Thursday's action & analysis

First, the scores:

• (13) The Church upset (4) The Magnetic Fields 262-193
• (10) Smashing Pumpkins steals one from (7) Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 165-155
• (8) New Order unmans (9) Sarah McLachlan 160-78
• (2) Jeff Buckley was never really challenged by (15) Bjork 204-92

Analysis: Two upsets in yesterday's action shook up the bracket. We expected the Magnetic Fields to make a run to the Elite 8, so we're not sure what to make of their solid loss to The Church. It was a close game until around midnight Arizona time, when Stephin Merritt & co went cold and couldn't buy a basket, and The Church fans started really making noise. Clearly we underestimated the love people have for the Church, or possibly how polarizing Stephin Merritt's voice can be. We also think, though we didn't collect data for the metrics, that the voting on this matchup may have split along generational lines. The Church plays James in the second round, and they're not contemporaries, we think James is a better matchup for the game the Australians brought to the tournament.

Too, Smashing Pumpkins locked down Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. The game was close, and possibly the Pumpkins could go deep here, except they'll run up into Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" in the second round, so we'll see then a matchup of drama on drama.

We're surprised that New Order-Sarah McLachlan wasn't closer than it was. New Order led from the first minutes and never let up. Possibly the degree to which McLachlan became embedded in the culture via Lilith Fair and her ASPCA commercials had an effect on voters' willingness to follow her deep into the tournament? We would have loved to see her face off against Neutral Milk Hotel in the second round, but now New Order gets that draw instead.

Today we've got Morrissey in action against Morphine (the most alliterative matchup of the day, and "Suedehead" is up 67-47 right now) and an underseeded Smiths against Tracy Chapman ("Fast Car" is up 117-103 as of this moment). Nirvana vs Slowdive (74-61 Nirvana presently) is a game of contrasting styles, and The Replacements vs Dream Academy is a tough one to prognosticate. Many said The Replacements might just win it all, and they're up 71-49...that is, until you vote (and the voting's only open until 9am tomorrow morning Arizona time*) and prove us wrong.


* As you may know, Arizona doesn't do daylight saving time (which is this weekend), since we have enough daylight down here, thanks, and Arizona also doesn't like anybody telling it what to do because Freedom, so we're effectively on Pacific time half the year and Mountain time the rest of it. It's confusing. See also this.