazing Mirror best Kirby.
I can't agree with that music-wise. I've never liked Kirby and the Amazing Mirror's music as much as works Jun Ishikawa was involved in (the OSTs of Kirby Super Star, Kirby's Return to Dream Land, etc.). Heck, some days, even the Shogo Sakai Kirby music is better (Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, some Kirby Air Ride, etc.). Those two composers for KATAM tend to write music that's too angular for me.
 

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