Monday, March 14, 2011

ESPN's Rock and Roll Tourney

The NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments are set to start later this week and much of the nation is tuning in to root for teams they love or against teams they hate.

Each year, the NCAA sets the field for the men's tournament by "seeding" the top 64 teams from #1-#16 in four separate regions. The 1 seed plays the 16, 2 plays 15, 3 plays 14 and so forth in each of the four regions. All four regions is a "bracket" as are all four taken together to form the entire NCAA tournament field.  The winner who survives four rounds of games in each respective bracket is one of the four regional winners who goes to "The Final Four" to compete for the championship.

Well, the find folks at ESPN have playfully extended this "bracketology" to rock and roll - listing and seeding who they think the best 40 rock bands ever and asks fans to vote on the winners of each "match up" to advance bands through the different rounds to regional championship, the final four and the ultimate winner.

You can have your say by voting on the match ups HERE.

Some observations on the field:

  • Clearly some very top bands - Stones, Who, the Floyd, Beatles, Clash, U2, Queen, Bob Marley, AC/DC, Sex Pistols, Ramones, Guns n Roses, Black Sabath for example. 
  • Some real head scratchers (as in, "what the F are those bands on this list for") - Sublime, Creed, Living Color, Korn, Outcast, Styx, Nickelback, Blink 182 to name a few. Wow. 
  • There are a LOT of blatant omissions - um, ESPN, how about the Kinks, David Bowie, Springsteen, Elvis Presley, Beach Boys, Stooges, MC5, Foo Fighters, REM or Radiohead? Surely any of those bands would be better rock bands to be in the competition.
  • Considering the bands picked, the competition should be titled Rock Band Bracket - 1960s-90s. Bands or performers who got their start in the 50s or the 2000s not welcome. 
Of course, you know my vote and my advice - vote for The Clash as often as you can.

But acceptable wins among those still in the competition are: U2, Zep, Stones, Beatles, the Who, Jimi, Nirvana, Pearl Jam.


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