I’m sorry, I think my commitment to taking the time to figure out whose scores fluctuated the most, etcetera, etcetera has petered out. Along with my free time. Screw it, I still have the most important graph. And actually this might have ended up being my favorite graph post to date. Drumroll please…
How Have The Elite Eight Songs Faired Over The Rounds?!?!?! And which LTDMT song does each People’s Choice survivor match to???

Like this:

Awesome. Let’s review, seed by seed. Oh wait- I’d really like to actually COMPARE each of these eight songs to the eight survivors from the original LTDMT. In an eerie way, it actually works. Well, you tell me. Here is the Elite Eight graph from before:

#1 Little Lion Man: As you can see by the steady but slight decline, Little Lion Man loses steam at a not so considerable rate. It is troubling that it has not only never exceeded its previous average, but that it now discretely looking just at the Sweet Sixteen now lands at 4th of the 8 remaining songs. We’ve seen things like this before (see this post for how these graphs looked for the first tournament) but nothing this significant in terms of a steady decline. The closest LTDMT equal is probably “The Weight,” minus the rolling.

#2 Romeo And Juliet: Here we have the “Bohemian Rhapsody” of the thing- a song that people dropped out on and then slowly turned back to. BR ended up with the Bronze Medal of the tournament, so to peak this early may not bode well for Dire Straits. It’s going to have to keep our attention a few more rounds. Can it?

#3 Somebody To Love: Janos is going to hate me for saying this, but this has gotta be the “Baba O’Reilly.” The curves are basically equal in shape. Baba fell the following round in a tragic loss to “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the quarter-final. Both strong songs, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Fortunately for Queen, it can’t face Romeo + Juliet until at least the semi’s.

#4 Home: Maybe it is a stretch but bear with me. Look closely at the LTDMT graph. Which are the only two songs that dipped between 32 and 16? Um, right: Under Pressure and Stand By Me. The same songs that face off in the final. These tournaments can be a bit sinusoidal like that- it’s a stretch, but look at the “Stand By Me” shape. Just saying. Maybe a bit more pronounced in this most recent dip to recover, but that’s closest.

#5 Dog Days Are Over: Alright so maybe the analogy begins to collapse here, but I’m going to call this closest to “Son of a Preacherman”– all too appropriate, as I imagine Florence and Dusty would have quite the conversation were it possible. A strong contender swinging up and down.

#6 Landslide: Ah, now there is our “Under Pressure.” Both with a huge dip for some random reason in a middle round…and both recovering just the same like it was no big deal. A Landslide-Home final seems quite unlikely, but you never know. Does past predict present?

#7 Midnight Train To Georgia: Got three words for you: Twist. And. Shout. No matter what happens, it is hard to hate on this song, whether you associate it with 30 Rock or simply the Gladys sound. And like Twist And Shout, it relies on its simplicity combined with our nostalgia. This only took the Beatles as far as the next round. We’ll see what happens here.

#8 Higher And Higher: The best comparison for last. Once upon a time, there was a song no one took seriously, and most had given up on. And then out of nowhere, for one reason or another, whether it was Aiko’s post on the love story on NPR, or a simple and sudden appreciation for trumpets, “Ring of Fire” lit up out of nowhere and shocked “Son Of A Preacherman” in the Elite Eight. I think “Higher and Higher” has it in it to do the same to Mumford, but time will tell.

(I had a lot of fun with this. Thanks for making this possible, everyone! And keep voting, almost there!)