Folks, I am looking forward to Division N. It’s got sluggers like Instant Karma, Paint It Black, Sweet Child of Mine and Smells Like Teen Spirit, as well as some of my personal favorites, Bad, Young Americans and Annie Waits. In fact, I’d wager that this is the strongest division of the tournament yet. Here’s how we’re kicking off Day 1:
Sweet Child of Mine (Guns n Roses) vs. Zombie (Cranberries)
Land Down Under (Men at Work) vs. Under the Bridge (Red Hot Chilli Peppers)
Bad (U2) vs. Badlands (Bruce Springsteen)
Annie Waits (Ben Folds) vs. Don’t Be Cruel (Elvis Presley)
Refugee (Tom Petty) vs. Straight to Hell (Clash)
Listen at Grooveshark, and vote by commenting below or emailing LTDdotorg@gmail.com. You have until Saturday night at 10pm to cast your votes.
Living the Dream 
Sweet Child of Mine (Guns n Roses) 7
Zombie (Cranberries) 6
Zombie was a song we played in band basically every week in high school (NERD!)…hence the higher than expected rating. Adrock gets it anyway.
Land Down Under (Men at Work) 6
Under the Bridge (Red Hot Chilli Peppers) 7
Men at Work was my nomination, but doesn’t stand a chance against under the bridge, even from me.
Bad (U2) 6
Badlands (Bruce Springsteen) 4
Annie Waits (Ben Folds) 6.5
Don’t Be Cruel (Elvis Presley) 4.5
Almost anything from this Ben Folds album is going to be a strong song for me. Especially after my somewhat recent visit to Graceland, I usually give the king more love than this…not this song though.
Refugee (Tom Petty) 5
Straight to Hell (Clash) 5.5
Sweet Child of Mine (Guns n Roses) 9 vs. Zombie (Cranberries) 6
Land Down Under (Men at Work) 6 vs. Under the Bridge (Red Hot Chilli Peppers) 8
Bad (U2) 6 vs. Badlands (Bruce Springsteen) 7
Annie Waits (Ben Folds) 6 vs. Don’t Be Cruel (Elvis Presley)6
Refugee (Tom Petty) 7 vs. Straight to Hell (Clash) 5
Sweet Child of Mine (Guns n Roses) 8
Zombie (Cranberries) 6
Land Down Under (Men at Work) 7
Under the Bridge (Red Hot Chilli Peppers) 8
Bad (U2) 5
Badlands (Bruce Springsteen) 7
Annie Waits (Ben Folds) 4
Don’t Be Cruel (Elvis Presley) 6
Refugee (Tom Petty) 8
Straight to Hell (Clash) 6
Sweet Child of Mine (Guns n Roses) 4
Zombie (Cranberries) 7
Land Down Under (Men at Work) 5.5
Under the Bridge (Red Hot Chilli Peppers) 8 [the voices!]
Bad (U2) 7.5
Badlands (Bruce Springsteen) 6.5
Annie Waits (Ben Folds) 3
Don’t Be Cruel (Elvis Presley) 6.5
[both songs warrant the cheesiness scale, but this is a plastic-wrapped Kraft singles against a well-aged Brie*.]
[*For more on cheese, I suggest http://www.culturecheesemag.com/ ]
Refugee (Tom Petty) 7 [damn the torpedos!]
Straight to Hell (Clash) 4 [love the opening then….]
Sweet Child of Mine (Guns n Roses) 4
Zombie (Cranberries) 7
I have no idea what’s going on with me and GnR lately. As the resident voting metalhead, I expected to be a big backer of Axl as the hardest rocker left in the tourney… now I feel like I’ve turned heel and hit him with a steel chair.
Land Down Under (Men at Work) 5
Under the Bridge (Red Hot Chilli Peppers) 6.5
Bad (U2) 7.5
Badlands (Bruce Springsteen) 5
I remember Bad being a tough out in every tournament, and this performance was no surprise. Interesting potential matchups against these tracks in Division N.
Annie Waits (Ben Folds) 6
Don’t Be Cruel (Elvis Presley) 2.5
Shockingly, i don’t think I’ve ever heard Annie Waits before… pretty cool song.
Refugee (Tom Petty) 6
Straight to Hell (Clash) 6.5
Sweet Child of Mine (Guns n Roses) 5
Zombie (Cranberries) 8
Sweet Child of Mine is alright, a little dated with the guitars and vocals. A little bit of random trivia about Zombie… did you know that Thai people LOVE Zombie? Its their favorite song after Hotel California. The More You Know!
Land Down Under (Men at Work) 6.5
Under the Bridge (Red Hot Chilli Peppers) 9
I like both these songs. Under the Bridge is an LA anthem that really makes me feel nostalgic though. Its just so mellow and nice, fantastic instrumentals and almost always something I want to hear.
Bad (U2) 6.5
Badlands (Bruce Springsteen) 5
Ok. Not great.
Annie Waits (Ben Folds) 4
Don’t Be Cruel (Elvis Presley) 7
Dig the El Ves!
Refugee (Tom Petty) 9
Straight to Hell (Clash) 8
Tom Petty rocks! Really like the Clash on this one too. Will be happy with either of these winning.
Sweet Child of Mine (Guns n Roses)7.5
Zombie (Cranberries) 7
Land Down Under (Men at Work) 7
Under the Bridge (Red Hot Chilli Peppers) 8
Bad (U2) 8.5
Badlands (Bruce Springsteen) 8
Old man wanna be rich. Rich man wanna be king. King ain’t satisfied until he rules everything. I’m going out tonight, I’m gonna find out what I’ve got.
Annie Waits (Ben Folds) 9
Don’t Be Cruel (Elvis Presley) 5
Refugee (Tom Petty) 7.5
Straight to Hell (Clash) 7
Sweet Child of Mine 6.5
Zombie 7.5
It is highly, highly, highly unlikely in this tournament at least, but I’d love to see Zombie against Sunday Bloody Sunday for the battle of the best song about violence in Northern Ireland. Really dig this, always have. On the GnR side, the first 30 seconds are great, really. Just decide where to go at the end of the song, stop asking me for 2 minutes. In 2002 this would have gone the other way.
Land Down Under 6.5
Under The Bridge 8.5
Anthony Kiedis wrote Under The Bridge as a partial lament for ruining his relationship with the actress that played the girl in Say Anything. You know…the one for whom we hold up boomboxes? And John Frusciante’s mother and her church choir friends are the ones singing at the end. I f-ing love Wikipedia sometimes.
Bad 6.5
Badlands 9.25
Bad is nice, but not as epic as I remember it being. On the other hand, I’ve been listening to the Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band/ Live 1975-85 on LP for the last few days, so I listened to that version of Badlands. So when I started jumping around at 8:45 am in my living room, my dog started jumping around with me and we did a little Boss waltz to start the day. That bumped it up an extra 0.75. You gotta reward those good moments in this tournament (for further support, see Adrock’s “Shoop” score a few weeks ago)
Annie Waits 6.5
Don’t Be Cruel 7
Nice little teenage flashback, but not enough to get over Elvis. Love the cross genre deal though.
Refugee 7
Straight To Hell 7
Toss-up, not crazy about either of these but they’re both good in a pinch.
whoops. apparently I don’t know how to use html tags so now most of my votes link to a live version of Badlands. Actually, I’m ok with that.
Sweet Child of Mine (Guns n Roses) 6.5 [I was expecting to rate this higher, but I think the fact that’s it’s not summer and I’m not speeding down the highway with the windows down hurt its score]
Zombie (Cranberries) 7.5
Land Down Under (Men at Work) 6.5
Under the Bridge (Red Hot Chilli Peppers) 8
Bad (U2) 5
Badlands (Bruce Springsteen) 6.5
Annie Waits (Ben Folds) 5.5
Don’t Be Cruel (Elvis Presley) 6
Refugee (Tom Petty) 7
Straight to Hell (Clash) 7.5
Sweet Child of Mine (Guns n Roses) [7.5]
Zombie (Cranberries) [6.5]
Land Down Under (Men at Work) [7]
Under the Bridge (Red Hot Chilli Peppers) [8]
Bad (U2) [6.5]
Badlands (Bruce Springsteen) [9]
Annie Waits (Ben Folds) [6]
Don’t Be Cruel (Elvis Presley) [6.5]
Refugee (Tom Petty)[8]
Straight to Hell (Clash) [6]
my friend suzanne joined the fun for this round. natalie’s votes / suzanne’s votes:
sweet child of mine: 8.5 / 8
zombie: 7 / 7
land down under: 8.5 / 9
under the bridge: 9 / 8
bad: 9 / 6
badlands: 5 / 7
annie waits: 8 / 6
don’t be cruel: 7 / 6
refugee: 8 / 7
straight to hell: 5 / 5
Janos Marton LTD House Party
I had five people over, whose votes are compiled below. I’ll tab them individually tomorrow. I have already voted this round, and am not included below.
sweet child of mine:
zombie:
sweet child: 27.3 (4 votes)
zombie 33.9
land down under: 24.5 (4 votes)
under the bridge: 31.5
bad: 37.1
badlands: 27.4
annie waits: 20 (4 votes)
don’t be cruel: 32.5
refugee: 31
straight to hell: 42