8. Fiona Apple vs. Weezer vs. Toadies

	vs.		vs.
"Criminal" by Fiona Apple from Tidal		"Tired of Sex" by Weezer from Pinkerton		"Possum Kingdom" by Toadies from Rubberneck

"Criminal" (3 plays at Last.fm, unranked): Despite the fact that Fiona Apple's second album is head and shoulders above her first, in my opinion, this debut single remains her best song. It's sultry and lush, and probably could only have come about between Liz Phair's Whip-Smart and Britney Spears' ...Baby One More Time. Structurally, it's got a kind of wicked confidence, with Apple's vocals anticipating beats and meshing with the light drums maybe more than anything else. It feels like a hit single, which makes the extended, eastern-teasing outro that much more interesting; I'm positive it was cut for radio promos, though I can't say I remember for sure. In a lot of ways, it's a song that's built to be hard to follow up (and the herion-chic, underwear-filled video probably didn't help that any), which makes the fact that Apple disappeared into cult popularity afterward not that surprising.

"Tired of Sex" (6 plays, unranked): In some ways, the first 22 seconds of this song, before the vocals come in, are the most awesome in the history of rock. Coming off a polished, poppy, MTV-friendly first record, Weezer recast themselves as a noisy emo band (and that's "emo" as it was understood in the mid-90s, as opposed to the 80s or today). In so doing they provided a bridge between Braid and the Get Up Kids and established an incredibly high-energy presence that held throughout Pinkerton and its b-sides. Everything is on full shout here, and come on, "Tired of Sex" could be the title of a thousand parody emo songs if it weren't already real. It's the slightly stronger half of a great couplet of angst and confusion with "Getchoo," the two songs making a perfect musical dovetail and a frustrating lyrical clash. It's material that you could imagine turning Rivers Cuomo into a hermit if, say, Rolling Stone were to give it an incredible panning (which it did).

"Possum Kingdom" (11 plays, tied for #180): This round really is an encapsulation of mid-90s rock radio. Several years ago (I want to say 2003, but I don't recall for certain) I went back to my undergrad alma mater for its Winter Carnival and somehow found myself in a frat house basement with about 50 people ranging from age 18 to 30 or so. When this tune came on, everybody sang it. The whole thing. When I saw the Toadies last summer, it was the same thing (and I was really glad to see them not eschewing their One Big Hit). The little repeated guitar progression was an incredible building effect -- I think when you listen to the song it seems like it's just the quieter-to-louder vocal repetition at the end, but that guitar provides the foundation for it throughout the song. Then, of course, when you get to that peak it's like all Hell breaking loose. It sounds, on record, like a live crowd going crazy, so much so that when an actual live crowd actually goes crazy it feels familiar.

VERDICT: This is a really tight one between "Tired of Sex" and "Possum Kingdom." Weezer gets the edge because the anticipation that comes at the end of "Tired of Sex" -- both because it's an incredible trailer for their sound at the time and because you know "Getchoo" is coming next -- is so exquisite.

7. Year of the Rabbit vs. The New Kentucky Quarter vs. Finch

	vs.		vs.
"Say Goodbye" by Year of the Rabbit from Year of the Rabbit		"Carry It Around" by The New Kentucky Quarter from Carry It Around		"Letters to You" by Finch from What It Is to Burn

"Say Goodbye" (10 plays at Last.fm, tied for #218): Year of the Rabbit frontman Ken Andrews is in this tournament as the leader of three different bands (the other two being Failure and On), which is pretty impressive. This band released its only album at a time when the majors briefly tried their hand at angular shimmer rock, and this closing track brought the whole thing to an incredible, if tragically destined, head. The lyrics have a nice back and forth across the verses, and Andrews had really perfected the arena version of his croon when we saw YotR play the comically undersized (and underfilled) Rave Bar in Milwaukee. Of all the bands that fit this subgenre (Failure being one, but also Hum, late-model Cave In, Shiner), I think this one is one of the few that are carried by vocals at least as much as by music, and this song is a great example of it.

"Carry It Around" (13 plays, tied for #101): This might be the most obscure track in the tournament. Madison's the New Kentucky Quarter released a couple of EPs, then broke up a short while after this one came out. This title track from their swan song is a superb piece of pop-rock that I suspect would've burned up the charts if had it found its way into a Zach Braff soundtrack. The boy-girl harmonies in the chorus are terrific, as are the slight changes to the vocal melody each time through. We saw them play at the Terrace without ever having heard them before and fell it love instantly -- if anyone has a line on their earlier releases, please let me know!

"Letters to You" (2 plays, unranked): Come to think of it, all the songs in this match-up are fairly obscure. Finch was part of an early 2000s wave of halfway decent screamo that went light on the screaming, then they put out a forgettable follow-up, split, and reformed to release a forgettable EP last year. These songs are also all really well structured -- with lesser execution that could be a bad thing, but with all three and this one in particular, it feels like the band is taking you on a tour of how the song works, and even though it's not an unprecedented setup, it sounds impeccably put-together. It this case it's things like false stops being just in the right place, like the perfect placement of decorative mouldings or something. This song also has a lot of resonance for personal historical reasons, as it came out in 2002, just as I had was going through a lot of life upheaval. It can still feel and understand it now, but it's less salient than it was then -- I've been known to scream this one out in the car in the past, but it's been a while.

VERDICT: "Letters to You" has lost a bit due to time, and it's a tough choice between the other two. I'm going with "Carry It Around," because upon close review of "Say Goodbye" it seems like it doesn't quite have the energy it once did -- I want it to be a little faster and a little harder.

6. Motion City Soundtrack vs. Fear of Pop vs. Matthew Sweet

	vs.		vs.
"Capital H" by Motion City Soundtrack from Back to the Beat		"In Love" by Fear of Pop from Volume I		"Sick of Myself" by Matthew Sweet from 100% Fun

"Capital H" (9 plays at Last.fm, tied for #299): This song appeared on an early Motion City Soundtrack EP, and then was rerecorded for the Epitaph re-issue of their debut LP, I Am the Movie; the former is the version on this list. It's the thing in the MCS catalog that best combines their ramshackle beginnings with their synth-driven melody and vocal mania. It's also maybe the most fun live track ever -- the little two-note kick-off and big synth waves get a crowd jumping like nothing else I've ever heard. Maybe more than any other song in this competition, this tune is pure energy. The rerecorded version is not, unfortunately; it's much more subdued and sacrifices a lot of personality for professionalism. If you can find the Back to the Beat version, I highly recommend it.

"In Love" (7 plays, unranked): Ben Folds has got some problems with women. There were a few Ben Folds Five songs that strongly hinted at it ("Song For the Dumped," most notably), but his solo material goes there a lot more directly. When his Fear of Pop record came out, though, very little of that stuff had been produced yet. This tune -- a template for his later production of William Shatner's Has Been -- is by far the standout from that project. Over a soft and quirkly melody, with Folds doing a 60's ballad in the background, Shatner gives an incredible reading of a diss track to an anonymous woman. The last verse is just devastating: "I can't tell you anything, and I... can't.. commit! You're right! I can't commit! To you. I will always treasure our time together. I don't feel enough of anything to harbor the kind of disdain that you'll maintain. You painted me into what you wanted to see -- and that's fine! But you will never know me." On top of that, the music really is terrific, in the vein of then-recent BFF tunes such as "Smoke" and "Selfless, Cold and Composed."

"Sick of Myself" (8 plays, tied for #395): Most cite Girlfriend as Matthew Sweet's breakthrough album, but for me he moved to the next level with the four muted quarter notes that open this tune and his fifth album, 100% Fun. He adds some "power" to his "power pop" here -- the sound neatly foreshadows his Specter-esque In Reverse -- and encapsulates the sound of a fairly broad 90s movement that also included bands like Urge Overkill and the Lemonheads. It's a tune that is immensely hummable, with some great garage guitar work and fun use of false stops at the end.

VERDICT: The other two songs would've won in a lot of other match-ups, but "In Love" is going to go a long way in this competition. On top of all of its awesome qualities, I suspect it's also partly responsible for the cultural resurgence of William Shatner in the last decade, and it's hard to overstate the value of that.

5. The Long Winters vs. Pixies vs. Stone Temple Pilots

	vs.		vs.
"Stupid" by The Long Winters from When I Pretend to Fall		"Winterlong" by Pixies from Complete 'B' Sides		"Interstate Love Song" by Stone Temple Pilots from Purple

"Stupid" (13 plays at Last.fm, tied for #101): Listening through these songs, it's becoming clear I have a thing for little opening flourishes, whether they're loud and brash or lush and pretty like the one that opens this song. Like most of the Long Winters' terrific catalog, this tune combines a nice, simple chord progression with great poetic lyrics and a wonderfully bright vocal line from frontman John Roderick. On top of that it's some of the best vocal harmonies of any of their songs and an interlude of what sounds like (but probably isn't) two-part lap steel. Then there's the little stutter-step false start near the end, which I can't help suddenly thrash about to -- a great cap to a really strongly constructed song.

"Winterlong" (2 plays, unranked): Another great opening bit, as a quick run up a scale sets up a great duet between Kim Deal and Frank Black's not-quite-falsetto. Their voices, and the band's guitar sensibility, is what really makes the track work for me -- I really can't get into the Neil Young original, even though I've given it a valiant try (though I wonder if Young had re-recorded it around the time the Pixies did, if it wouldn't sound much the same as theirs). The ability of the Pixies to both display and reinterpret their influences like this is one of the things that really separates them from many of their peers and followers -- this is a perfect companion to "Here Comes Your Man," for instance, but it's also a perfect homage.

"Interstate Love Song" (2 plays, unranked): I probably should've been a major label executive. I had an impressive string of predicting songs that would become hit singles back in the early and mid 90's, and this was one of them. I bought Purple largely on the strength of Core, and when this track first came up I was blown away. It's a step away from the 1992-era grunge that STP was otherwise soaking in at the time, sounding really nothing at all like, say, the Pearl Jam catalog to that point. The riffs are great, and the subtle bass line does way more work than it has an right to. The way the verses move forward is so well aligned that it's hard to believe the band didn't pop champagne as soon as they finished the last take. Unfortunately, they never really took this sound anywhere, which is pretty much true of every good song they ever had. A schizo band if there ever was one, I certainly hope this is something they can recapture if they ever record again.

VERDICT: There's a lot of perfection in these three songs, to be sure; it's probably the strongest group of three so far. I think the win has to go to "Stupid" on the basis of visceral love -- it's a song I still turn up when it shuffles to the top, while the other two have shifted somewhat into historical love territory.

4. Cowboy Junkies vs. Taxpayer vs. nine inch nails

	vs.		vs.
"Sweet Jane" by Cowboy Junkies from The Trinity Session		"When They Were Young" by Taxpayer from Bones & Lungs		"wish" by nine inch nails from broken

"Sweet Jane" (1 play at Last.fm, unranked): This track is from an early Cowboy Junkies album, but really it's from the Natural Born Killers soundtrack. It's in many ways the processional for Mickey and Mallory's impromptu bridge-top wedding, and I'd say it reimagines the original Velvet Underground version at least as significantly as Jeff Buckley reimagined John Cale's reimagining of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." Margo Timmins' voice and style bring a totally different flavor to the song than the downtown wink-and-sneer maleness of Lou Reed. That such a simple song could be so changed is one of the things I like best about music.

"When They Were Young" (10 plays, tied for #218): I discovered this band when I learned about the Boston Phoenix's music blog, a site from which I subsequently never found anything else good. The song came out a year before the Killers' "When You Were Young," and coincidentally is not dissimilar to that song's style. The difference is that Taxpayer's song is wickedly catchy, with much livelier vocals and more interesting lyrics. The band in general is pretty good, though this is by far their best song; if they'd gotten any exposure outside the northeast I suspect they'd've hit it big by now.

"wish" (4 plays, unranked): When I got into the NIN back catalog around the time I was 16 and deep into the downward spiral, this song sounded like a clear pivot point for Trent Reznor. Nothing on pretty hate machine was this full or loud or aggressive, and much of it actually sounds pretty thin compared to subsequent NIN material (maybe down to late 80's mastering style, but I don't think so). This song (and broken as a whole) came through on the Reznor's clear promise, apparently at the expense of all kinds of personal damage. It's a great metal song and a great live experience, and it's too bad that so few of the bands influenced by this NIN era seem to get how it works.

VERDICT: It's a tough call. "Sweet Jane" is too slight compared to the other two tracks. As great and historically important as "wish" is, "When They Were Young" is one of a handful of tracks that I often feel compelling to listen to, even when I'm in the middle of listening to something else, so it moves on to the next round.

3. Everclear vs. Nine Inch Nails vs. Firewater

	vs.		vs.
"Queen of the Air" by Everclear from Sparkle and Fade		"No, You Don't" by Nine Inch Nails from The Fragile		"I Still Love You Judas" by Firewater from The Ponzi Scheme

"Queen of the Air" (3 plays at Last.fm, unranked): This was the song that made Everclear my favorite band for a while, after "Santa Monica" had prompted me to buy the record. There's a lot of mid-90's shimmer in here, but the structure also calls back to the abrasiveness of Everclear's first independent release, 1993's World of Noise. Maybe the most significant addition it makes to that structure is a terrific melodic bassline that has a really nice interplay with the slight guitar melody -- it's not overpowering the way a lot of contemporaneous songs are. The story that Art Alexakis tells is short and compelling -- the narrator's supposed aunt but actual mother jumping from a bridge to her death -- and I was surprised to learn to was totally made up. Alexakis uses so many harsh autobiographical details in the first three Everclear records that a story like this one doesn't raise an eyebrow, but it's of a piece with the working class heartbreak and drama that he used to be so good at.

"No, You Don't" (4 plays, unranked): Looking back on what Trent Reznor has done in the past nine years, The Fragile looks like the most important thing in the NIN catalog. You can hear bits and pieces of his subsequent three full-lengths and the Ghosts collection all over the place -- it's the beginning of a more cohesive sound than he ever had with pretty hate machine, broken and the downward spiral (though those are better works overall). When the album came out, the build and noise of this track were just what I wanted to hear (another NIN song, "the great collapse," appears later in the tournament for the same reason). It's a great singer and a great screamer, and I suspect largely underappreciated in a sea of album cuts from an oft-overlooked record.

"I Still Love You Judas" (9 plays, tied for #299): I discovered Firewater through their first album when hosting a college radio show at 3AM Sunday mornings, but it's their follow-up that I really love. Frontman Tod A is a terrific lyricist, but the band manages to create music that's both atmospheric and cinematic as an accompaniment. It's unfortunate that the band's style was so out in 1998 (it would've been killer in 1992 or 2006), because their vocal-driven, minor-key rock with strings could've developed a real audience in the right conditions.

VERDICT: This is a tough call, but I think Firewater wins out. The opening of the song has that spark to it, that when you hear it come up on shuffle you perk up, turn up the volume and get ready to submerge into the song.

2. Hum vs. Liz Phair vs. Superdrag

	vs.		vs.
"Stars" by Hum from You'd Prefer an Astronaut		"Divorce Song" by Liz Phair from Exile in Guyville		"Gimme Animosity" by Superdrag from In the Valley of Dying Stars

"Stars" (3 plays at Last.fm, unranked): Hum is one of those mid-90's bands that found minor success before the label machine ate them, and "Stars" was their entree into that world. I think it's playing in a Cadillac commercial now. It's also maybe the best example of what the Smashing Pumpkins' explosion did for the Chicago fuzz-rock scene. It's a pretty simple song, really -- an uncomplicated melody and unassuming lyrics over a technically fancy lead guitar progression, lots of cymbal crashes in the background. The band and the song had a lot to do with what came later from bands like Cave In and the Life and Times, and even Ken Andrews' various late-model projects. The good news is that Hum is now out touring a reunion show, so maybe the density and energy of this song will be found again in a new record.

"Divorce Song" (9 plays, tied for #299): Oh, Liz. I've written before about the tragedy that is Liz Phair, and this song is in so many ways the prologue. Others might identify a different Guyville song as the epitome of what Liz Phair, the entity, meant in 1993, but for me everything is in this song. Compared with the rest of the album, it's one of the most expanded songs from what she'd done on the Girlysound tapes. There's the harmonica outro, the shakers, the extra guitar lines. Her low alto is as gruff-sounding as the lyrics are fatalistic, and titling it "Divorce Song" without including an ending in the song's story is an exceptional bit of framing. And it's a perfect story-song in so many ways, the sort of thing that really does sound like a direct counterpoint to the Stones' "Ventilator Blues." Hearing what Phair's doing now, it's like rewatching a movie when you already know the character in the tragic setting isn't getting out.

"Gimme Animosity" (10 plays, tied for #218): For some reason it took me until early 2000 to pick up Superdrag's debut LP, even though I'd loved their one hit ("Sucked Out") when it was released in 1996. After buying that record, I was consumed with anticipation for their then-upcoming release, In the Valley of Dying Stars. When I got it, this was one of a few songs that went on constant repeat for the rest of the year. The driving guitar and insistent vocals from Jon Davis keep things cranking during the chorus, and the way the bass swoops in during the verses is spectacular.

VERDICT: "Stars" is awesome to rock out to, but I'm not sure it would even win a Hum-only favorite song contest (look for their "The Scientists" to show up in a future round). "Divorce Song," on the other hand, is an all-time great: a fabulous piece of poetry, and an untarnished core sample of an indie explosion that never quite happened.