SCORES & UPCOMING GAMES



CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL SCORE: (2) JEFF BUCKLEY 168, (7) Tracy Chapman 159 .......... FINAL FOUR FINAL SCORES: (7) TRACY CHAPMAN 154, (1) Joy Division 90 ..... (2) JEFF BUCKLEY 137, (1) The Cure 89 .......... ELITE EIGHT FINAL SCORES: (1) JOY DIVISION 74, (14) Low 60 ..... (7) TRACY CHAPMAN 85, (1) Elliott Smith 69 ..... THE CURE 65, (2) Radiohead 58 ..... (2) JEFF BUCKLEY 74, (1) Neutral Milk Hotel 44 ..... FINAL SWEET SIXTEEN SCORES: (1) JOY DIVISION 75, (5) PJ Harvey & Nick Cave 24 ..... (14) LOW 73, (2) Concrete Blonde (64) ..... (1) ELLIOTT SMITH 78, (4) Gary Jules 44 ..... (7) TRACY CHAPMAN 74, (6) Kate Bush 53 ..... (1) NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL 54, (13) The Church 49 ..... (2) JEFF BUCKLEY 73, (3) Sinead O’Connor 35 ..... (1) THE CURE 109, (3) Tori Amos 86 ..... (2) RADIOHEAD 76, (6) This Mortal Coil 50 ..... (1) JOY DIVISION 96, (9) Mazzy Star 91 ..... (2) CONCRETE BLONDE 76, (7) Bob Mould 28 ..... (14) LOW 60, (6) Crowded House 51 ..... (5) PJ HARVEY & NICK CAVE 65, (4) Alphaville 38 ..... (1) ELLIOTT SMITH 113, (8) Replacements 88 ..... (6) KATE BUSH 87, (3) Nirvana 64 ..... (7) TRACY CHAPMAN 99, (2) The Eels 62 ..... (3) GARY JULES 103, (12) Morrissey 63 ..... (6) Kate Bush 72, (3) Nirvana 53 ..... (3) SINEAD O'CONNOR 66, (11) Ride 27 ..... (13) THE CHURCH 106, (5) James 44 ..... (2) JEFF BUCKLEY 95, (10) Smashing Pumpkins 40 ..... (1) NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL 80, (9) New Order 56 ..... (2) RADIOHEAD 102, (7) Nine Inch Nails 99 ..... (6) THIS MORTAL COIL 61, (3) Indigo Girls 60 ..... (4) TORI AMOS 89, (5) Swans 40 ..... (1) CURE 82, (8) Tom Waits 68 ............... FINAL 1ST ROUND SCORES: (5) PJ HARVEY & NICK CAVE 93, (12) Midnight Oil 38 ..... (7) BOB MOULD 63, (10) Peter Murphy 47 ..... (1) JOY DIVISION 117, (16) Erasure 19 ..... (6) CROWDED HOUSE 98, (11) Leonard Cohen 54 ..... (7) TRACY CHAPMAN 199, (10) The Smiths 162 ..... (5) MORRISSEY 115, (12) Morphine 83 ..... (3) NIRVANA 137, (14) Slowdive 102 ..... (8) THE REPLACEMENTS 128, (9) Dream Academy 82 ..... (13) THE CHURCH 262, (4) Magnetic Fields 193 ..... (10) SMASHING PUMPKINS 165, (7) Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 155 ..... (9) NEW ORDER 160, (8) Sarah McLachlan 78 ..... (1) JEFF BUCKLEY 204, (16) Bjork 92 ..... (4) TORI AMOS 78, (13) Echo & the Bunnymen 22 ..... (8) TOM WAITS 72, (9) The Pretenders 22 ..... (6) THIS MORTAL COIL 51, (11) Yaz 31 ..... (3) INDIGO GIRLS 71, (14) Pavement 26 ..... (9) MAZZY STAR 132, (8) REM 46 ..... (2) CONCRETE BLONDE 88, (15) Psychedelic Furs 34 ..... (4) ALPHAVILLE 71, (13) Dead Can Dance 36 ..... (14) LOW 120, (3) U2 65 ..... (1) ELLIOTT SMITH 63, (16) 10,000 Maniacs 24 ..... (2) EELS 50, (15) Counting Crows 46 ..... (4) GARY JULES 62, (13) Depeche Mode 19 ..... (6) KATE BUSH 59, (11) Sisters of Mercy 20 ..... (1) NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL 42, (16) Violent Femmes 12 ..... (11) RIDE 25 (6) Peter Gabriel 24 ..... (3) SINEAD O'CONNOR 37, (14) Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark 17, ..... (5) JAMES 24, (12) Red House Painters 23 ..... (7) NINE INCH NAILS 46, (10) Wilco 31, (5) SWANS 31, (12) Pet Shop Boys 18 ..... (1) THE CURE 50, (16) Gear Daddies 10 ..... (2) RADIOHEAD 40, (15) Liz Phair 35


CURRENT GAMES BELOW — PAST GAMES ARCHIVED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Second Round Action: (6) KATE BUSH vs (3) NIRVANA

Man, that Jeff Buckley "You and I" album that's apparently just coming out is trolling our Youtube feed as we watch these videos. Same for you? We can feel the algorithms slowly collecting our information and our preferences as we watch more sad song videos and figuring us out as we go. If only they could tell us—really—what it is we're looking for, then the tradeoff in privacy might be worth the resulting specification of our sadnesses and just how to channel them most powerfully. Until then at least we only have this, our bracket, to lead us deeper into ourselves.

So here we have a matchup of two bands that couldn't be much less like each other. It's hard to disentangle Nirvana from the memory of grunge (of which they're one of few representatives in the bracket) and the story of Cobain and his suicide to really hear the song anew. For all the noise they make, Nirvana's always been able to find the melody, as they do here (and as their Unplugged set made more obvious to the world). Perhaps the song is now more of an epitaph for Cobain than it is a song at all.

Both Cobain and Kate Bush withdrew from the stage in their own ways and were more often than not, especially later in their careers, reluctant performers. The Internet tells us that Bush is "the first British solo female artist to top the UK album charts and the first female artist ever to enter the album chart at number-one, as well as the first (and to date, only) female artist to have top five albums in the UK charts in five successive decades," which is an insane statistic. Both inspire obsessive fandom that has not faded with Cobain's suicide and Bush's long disappearance from live performance until 2014. In the committee's view, neither of these songs seem likely to make it through to the elite 8 on their own merits, but we've been wrong before in our prognostications.

Still, there's a stark decision to be had here: "All Apologies" is more apparently personal than "This Woman's Work" and much less (apparently, again—all we can do is track the evidence of artifice, not really knowing) theatrical. The two videos make this more obvious, since the one we've linked is the Unplugged version: the original dulls that read a bit. "This Woman's Work" starts out in third-person, almost, until the I implicates herself in the action. "All Apologies" is first-person almost to a fault, separating and separating from the you implicated in the song: "I wish I was like you / Easily amused / Find my nest of salt / Everything's my fault / I take all the blame."

This doesn't feel quite like Nirvana's tournament, though it's hard to say exactly why; perhaps it's because they push on the definition of what college rock is. We know that, yet they asserted themselves in the bracket anyway. And now they're here, they don't plan to leave unless forced. Still we think this might be an opening for a Kate Bush upset.

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For more discussion of these songs, you may want to read our previous coverage of "This Woman's Work" and of "All Apologies."

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(6) Kate Bush, "This Woman's Work"



vs

(3) Nirvana, "All Apologies"





FINAL SCORE: KATE BUSH 87, NIRVANA 64

1 comment:

  1. All Apologies hasn't aged well anywhere but top 40s stations, where it'll always find an audience. I'm tapping Ms Bush for this one. She's got way more range than Mr Cobain. Far more dynamic. He may have grown into something else, which would have been really gratifying to watch, sort of like how Tori Amos has bloomed as a performer of singular genius. But he didn't. Which is sad in itself. But not sad enough to make me miss my cassette copy of Nevermind.

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