Music Madness 2010:Liverpool 1st Round

All Rules and Criteria can be found here

LIVERPOOL REGION: FIRST ROUND ACTION
(1) The Beatles vs. (16) Kings of Leon. Ringo beats them on his own. Next.
FINAL SCORE: BEATLES 9 ~ KINGS OF LEON 0

(8) Wolfe Tones vs. (9) Joan Baez. Who on the selection committee thought it would be funny to send the Rebellious Wolffe Tones to Liverpool? Tough matchup even if the score doesn't indicate it. Spent many a night falling asleep to Ms Baez back in the day and she may have the most beautiful voice on earth. I'm giving her "Song" for "Diamonds and Rust" and Historical Impact, but the Wolffe Tones are just that good that they sweep the rest.
FINAL SCORE: WOLFFE TONES 7 ~ JOAN BAEZ 2

(4) Johnny Cash vs. (13) Tom Petty. Strong case can be made that Petty deserved a better seed. And a  better fate. Generously, I give Petty the Song with "American Girl" and I'll even stretch it and give him Personal Connection for playing half-time of The Greatest Super Bowl in History, but the rest isn't even a contest. The Man in Black moves on.
FINAL SCORE: JOHNNY CASH 6 ~ TOM PETTY 3

(5) Jimi Hendrix vs. (12) Sublime. Gus Johnson's calling this one and he's losing control. Is there an upset in the making? Two careers that were shorter than they should have been. Hendrix narrowly takes the "Entire Collection" category, the big kahuna of them all and the 3 points to go with it. But 40 oz to Freedom takes the Album by a nose over Are You Experienced? Two cover songs go head to head for the Song point, with Sublime's "Scarlet Begonias" (Grateful Dead) beating Jimi's "All Along the Watchtower" (Dylan). Hendrix wins the Historical Impact hands down, taking a 4-3 lead and setting up Personal Connection (2 pts) as the deciding factor. And Lo and Behold, thanks to the many, many memories from 1996 - 2005 that I can recall, Sublime pulls it off. The importance of having a scoring system is clear now, cause my gut woulda said Jimi hands down.
FINAL SCORE: SUBLIME 5 ~ HENDRIX 4

(3) Pearl Jam v. (14) Radiohead. Warning to the Beatles and Led Zepplin: Beware the Jam.
FINAL SCORE: PEARL JAM 9 ~ RADIOHEAD 0

(6) Rolling Stones v. (11) Neil Diamond. I wanted Jewish Elvis to advance, I really did. Always found the Stones to be a tad overrated. I give the Diamond my Personal Connection and Song for "Cracklin Rosie" but that's as far as it can go. I guess You Can't Always Get What You Want.
FINAL SCORE: ROLLING STONES 6 ~ NEIL DIAMOND 3.

(7) Elton John v (10) Willie Nelson. Another nail biter. On the surface you'd think that Elton takes the Entire Collection, but then you realized that early in the 1980s, he got sober and started writing lame ass Lite FM 106.7 crap. Willie's always been Willie. Elton does take the Album for Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and song, "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters". He also get's the Historical Impact. But the personal connection seals the minor upset for Willie Nelson. Every road trip I took from the age of 3 to 16, he was the soundtrack, and I've been trying to restart that tradition. Can't wait to take my kids on a 4 hour ride and torture them with "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys"
FINAL SCORE: WILLIE NELSON 5 ~ ELTON JOHN 4

(2) Led Zepplin v (15) The Ranonteurs. A sweep. Good for Jack White though, he's got to get some rest so he can try and carry the White Stripes to the Final Four.
FINAL SCORE: LED ZEPPLIN 9 ~ RACONTEURS 0

So when Liverpool starts up again, we're looking at:
(1) The Beatles v (8) Wolffe Tones. This one's going to hurt me. A lot. So cruel.
(4) Johnny Cash v (12) Sublime. Can Cinderella knock off another icon?
(3) Pearl Jam v (6) Rolling Stones. Stones have impressive stats. Beware the entire collection.
(2) Led Zepplin v (10) Willie Nelson. Personal Connection could be a factor.

NEXT UP: CHARLOTTESVILLE REGION. A quick preview of our next bracket:
(1) Dave Matthews Band v (16) Queen. Historical Impact is a weakness for this 1 seed. Personal Connection isn't.
(8) Elvis Presley v. (9) The Band. Honestly have no idea how this plays out.
(4) U2 v (13) Poison. A very strong 13
(5) Billy Joel v (12) Rage Against the Machine. This gives me a chuckle
(3) Pink Floyd v (14) Arctic Monkeys. British Civil War
(6) Phish v (11) Public Enemy. Another unintentionally funny matchup 
(7) Flogging Molly v (10) Jay Z. Ditto
(2) The Doors v (15) Dropkick Murphys. Jim and Co have a tough road.

Music Madness 2010: Intro,. Preview, and Play-Ins

Ignoring the fact that I'm too old to stay up till midnight on a work night, the NCAA Men's tournament that just concluded was by far the most invigorating and entertaining of my lifetime. Of all the years I've dove into March Madness, be it cutting high school, skipping college classes or taking sick days and vacations in my professional life, I've never seen anything like it. The right balance of underdogs and juggernauts. The buzzer-beaters and new heroes. The rise of Butler and the fall of Callipari. These last three weeks were a sports fan's prime rib buffet with all-you-can-drink Guinness. I don't want it to end.

So I'm going to stay in tournament mode.

On a recent commute, I started thinking about what would happen if I were to come up with 64 musicians and seeded them. How would it play out? What would be the criteria? Would it be a pointless waste of time to decide that Bob Dylan was my favorite artist of all time? Yeah, it might be. Then it dawned on me, hell, there's nothing I enjoy more than a good old fashioned waste of time, so who gives a Bush's ass? It was decided that yes indeed, it was time to study the iPod and form a one man selection committee and come up with what I would consider to be my 64 favorite acts of all time (though I limited it to post-WWII genres).

Actually it became 68. I figure  the NCAA has a play-in game for the 16th seed, I'll have 4 of them for each sixteener. I seeded the teams - loosely to a degree - based off what I perceive to be my personal preferences, then randomly assigned them to a region. For good measure, the region was named after the 1 seed's actual or adoptive hometown.

The Number One Seeds:
Liverpool Region: The Beatles
The Village Region: Bob Dylan
Charlottesville Region: Dave Matthews Band
San Francisco Region: The Grateful Dead


The next step was to determine a list of criteria. I didn't want to go "Well, I like Public Enemy more than Smashing Pumpkins, so they move on". Afterall, if that was the case the whole thing would have been done the minute I finished seeding them all. I wanted something comprehensive and tangible to have an artist defeat an artist. I like tangible explanations, not a fan of "just because" as you probably know by now.

I came up with a scoreboard with 5 Criteria, worth a total of 9 points to ensure no ties:

• Entire Collection (3 Points): Lined up against each other, who has a better collection overall.
• Defining Album (2 Points): If you take each artists' best work, which is better. I'm going to try and make it a blend of personal choice and conventional wisdom. They don't always agree. But once an album is settled on for each artist, that will be the album that they have for the entire tournament.
• Personal Connection and Memories (2 Points): The most subjective criteria of them all and the most random. I'm curious to see how this plays out during this colosal waste of time. It's also the reason I didn't include Meat Loaf.
• Defining Song (1 Point): Same as album, on a smaller scale.
• Historical Impact (1 Point): Which artist has made a bigger impact on music history and our culture as a whole? It's probably the most objective of them all. Regardless of the other criteria, you can't argue that Billy Joel has had a bigger impact than Sublime. However, it's only 1 point and that shouldn't dramatically alter anything.

As with any tournament, honorable mention must be given to the bubble teams that didn't quite make the field, so pour yourself a pint and toast to Madonna, Garth Brooks, James Taylor, Meat Loaf, and Def Leppard. While we're at it, some fan favorites that The Committee is thoroughly unimpressed with include Coldplay, Sting/The Police, The Eagles, and Michael Jackson.

Let the Games Begin:
The Village Regional Play In Game: Skid Row vs Barenaked Ladies.
A true nailbiter between two vastly different acts with very similar qualities. Both fit the popular mold of a late decade genre, BNL with 90s fluff-rock and Skid Row with 80s hair-metal. The Ladies won for their Entire Collection, primarily because after Skid Row's self-titled debut,  their follow-up album, Slave to the Grind rivaled child abuse on the Despicable Chart. BNL also captured Defining Song with "One Week" over "Youth Gone Wild". Yes, I'm ashamed to admit that. However that was all the Canadians could muster, as Skid Row took home Defining Album (Skid Row over Stunt), Personal Connection (I had a 6 foot long poster of them on my closet, as entertaining as the 1999 BNL concert on Long Island was), and Historical Impact, cause well, hair metal rules.
FINAL SCORE: SKID ROW 5 ~ BARENAKED LADIES 4.
Congrats Sebastian, you get to get your ass whooped by Dylan.

Liverpool Regional Play In Game: Kings of Leon vs Warrant
The Committeerespected glam rock in terms of their right to be in the dance, but Warrant makes it two members of the hairband conference that had to play an extra round just to be a 16 seed. KoL took down Entire Collection (easily - a big weakness for the hair bands), Defining Album, and Historical Impact (cause we don't count Jani Lane's appearance on Celebrity Fat Farm). Giving Warrant points for Song (Heaven) and Personal Connection (Mad respect for 1989) wasn't enough.
FINAL SCORE: KINGS OF LEON 6 ~ WARRANT 3


Charlottesville Regional Play In Game: Incubus v Queen
Incubus won the Album category by virtue of "Light Grenades" beating anything Queen had to offer (outside of their Greatest, there's nothing that jumps out at me) but the jolly flamboyant men of Queen ran the table everywhere else. I expected this to be closer.
FINAL SCORE: QUEEN 7 ~ INCUBUS 2

San Francisco Regional Play In Game: Modest Mouse vs Smashing Pumpkins
Proving to me that the criteria will make things interesting. If you stopped me on the street and asked me to pick between these two, I'd probably say "God that Billy Corgan is a stupid self-serving prick, and I enjoy me some MM". But the box score says something different. Mouse's Good News... won the Defining Album, but the Pumpkins have the collection, the connection (fun, not so innocent times driving around when I was 17), the song ("Disarm") and unfortunately, the impact. A shocking personal upset and a bloodbath:
FINAL SCORE: SMASHING PUMPKINS 7 ~ MODEST MOUSE 2

Now that we have our 64, here's the Full Bracket

I look forward to wasting many, many more hours on this.