Nice! You live in Rome or just vacationing in Europe right now?

Neither. I was in a hurry to get out the door when I posted. They're playing in South Florida tonight. First time I'll have ever seen them. I'm enjoying pre-show cocktails right now.

Have fun. I was at a concert last night. Remember this guy?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6MYNBL5JBLs

Will try my best to rank and reveal tonight. Was massively hung over yesterday and just didnt feel like doing anything except play magic arena all day

Sorry all, wheels have come off at work (manage a sales team and we are in danger)- was aiming to write up and send rankings today, will aim to tomorrow but may need an extension.

I have listened to all songs and half have write ups

Rankings in.

Still not sure on reveal tonight. Better half has uni webinar, not sure if I can get into office to main comp to reveal. If not, will happen tomorrow after 5pm GMT.

I've submitted the rankings and my write-ups are basically done, other than a few last second thoughts I might add. Depending on when I get the submission list back from PC, I may or may not reveal this afternoon.

On another note, the Muse concert was incredible. I knew that the guy could sing his butt off, and I knew there would be plenty of theatrics mixed in. What I didn't know going in was:

1. They absolutely rock. I mean, way harder than I would have ever guessed. And they shred the guitar.

2. The choreography alone was worth the price of admission. This wasn't a concert. It was a show.

3. The encore (if you can call it that, since there was only maybe a minute between the last song of the set and the beginning of the encore) turned the experience up to 11. Ten minutes or so of non-stop hard rocking guitar blasting pandemonium.

Would I recommend this concert to anyone who's interested. Heck yes.

How did you manage making it all the way to a Muse concert without knowing Matt Bellamy is a ridiculous guitarist?

Also, lots of write ups approaching completion. This week should be good.

I've dabbled on Muse on Pandora and Spotify and probably knew about a dozen of their songs before the category. Before yesterday, I didn't know that:

1. His name was Matt Bellamy.
2. That the singer was also the lead guitarist.
3. That they're a 3-man band. Admittedly, they have other musicians in the background contributing to the live shows, but I still figured that there were at least 5 or 6 people in the band.
4. That whoever the lead guitarist was (I now know it's Bellamy) was as sick as he actually is. The studio recordings don't do justice to what he does live.

I havent had rankings back so no reveal from me tonight.

Ditto. But I can say that without knowing who submitted which song, we'll have some rarely seen faces in the podium.

I don’t remember which category was yours, but I definitely nailed it.

My category is Family Bands.

Winning the gold medal is

On to the reveals...

This is my 3rd walrus.

The first time, my category was Covers of Beatles Songs and the results were a mixed bag, with a few decent choices at the top, but mostly it was a lot of submissions that ranged from "okay" to "lousy". Speaking of which, I recently found this gem by The Cure which would have definitely finished in the top two.

The second time, I went way too gimmicky with Crowd Interactions at Live Shows and that was pretty much a train wreck.

It turns out that when I take the reins off and let you guys pick songs from your own library of favorite style of music and favorite bands, the results are really, really good. The only restriction is that two (or more) of the band members have to be parent and child, grandparent and grandchild, or siblings. Which leaves plenty of room for you guys to go with what you know and love.

So a genuine and heart-felt BRAVO! to everyone who submitted a song.

On to the show with family bands!

In 9th place:

Yesterday's take:
I want to like this song. And I get the feeling this could have scored higher with a different song by the same band had been submitted. I’ve listened to this song several times over the last few weeks and it’s grown on me, if anything. But at the core, I’m stuck with my initial impression of the song. The melody is repetitive and lethargic. And the singer is monotone. The song builds, which I like a lot, but it never shakes the monotone repetitiveness with which I inevitably attach to this song. Still, I’ll look for more by this band and I have a feeling I just might end up liking them. A worthy effort, but this is a miss.

Today's take: This goes right to what I was saying about 3rd time being the charm for my Walrus experience. A song of this quality would have ranked a lot higher in either of my two previous games.

In 8th place:

Yesterday's take:
This submission deserves to win the whole thing based solely on the album cover art. Unfortunately, I’ll be judging this on the musical merit alone. On first listen, it’s a little too slow and lacking energy for my liking and looking like it’s headed for the bottom of the pack, but not quite nodium. On subsequent listens, it’s grown on me but when push comes to shove I’m not optimistic about this song’s chances of making its way into the upper half. Still, this song takes me to a happy place when I close my eyes, and it takes me to an ecstatic place when I open my eyes and look at that photo that accompanies the video.

Today's Take: Not much to add to what I already said. I had this song as a lower-half, but not quite nodium from the beginning.

In 7th place:

Yesterday's Take:
This is one of two songs I’d heard before this Walrus. And a band I know pretty well. I hadn’t thought of this particular band when I came up with the category but as soon as I saw them submitted my reaction was, “Hey! They’re brothers!” I didn’t care much for these guys when I was younger but I’ve always had an appreciation for their impact in music over the last several decades. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to like this band a lot more. Unfortunately, as well as I know this song, it’s not one of my favorite tracks by [redacted]. Nonetheless, props to the submitter for bringing a band that’s right in my wheelhouse.
This song would have been an easy podium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsLhNxzwK1Y

Today's Take: One big takeaway from this submission is that my appreciation for this band has been rekindled. I've been listening to a lot of their music over the last two weeks. This was simply the wrong song choice by this artist. Not that I dislike the song, but if you're going to go with a song I already know by a band I already know, make sure to pick one of their very best songs. Then again, how could anyone guess what someone else's idea of "very best" is? That's why we play the game, I guess.

This song started off in or near the podium, but I kept pushing it down as time went on until it landed where it did.

Not 9th or 8th!

Now I just need to worry if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

Not 7th either!

And I'll give you an insider's tip:

It's not a good sign if I haven't made an appearance by the mid-point.

For ratio of amount of time and effort put into choosing submissions and actual results, I'm the worst ****ing walrus player ever

So discouraging

In 6th place:

Yesterday's Take:
Hey, it’s second of two songs I’ve actually heard before this Walrus! And I’ve heard of this band, but couldn’t have named any of their songs. Now I know… they’re the band that sings this!

It’s a really good rock song that’s gotten decent radio play, and secretly it’s got a lot of elements of classic 90’s rock that an old fart like me can appreciate. Maybe a little too dramatic for me, or that might just be the music video version of the song and it could be that the album version is more straightforward. Props to the submitter of this song for a) giving me a song that’s right in my wheelhouse, b) making it possible for me to be able to associate a band name with an actual song that I know of, and c) teaching me that these brothers can rock!

Today's Take: There's a definite uptick beginning with this song and going all the way to the top of the podium. This has made for me having a really difficult time trying to rank the songs and it's made for me having a lot of enjoyment listening to the submissions. This is a quality song and it deserves to rank higher than it did. It's just that it doesn't deserve to be ranked higher than the 5 songs above it, so it has to be 6th.

The last time we did a walrus, I put a lot of thought and even some research into trying to place as highly as I could. And it worked. I think I came in 2nd.

This time around I said "**** it" and just put in the songs I know and love. And I'm at or near the bottom in scoring this time around.

But it's all good. I know my songs kick butt. And sooner or later the judges will come around and realize the same thing.