We were curious, doing this bracket a second time, how similarly it would go to the last one. How have opinions on 90’s music changed over the last four years? How has our following changed? R. Kelly hasn’t gotten the Michael Jackson image resurrection, right?
Turns out, we all still mostly like the same songs. There have been a few upsets—we’ll get to two big ones a little later—but in this year’s Round of 16, 15 of the 16 songs appeared in the 2020 edition of this bracket. We allowed 32 new songs into the field. 31 were evicted in the first two rounds.
Should we have run back a more similar bracket? Maybe so. But more than anything, what we’ve confirmed is this: These remaining bangers really are the cream of the crop. They did it in 2020. They’re doing it in 2024. The shifting sands of history have not obscured this music’s greatness.
Second round results (Round of 16 voting will open in a separate post tomorrow morning—Monday, May 20th):
Semi-Charmed Life 40, U Can’t Touch This 7
Not a lot to say here. The champion continues its reign. Up next, though, a matchup with some new (still from the 90’s) blood.
You Get What You Give 27, Ice Ice Baby 16
You Get What You Give is the only song not in 2020’s bracket to make it this far. People love New Radicals. New Radicals are America’s band. The Ernie Johnson of music.
Tubthumping 30, Friday I’m in Love 12
I think the most impressive thing about Tubthumping, with regard to this bracket, is how well it’s taught people its name despite its name not appearing in its lyrics. You would think it’d be one of those songs people don’t know they know. But no. They know. And they know it bangs.
What’s My Age Again? 26, Loser 17
The vice president of the blink-182 canon, What’s My Age Again? remains formidable. A quick shoutout to Beck, though, before Loser goes to the realm its name implies: A lot of songs have a banger of a chorus. A lot of songs have impressive freestyle lyricism in the verses (ok, mostly thinking of One Week with this one). Loser has both.
Get crazy with the cheese whiz.
Closing Time 22, Enter Sandman 21
Closing Time continues to shine. Even against Metallica’s greatest work. People love Closing Time. They adore it. I don’t personally get it, but I respect it. We’ve thrown a whole lot of songs at Closing Time over the last half a decade, and Closing Time’s only lost head-to-head to Semi-Charmed Life and Since U Been Gone. The haters must concede: It is a banger.
Iris 26, Say It Ain’t So 18
Two great choruses here. Real screamers. Iris is evidently more iconic, though, which tracks. Another song whose name doesn’t come from its lyrics.
My Own Worst Enemy 22, You Oughta Know 21
Close one here. Lot of matchups this round decided by one or two votes. I’m starting to get the impression that My Own Worst Enemy is polarizing. We’ll be monitoring.
Zombie 23, …Baby One More Time 21
An upset!!!
It’s hard to beat Britney Spears. In previous brackets, only Closing Time and Lose Yourself have taken this song down. The earlier 90’s came to play this year, though. No Y2K concerns here.
All The Small Things 35, Buddy Holly 8
A good showing from Weezer, but not a great one. I feel like that matches their aura.
Jump Around 23, Breakfast at Tiffany’s 19
Breakfast at Tiffany’s strength in these votes is more surprising to me than Closing Time’s. Closing Time is a certified banger. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is just so pleasant. But you people must love it. I’m happy that it gives you so much enjoyment. Enough to almost beat Jump Around!
Mr. Jones 22, One Week 20
If we did a bracket of the whitest bands, Counting Crows and Barenaked Ladies would both win a lot of matchups, right?
Wonderwall 27, When I Come Around 15
Hmm, good point. There are a lot of white bands. Maybe I should have restricted that to white American bands. Err…North American.
Gangsta’s Paradise 24, I Want It That Way 18
Another upset! I Want It That Way made the Final Four back in 2020. Out in the second round this year. My takeaway is that we lost some of our voters who are fans of boy bands? They couldn’t handle the part of the year where our Instagram’s all NIT stuff? Coming Tuesday: Two thousand words on what that says about their character.
Mambo No. 5 (a Little Bit of…) 23, 3AM 19
The banger vs. bop debate still isn’t entirely settled, but the voters are having their say, and they love themselves some Lou Bega.
Smells Like Teen Spirit 29, This Is How We Do It 14
I was about to ask if Smells Like Teen Spirit was the original banger, referencing headbanging, and thankfully Wikipedia told me it’s been going on at least 600 years. I knew I was probably overlooking a lot of historic grunge. I did not anticipate that I was overlooking Qawwali.
All Star 30, Baby Got Back 13
We’re all friends here, right?
I thought Steve Harwell ran Smash Mouth’s Twitter account. They’re still tweeting about the Giants, though. Is it Paul De Lisle? Was it De Lisle the whole time?
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Full results here. The updated bracket is below. Again, we’ll open up Round of 16 voting in the morning in a separate post.
