Last Of The Big Faves

2 more blow-outs as Thriller moves on to face She's So Unusual in the second round. No shut-outs yet, though. Here is the last of the albums that multiple people have told me they felt would win this whole thang....

The Joshua Tree (U2) vs. Uh Huh (John Cougar Mellencamp) - Game 37
So (Peter Gabriel) vs. Imperial Bedroom (Elvis Costello) - Game 38

Pretty good bracket, there. I have heard from 2, maybe 3 people who want to take turns selecting the order of brackets that we vote on. Part of that may be because I suck at explaining what it is I am asking, part may be because we will get to all brackets eventually, anyway. For now I'll just keep picking them and we can revisit that later if 5 or 6 of you wanna pick matches. Please feel free to expound on matches as they come up on our FB page. Michael, Amy, Jennifer, Marie, Mark, Don.....you've all had little bits to say about matches in the past, and I love that shit, so please feel free to comment on any albums you feel you must.

One Of Two

We had 2 blow-outs as The Police brutalized Bruce and ABC were put in place by their relations down the line, Run DMC. Ghost In The Machine vs. Raising Hell. There remain 2 albums in the first round that I've heard the most about getting to the finals. One of them is below.....

She's So Unusual (Cindi Lauper) vs. Stoneage Romeos (HooDoo Gurus) - Game 39
Thriller (Michael Jackson) vs. How Will The Wolf Survive? (Los Lobos) - Game 40

Would anyone like to take turns picking which brackets we do? Does anyone actually read this far? Lemme know on the FB page if you are interested in picking a bracket for us to vote on from time to time.

The Most Listed

Wow, that was over quick. Didn't even need streams! Paul's Boutique will face War in the second round. Now let's move to the album that appeared on the most lists I received for this tourney. Let's see if you can guess which album it is.

Born In The USA (Bruce Springsteen) vs. Ghost In The Machine (The Police) - Game 35
Raising Hell (Run DMC) vs. Lexicon Of Love (ABC) - Game 36

 Did you guess? That's right, it was Run DMC. No, really, it was Run DMC. I was surprised, too, though it deserves that status. This is the last Bruce album in the first round, too.

Last Of The Original Greats

The Femmes destroyed the Stone Roses and Bruce held off a late comeback to win by 1 vote, giving us Violent Femmes vs. Nebraska in the next round. The last of the albums making it to the field of 32 in our previous tournament shall now be honored, OH YES IT SHALL! Yes, it shall.

Paul's Boutique (Beastie Boys) vs. Control (Janet Jackson) - Game 19
War (U2) vs. Big Lizard In My Backyard (Dead Milkmen) - Game 20

PATRICK'S BIRTHDAY BRUCE FIX

Nirvana won a see-saw battle with the Dead by 1 vote and we've had our first major upset as Guns 'n Roses have been knocked out of the tourney to give us Shoot Out The Lights vs. Bleach in the second round. We'll save the last major 80's album to make it far in our previous tournament for next time as somebody's got a birthday comin up! Patrick is an enormous fan of the Boss, so in honor of that, here's a Bruce bracket for the birthday boy...

Violent Femmes (Violent Femmes) vs. The Stone Roses (The Stone Roses) - Game 45
Nebraska (Bruce Springsteen) vs. Nick Of Time (Bonnie Raitt) - Game 46

I've heard from a few of you that you would like to see a list of all tournament albums. On our blog page, directly under the bold white 'The Great 80's Album Tourney!' print, there is a small grey print of 'The Great 80's Album Tourney.' Click on that, then on Championship Bracket, and you'll see the entire tournament - albums, seeds, game numbers, future brackets and all. So check that out, cuz I ain't writing no other list of 128 80's albums, people! .

Whoops.

The purple one dominated and The Clash squeezed one out (hee hee) as we have Purple Rain vs. London Calling as a powerful second round match-up down the line. Okay, I gotta get this one out quickly. In the last post I said there were 3 80's albums that made it to the previous tourney's round of 32. There were 4, and Appetite was one of them. Actually, it reached the sweet 16.

Appetite For Destruction (Guns 'n Roses) vs. Shoot Out The Lights (Richard/Linda Thompson) - Game 21
Bleach (Nirvana) vs. Reckoning (Grateful Dead) - Game 22

G 'n R is against another big vote getter from the last tourney here. We also have the pre-cursor to the 90s new rock explosion against our first of just a few live albums in the tourney, a hippie acoustic marvel. Are we leading to G 'n R vs. Nirvana? Can we get an upset here after coming so close in the last bracket? Am I wearing pants?

Early Favorites

Let's start our first few brackets with the albums some of you have already told me were your picks to win it all.....

Purple Rain (Prince) vs. Waiata (Split Enz) - Game 51
London Calling (The Clash) vs. Pleased To Meet Me (The Replacements) - Game 52

Purple Rain was the only album from the 80's to make it all the way to the elite 8 in our first tourney. London Calling was one of only 3 80's albums to make it to that tourney's round of 32. Are we headed for a vicious second round match-up, or can Split Enz and/or The Replacements pull off a big upset? Up to you, my friends. Again, once any album gets 11 votes, it's over. Otherwise, you've got until Friday night to decide!

The Tourney And Its Workings

Okay kids, 128 albums deep, our tournament is ready. First, here's how it works. For this first round (which will take quite some time...like a month at least), every 3 days I'll have a new 2-match bracket to vote on. The polls will be to your right at the edge of the screen. Voting is completely anonymous, we can only see how many of us have voted so far...that's it. This leaves you free to vote for those guilty pleasures over the critically acclaimed albums, if you so desire, without getting trolled mercilessly by your fellow voters. SO, if you wanna vote Human League over Bob Marley, you do it, dammit! As I've said in the past with this, you're not voting for the most socially relevant album (unless you want to), you're voting for the album you prefer RIGHT NOW. You choose your own guidelines/decisions for voting.

Stumping is encouraged on our FB page. If you wanna make a case for a particular album to woo voters, do it. Lets respect peoples' album choices though, peeps. Talk up your album, don't talk down other voters. Well, a little, but, you know...don't be a douche. Nobody likes a douche. Also, you WILL have album that lose. It will happen. Relax, breathe easy, it's just a fun game. It's nothing personal. Bitches.

The tourney seeds were decided by me drawing albums names out of a pot. For realz, y'all, that's how I did it. If artists/groups had 2 or more albums, I tried to make it so that it was impossible for the same band to appear twice in our final 4. All albums that were listed on 2 or more lists face albums that were on only 1 list in the first round.

I think that's it for the 'splaining. I will do my best to have links to albums streaming on our FB page at least for the first couple rounds. If you have questions/problems, the FB page is the place to let me know. Basically, the blog is for tourney viewing and voting, the FB page is for all other communication. We will quicken the 3-day voting period at some point, but if a match is mathematically impossible to change (over half our group votes for 1 album), I will end matches early. Check the FB page for new blog posts which will always contain new polls from here on, or follow this blog for notifications. Here's a list of artists/groups that feature more than 1 album in our tourney. The link to the entire tournament grid is near the top of this page in grey lettering just under the title. Click on it to view it all. First ballot will be coming shortly. Let me know if there are questions, please LISTEN TO THE ALBUMS, DON'T VOTE MISINFORMED, and have fun!

Prince and Talking Heads - 4 albums

Metallica, R.E.M., The Replacements - 3 albums

The Pixies, Beastie Boys, Tom Waits, Def Leppard, David Bowie, Lou Reed, The Police, U2,
Bruce Springsteen, Janet Jackson (yup, more than Michael), Aerosmith, Elvis Costello and Queen -2 albums

The Very Beginning

Welcome or welcome back! The tourney will include albums released from 1980-1989 ONLY. I need lists! For those of us coming out of our last tourney, the rules for choosing albums are pretty much the same as last time. If you need a reminder or are new to the group, here are the album list rules.....
* - Did I say they must have come out between 1980 and 1989? Well, that's an important one.
* - Greatest Hits, Best Ofs and Box Sets cannot be included. Leave Bob Marley's "Legend" off your list no matter how much it may hurt.
* - Soundtracks can only be included if every song is from the same artist/band. For example, if Prince's "Purple Rain" and Talking Heads "Stop Making Sense" don't appear in our tourney, well, that's just silly. But leave Footloose, Top Gun and Miami Vice-type soundtracks off. Please.
* - Any other genre is fair game. Rock, New Wave, Punk, Pop, Hip Hop, Jazz, Blues, whatever. It just must be from the same artist/group, beginning to end.
* - Live albums are also great, provided the actual concert was recorded DURING the 80's and was released via a record label, no bootlegs!
* - This is optional, you do not HAVE to message me a list, you can simply vote if that's all you wanna do. Personally, I think it's more fun coming up with a list, but I'm a list guy. If you didn't notice.
* - All albums MUST have been released between the years 1980-1989. Yes, that's the third time. Wanna bet someone lists an album from 1990 that "sounds 80s-ish?" You got almost a week, people, do a little research. Sheesh.

I would try to list at least 10 albums and no more than 25 so we have a nice variety. Okay, that's part one of The Very Beginning. Part two would be who is playing. Here's who....
* - Any who played in our first tourney are welcome to stick around for this one. IF YOU DO NOT MESSAGE ME A LIST OR COMMENT ON OUR FB PAGE BY TUESDAY AT NOON I WILL ASSUME YOU ARE WANTING OUT OF THIS ONE AND DROP YOU FROM OUR GROUP! Nothing personal, It's just this is for people who are voting MUCH of the time. Not just once every 5 brackets, please. If this continues to another tourney, I'll ask you back then.
* - There are a few who've reached out to me on FB who want to play so I will be sending invites to some others, but not TOO many.
* - Each of you can bring ONE PERSON into our little game, if you like. Our FB page says that anyone can add members and then I just have to okay them. I am hoping that this is the case. If that doesn't work I'll just need to friend them and then bring them on board and then unfriend them. I think. Hopefully that first way works. If they would like to submit a list as well, great, message it to me from you and just let me know it's your friend's list.

I think that's it for now. I need EVERYTHING...friends and lists and friends lists...by Tuesday at noon. I am shipping off to Boston tomorrow and won't get back until late Monday night, so I may not be checking in here very often. Just leave any questions/problems on our FB page as that will not change like the blogpage has. I'll make sure we get everything worked out on Tuesday, we're in no rush. Just remember....
*Lists messaged to my FB or just comment on the GROUP FB that you wanna play
*Add your friend and I'll approve on Tuesday if not before
*Send them this link for our blog if they want the rules for album list submission and
*Message me their list from you

Okay, best of luck! Let's get ready for another fun one!