It's time, the great 2016 Walrus is about to be revealed! A strong year for the Walrus.
The award for greatest Walrus-related album art of 2016 award goes to Damien Jurado. Jurado is pretty awesome, but is the new album any good? Will he show up itt? Who knows, tune in to find out!
The greatest marine mammal titled debut single award goes to D.D Dumbo's song from the celebrated 2016 release, Utopia:
The Categories
1. UncleDynamite - A non-English song 2. Walrein - A song with a female lead vocalist 3. Nick Royale - Something noisy, distorted or loud 4. fnord_too - Funk (something with elements of funk is fine) 5. JMurder3 - Rap 6. iraisetoomuch - Dance/Club hits 7. Zaccino - A song that's 3 minutes or less 8. Adam33 - Singer-songwriter 9. soma84 - Song from a debut album 10. jumpluff - Intensity 11. tchaz - popwilleatitself (something new out of something(s) else)
I tried to get a sneak last second entry together but I was short of so many songs. I like picking songs from already established playlists and dislike doing research. The yearly ones are a nice tradition but can get pretty tough.
It does not look to me that anyone skipped this category. Someone definitely should have...
All in all, I cannot say this category has been a success. No facelemelters, not a lot of outright bad song, but not many songs with re-listen potential, either. I might be just a tough walrus judge to please though; I cannot easily define my tastes in music. Onward and upward, then.
After google-translating the lyrics, I think I could say the song is about nostalgia for lost times and places? I might be wrong, and I guess that much of the lyrics's appeal gets botched by google translate, so as I might end up saying a bunch of times again (this is the second song I am judging) I will not penalize songs for lyrics I don't get or understand that well.
I have two big issues with this song, though. First, is the lack of musicality. The melody is unoriginal, despondent and plainly unimpressive. The singer's "cutesy" voice makes my skin crawl a bit. I think she might have all of four notes in her range, but to her credit, she gets a good job at sticking to them.
Thanks for providing a video with the translation of the lyrics. Obviously no bonus, but it is still very appreciated.
Unfortunately, I did not like this. Incredibly repetitive melody, droning vocals. This song is the equivalent of eating the same gruel for 10 consecutive days. You don't even like it at first, but boy, do you ever hate it after listening to this for 4 minutes eating it for a week.
This, hands down, has been my biggest disappointment for this category. You almost won my first walrus and I think submitted 0 songs I didn't like, so I had really had expectations when I clicked on this.
What I got is a chorale-type track that is an instrumental track by any other name (yes, I know there are people singing and I am not penalizing it for a category misfit).
I mean, this is not even especially unpleasant to listen (I almost never find classical music to be unpleasant) but for Pete's sake, it's almost 12 (twelve) minutes of the same thing.
Last edited by UncleDynamite; 02-06-2017 at 07:30 PM.
I actually had a Seu Jorge song in my first walrus, and I remember not liking it much, so I wasn't expecting much from this (the link to that song is dead, but here is another one for those interested).
While it is quite a different song from the one I just linked, I did not like this one either. The vocals can now be heard loud and clear, which is an improvement over the other song, but they are still boring as all hell. There is not agressive droning, and I think this song would not irritate me after repeat listens, but keeping my concentration was still quite hard.
Weird thing that I feel compelled to share: when I saw this song's title, I immediately guessed it was about mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I obviously still googled the lyrics and found how hilariously wrong I was.
Anyway, this submission has an enormous problem; it is basically unlistenable. I think the music should be good. I think I like the singer's voice. But I cannot be sure, because the quality is just that bad.
If you do not understand what I am talking about, look at this studio version I found. It is awesome. The difference is simply staggering, and it would have been heavily reflected in the ranking.
It does not look to me that anyone skipped this category. Someone definitely should have...
All in all, I cannot say this category has been a success. No facelemelters, not a lot of outright bad song, but not many songs with re-listen potential, either. I might be just a tough walrus judge to please though; I cannot easily define my tastes in music. Onward and upward, then.
Sorry, I don't think I had listened to a single foreign song from 2016, so I had to do some quick research to find something half decent.
Have you clicked the link already? If yes, my condolences, but I did try to warn you. If not, lower the volume to half. Yes, right now. Done? Then you might be able to enjoy this song after all.
My eardrums exploded about 3 seconds in, but once I brought the volume back big time, I actually kind of enjoyed this. Yes, it is meaningless pop, but the melody is catch and the vocals are not offensive. Which, frankly, is almost all you can ask from an ok pop song. Not an earworm, will not seek again, but my ears did not bleed after that first mishap.
Thanks to whoever changed the link from youtube to youpak (presumably tchaz)
Quite a creepy-sounding song. The music is cold and lifeless, which is not a bad thing per se (as far as I am concerned, at least) but I still wish there were more highlights. This seems pretty apt for the credits roll of a movie with a gloomy ending. Or perhaps a "you died" screen of a horror videogame. I did not have a bad time, but I would not seek this artist out.
I do not speak German and I did not manage to find the lyrics, so maybe this song was about happy sunshine, diamond rainbows and **** and I just made a fool of myself. Would not be the first time. Then again, I do know that Die Hölle means "Hell", so I probably didn't.
I thought what I think are the original lyrics and popped 'em in google translate. News at 11: google translate sucks. Like I have already said before, I will not penalise lyrics I don't understand.
As for the song itself, the music alone is worth the price of the ticket (i.e. a re-listen). It is beautiful, refined and sounds Scottish. I can totally picture someone trying to play in on the piano, only using the black keys. The vocals, though... the worst thing about them is that you can hear that the singer has a good voice. You can hear she can sing very well. It means that her constant wailing is a deliberate choice. So disappointing. Still, the overall product is good enough not to fall off too much.
The melody is decent, albeit a bit too noisy and a bit too predictable. The vocals are quite decent, although I wish (mainly because of the background noise) they would be stronger. I feel like this song just missed that little something that propels it in the "really, really good" category. A shame. But this definitely has re-listening potential.
First of all, you might have noticed the Spotify link. Since I don't have Spotify, Nick provided me with a download link. Unfortunately, the link is no longer valid; I would like to ask for Nick's permission to re-upload it to soundcloud.
As for the song... I think it would be better with slightly vocals? Man, I am such a nit with vocals. Voice is still awesome, strong but not headache-bearing for any reasonably-eardrummed listener. The music is original and beautiful. Great song.