schadd walrus 2: feast of the invisible cats (join biancospino walrus!)

[schadd_]

although, problematically i ping people from the live-games channel which i guess some people don't have access to and never find out about it

[schadd_]

Spoiler:

i also ping people on mafiascum. This is starting at the top of the hour, maybe very slightly late

[schadd_]

cat 8 full

Spoiler: 1st, section 2: deathrowkitty

pretty balanced - halogen lamps

section: 2
enjoyment: 6 (4.5/5)
catfit: 2.9
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: has the feeling of a cheetory6 zinger
submitter: deathrowkitty zinger lol awesome
medals / ICs: 1st place +2.0

9.9 + 2

this is just definitely very spring for me. there's those little murmurings and whisperings and hissings in the background that are like little bugs starting to figure out that they get to freely hang out outside or whatever, just in general it has the feeling of lifeforms starting to teem and temperatures coming up (bass always makes me think of heat and this song occasionally has it and occasionally doesn't, which is like an erratic spring climate).

another thing is that the number one thing i think of with spring is that sudden intensity of emotion you get from breathing the suddenly oxygen rich air, which isnt necessarily like a positive or negative thing it's just ramped up a lot. and i think the lyrics match that, there's like a bunch of drastic statements that sound endorphin-laden more than anything, and the most remarkable moments in the song are when the vocalist just suddenly gets really boomingly loud.

the refrain mentions dark space and bright light also make me think of like the quick change in daylight hours during spring - although you could sort of take those lines to refer to the day and night situation in pretty much any season if you wanted, but just the mentions of active light and darkness make me think of Seasons in General and thats still worth something

we're going with 2.9 and not 3.0 probably because i'm still paranoid the submitter comes in and says oh yeah this is like obviously supposed to be winter

Spoiler: tied 2nd, section 2: stinkycheesedan

nada surf - popular

section: 2
enjoyment: 6.7 (4.8+/5)
catfit: 2.0
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: pj
submitter: danny lolll fukkkk my ass
medals / ICs: suburbs + 0.1, tony hawk eligible :skateboard: +0.4, tied 2nd +1.2

9.7 + 1.7

i think i'm gonna be hardened old coot and decline to give this higher than 4.8+ but good god is this song addicting lol. i'm like smiling insistently the whole time i'm listening to it. there's something about the way it refuses to state affirmatively/non-ironically what the song is about and yet there's such an brilliantly clear tone. that "unless he's a jerk or a crybaby!" line which is interrupted by the start of the drudging and indignant chorus, the statement "i'm popular" which has this like slight melodic upward motion which only barely nods at the fact that it's supposed to resemble an excited and fulfilled statement. idk there's like 30 lines in this song i could just restate here with no commentary needed but probably my favorite thing is "my mom says i'm a catch" like that line simultaneously makes me smile at the Alt Kid anti-statement being made by it as well as, like, just the statement at face value.

i can't find it but there was this image set on tumblr from the show too hot to handle where two of the guys were talking to each other like "would you ever go long term with a girl" / "do you mean like getting married? ...i dont think so" / "when i say long term i mean like. six weeks" / "...no, bro"

it's kind of hard to justify any particular place in the year where teenage angst lives, and yet i'm pretty comfortable saying i get a spring feeling from this, just because i feel like the end of the schoolyear is where all the Popularness in high school is calcified (like this is something they would play at like the goth prom or the graduation afterparty for all the rejects or whatever) and this makes me think of something like "the weather and the atmosphere i'm in make me feel like i'm supposed to be happy but that's just not how it is." like you get all those spring endorphins that build emotional intensity that cant go anywhere. still, i'm not giving this more than a 2 bc i feel like i'm doing the thing where i like the song so much i'm trying extra hard to find good catfit stuff

would be very embarrassing if this is stinkycheesedan and i didnt gues it even though it told me "ive been getting into 90s emo lately"

Spoiler: tied 2nd, section 3: cheetory6

siriusmo - 123 B/W graeme miller & steve shill - and now the record

enjoyment: 6.0 (4.3+/5 and 4.6+/5)
catfit: 2.9
unfamiliarity: 0.9 (0.9 and 1.0)
guess: cheetoire
submitter: yup -0.1
medals / ICs: laugh out loud at the song/artist (

and now the record

) +0.1; songs my keys would like (

and now the record

) +0.1; grand slam (

and now the record

) -0.4, tied 2nd +1.2

9.7 + 1.0

in the last walrus i had been confronted with the occasional complaint that i always seem to like really artsy and abstract approaches to the categories and like that has a way of making things feel inaccessible for the general musically-unobsessed population. and this has weighed in my mind a little bit, mostly the effect that it has is that i get excited when i really like an aristophanes style song (though i would say his high performance is generally just from his own merits). anyway, Tragically we have run face first into a cheetory6 zinger.

this gets a big boost from the juxtaposition of the titles, which sounds like a complete statement "1, 2, 3, and now the record". but then the actual content of the songs just like dance around that in a kind of ridiculous way - 123 has these two segments where the first feels like this weird demo, or kind of like the music that would be playing in an ad before an actual song (i think that part is what kraftwerk sounds like?), and then it transitions into another section which feels much more like serious electronic music, which feels like the "and now the record" moment - which only lasts like 50 seconds. and then it kind of unceremoniously bounces into the next track which feels considerably more just like another section of the first song. and the way the second song just like rambles and wiggles around definitely raises a feeling of "is this supposed to be the real song? is this the canonical part?" which in turn is just this aspect of music i've happened to think a lot about lately.

so, it has all the snazzy shiny pieces of a cool pair of songs and also just made for an extremely fun listening experience (including for other stuff not described here). i basically have to keep checking if the track changed whenever i listened to it. i decided i would give a grand slam only to the second song especially bc that means i get to halve the negative points associated with it. also i imagine my keys listening to it and thinking "i think it's cool that this song uses a sample of opening and closing some weird mysterious metal trunk instead of the door opening and closing and locking i always hear on the radio"

Spoiler: tied 2nd, section 3: fireisredsir

hana stretton - come home B/W felix - death to everyone but us

enjoyment: 6.0 (4.5+/5 and 4.4+/5)
catfit: 2.8
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: fireisredsir
submitter: so it is -0.1
medals / ICs: tied 2nd +1.2

9.7 + 1.2

for some unknown effin reason i listened to this hana stretton album like in the midst of listening to the cat 4 songs i believe. i feel like i randomly plucked it up from tris's spotify activity or something but idt this is her. anyway traditionally i don't count unfamiliarity from after the start of the walrus and also like listening to an album during walrus season is like not listening to it at all anyway

i would say these songs represent the elaboration and the sound of two different kinds of solace, especially solace offered from the singer to the listener. come home has the sound of unconditional acceptance, like, you can do whatever you want and come back here or you can take me with you and it's alright. whereas death to everyone but us is like unconditional rejection of everything i guess. the songs nestle into each other nicely, there's that snazzy thing where the first song is about, Well, offering for you to come home & the second track starts by saying i'm coming home. it makes them feel like they're in dialogue with each other as well as with you.

and there's other ways they answer each other, both of them have a kind of constant comforting drone sound, the cantering horses in the first and the gentle synth in the second - where both of those things sort of resemble the feel of the vocals in the other song. and there's also the fun thing where the start of the second song feels like it's scooping up the first song and modulating it up a little bit.

i guess the thing that supercedes almost all of these things is that the pairing of these songs just makes me very happy.

Spoiler: 5th, section 3: isis

2ne1 - ugly B/W 中須かすみ(CV.相良茉優) - 無敵級*ビリーバー

enjoyment: 5.8 (4.4/5 and 4.4+/5
catfit: 2.4
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: cjv ?
submitter: isisss
medals / ICs:

9.2

ugly lyrics
無敵級*ビリーバー lyrics

even with the extra translating steps this is a super straightforward and so great pair. i mean i get the gist of ugly just by listening to it lol but you know. and i actually also kinda get the gist of the love live song. the part that knocks em dead is how they both have the mirror bit, and that kinda appears in english in both songs (although i dont think i noticed it in the love live song before translating it).

in particular, ugly is like, Im ugly and i wish i wasnt. this mirror sucks. and the love live song is like i'm so awesome i love looking in the mirror.

the musical aspect i noticed is how they both have this triumphant upbeatness, although with *ugly* the chorus is this strong and concrete and maybe like singable hook, whereas the love live song dances around the chorus very elaborately and giddily, which in turn makes it feel brilliantly self assured and confident.

i guess when i was listening to them i got the feeling that the love live song was gonna be about being in love (because its called love live i guess) and thought "thats kind of nice." but then when i saw that it was jsut like this awesome self celebration song i was like ohhhh thats like a way better negation lol

i feel a little bit worried that i'm just going to like the paired song situations a lot more on average because of how simple of an idea this was but Well it was freaking good

Spoiler: 6th, section 3: invisibility

camping in alaska - c u in da ballpit B/W mason jennings - soldier boy

enjoyment: 5.7 (4.4+/5 and 4.2+/5)
catfit: 2.4
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: invibility
submitter: IT IS bility -0.1
medals / ICs: suburbs (

c u in da ballpit

) +0.0

9.0 + 0.0

this is one where i just felt like the songs worked together interestingly before i had any particular reason to explain why. but i read the songs as the contrast of the feeling of aimlessness versus unquestioningly feeling like you have a purpose. and i guess they carry typical means of conveying those feelings in different genres, where the first song is like some kind of "emo" or "midwest" or something and the second song is like countryish. but what stands out is that the subject matter of the first song is like very mild and lacking danger, compared to the often intense way the singer describes their circumstances - lines like "your face is burnt in the back of my fuckin eyelids" have some kind of anger to them which overstates the simple feeling of just being very used to someone. compared to the very comfortable and self-assured language in the second song which spends time just going like "ba ba ba", while discussing the fact that the person is like gonna go to war (with a fatalistic and poignant framing).

Spoiler: 7th, section 1: aisa

laura marling - night terror

section: 1
enjoyment: 5.7 (4.3+/5)
catfit: 2.3 + 0.1
unfamiliarity: 0.8
guess: infinity..?
submitter: aiza. yup. good night
medals / ICs:

8.9

sure, there's a pretty solid fighting and dark type, mostly just from a direct reading of the lyrics: dark type from that idea of night terrors and mosters and stuff (you could also get ghost type, but it feels less of a Spooky Mysterious situation and more like actively frightening and evil) and fighting from, well, how she's like "im gonna fight them". there's a little bit of support in the orchestration for a haunting feeling and a bit of support in the vocal songwriting for the feeling of a rugged fighting instict, and i guess both of those naturally come from the fact the song is about that.

it's sort of goofy to think of this as like a "dual type" when the two things are in opposition to each other, but at the same time it compellingly gets at the coolness of fighting being super effective against dark. like literally the feeling of the song is like ... physically fighting off night terrors. and i guess that's what fighting type pokemon do day in day out. and on the other hand that idea enriches the song a little bit, it's a nice thing.

Spoiler: 8th, section 3: hellbooks

tierpark - hiccup breakup B/W inabakumori - rainy boots / レイニーブーツ

section: 3
enjoyment: 5.9 (4.5/5 and 4.4/5)
catfit: 2.0
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: hellbooks
submitter: get guessed i guess -0.1
medals / ICs:

8.8

hiccup breakup lyrics (untranslated...)
rainy boots lyrics

hiccup (hiccup)... take a brush and put a little breakup (breakup)

the contrast i notice btwn the two songs is in the general time signatureness, not only that the first one is 7/8 or 13/8 or whatever and the second one is 4/4, but generally in the sort of wobbly off kilter feeling of the first one and the surefootedness of the second one. in particular there's a lot of like dotted eight note + sixteenth note rhythms in the vocaloid song that it does very precisely because its a vocaloid. i remember being in orchestra class in 7th grade and mr. carrillo pointed out how we were playing that dotted note rhythm as if it were like in 6/8 time, like two tied triplets + another triplet. and i think of that as an example about how people just kinda like doing triplet rhythms more, or will sligthly screw up exacting and unsyncopated 4/4 rhythms, which makes it stand out when the vocaloid very distinctly does it exactly as it would be written in sheet music or whatever. sorry for rambling etc.

anyway, this pairs with the subject matter interestingly, where the first song is about breaking up amicably and sort of loosely speculating about what went wrong, whereas the second song is like a point of acute emotional discomfort (being unhappy and uncertain, with pooling rainfall being a symbol for it) but also it seems like the singer is trying to take solace in someone else (although i think that the someone else might be the boots or something). i guess i dont really have comments other than just describing whats going on but its cool.

kind of want to minjaephobically give somebody a je ne sais chat award if they succeeded in framing hellbooks with this korean indie song and vocaloid

Spoiler: 9th, section 1: channeldelibird

lets eat grandma - eat shiitake mushrooms

section: 1
enjoyment: 5.6 (4.3/5)
catfit: 1.9 + 0.1
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: um..... w'geurt?
submitter: cdb
medals / ICs:

8.6

this song leans a little bit on the fact that it gets you started thinking about mushrooms because of the title (which is you know a little bit cheating) as well as the fact that for some reason various video games have instilled the idea of a certain kind of melodic motif thats associated with mushrooms. but yeah this is like all bouncy and stuff Which reminds me of mario kart wii mushrooms gorge. which is in turn like grass type. there's some kinda metalness to how you'd describe the instrumentation, a common thread is the glockenspiel and the cowbell and of course the distorted guitar which is of course like "metal" music although it kind of makes me think electric type by default. One of them magnemite types... but definitely a more obvious steel reading.

i like that guitar tone which feels like it has very little of the actual guitar sounds and is just the electricy part (and maybe its like synthesized or whatever..)

Spoiler: tied 10th, section 2: chickadee

agnes obel - run cried the crawling

section: 2
enjoyment: 5.8 (4.4/5)
catfit: 1.8
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: chickdee maybe...
submitter: get guessed -0.1
medals / ICs: chills +1.1

8.5 + 1.1

something that definitely gives me a wintery feeling is a very meek bass that feels like it's constantly on the verge of wearing out, a body's heat source slowly giving way to the cold. various things also have the feeling of a sudden chill, or just like the aesthetics of something shimmering untouchably icy. where it runs into difficulties are in those texturally rich and crunchy strings, which immediately made me think of fallen leaves. and otherwise it sort of doesn't have the feeling of smooth snow cover or the like. and i guess those like lyrical mentions of frozenness and winter (she name drops winter...! how gauche...!) don't do all that much to help it for me. but this is still good. somehow i think you'll be able to deal with any mild shortcomings in the score Because of your chills medal.

Spoiler: tied 10th, section 2: t3

rammstein - armee der tristen

section: 2
enjoyment: 5.6 (4.3/5)
catfit: 2.0
unfamiliarity: 0.9
guess: bianco maybe
submitter: ahh t3
medals / ICs:

8.5

lyricques

the lyrics are about like lets all join hands and be sad losers together. i get a summer feeling from this, it's like a very plodding bassy thing that feels like having to keep working in the heat. i guess the rly straightforward metal thing that rammstein do (du) works well with the feeling of being like very conscious of your physicality (because its so hot) (in da summer). i guess that the hopelessness theme doesn't very strongly make me think of summer nor does it seem unlike summer, sometimes summers feel hopeless.

something entered my mind unbidden while i was listening to this which is KOMM MIT i feel dirty DU HAST your own child BAL LONS neun und neunzig. which i say purely because it would theoretically make danny laugh and danny is like not gonna see this

apparently rammstein have this song "dicke titten" from recently

Spoiler: 12th, section 3: wgeurts

cold war kids - water and power B/W black midi - near dt, mi

enjoyment: 5.7 (4.3/5 and 4.4+/5)
catfit: 1.9
unfamiliarity: 0.9 (1.0 and 0.9)
guess: gurt
submitter: IT IS gurt -0.1
medals / ICs:

8.4

going to once again apply the standard of 0.9 unfamiliarity if you are the one who already sent me this artist

i can see these songs as being about trying to be more social and co-operative vs. renouncing society and feeling paranoid. and they both incidentally draw upon water as a symbol of those modes, the first song mentions water in a reservoir in a way that touches on the co-operative usage of water in a society, contrasted with the second song which describes water in this fearful and problematic way - i could see it being about the flint water crisis.

i think that basically all of the conceptual pieces are there for this to be a great pairing but it just kind of doesn't have the feeling of one - part of that is that the lyrics are kind of rambling as well as hard to hear in both songs and it took me a while to notice the water thing (which i have to assume is the main thing the submitter was thinking of). and so i guess they songs just don't feel so united as a story. but cool idea. i guess i like the guitar in the black midi song.

Spoiler: 13th, section 3: mushshagana

zaliva-d - eastern sigh B/W rna - homunculi

enjoyment: 5.8 (4.3+/5 and 4.5/5)
catfit: 1.3
unfamiliarity: stone cold 1.0
guess:
submitter: mushshagana
medals / ICs: not on spotify (either) +0.1

8.1 + 0.1

i sort of failed to forget that mushshagana was the only one to send me two bandcamp links (i think fireisredsir had a bandcamp link and then changed that submission) so i will just leave it unguessed here. bandcamp doesn't make it very easy to have gapless sequential playback unless you own the songs so i bought the zaliva-d track for $1 and i bought the rna album for $3.69 and i would keep adding them to a two-song queue on my phone. i half suspect that both of these bands are like friends of mushshagana and theyre gonna message it like "hey somebody bought our stuff, was that from you?"

i'm not finding a lot of threads to relate these songs really, the best thing i have my hands on is that they both have this feeling of dread and that the first song represents the machine which is causing the dread whereas the second song is like shouting into the void about it. specifically that little low-mixed and echoing voice over a huge distorted sound wall reminds me of panopticon https://dreamcrusher.bandcamp.com/album/panopticon-3 which is like close to my favorite album and i think i've bizarrely never told you about it

another thing is that one time i accidentally queued up the whole rna album one time and i listened to the first song and it had this like almost-power chord thing that i spent like 20 minutes trying to remember what it reminded me of & it was pretend friends by mr. phylzzz but ONLY in the show where i saw them live opening for boris and melvins bc in the album version the guitar is much crummier. Anyway this has been a nice diversion

Spoiler: tied 14th, section 3: biancospino

sigh - messiahplan B/W opeth - all things will pass

enjoyment: 5.4 (4.2/5 and 4.2+/5)
catfit: 1.6
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: bianc ospino
submitter: biancos pino -0.1
medals / ICs:

7.9

i feel like bianco's been suffering a little bit from the fact that i don't read lyrics so i looked over them with these songs - although her songs are kind of unavoidably going to perform a little worse just because i value specifically hearing the lyrics within the mix of a song and get a little bit annoyed when musicians don't care about whether you can do that. still, there's a handful of themes hiding in those tangentially-related documents labeled "lyrics" for these songs which were a little bit beneficial

idk if you would call either of these songs death metal, i think you probably wouldn't actually, but they get at the different attitudes metal seems like it often has about death itself - messiahplan seems to be excited and voracious about death (maybe sort of playing with the idea of cult suicides or wahtever) and all things will pass takes a more dreadful and frightened approach to it. and i guess having the songs side by side causes you to notice the differences in tempo, orchestration, etc. that accompany these differences in attitude - although, it takes a little bit of work to look for these and i guess the songs don't scream out at me what their compelling aspects are (though they do scream out in general)

Spoiler: tied 14th, section 1: pj

giant claw - deep thoughts 002

section: 1
enjoyment: 5.2 (4.1/5)
catfit: 1.6 + 0.1
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: is this like chev...
submitter: pj !
medals / ICs: MUSIC THAT MAKES ME SHIT +1.0

7.9 + 1.0

i can definitely get a psychic type out of this - there's those moments where there's suddenly this big wide synth voice going like "wuahhhh" (they made me look up whether this was like an alias of oneohtrix point never...) and you can definitely imagine those big red waves from when claydol uses psychic. or like a big purple eye opening. i think the second type (or first type i guess) wants to be grass... but i'm kind of struggling with that. like that funny little arpeggio melody makes me think of some kinda cave full of mushrooms and like slime mold or whatever... but i mean caves have a lot of different stuff in them. famously flying and poison types for example. and there's like a lot of funny alternating vibraphone and marimba that kind of muddles the type aesthetic.

psychic type isn't an easy one though and i am going to cautiously assume you tried and succeeded to do that

Spoiler: 16th, section 1: ceejayvinoya

大槻 ケンヂ と 橘高 文彦 - 踊る赤ちゃん人間

section: 1
enjoyment: 5.8 (4.4/5)
catfit: 0.9 + 0.1
unfamiliarity: 1
guess: triz????
submitter: ceejay vinoya
medals / ICs: like beloved +0.6

7.8 + 0.6

lyrix

um this one is a hell of a puzzle. so the lyrics are about like attempting some world domination plan by leveraging the innocent appearance of a baby. its not exactly clear how that would work. i think that the innocent baby stuff is supposed to represent fairy type - like nowadays those baby-type moves like sweet kiss and charm are fairy type. that connection is kinda tenuous in my head, i still think of those as normal type and i guess being a baby in general as a normal type thing (like how azurill was just normal type and not water type). and Um, you'll have to forgive me for not really getting a normal type feeling out of this song as a whole. on the other hand you could get a dark type feeling from the world domination thing (which is kind of supported by the manic and evil instrumentation) as well as a fighting type. and i also can't help but feel like theres some completely other type i've missed.

so this ends up being super muddled but i can't help but give it a bit of catfit just for the amount of fun i had trying to puzzle this out.

there's a great commitment that the vocalist has to being engaging, there's that "ababa ababa" thing which is injected into the chorus and other such pure bonus vocalization stuff. i wanted to give this "honest songwriting" just because i'm otherwise predisposed not to give that to non-english music, although the reason for that is how i can't really judge the interaction between lyrics and melody very closely. instead i'm gonna go ahead and hit this with a ridiculous "like beloved" cat which would possibly make somebody laugh if they've read the book (and equally possibly just make them groan at my inanity)

Spoiler: 17th, section 2: toolenduso

erik satie (performed by daniel varsano) - gymnopedie no. 1

section: 2
enjoyment: 5.7 (4.3+/5)
catfit: 2.3
unfamiliarity: -0.1
guess: i kinda gotta go with drk but this could easily be like a stray ari
submitter: toolz
medals / ICs:

7.7

i don't even know for sure that i've listened to this a bunch of times - i remember listening to it on an ipod in my room when my pet roly poly died in like third grade. and it was just about to graduate too. but anyway i just looked at it and was like "yup i know gymnopedie. bum dum.... bum dum... etc etc". and even the middly parts too.

but you know its like a good song and whatever. i even think that most people would think of it as wintery (i asked my mom who likes it and she was like yeah definitely winter) but it's pretty comfortably fall to me. both of those seasons want to have the spacious landscape of wistful seventh chords, but this song makes me think of hanging out outside and thinking about stuff and maybe looking around at the empty trees and whatever as an accessory for your thinking. and i do that sometimes during the winter sure but not for long. fall lets you hang out outside for a long time and not start to have your fingers and toes freeze up.

Spoiler: tied 18th, section 1: pink ball

david gates - suite: clouds, rain

section: 1
enjoyment: 5.0 (4.0/5)
catfit: 1.4 + 0.1
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: channeldelibird. however i remember seeing cdb sent "section 1" and thinking like, well yeah like ice flying i guess. so i'm not gonna take away a point if i'm right just bc i remember that
submitter: ok well. this is pink ball
medals / ICs:

7.5

i guess it's somewhat clear to me this is supposed to be water/flying type. like the water is a pretty clear motif, and then there's like those sounds of wind and occasional mentions of flight. the problem is this song is kind of a slog and in my first impression i really just came away with water type and like maybe normal type because this is just like a normal ass song. long-type? ballad-type? elton john-type? like you spend a lot of time sitting through the prog organ solo or whatever to get just one more morsel of some kind of Type. of any kind.

the one fact about this is that those little choruses e.g. "on this airplane comin home to you..." are really great.

Spoiler: tied 18th, section 2: aristophanes

mary hopkin - those were the days (live 1969)

section: 2
enjoyment: 5.5 (4.2+/5)
catfit: 1.0
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: pink bwall...?
submitter: aristophs...
medals / ICs:

7.5

i can very easily imagine that one could listen to this and immediately think of a certain season, and i could also easily imagine that season being spring. i think that spring is the one you'd associate with freedom and open-endedness and generally being the target of nostalgia (maybe summer i guess? only if you're specifically thinking of being a kid on summer vacation). but i guess this slightly misses in that it doesn't do anything to prompt a specific season directly. it's sort of like this song is saying "man what a great period of time that was... you all know what i'm talking about" and well different people in the audience just come away thinking different times. another thing is that there's the sort of frame narrative where she's talking about being lost and confused in the present and maybe that could be like a fall or a winter compared to the spring or summer of the rest of the song. well i guess you're usually not like waxing nostalgic like this about like six months ago but still.

i like the gentle accelerando for the refrain and the way it eventually adds mandolin or whatever that is.

easily the best part of this is when she says something in welsh and he's like ehmm can you say that slower

Spoiler: 20th, section 3: skygazer

thundercat & louis cole - i love louis cole B/W scarygoldings and louise cole and john scofield and mononeon - louis cole sucks

enjoyment: 5.7 (4.4/5 and 4.3+/5)
catfit: 0.8
unfamiliarity: 0.8 (0.8 and 0.9)
guess: skygazeur
submitter: omg -0.1
medals / ICs:

7.2

i kinda want this to be the token paired songs that i kill as sacrifice to make the other sections feel like they didnt miss out on the awesome winning paired songs idea & i feel like skygazer wouldnt mind especially if i tell them that i enjoyed the idea (ALTHOUGH i didnt laugh at it or at least i didnt laugh from just the titles. actually i saw the first youtube video and thought about it for a second and was like "oh i bet the second song is gonna be like i hate louis cole or whatever")

the general reason for the dearth of points is that the pairing here mostly feels like it comes directly from the musicians (although i kind of expected that i love louis cole would have come after louis cole sucks). and like i wouldnt give points to two songs that are next to each other on an album. i'll say it's funny that like this offers the pro-louis cole standpoint which is something like "we got extremely fucked up together" and the anti-louis cole standpoint is "i have to listen to louis cole's drumming". i'll also say that like each of the 20 times you've made me type louis cole i've accidentally typed louise and had to backspace it. and now i'm free forever. louise louise louise louise louise louise louise. oh and the drumming is coot. good*.

Spoiler: 21st, section 3: majiffy

the beatles - she's leaving home B/W oingo boingo - mary

enjoyment: 5.3 (4.6/5 and 3.7/5)
catfit: 1.6
unfamiliarity: 0.3 (-0.4 and 0.9)
guess: jiffy
submitter: omg! -0.1
medals / ICs:

7.1

tragically we have come to my favorite song of yours which is also the song i've listened to the most out of everything i've been sent. like this is the comedic payoff of all the times i talked about my dad playing music in the car: He Played This Song in the Car. there's a certain segment of beatles songs i would describe as "oddly domestic" (maybe

a day in the life

is the most famous one but this song as well as

for no one

and

fixing a hole

are more like the "glum and goofy little song" archetype i'm thinking of) that somehow ended up making a strong impression on me, and i don't even think i've listened to this very much as an adult but i realized that i could kind of audiate all of the little strings in this and i remembered basically all of the lyrics (although i still got taken by surprise with the thing where there's like only 3 notes of the strings before each verse)

i can see how these two unite into a story - in fact i wouldn't be surprised if oingo boingo was like directly thinking about the beatles song when they wrote mary (also i feel like the chorus is interpolating baby you're a rich man but if it does they at least added a harmony to it). and that aspect of it bores me a little bit.

the main cool thing is how i just enjoy the beatles' storytelling of this a lot more - their song doesn't name its character (although the second time i listened to it i kind of thought i missed her name explicitly being mary) and it starts in the middle of the story, with this goofy little chorus that zooms in on a specific parental feeling. the oingo boingo song spends a kind of boring verse setting up a little biography for her and goes on to try to make this big epic story about her with epic hooks and stuff and it just works much worse for me. and in that way the contrast is like pretty funny, even if it comes at the expense of me particularly liking one of the songs

Spoiler: 22nd, section 3: tris

clark powell - flare B/W suzanne ciani - the fifth wave - water lullaby

enjoyment: 4.9 (3.7+/5 and 4.2+/5)
catfit: 1.1
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: trizah
submitter: yes -0.1
medals / ICs: not on spotify (

flare

) +0.0

7.0

ok so that suzanne ciani song just has a bonus dash in it that screws up the way i write artist and song title combos. but whatever.

the main thing i notice is how flare is comprised of a lot of sounds with a sharp attack (except the times where that piano is played backwards, and it has a sharp decay), which gives the feeling of stiffness and unyieldingness, whereas basically everything in the second song is smooth and even continuous often (except for the hi hat sound). and both of them have a bunch of arpeggios. maybe they represent the moments before and after you accomplish an epic video game thing. the problem comes in that neither song really particularly feels like it's about anything to me and it's like i'm reaching into the nuts and bolts to try to find something in common - i guess i just don't feel like i'm getting a story or anything out of the two songs although i can easily imagine one could feel that way

imagining this is tris amending her statement in heltris walrus that "both songs can't be homestuck songs" to be like "ok but one of them can"

Spoiler: 23rd, section 2: infinity 324

pokemon black/white - alder encounter

section: 2
enjoyment: 4.8 (3.9/5)
catfit: 1.1
unfamiliarity: 0.9
guess: erm isis perhaps
submitter: infiny ahh
medals / ICs: not on spotify +0.1

6.8 + 0.1

maybe the feeling here is like "surely not winter" and "surely not fall" and then hrmm probably spring i guess. its got a little bit of the spring-like florid and vivacious feeling. maybe this is a classic problem where i'm not super engaged by the song to begin with and so i'm not really hunting for thematic content. it doesn't help that i never really liked the sound font on the ds games. like i started out with the stinky little midi instruments on GBA and then when i heard a slightly more modernized version of that sound i was like "boo this sucks!!! yells at cloud!!!"

oh yeah i briefly got an aneurysm from this being in the seasons and not the pokemon part which is maybe the intention

Spoiler: 24th, section 2: chevre

green gills - make it all shine

section: 2
enjoyment: 4.8 (3.9/5)
catfit: 0.7
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: aisa..?
submitter: chevy...
medals / ICs:

6.5

this tragically falls flat into a problem where its general shiny optimism, which might generally want to be associated with spring or summer (which is a little bit ambiguous to begin with), but also hits the problem where i'm not like the other girls and i usually get a little pumped up during the winter and probably also at various points during the fall. sure theres like that sunshine motif and thats really all that does particularly well.

this earns back some of the enjoyment points it loses from me getting tired of it, during that little ukelele + clarinet piece at the end

this is late belle and sebastian to a tee. And yet i don't seem to be taking off 0.1 unfamiliarity points. i need to get more evil

[schadd_]

[schadd_]

this is now with everybody's lowest score dropped. it seems to be our rising star fireisredsir's game to lose... though each of the people in that cohort have the threat of sending me a song i like a lot.

our final category, the so-called "cat 1", reveals this sunday at 2pm central US time (UTC-5) ((expired on 2023-09-24 14:00:00)). these songs will be revealed in the randomly generated order in which i listened to them. the catfit points will be based on the enjoyment points, where the range between 3/5 and 4/5 is worth one point and the range between 4/5 and 5/5 is worth two points. so a song with a rating of 4.4/5 would be worth 1 + 0.8 = 1.8

the "honest walrus" column ignores the dropped score (as well as medals and invisible cats). you'll note mushshagana having a shocking second place in that column, partly due to its walloping 8.2 minimum score. it is also based on my bookkeeping of the medal and IC points which is something i spent like 8.2 seconds doing total across all the categories

[schadd_]

if you have had any thought like "i should do my own walrus!", you should do that now!

if you open signups now it will still take you kind of a while to start, so you might as well get going. i will say that i set a kind of silly standard as far as amount of writing / bells and whistles / etc., as well as the pacing of the reveals. people do walruses on mafiauniverse with like little to no writing and sporadic reveals and they work perfectly well, not that you needed my permission to not write 3 paragraphs about each song for no reason.

you should start a walrus! i'm pointing at you through my computer!! you don't need permission from me or god or your mom to scramble together whatever categories you want and click post. if you do it i will cheerlead your thread and link everybody to it and call in reinforcements or whatever. several persons responsible for walruses in the past are out of commission - hellbooks is like extremely busy, shafted is tragically not using the website and also didnt finish his other walrus, i just did a walrus in fact And i will not do another one for like a year. tris is still here and listening to music all the time and is one of the people i'm addressing with this post i guess. all of the high placers of this walrus who listen to music all the time: i am looking at you too! AND THE LOW PLACERS don't think you can just sneak past me! anix too, as long as i have your attention by saying your name - i have a great idea for a way to win the trust of the restless and paranoid userbase! zoraster - um you can go back to mowing your lawn or whatever

[schadd_]

my dog wants to play catch
i'm popular

[schadd_]

ok umm i forgot that dogs play fetch and not catch

[Aristophanes]

I thought about doing a walrus but I'd never have the time. I have an alternative idea for a music thread, however. It will likely debut in the next week sometime in GD!

Hmm...probably in GD. I have to think about how deeply I'll write things and whether I care that they're indexed. Probably GD though! I'll let you know

[MUSHSHAGANA]

So!

Li Chao of Zaliva-D is someone I was acquainted with waaaaay back in 2007 or so, we frequented the same obscure internet music circles. As of this May, I also know a personal friend of his, also a musician (keju of Broken Thoughts) but Li Chao and I haven't spoken since like ... 2009?

In theory, I probably know someone who knows someone in RNA, because I know a ton of weird motherfuckers in Arizona, but I'm not aware of any connection there.

So you're wrong about that.

The connection between the tracks that I intended is to this hot dry distant festival atmosphere. In the Zaliva-D case it's more alien, Morrowind-like in its combination of various Asian and African cultural elements but with a distinct admixture of the totally inhuman as well (those weird bassy lurches before that odd flute-like instrument shows up make it feel like some sort of parade of rubber-maquette aliens is turning the corner into view). In RNA's case, it's more of a Woodstocky live rock festival vibe. But both are sunbaked and celebratory tracks, with a wash of the unreal from either the unusual and alien vibes or the drug-hazed echoes.

[schadd_]

i had fun reading that. i guess i didnt get a particularly celebratory feeling from either song although i would describe the first one as like "revelling in something." i liked the weird bassy lurches yes.

[schadd_]

i can't find it but there was this image set on tumblr from the show too hot to handle

Spoiler:

[schadd_]

CAT 1 REVEAL IS TOMORROW!!! that is SUNDAY at 2PM CENTRAL US TIME which is UTC MINUS FIVE

which is SLIGHTLY LESS THAN 21 HOURS AFTER THIS POST

it all ends here!! will this new kid "fireisredsir" take home the belt??? that would be odd because i didnt offer a belt!!!

the songs are revealing in a random order which means the first placer could be announced at any moment!!

be there!! any enjoyment of these 24 songs experienced by persons other than myself will be purely accidental AND YET highly likely!!

[schadd_]

Spoiler:

CAT 1 IN A HALF HOUR! DAWN OF THE FINAL DAY!

[schadd_]

cat 1

Spoiler: 9th: channel delibird

fenne lily - lights light up

enjoyment: 5.8 (4.4/5)
catfit: 1 + 0.8 = 1.8
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: fi reis?
submitter: channel delibird!
medals / ICs: chills +0.4

8.6 + 0.4

somebody might have looked at that list of 5/5 albums i have and noticed the five big thief albums there. i definitely like the thin & pattering drums that are like james krivchenia and the light harmony in that chorus is definitely optimized to stimulate the central nervous system (although i'm sort of happy to be able to give a discounted version of the chills medal since i'm fresh out of them). in particular the arrangement of the phrase "do you even wanna be here?" really gets at the feeling of, well, do you even wanna be here, but in a reassuring way.

the song does a lot of good building of mood in a straightforward way, but maybe it sort of lacks in what specific things it accomplishes beyond the chorus though. the ideas are a little bit scattered, there's a bunch of emotional vignettes that oftentimes don't catch me as expressing anything in particular very brilliantly. but the general presentation is very beautiful, it has the feeling of a big inviting space where a story unravels. i guess i would have largely described big thief in the same way for the first year i was listening to them, lol. regardless there's a few things about this that'll stick with me

Spoiler: 8th: stinkycheesedan

tied 8th: the sugarcubes - ammæli (birthday)

enjoyment: 6.0 (4.5/5)
catfit: 1 + 1 = 2
unfamiliarity: 0.7
guess: do i just go with known bjork submitter infinity...
submitter: ok danny lol awesome
medals / ICs:

8.7

this song briefly made me think about whether i wanted to subtract from the catfit somehow in the event i know the song, even though i'm like not 100% sure whether i've listened to this song or if i'm just kind of hearing the venus as a boy melody in it. the thing is that it feels so safe to submit a bjork song to me even though its not like i went around posting about how much i like bjork everywhere & i'd also appreciate the notion of "hey you might have missed out on sugarcubes even if you already like bjork". anyway. i've definitely listened to some sugarcubes, davsto said about them something along the lines of "bjork's singing is obviously great. don't really care for the bloke."

something about the weepiness and droopiness of the instrumentation lends this the feeling of vulnerability, not just in the social sense but in the sense of an organism leaving itself in danger, and bjork's shimmering and glottal-squeaking voice feel like she is straining and over-extending, but in a way that is joyful. it's a very emotionally full song, that 1-5-2 bass progression feels like a tall thought is being dwelled on.

i've definitely liked her icelandic singing whenever i've heard it. i had a thought "maybe this person submitted the icelandic version because they didnt want me to look at the lyrics... but i've generally been translating lyrics". um i think there might be merit to that idea.

Spoiler: 22nd: deathrowkitty

ladytron - time's arrow

enjoyment: 4.5 (3.7+/5)
catfit: 0.8
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: danny?
submitter: drk
medals / ICs: that's a PJ medal babes +1.6

6.3 + 1.6

this kind of relies on the very thick synth atmosphere to give shape and character to the melody which is kind of annoyingly stagnant and simple (with the exception of the occasional cool surprise major cadence thing it does in the chorus). and the atmosphere is pretty cool but often doesn't have anything in particular that grabs me. i guess generally the song just doesn't compel me to have much of a reaction to it, the lyrics are kind of distractingly figurative (and when you think about the idea of time being strong or whatever, you think of things changing over time . . .).

but i guess the moments of particularly strong transformation (e.g. the big beat switch thing at 2:30) and the general glitz and mystique of the production make this fairly interesting

Spoiler: tied 16th: pink ball

parcels - bemyself (live from hansa studios)

enjoyment: 5.6 (4.3/5)
catfit: 1 + 0.6 = 1.6
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: gweurts?
submitter: ok awesomely this is pink ball and somebody else down the line submitted a song by a chilean band. i guess theyre chilean-american.
medals / ICs:

8.2

i like the indulgent pair of guitarists doing all sorts of hammerings on at the beginning but it also kinda makes me think alright whens the song gonna start lol. i guess that i shockingly spend a lot of time waiting for this thom yorkic vocalist to come back - or maybe i'd rather say the vocals in general are nice. the contrast of head voice and chest voice and the emphatic falls into and out of unison are what make e.g. iceblink luck a really good vocal performance, and they have a lot of fun with it here.

maybe i would say this is like 7% of the way towards feeling distractingly corny or indulgent & it doesn't have much to offer beyond the feeling of those choruses, but they're truly very nice

Spoiler: tied 2nd: ceejayvinoya

the pillows - last dinosaur

enjoyment: 6.3 (4.6+/5)
catfit: 1 + 1.3 = 2.3
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: invisiblitatively
submitter: known 3:46 submitter ceejayvinoya... ourgh
medals / ICs: exactly 3 minutes and 46 seconds +0.7, tied second +1.2

9.6 + 1.9

obnoxiously i will start by saying that i like the mixing in this a lot. it feels like there's gentle distortion on everything, i tend to like when there's a slight feeling like the recording medium is losing it only when the sound is at its most intense. the vocalist feels that way, there's a couple of those moments where they glisten a little bit in a particularly strong "oh" sound (although that might just be what the pre-production vocals sound like). and yet the vocalist is very cleanly audible, which i gotta give props to even though i don't speak the language (and don't have all that strong of a reaction to the lyrics when i read them alongside the song). there's just various production aspects that make this feel like it's glistening.

the sudden really meaty and full drumming as well as the gentle glide guitar in that bridge at 2:00 are sooooo good

there's this very nice thing where the little vocal treats towards the end of this song sound like bjork (& what's also nice is that i can say that & know that you heard that song just a few minutes ago although that would probably be true in a typical reveal order.)

and i also Obviously like that album cover a lot.

Spoiler: tied 6th: skygazer

bernard wright - haboglabotribin

enjoyment: 6.0 (4.5/5)
catfit: 1 + 1 = 2
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess:
submitter: this is skygazer
medals / ICs:

9.0

it's so awesome that this is from 1981 because it sorta feels like it's riffing on the herbie-era funk with a funny modern hip hop sensibility, like the music box thing is Easily something a producer would be proud to come up with in 2023

it occurs to me i say i like the personality of this song even though the personality of this song is "what if there was an awesome and unsettling carnival". i get a huge kick out of that line "all the rides are fifty cents so take the ladies all you gents" i guess just because it sets down this unquestioning assumption that guys generally arent willing to spend more than 50 cents on their girlfriend at once

One has to call out a good hi-hat closing when one hears it & well there are quite many of them in this. maybe this doesnt really produce any like transcendentally great Music Experiences but like its a great song to which one might wiggle and wobble whilst cooking. and i could see this producing transcendentally great music experiences for some listeners. this is of course the most stone cold obvious skygazer song in the world but i think i did my thing where i copied this an extra time and so i saw it as hers & im not allowed to guess it

Spoiler: tied 13th: fireisredsir

gazelle twin - glory

enjoyment: 5.7 (4.3+/5)
catfit: 1 + 0.7 = 1.7
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: is this a tris
submitter: this is fire's reds!
medals / ICs:

8.4

mhm so somebody noticed i like kate bush. You are correct in that. and i also like fka twigs.

this has a lot of feelings of teemingness, various kinds of life sprouting out of this e.g. the huge elaborate and sprawling vocal phrases that feel like roots and branches growing out forcefully, and all the little rumblings across the frequency spectrum.

maybe there's mild shortcomings in that they slightly overuse that big low "bwooo" (especially that part at the end that just keeps doing it for a bonus minute... its the electronic music makers folly, it sort of makes it feel exploited) and that this is maybe even too dramatic for any of the lyrics to really take hold on me. i guess i also just hear a lot of the cool parts of the vocal production and think "woaw this is like kate bush" which isn't really a good or a bad thing (especially since i dont have a way of knowing directly if this the musician is inspired by kate bush, nor the submitter for that matter) but it does make it a little harder to get to a transcedent goodness. i mean the vocalist is self evidently great.

Spoiler: 21th: chickadee

albert hammond jr. - spooky couch

enjoyment: 4.9 (3.9+/5)
catfit: 1.0
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: chickdee... jiffy isnt the only member of the household who likes to send the long ones
submitter: i seem to have guessed more than zero of your songs this time -0.1
medals / ICs:

6.8

there's a lot of nice details, the pattering of the drums and the squeakings of guitar. maybe my favorite part of this is that droning cello which proceeds at a gentle dissonance during the segment where the chord changes - and later gets to have a handful of (still gentle) moments in greater focus. but the details don't add up to an astoundingly engaging 7 minutes. there's that section of payoff at the end that makes me say "ok, like, payoff for what . ?"

that said, i feel like i'm on the verge of being affected by the guitar enough that this would be a very pleasant song. like there's some version of it where i give this like 69 points instead of 6.9. edit 68 points instead of 6.8.

Spoiler: 23rd: toolenduso

minus the bear - animal backwards

enjoyment: 4.3 (3.6+/5)
catfit: 0.7
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: cjv ?
submitter: tool & duso
medals / ICs:

6.0

for a while i heard this as "she is a moth looking through my window" spoken very britishly which was cool. like does she think you're a light bulb or something. um, this has a really clubby vibe that falls a little flat for me, probably the best part of it is the harshness of some pieces of the drum machine. i almost think i'd like this with an even more straightforward 4 on the floor beat

Spoiler: 5th: invisibility

prince nico mbarga - sweet mother

enjoyment: 6.1 (4.5+/5)
catfit: 1 + 1.1 = 2.1
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: hellbook maybe
submitter: INbility!
medals / ICs: paired vocalists +0.4

9.2

possibly the submitter gambled on whether i have a good relationship with my mom. and i do! the vocal harmony is great, the layered drum section works well until the end, there's a few moments that make me a little emotional. i suppose it mostly speaks for itself.

Spoiler: tied 11th: T3

(occasional flashing warning) mitski - townie

enjoyment: 6.2 (4.6/5)
catfit: 1 + 1.2 = 2.2
unfamiliarity: 0.1
guess: aisa... song that i already know from artist who uses her first name at least
submitter: T3??? Awesome
medals / ICs: laughed at the song/artist +0.2

8.5 + 0.2

i got a little bit startled by how dirty the guitar was and i somehow didnt remember the particular refrain "i want a love that falls as fast as a body from the balcony" (great line obviously) but like i've seen her perform this song. the only song where i did that before it got sent to me lol (she headlined one of the days at pitchfork 2022).

erm what do i say about this... mitski's singing is reminiscent of wringing out a towel. there's all sorts of fuzz and bristle in the production of this but i think it's telling that the tiny desk version of this is just her and an electric guitar. i guess there's just a lot of lines that make one stew on them for a while. the first time i noticed that thing where she says "i don't wanna be what my daddy wants me to be" as well as "..body wants me to be" i thought about it a lot. like what's left.

there's a lot of times i mention music having some kind of "shape" which is impressive or elaborate and this is a good example of that. which is to say that trying to like picture this song (or like create some mental model of it) is very thought intensive, it feels like a big winding path.

Spoiler: tied 13th: mushshagana

tenops - seven bullets

enjoyment: 5.7 (4.3+/5)
catfit: 1 + 0.7 = 1.7
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess:
submitter: mushshagana ;;;;;
medals / ICs:

8.4

tragically when i double copied skygazer's song this got trampled over and so i know this is msha. this could have maybe gotten a jiffy guess out of me or something

i think i know of mushshagana liking deftones or at least knowing about them well enough to take advantage of the several times i was like "I Like Deftones now". and this compares reasonably well to, like, post-y2k deftones which i tend to enjoy at erm the 4.3+ level. the thing is that beyond the fur in particular has the songwriting sensibility of a petulant and squirming baby seal & the guy refuses to do any kind of vocals in a manner that is sustainable for him to keep doing for 25 years. i should say both of those are me describing reasons i like that album and fall a little short on the albums that just have their big soaring drama and thick mixing

and yeah there's big soaring drama with this, i like the big lurching bass movements a lot and the shiny vocal harmonies that get at a feeling of wideness. the drumming is good. whatever pedals they have work. i guess there's just not anything in particular that's home run level good

Spoiler: 24th: aristophanes

half alive - still feel (with an uncredited orchestra)

enjoyment: 4.4 (3.7/5)
catfit: 0.7
unfamiliarity: 0.7
guess: aristophanes ;__..;?
submitter: yes....-.1
medals / ICs: laughed out loud from seeing the song/artist +0.2

5.7 + 0.2

the original version of this got song contested and i really disliked it when i heard it like 2 or 3 years ago. i sort of wonder if you went and looked at my rateyourmusic page and found this in my 1-star ratings - if so i guess you knew what you were getting into. i guess i sort of like the orchestra? probably my favorite part of it is when they do a big upward movement to fake out a key change before the chorus. but i would probably like it if they did an actual key change for it. and maybe swap out the vocalist too while they're at it actually. have to call out good hi hat closings. it's funny that they kind of do a trap drum machine style hi hat during the verses. i think the drumming has a large amount of makings of a better song if the vocalist didnt force me to dislike this

Spoiler: tied 2nd: tris

pom poko - follow the lights

enjoyment: 6.3 (4.6+/5)
catfit: 1 + 1.3 = 2.3
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: this almost feels like i'm trying to snipe but pj
submitter: trizzz
medals / ICs: tied 2nd +1.2

9.6 + 1.2

each of the several times i've seen the name of this song i've thought "follow the lights(follow the lights) womp wompwompwompwomp Womp womp wompwompwompwomp" which is a testament to nothing more than the fact that basically just the opening passage of all of the lights has been stuck in my head for like 5 years and mostly just comes out to cannibalize a similar sounding phrase.

in fact this song definitely makes you wanna say the title phrase in the way it says it. follow the lights :^) weowww follow the lights :^) follow the lights :^) livin it urp! follow the lights :^) follow the lights :^). the thing about it is that the weowww actually plays a huge part in it even though i only typed it once. they just have so much fun with the squeaky and noisy situation they got their hands on - the guitar tone has so much like variance and shape that it never feels quite aligned with the bar (and i also think they're just not playing it aligned with the bar a lot). but then you suddenly get this clean Weowww in the chorus... and that surprise 6 chord that only the bass is communicating while the guitar and the vocalist do the same dang thing. theres so many great pieces here. and the pace change at 2:20 wahoo!!!!

Spoiler: 20th: majiffy

finger eleven - come on, oblivion

enjoyment: 5.1 (4.0+/5)
catfit: 1 + 0.1 = 1.1
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: t3
submitter: jiffy lol
medals / ICs:

7.2

kid named finger:

i like the guitar tone at various times and the drumming at various times. not really grabbed by the lyrics very much, it's all like guy with huge voice yelling at fate. big deal. but i mean the general bigness of the song is laudable. don't have much other comment, it's pretty slow to get moving and i don't get swept up by the epicness enough to have a whole lot of takeaways

i initially wrote majiffy because i can imagine him gently affirming my mild dislike of the vocalist while also providing no evidence that he has anything other than high regard for them. but i narrowly decided to have jiffy go next. i say that but dont even really mind the vocalist

Spoiler: 1st: aisa

laura nyro - luckie (mono version)

enjoyment: 6.4 (4.7/5)
catfit: 1 + 1.4 = 2.4
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: jiffy ??
submitter: aisaaaaaaaaaaaaa first and last name woman.......... 1968... what was i thinking...
medals / ICs: 1st place +2.0

9.8 + 2.0

so come on luckie and stick it up yo yeahhh

this woman has a serj tankian style commitment to entertaining the listener at all times at all cost. it's like she has 5 different vocal styles and like has an advanced linear learning model pick the right one to use for every new word she speaks. or maybe she's just getting lucky. but she'll like fly up into head voice and back down and be a conventional doo wop singer or ramble ridiculously and she pronounces the word "nobody" like "nwody". or maybe that's her nickname for her friend ego nwodim & you're not supposed to go falling for her. i have no idea what this song is about even a little bit but i figure that what luckie says goes. tragically i can't give it honest songwriting because she might be lying and i would have utterly no idea

the orchestration also deserves to be mentioned honorably. they like very eagerly enable her hundred code switches, the drummer could have gone on to be in converge with how often there's like a sudden change in the beat. like this is a classic walrus phenomenon of "song that would be great in the drums cat but the drums aren't the best or maybe even the second best thing" (such as the second place entry in the drums cat).

i see that (mono version) tag and i just know that there's an unlistenable stereo version where the singer is like only in the left ear or something so thank you for that

maybe i should say this is chickadee because this definitely has leanover swag

Spoiler: 18th: wgeurts

nothing but thieves - do you love me yet

enjoyment: 5.5 (4.2+/5)
catfit: 1 + 0.5 = 1.5
unfamiliarity: 1
guess: cdb
submitter: wogurstststss
medals / ICs:

8.0

the drums are good, they tend to have a straightforward pattern but the song gets driven by them. i like the little snare drum patter on beat 4 that signals "this is our little prog rock breakdown" at around 3 minutes (reminds me of the final board by curren$y & the alchemist which i liked a lot). i guess theres a lot of good snare drum patters

i guess i like the energy of this song but it doesn't give me a lot to grip on to very tightly. mostly the vocalist is a little bit uninteresting. i like the big lasery synthesizer

it's really this artist name that makes me thing cdb. like i've seen 30 phrases indistinguishable from "nothing but thieves" in song contest

Spoiler: 19: chevre

kevin atwater - jacob killed a cat

enjoyment: 5.5 (4.2+/5)
catfit: 1 + 0.5 = 1.5
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: chev
submitter: ok i can count on chevre to get gotten by me in these rough times -0.1
medals / ICs:

7.9

man they really do not bury the lede as far as the killing of the cat. they are not trying to get you to go to page 8 for the main article in order to find out about the cat death. i spend the first like minute of this song frowning really deeply with a very mild pang of excitement because it reminds me that there's the new yorgos lanthimos movie coming out in a few months.

this is like a great opposite of the last song where the vibe is like so bad but the core of it is interesting, the story scoops me up really fast and makes me wanna know what a truth leader is supposed to be (it sounds truly very mormon). i want to describe this singer as a guy version of phoebe bridgers except i'd recoil in shock at scoring this considerably higher than actual phoebe bridgers. I LIKED some of phoebe bridgers more than that song and i guess this song.

the guitar is good, it sounds like finger strumming which exerts a very fine control over the exact sorts of contact and like texture of each chord. very emotionally fraught!

Spoiler: tied 11th: isis

aisha / guilty gear strive soundtrack - bridget's theme

enjoyment: 5.8 (4.4/5)
catfit: 1 + 1.8 = 1.8
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: isis
submitter: i can count on isis lol -0.1
medals / ICs:

8.5

i really really like how this like completely doesnt pass as a video game theme in any other moment than when she's like saying "me without me blah blah blah". like its so brilliantly hookless and swagless songwriting. i hate the alarm oclock i chose. there are so many moments where i'm like "girl what does that mean. why did you say that"

i guess close to all of the entertainment comes from how this alternates between being like an epic video games anthem sort of thing with a big horn section and twelve unnecessary instruments and then just this woman who i guess is supposed to be bridget, putting her vague and unlyrical 2011 tumblr posts to song. i'm entertained

Spoiler: tied 6th: infinity 324

kiltro - curicó

enjoyment: 6.0 (4.5/5)
catfit: 1 + 1 = 2
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: pink ball
submitter: infinit!
medals / ICs:

9.0

it's impressive that i like this so much because it has this sound which reminds me of "gamyga" from subspace emissary busting out of the ground & that borders on making me sick to my stomach. i guess the atmosphere of this song is really very good - things like the guitars and drums stick out very easily but it feels like it's in this big enclosed and haunted space. the album cover helps with that slightly.

a lot of the fun in this song comes in trying to piece together what the tone of it is - even the rhythm section often feels like it has multiple different readings, as a straightforward dance like song or something more complicated and ambiguous. the content of the lyrics is often explicitly vague, describing things in terms of negation like "the beach no others can find" (and the lyrics are often slightly indistinct to begin with lol) and it just really compels you to figure out what to make of it

i guess it would have been a hard sell to pick somebody other than pink ball but i accidentally found out this artist is chilean lol.

Spoiler: tied 16th: cheetory6

tomoko hojo & rahel kraft - melted into darkness

enjoyment: 5.6 (4.3/5)
catfit: 1 + 0.6 = 1.6
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: drk? more like idk!
submitter: cheetoire
medals / ICs:

8.2

this is cool. i bet it could be great in an album context. as an opener or maybe a middler but probably not an ender. this could be tris or you know several people

Spoiler: tied 13th: hellbooks

kid creole and the coconuts - no fish today

enjoyment: 5.7 (4.3+/5)
catfit: 1 + 0.7 = 1.7
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: tool ?
submitter: hellbooks cool lol
medals / ICs: paired vocalists +0.4

8.4 + 0.4

god this is like such a bummer lol! or maybe it's mean spirited, or something like that. i just know that like each of the verses gives me a frown that rivals the cat killing frown. like when he's like "sorry if i were you i would simply obtain fish" i'm like girl why did you say that. what does that mean. you were in your own shoes and you didnt obtain fish.

i think the vocal harmony great, there's like an opening-up feeling in the voicing of the phrase "i'm sorry ma'am". and i greatly enjoy ma'am's verses, especially in her last go at it where she just restates her case in the same words but with a much more elaborate and flowery harmonic phrasing. i guess i wish she got the last word.

Spoiler: tied 2nd: biancospino

fleshgod apocalypse - the day we'll be gone

enjoyment: 6.4 (4.7/5)
catfit: 1 + 1.4 = 2.4
unfamiliarity: 0.9
guess: bianco
submitter: i can count on bianco in these trying times -0.1
medals / ICs: transition (into the song i'm playing next) +0.2, tied 2nd +1.2

9.6 + 1.4

the classic dilemma of epic symphonic metal and other similar sorts of things is that you both want to always be building up and also always be at like an extremely high intensity. like the whole idea of a speaker that wants to go to 11. (i guess i have wanted my computer's volume slider to be past 100 while listening to this). anyway sometimes a song completely nails the feeling of a ridiculous buildup, like it just keeps adding stuff into the mix and you register the intensity of all of them as it keeps going. this is one of those rare songs. (another one is katamari on the rocks). another thing is that you can think of biancospino's tenure in this walrus as one extremely protracted epic symphonic metal buildup that epicly pays off with this song

i guess i will mostly let the actual song speak for itself but good heavens those key changes

Spoiler: tied 6th: pj.

fire-toolz - window 2 window 2 window 2 window

enjoyment: 6.0 (4.5/5)
catfit: 1 + 1 = 2
unfamiliarity: 1
guess: cheeto ?
submitter: hello pj..!
medals / ICs: transition (from the song i just played) +0.2

9.0 + 0.2

i'm just going to lay bare Last Track of the Playlist Syndrome and write basically nothing about this. the submitter may enjoy patricia taxxon's *wax under wolcnum*. i was thinking fire is red for this bc i kind of get an ada rook feeling from this... but then why would they recommend me ada rook like right before i saw this thus blowing up their spot... anyway cheeto is like the person who introduced me to black dresses and also this sounds like cheeto.

[schadd_]

congratulations to fireisredsir. more closing ceremonies to come on a different day

[schadd_]

as well as just like finding as many unanswered comments as i can and well answering them

[tris]

way to go; fire is red sir

[schadd_]

nobody:
aristophanes:
tris:

[tris]

that's exactly what i look like

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think this is the first time it would ever be fair to say that I'm at least consistent.

[Aristophanes]

Aw shit! Way to throw my lead eh! XD

I really should have checked that list I guess.

Q.Q

[Aisa]

wooo fireisredsir

[Aristophanes]

Oh, yes! Congrats my fire guy! I'm impressed by your schadd-music prowess!

[ceejayvinoya]

Got 2nd on Cat 1 let's goooo

I was worried about that one

also congrats firee