You’ve waited long enough.
Voting is open for the first half of the first round of Bangers IV, meaning today we’ll be voting on 32 of the 64 bangers which made the field. Tomorrow, we’ll deal with the other half.
Voting will be open on Instagram until the stories expire, and votes on the Google Form will be accepted if they’re submitted prior to Friday, April 14th at 12:00 PM EDT.
Beyond that, our one rule here is to be cool when it comes to voting, which basically means: Don’t spam the votes. If you’re wondering if you’re breaking the rule, you’re probably breaking it, and we’ll probably end up canceling out your votes and telling God on you.
Thoughts on the bracket below, but before those:
Here’s the link to our Instagram, where voting is live in our stories.
Here’s the link to the Google Form, for those not on the Gram.
As a reminder, we no longer do Twitter polls because those are going away soon thanks to my friend Dan’s boss taking his ball and going home after getting voted out of a job he gave himself.
Results will be posted either this weekend or on Monday. Here’s the full bracket.
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I like to listen to all the bangers as I discern my votes. It’s one of my favorite parts of the process, and I evidently listen to just little enough music during the other 50 weeks of the year that this practice gets a few of the finalists into my year-end Spotify most played list. If you would also like to listen, here’s the link to the playlist.
In the first region—the one where All The Small Things is the top seed—two matchups stand out.
Everytime We Touch vs. Firework is a big one here, because the songs are the most similar of any two going against one another out of these 16. Everytime We Touch did win the 2000’s Bangers Bracket, but that has an asterisk thanks to 1) Mr. Darkside and 2) the accidental omission of TiK ToK. I wouldn’t expect Firework to make the deepest run, but if it gets past Everytime We Touch? It could make the quarterfinals of the whole thing. The path isn’t bad.
I’m curious about Tubthumping vs. Rolling in the Deep for the opposite reason—those songs are so different. Adele has more of a reputation for ballads than bangers, but Rolling in the Deep does bang. Tubthumping? A classic, also bangs, but not quite as cathartic as a lot of these, if you’re listening alone. That song is way different in a crowd. Also, the album version of Tubthumping has some weird external stuff on the track, which affects the mood. Bangers, remember, are all about mood.
The second region—the one where TiK ToK is the top seed—is electric. Much like we’ll see tomorrow, when Call Me Maybe shows down with 1985, the first matchup begins with one of the greatest bangers of all time. Out walking this morning, listening to TiK ToK, the immediate thought was, “Damn, I forgot how good this song is,” which was followed by, “There’s no way this is gonna lose,” which was followed by the opening line of Blue coming in like fuckin’ Rocky and making me wonder if I should believe. Two titans going at it, right out of the gate, and one’s basically a 16-seed? This bracket is loaded.
Taylor Swift has evolved, but Shake It Off vs. Gangsta’s Paradise is still the funniest matchup. That’s just a measure of personal preference for our voting populace. I should add: All of these were decided by seeding. We built the bracket last week, then just filled songs in based on their score averaged across your selection votes and their The People’s Rankings scores from previous years. Chance smiled on us here.
Few bangers are as uplifting as The Middle. Did anyone else spend multiple nights in middle school listening to that and feeling comforted?
We don’t talk enough about how You Oughta Know is about Joey Gladstone. Really changes perceptions of that show. Also changes perceptions of Canada. Also changes perceptions of the entire 1990s. From the Oval Office to a movie theater, that decade was about one thing.
Excited to start listening right now to tomorrow’s 32 songs. This bracket is the best. A big thank you again to Chris, the Lyft passenger who became an Internet Friend and made this whole thing happen.
