It’s really hard to prepare a draft of the post for these match-up results when as of 4:45 pm Saturday, two match-ups are separated by under 2 points and one by just over 3 points. So I’m just going to lean hard on the safe bet for a picture of Dusty Springfield, who seems like the only sure winner at this point. By the way, apparently everyone has been holding back their 10’s for a day like this- four out of the eight songs today will earn a place on the Wall, including two playing each other. And the four remaining songs received a 10 vote from one voter. This is when it gets real, folks. Here we go.
As earlier stated, apparently Dusty Springfield’s ode to Billy Ray will continue slamming songs out of its way as long as girls keep voting. 4 different females gave this song a 10 (Aiko, Astrid, Dr J, Meghan.) Didn’t get terrible marks from the boys either. “Son of a Preacherman” is the high scorer and takes “North American Scum” and LCD Soundsystem handily out of the tournament, 121-98.7.
Now to the nitty gritty. November Rain was clinging to a 0.1 point lead earlier this afternoon, then the Boxer charged through and kept it. Simon and Garfunkel take out Guns N Roses here, 116-113.1.
The old record for the number of 10’s a song had received and yet still be eliminated was two, shared by Van Morrison’s Sweet Thing and Arcade Fire’s Rebellion. No more, but Arcade Fire still gets to claim the honor. “Intervention” garners 10’s from Colin, Janos, Cristina, and G, but those efforts wouldn’t save it from succumbing to “The Wind Cries Mary” by Jimi Hendrix (which itself received 10’s from Astrid and Dr J and will also make the Wall of 10’s.) 112.85-108.4.
Last, Redemption Song puts up a hell of a fight, but it wouldn’t save it from surging Another One Bites The Dust. Queen will move on, 121.65-115.5.
Eliminated: LCD Soundsystem. Arcade Fire is done with the Round of 256, but we’ll see Tunnels in the next round. Marley goes to 0-2 with two remaining. Three upsets. What a day.
Lotta storylines for these match-ups. Will upstart play-in survivor Fiona Apple be able to floss with the King of Soul and his San Francisco lament? (clearly what she is wondering about in this picture) Will Van the Man survive to make love in the green grass behind the stadium for one more round? Who will take the battle of sad songs with pump-you-up melodies, Dave Grohl or Bruce Springsteen? Damn I love these match-ups…
I find every single one of these four match-ups extremely compelling…even the 1-16 seed. These are gonna take some attempted temporal flexibility from all of us- three of these are from completely different decades. But to balance it out, one of them consists of two songs released in the exact same year, 1980. Seriously though…compelling. 
Not. To. Be. Denied. Standing with one foot on their surfboards, and suffering an extremely polarized round of voting from everyone involved (on a binary basis, 7 for, 6 against, one tie,) the Beach Boys emerge from the Pacific triumphant and stay alive. Wouldn’t It Be Nice defeats Better Man by Pearl Jam, 102.9-100.85.
Anyone remember the hype about Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” music video starring Macaulay Culkin? And how they played the entire uncensored version after the 1992 Super Bowl, where MJ turns into a panther at the end, and then just randomly starts breaking all this shit in the streets with a pipe? Yeah, that was weird. 
Hail the covers! Maybe the Isley Brothers (of “Who’s that Lady” and “Contagious” fame) did the original “Twist and Shout”, but the Beatles took it up many notches and seem to have cranked out a little contender for our contest. Twist and Shout defeats The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, 120.2-106.8.
New division, new field, etc. There aren’t really words for genre specificity in these match-ups, things are all over the place. I guess of major note, we’ve got both the Sex Pistols and Rancid trying to punk their ways past high seeds. Votes are due by Thursday night at 9 pm, 
The nailbiter here was a Boss-Dylan stand-off. Bruce was going strong, then Danno and mdub came in late with +5 and +2 votes for Bobby…which still wasn’t enough to prevent the Born In The USA win. Springsteen claims the only upset here, and eliminates The Times They Are A-Changing 95.8-95.1.
Living the Dream 