Irish Aris's Walrus: The Reveal

Irish Aris

Hello everyone and welcome to my Walrus reveal.

We have 21 Gamers - in order of submission:
Necro
Shane U
Electric Nitwit
JP Liz V1
Also Starring LeVar Burton
s1ippy
beakerjoe
Gru
Sawduck
Homer J. Fong
Mustang Shelly
Kolido
RasTa
Green&Red
lassykk
JohnGreenFan
Osh
phatkev
Zaph
the purple tin
fixXxer

A reminder on the categories:

1. The Fantastic 80s: I was a teenager in the 80s and it was when I started listening to music, so many of my favourite artists and albums are from that era. So simple enough, I’m looking for any song released in that decade.

2. The Irish Aris Connection: I moved to Ireland on October 2011 and because of all the concerts I started listening to a lot of new music. So for that category I’m looking for songs that were released from October 2011 and later. Songs can be by any artist (not just Irish artists) and obviously album tracks are allowed.

3. It takes 2 to make it right: Here I’m looking for duets and collaborations. It could be a straight forward duet (i.e. Elton John and Kiki Dee) or a collaboration (i.e. David Guetta feat. Whatever vocalist is popular). You could also select collaborations with 3 or more people, instrumental collaborations (i.e. Eno and Fripp) or even a duet between 2 lead singers of the same band (Fleetwood Mac pun intended)

4. That’s Not My Name: Simple enough: A song with a name in the title. I will also allow songs with the word “name” in the title.

5. Body of Evidence: For this one I’m looking for songs that mention any part of the human body in their title. And similar to the previous categories with the names, I will also allow songs with the word “body” in the title.

6. The Lasting First Impression: I like listening to albums from start to finish and it is always nice when an album gets to a great start. So for this category I’m looking for songs that open their respective albums and you consider them great openers. The idea here is to make me want to listen to the whole album and expand my music library further!!

7. Preach to the unconverted. . .or the choir: This is like a wildcard category. Give me a song from one of your favourite artists, one that you think everyone should listen to. This could be your chance to prove me wrong on some of the genres that I mentioned as not being a big fan of, so anything goes!!!

beakerjoe

I enjoyed these categories.... lots of scope

JP Liz V1

Looking Forward to the Reveal

Irish Aris

I plan to start the reveal midweek. Between aaronjennings's peehs, reberetta's best music act competition and the other 2 walrus's that are open, we have lots to keep ourselves entertained

Some fun stats:
145 songs submitted
2 songs submitted twice - one of them in the same category, the other one in 2 different categories.
60 songs that I have heard before (I will admit that I didn't remember some of them, but I have the albums so I have heard them before)
85 songs that I don't know/don't think that I have heard of.
The category that I knew the most songs: The Fantastic 80s (17 songs)
The category that I knew the least songs: The Irish Aris connection (3 songs)

Irish Aris

beakerjoe wrote: »

I enjoyed these categories.... lots of scope

I had a couple of more categories in mind when I was preparing, I thought though that they would have been limiting.
One of them was a song with duration of less than 3 minutes (Eurovision style), I thought though that this would reduce choices a lot.
I just wanted the categories to give an opportunity for big variety of styles. Based on what I got back, it worked - which is great musically but could make ranking more difficult

ShaneU

I have a few categories in mind but it will be difficult to complete with the Greek God himself I will post my thread at some point this week.

s1ippy

Definitely looking forward to this reveal!

fixXxer

s1ippy wrote: »

Definitely looking forward to this reveal!

We all say that until the numbers come in

Green&Red

Irish Aris wrote: »

I plan to start the reveal midweek. Between aaronjennings's peehs, reberetta's best music act competition and the other 2 walrus's that are open, we have lots to keep ourselves entertained

Some fun stats:
145 songs submitted
2 songs submitted twice - one of them in the same category, the other one in 2 different categories.
60 songs that I have heard before (I will admit that I didn't remember some of them, but I have the albums so I have heard them before)
85 songs that I don't know/don't think that I have heard of.
The category that I knew the most songs: The Fantastic 80s (17 songs)
The category that I knew the least songs: The Irish Aris connection (3 songs)

Does Tuesday count as mid-week?

Irish Aris

Green&Red wrote: »

Does Tuesday count as mid-week?

hehe, it does.
Not sure if I will be ready, couple of work calls in the afternoon. I will let you guys know but at the moment it looks like Wednesday for the first category.

Irish Aris

OK folks, I just finished with my notes and rankings for the Fantastic 80's, so we are good to go.
Reveal will start tomorrow at around 7 pm.

This was a very difficult category to rank. I kept changing places and eventually I gave up as every time I look at the list I am tempted to do more changes, so I decided to lock it. Hopefully the rest of the categories will be easier to rank.

I will try to keep things lively until then, by sharing some of the 80's songs that I like

See you all tomorrow!!

Irish Aris

OK, just finished with work, will have my dinner and will get things started at 7.

If there is one thing to say, it would be: no one is safe. My taste in music is all over the place (in a good way ) so there might be a few surprises on the rankings.

To give an idea, from an 80's perspective, my MP3 Playlist includes:

this (big fan of the whole SAW space)

this

and also this!!! :pac:

See you all in a bit!!

Tauriel

I was in two minds between two songs, I hope that I went with the right one as I changed it last minute.

Irish Aris

mustang shelly wrote: »

I was in two minds between two songs, I hope that I went with the right one as I changed it last minute.

You can tell me afterwards your other option and I will try to think if it would have done better or worse

Irish Aris

I decided to do the reveal similar to how LeVar and others have done: start from the 11th place and move towards the bottom and top end, so we can have a bit of suspense.
In this category I liked all 21 songs, it went down to nitpicking to finish the ranking. Even the song that comes last would have placed higher if it was competing in any other category.

And with that:

Irish Aris

In 11th place, submitted by

ShaneU

, Phil Oakey & Giorgio Moroder-Together in Electric Dreams:

I am a big fan of The Human League and although I haven’t seen Electric Dreams, this is a song so easily recognisable, the synth line is so brilliant and the song itself could be in any of The Human League’s album of that period. Initially it was flirting with top-5 but the constant moving of songs pushed it down. A great song that fell victim of the fierce competition

Irish Aris

In 12th place, submitted by

the purple tin

, Peter Schilling-Vollig losgelost (Major Tom German version)

When I saw this, I thought that it would rank poorly as I am familiar with the English version and though enjoyable it never did much for me. I don’t think I have ever heard the original German version and similar to Nena’s 99 Luftballons, this sounds much better in German than in English. Until the last listen/shuffle it was sitting comfortably at the lower ends of the top-10 but eventually it was pushed down slightly

Irish Aris

In 10th place, submitted by

JP Liz V1

, John Parr-St Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)

I am actually surprised that this song doesn’t ring a bell at all. I’ve seen St Elmo’s Fire (probably 25-30 years ago) and liked it at the time, but haven’t seen it since and I don’t recall ever listening to this song. At first listen it felt generic and landed very low, but the more I listened to it the more I liked it, it has this very 80s power pop sound that resonates with me. This was the song that moved up the most since the first ranking and went straight to my playlist.

Irish Aris

In 13th place, submitted by

Osh

, R.E.M.-Radio Free Europe

I am a big fan of R.E.M., although I am not overly familiar with their discography before Document. I knew this song from a couple of compilations. It wouldn’t be my favourite R.E.M. sound – I think at the time they were catching the college sound that was one side of the music scene of Athens, Georgia, which I found a bit generic, so I was always on The B-52’s side of Athens, Georgia during the first few years of the decade. Even so, this sound sweet and I really like Michael Stipe’s voice and Peter Buck’s guitar.

Green&Red

Hard to know what way the scoring will go here. I like 10th and 11th but don’t think 12th is any good (sorry purple tin)

the purple tin

Green&Red wrote: »

Hard to know what way the scoring will go here. I like 10th and 11th but don’t think 12th is any good (sorry purple tin)

Irish Aris

Green&Red wrote: »

Hard to know what way the scoring will go here. I like 10th and 11th but don’t think 12th is any good (sorry purple tin)

In hindsight I should have probably stirred clear of a category like the 80s. I didn't think this through and for sure the familiarity doesn't help. I have already gone through the songs in the next 2 categories where I was familiar with much less and it is really exciting (well, most of the time :pac: ) to discover new songs and makes it also easier to group them when placing them.

Green&Red

the purple tin wrote: »

Irish Aris

In 9th place, submitted by

Green&Red

, George Harrison-Got My Mind Set On You

I was 15 at the time and this was the first song by any of The Beatles that I really liked, before I even knew much of The Beatles. The saxophone is everything in this song and the arrangement combines brilliantly the original 60s feeling with the 80s sound. And though I never explored Harrison’s discography further, this is a song that I always enjoy listening to.

the purple tin

Green&Red wrote: »

Is that Burn Notice?

All is forgiven G & R. I simply can't stay mad with a fan of Bruce Campbell

Irish Aris

In 14th place, submitted by

Electric Nitwit

, The Wedding Present-Take Me

Another one of the 4 songs that I didn’t know. I know The Wedding Present as a name but don't know any of their songs. At the beginning of the first listen I thought that this would occupy the last spot. I thought the vocals were kind of lost in the mix. But at around the 3 minute mark begins a long instrumental section which I really liked and started moving the song up the ranks. Albeit this instrumental section goes on for a bit too long-almost 6 minutes with very few changes in it, and although that in itself isn’t an issue (I listen to 30+ minutes long ambient pieces with no changes in the tempo), it took a little bit out of it and eventually other songs grew on me and moved it towards the middle.

Irish Aris

In 8th place, submitted by

Also Starring LeVar Burton

, Fleetwood Mac-Tango In The Night

The Tango In The Night album was my introduction to Fleetwood Mac and though I liked it and followed the group to their next studio album Behind The Mask, I never became a big fan and didn’t check their older albums. I haven’t listened to the whole album in years and I didn’t remember this song. Also I wouldn’t be the biggest fan of Lindsey Buckingham’s voice. But from the opening moments the sound of harp won me over easily and I think the arrangement plays to Buckingham’s strengths. A great song that I will add to my playlist

Also Starring LeVar Burton

I'll take it!

Irish Aris

In 15th place, submitted by

Sawduck

, Joy Division-Atmosphere

Songs like Atmosphere show how great Ian Curtis’s voice was. This is another song that I haven’t listened to lately and it scored lower than what I would have thought, primarily because although I like Joy Division I find that I need to be in a very specific mood to enjoy their music.

Irish Aris

In 7th place, submitted by

beakerjoe

, Stan Bush-The Touch

Of the 4 songs that I didn’t know this was the one that caught my attention straight away. This is as 80s as you can get, the FM rock sound that back in the day people loved to hate and hated to love. The last few years I have been listening to a lot of 80s inspired synthwave and I would say that many of the current bands have copied riffs and melodies from songs like this one. Best discovery of this category and straight into my playlist. I wish that I could place it a bit higher but the top-6 was locked fairly early in the process.

Irish Aris

In 16th place, submitted by

Mustang Shelly

, Journey-Any Way You Want It:

Another band that I discovered much later as they were in hiatus during the latter part of the 80s, but never drilled down their discography, so I only know a handful of their bigger hits. Any Way You Want it is one of them, a great song that has what I think is their trademark sound – the orchestration of this and Don’t Stop Believing have some similarities. In other circumstances it would have been much higher, but against the competition that’s the best I could give it.