WALRUS (congrats to the winners / go join heltris walrus)

[schadd_]

HOP ON OVER 2 DISCORD!!!

[schadd_]

CATEGORY 5 REVEAL .

i thought the points here were gonna be a little bit arbitrary but it turns out i seem to have had the opposite idea as the submitter more than half of the time. also errata from after the reveal: jun & mushshagana should have had dual stewardship over 3rd place. so they both get 0.5 of a point.

Spoiler: 1st: chevy !!!

crazy ex-GF - trapped in a car ...

enjoy: 5.7 [4.3 wd/5]
cat: 3
unfam: 0.7
sus user: chevre
user: chevre -.1
1st place: 2.0

11.3

there are surely plenty of nitpicks i could make here to justify something less than 3 as the catfit but i'm going to forgive any of them just because of the way it nails, to me, the facial expression of the left cat in a way that i could not have ever seen coming. like that feeling of being powerlessly annoyed, having to stand tall and try desperately to keep up appearances in spite of an insurmountable vector of irritation. i can look at that weary face and imagine "see a doctor please" and "why do we even have cars at all" whizzing through its mind. i just keep finding myself making that little face when i think about someone humming or going "ooh" at minigolf courses (which i think are brilliant vignettes).

the nitpicks to be made here is the effectiveness of the right cat as an analytical tool for the song (like it has that "i'm seriously at my limit" vibe) as well as the relatively limited stuff in the rest of the music that support the cat other than the subject matter (i might offer that the cat looks like the sort of garden-variety pretty cat you'd expect to see in a commercial, which is reflected in the presentation of the latter half of the song). again i am opting to forgive this just because of the cleverness and aptness of the pick here - i dont think anyone else got close to this high via the left cat.

the song itself is funny. the show seems really charming to me for sure (the other song i know is

i'm so good at yoga

) but i don't see myself watching it just because, like, theres so many shows.

Spoiler: 2nd: chickdea

moldy peaches - nothing came out

enjoy: 5.2 [4.1/5]
cat: 2.8
unfam: 0.8
sus user: tris
user: chickadee
2nd place: 1.5

10.3

we have the crown jewel of this archetype of catfit. i really see the right cat here - it is exactly the voice of a timid/overwhelmed/vulnerable character putting themself out there. even the graininess of the image is reflected in the low-fi candor of the song. it just hits the nail on the head, showing the frame of mind of the right cat as well as the situation that gives rise to it. it loses 2 peanuts of catfit points because the phrase "i dont like you" briefly vividly channels the left cat (even though its in a negative dependent clause) and because certain moments in the song distract from the cat presence in general

the song construction is funny - i would call the writing rather unpoetic (terms like "social skills" are hard to fit into your lyrics cleanly) and it sort of feels like the musicians are apologizing for the space being taken up, offering things like the epic guitar solo as a thank you for sticking around.

i think that anybody who i guess here is going to feel a little bit seen. i am going with tris bc i think she said she thought she did well with this cat & whoever submitted this song clearly caught onto something. could be any of several people though.

Spoiler: tied 3rd: mushshagana

psychic graveyard - we think there's a chemical

enjoy: 6.0 [4.5/5]
cat: 1.8
unfam: 0.8
sus user: mushshagana
user: mushshagana -.1
3rd place: 0.5

9.0

assuming this is our mushshagana submission, in which case she's definitely setting a precedent of compelling songs. i suppose this was sent with the intention of the right cat - it has the agitated and overstimulating production that might cause one to make that face. but to me, the vocalist manages to dominate the vibe here, and they present a sort of altered and intensified version of the left cat here. they use a sort of teenager-style inflection which seems to indicate they think all these things are so stupid and annoying. the song as a whole feels like a huge scowl, which is foundationally how i read the left cat's face. i could see the cat showing up to a protest and yelling out "all we want... is just one word." that said, it is a sort of intense take on the left cat and the right cat is unavoidably a bit present as well. i will include an artist's rendition of the variant of the left cat that i think applies to this song

this may have just outright won if you submitted it to cat 3 - whatever narrative is living in this song is so compelling to me, and that snideness of the vocalist is almost deriding me for the extent to which i'm not picking up on it. each line raises so many questions - i would single out "or if he's just anxious about being born" and the title line "every time we

think

there's a chemical" as particularly thought provoking

appendix:

Spoiler: tied 3rd: jun

thundercat - funny thing

enjoy: 5.3 [4.1 wd/5]
cat: 2.6
unfam: 0.6
sus user: hellbooks
user: jun //had u guys switched!!! besties
3rd place: 0.5

9.0

its funny to think of thundercats voice as the right-cat archetypical small & timid style, but it fits the bill. i think the theme of it, being this insistence on producing a little emotional expression "i just wanna party with you"/"you make me happy" in spite of complicating factors e.g. epic drunkness, really gets at the spirit of the right cat (the drunk motif is also a way of adapting the graininess). there's also a few instances of him using the term "little" that build it up further, also i think the bweow-wow-wow bass is a sort of sound that is conditioned by epic video game music (earthbound maybe??) to represent a funny little creature. the 0.4 points of imperfection here come from the dance-y presentation and the slick flylo production, both of which struggle to be reflected by the burdened vibes of the cats.

Spoiler: tied 5th: cealy

wilco - jesus, etc.

enjoy: 5.6 [4.3/5]
cat: 2.5
unfam: 0.3
sus user: keely
user: keely -.1

8.3

i think the general presentation of wilco as like indignant-hippie-with-a-vulnerable-emotional-core music is something that generally gives them high equity of being both cats. something like

i am trying to break your heart

from that album would strongly fit that bill - the focal phrase would be something the left cat would say while deep down being like the right cat. this song in particular though (which hilariously is probably of my least listened, though i generally listened to the album a lot like 6 yrs ago) leans really hard into that emotional core. in particular i think the idea of the song is using these celestial analogies to investigate the smallness of people & build up this statement "our love is all we have", which i think gets at the vibe of the right cat really well. a small amount of points are nevertheless taken away bc of the still-present wilco vibe (on my first pass that had stuck out to me a lot - even the name of the song sort of carries this message like "dont want to sound like i'm being too sentimental here...") and because statements like "don't cry / you can rely on me honey" (which is generally a winning line btw) might be delivered

to

the right cat rather than

by

the right cat (which is like the mildest nitpick).

i think the goodness of the jeff tweedy songwriting is pretty self evident in any case

Spoiler: tied 5th: healbooks

buscabulla - eva

enjoy: 5.5 [4.2 wd/5]
cat: 2.1
unfam: 0.7
sus user: jun
user: hellbooks !!!!

8.3

there's a clear delicate longingness in the vocalist which makes me feel the right cat here. especially in the chorus there is the feeling of a whirlwind of feelings that are barely able to be contained in this vessel. it loses a medium amount of clarity of the cat though, since there is also a constant flow of intricacy and grace through pretty much the whole thing - slightly further than the scope of the cat image (the mitski song i gave as an example also has this problem). in any case the song is quite emotive, in a good way. i like that when all the other voices are taken away, we hear what seems to be a quiet turning signal noise tapping away in anticipation of the chorus at 2:20.

Spoiler: 7th: ariel

chris garneau - dirty night clowns

enjoy: 5.0 [4.0/5]
cat: 2.0
unfam: 0.8
sus user: chickadee???
user: ariel

7.8

this combines a sort of gentle uncertainty and a sort of petty indifference offered by the left cat for me. in particular i would point to the two refrains "i can't clear the leaves from here" and "let them be buried alive in their suits in their ties". i think those two aspects of the song are spot on and the song machine that props them up do a good job. it loses the point down from 3 bc of the general exuberance of the song (which btw i think works well musically for this song) and because i can picture the cat on the right struggling to rake up a bunch of leaves and singing the corresponding refrain.

i would describe the vocalist as "kind of silly" here but the rest of the construction has a lot to like. a lot of new instruments will just jump out and be present e.g. the 5 seconds of drums at like 1:35 which is super fun. 5 seconds of drummer

Spoiler: 8th: tris

mouse on the keys - double bind

enjoy: 4.8 [3.9/5]
cat: 2.0
unfam: 0.8
sus user: gb???
user: tris!

7.6

interesting construction of a song. it feels like a challenge is being presented that you are rising up to, but don't want to - i would say that is a mediumly strong evoction of the left cat. like it's standing up straight and ready to act, but isn't liking it. high school gym class vibe. right cat is

slightly

present here, the song has a faint feeling of impending doom and maybe the right cat is sort of wincing and bracing for impact. great example of a song that i'm not confident which cat was intended by the submitter, but the song produces a strong enough vibe that i was doomed to see it one way or the other. there's not a whole lot going on in the song, but i think a lot of the musical choices here are subtly interesting and the drums are good

Spoiler: 9th: shafty

krush groove (film) - all you can eat

enjoy: 4.4 [3.7/5]
cat: 2.2
unfam: 0.8
sus user: shafty
user: shafty -0.1

7.3

we have here an ancestor of the slowed-down mary kate & ashley pizza song. picturing the left cat here. hard to place why it works so well - i would point the way they're like casually bragging about how much food they can eat (and the silliness of it), as well as the fact that they ultimately dine and dash, but just the vibe of the thing as a whole just works pretty well. maybe you would argue that the right cat is making that face bc it's eating a bunch of food though. this is the first one i've been able to pretty confidently place a shafted vibe (knock on wood), this one has that really charming proto-cultural vibe of the 80s/90s that i associate with him. could maybe be n? "i aint fat man" lol

Spoiler: 10th: dav

john lennon - mother

enjoy: 4.4 [3.7/5]
cat: 2.0
unfam: 0.5
sus user: davsto
user: davsto -0.1

6.8

you're gonna like hate to hear this but if a song similar to this one were done by like anyone other than john lennon it would have probably done way better. like i am just too familiar and unsympathetic to him for it to achieve the full effect. that said you can see that there's really something there with the concept of it. especially towards the end, those sounds are something i could easily see the right cat making, wailing in agony at a clearly present loss and tragic circumstance. there's a lot of key vulnerability in that refrain "mama don't go / daddy come home", which is soured by the reality of john lennon as this weird dude who happened to invent oversharing decades before the internet did

Spoiler: 11th: george bailey

todd terje - delorean dynamite

enjoy: 5.1 [4.0 wd/5]
cat: 0.3
unfam: 0.8
sus user: ariel ??????
user: GB!

6.2

another one where there is a clear dominating vibe of excitement that makes it hard for me to get any cat out of it. i could maybe see the left cat getting down with the melody here? i also noticed the whole thing moving slightly upward in pitch around 2 & a half minutes, which is maybe a bit tense in the sort of way of the left cat. hard to say, would be interested to know what was intended. the song is pretty fun, has the same appeal as other disco revival stuff where it just produces a constant unabashed party vibe. i think it does enough to earn the 7 minute runtime, offering a lot of changes in texture and new outlooks on the pattern. also came pretty early to the punch for the modern disco revival thing - u have to give props when it sounds like the stuff people are trying to make 6-7 years later

Spoiler: tied 12th: pj

yaeji - waking up down

enjoy: 4.8 [3.8/5]
cat: 0.8
unfam: 0.6
sus user: pj
user: pj -0.1

6.1

i would call the song playfully earnest in the way that i am sort of looking looking for with the cats, but if i am taking her at her word regarding her self care list (which i am !) then she seems to be pretty untroubled here, which makes it hard for either cat to work particularly well. if she gets into it more in the korean verses i am unfortunately not adept enough to pick it up. there's a little bit of a cool exterior put up, which maybe vibes with the left cat a little bit.
...
looked at the translation in the video, kind of by accident. the korean verses build up this idea of maintaining the self care regimen against pressures from other people, which works a little bit better for the left cat i think. im only giving half credit for this part of the score since i usually dont like looking up lyrics

Spoiler: tied 12th: N

presumably a group of nerds who go to harvard - darude sandstorm boomwhackers

enjoy: 4.2 [3.6/5]
cat: 1.7
unfam: 0.3
sus user: aristophanes / N
user: N -0.1

6.1

this feels like the right cat to me exclusively because it channels the feeling of being swarmed by bugs or bonked by small and stupid objects. like it feels specifically like something a cat would find annoying and overwhelmed which feels like the right cat to me. like i can imagine the picture itself being taken when someone was bonking the cat with a boomwhacker. the original song carries the vibe of an irritable 2000s internet user, which strongly evokes the left cat, but i imagine this cover was chosen on purpose. this take on the song is kind of interesting in the "deconstructed club" sort of way where a dance-y and exciting type of thing is recontextualized and made kind of moody.

Spoiler: 14th: sleapy

grimes - final fantasy fourteen titania theme

enjoy: 5.0 [4.0/5]
cat: 0.3
unfam: 0.7
sus user: sleepington krew
user:

5.9

catfit looks like it might be a little hard given your means, which is ok. this squeaks out a little bit of cat points due to having a vocalist who has a sound that other subs have caused me to associate with the right cat. otherwise, the vibe is much too comfortable here to work much for either cat. i like the bouncy back-and-forthness of all of it and the "falalalalala". probably the sub that i would least be able to identify as final fantasy music so far if not for the title.

Spoiler: 15th: sirius

nomico ? - bad apple

enjoy: 4.6 [3.8/5]
cat: 0.4
unfam: 0.8
sus user: sirius9121
user: sirius9121 -.1

5.7

struggling with the cat for this one. a problem that comes up with a lot of these is a generally high-energy/exuberant vibe: to me, both of the cats look like they're struggling in some way, and so songs like this with a sort of elaborate and effortless composition have a hard time fitting with either of the cats really clearly. for this song, there was this quiet layer of harsh noise that would occasionally be present & idk what the authorial intent of it would be but i thot it was interesting & it was the one thing i could point out that made me think of the right cat. otherwise it was tough to parse out a relevant piece of character from the vocalist.

chickadee sweeps back into first on the back of a 2.8 catfit that i had backwards from her

[schadd_]

serving cat 6 in (expired on 2021-04-11 14:00:00) - same time of day as cat 4

[Sirius9121]

yay 2nd last place

[Sirius9121]

and its just the 3rd cat

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm legitimately surprised you caught me for Psychic Graveyard. Not nearly as aggressive or vicious as my normal fare, and unafraid to sound ridiculous (most of my music is relentlessly self-serious).

I think you'll probably catch me on two others, but I don't know about the remainder. If you manage to catch me three more times, I will have to know what stood out (so that I can recognize my own music tastes better for the future).

[shaft.ed]

ancestor of the slowed-down mary kate & ashley pizza song

first I was deeply offended
then I was equally distrubed
Eventually, I understood
and I was grateful


Also my right cat choice was because I couldn't pinpoint the moods of said cats since cats are so aloof. I went with carnal states by mixing the idea of looking up at a cat from its food bowl and how silly people look when they are beat boxing no matter how cool it may sound.

Spoiler: theyre basically the same picture

Extra fun fact, 4-5 year old shaft.ed used to annoy the shit out of his parents by constantly making noises. After hearing the Fat Boys, this was one of my go tos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c7b-Kfg0fU&t=14s

[tris]

i just noticed a discrepancy in the ambiguous man's score for last round between the chart and the discription

[shaft.ed]

the math is also wrong on the description

[tris]

wait, the math on mine is wrong too XD

[shaft.ed]

can we trust anything now?

what if the points themselves are arbitrary?

[schadd_]

I'm legitimately surprised you caught me for Psychic Graveyard. Not nearly as aggressive or vicious as my normal fare, and unafraid to sound ridiculous (most of my music is relentlessly self-serious).

I think you'll probably catch me on two others, but I don't know about the remainder. If you manage to catch me three more times, I will have to know what stood out (so that I can recognize my own music tastes better for the future).

its simply that it was like louder and had a prominent nasty-distorted-guitar sound compared 2 the rest of the playing field.

listened to the loathe album btw. missed some of the brilliant intricacies that you had laid out (which is to be expected surely) but admired the largeness in scope & the consistently compelling presentation. it ended up being a 4.5. thanks!

Also my right cat choice was because I couldn't pinpoint the moods of said cats since cats are so aloof. I went with carnal states by mixing the idea of looking up at a cat from its food bowl and how silly people look when they are beat boxing no matter how cool it may sound.

Spoiler: theyre basically the same picture

ya i definitely see the resemblance there. i think my younger generation internet experience lets me see the right cat as not aloof but in fact quite emotionally open

i just noticed a discrepancy in the ambiguous man's score for last round between the chart and the discription

fixt it

the math is also wrong on the description

fixt it

wait, the math on mine is wrong too XD

fixt it

can we trust anything now?

what if the points themselves are arbitrary?

yes / theyre not

[shaft.ed]

I dropped the lowest to give a more accurate picture of how much chevre is going to pull off the come from behind victory

chickdea - 21.3
shafty - 19.6
tris - 18.2
healbooks - 18.1
dav - 17.9
chevy !!! - 17.7
jun - 17.6
cealy - 17.5
mushshagana - 17.3
ariel - 15.3
pj - 14.0
N - 13.3
sirius - 12.7
george bailey - 12.6
sleapy - 11.9

[Ariel]

so far i am the most consistently scored
and also consistently worse than cheetory :b

[hellbooks]

I like this idea of the lowest score drop being a wild card postgame element that can flip the outcome a la mario party bonus stars so i hope that it leads to a scandalous result

[SleepyKrew]

I'm gonna win

[Sirius9121]

I dropped the lowest to give a more accurate picture of how much chevre is going to pull off the come from behind victory

chickdea - 21.3
shafty - 19.6
tris - 18.2
healbooks - 18.1
dav - 17.9
chevy !!! - 17.7
jun - 17.6
cealy - 17.5
mushshagana - 17.3
ariel - 15.3
pj - 14.0
N - 13.3
sirius - 12.7
george bailey - 12.6
sleapy - 11.9

wait im not last?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

All I can say about that Loathe album is if you think about it the same way you think about a classical opera suite, with leitmotifs and characters represented by instrumentation, and you listen to it a couple more times, it becomes a rabbit hole you can fall into.

There’s also some brilliant transposition involved that twists the emotional meaning of a couple songs. Theme, Is It Really You and the title track are, I’m certain at this point, based around transpositions of parts of each other. The band has also outright stated there’s a connection between New Faces and A Sad Cartoon, though I haven’t found it yet.

I could go on, but eh. I agree with that score more or less, because it really takes repeated listens to wring the most out of it all, and I’m that obsessive but most people are decidedly not. The most impressive part to me is that there’s that much depth without the surface level listening experience being anything less than great.

Two of my later submissions come off of albums that, for me, are 5 of 5s, but I think you’ll only agree with one of those.

[PJ.]

I dropped the lowest to give a more accurate picture of how much chevre is going to pull off the come from behind victory

chickdea - 21.3
shafty - 19.6
tris - 18.2
healbooks - 18.1
dav - 17.9
chevy !!! - 17.7
jun - 17.6
cealy - 17.5
mushshagana - 17.3
ariel - 15.3
pj - 14.0
N - 13.3
sirius - 12.7
george bailey - 12.6
sleapy - 11.9

Looks like a come from ahead victory to me.

[caledfwitch]

i for one am rooting for pj to take home the gold

[caledfwitch]

i'm gonna make like a gif of a walrus trophy for the winner

[schadd_]

I could go on, but eh. I agree with that score more or less, because it really takes repeated listens to wring the most out of it all, and I’m that obsessive but most people are decidedly not. The most impressive part to me is that there’s that much depth without the surface level listening experience being anything less than great.

Two of my later submissions come off of albums that, for me, are 5 of 5s, but I think you’ll only agree with one of those.

mm i usually prioritize quantity of albs listened to over poring over particular ones, though there are a few favorites where i've leaned in and untangled the web of connections. i will surely listen to the loathe album again at some point, in any case

having fun and imagining you brazenly asserting that i'll call one of the albums a 5 out of 5. excited to hear it

[PJ.]

i for one am rooting for pj to take home the gold

This is bold and definitely incorrect. I have massively missed all the cat fits

[caledfwitch]

i think what would be interesting is like after all cats have been revealed except for the last one (or last two) the contestants without any top 3 placements get some sort of like turnaround boost like in mario party when the last place player gets a random bonus

[shaft.ed]

i do think the top three bonus points create a positive feedback loop that just makes the top entrants have an even more impossible lead