Best of Grunge Tournament: 1991-1996- Hail Hail wins

[stip]

Today is the last day of round 3.

[stip]

Your top 32 songs, according to the hitmakers of RM


This is a tournament to determine the best song from the big six grunge groups, during the prime years of grunge, so the focus is on Alice In Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, and Stone Temple Pilots (plus supergroup projects).

How it works:
1. There will be a 128 song song pre-tournament tournament consisting of major b-sides, Temple of the Dog, Mad Season, and two major albums that fell outside the 91-96 timespan (Bleach and Facelift).
2. While we will play this out to a winner, the top 16 songs will advance into the main tournament
3. The main tournament consists of every major album from 1991-1996, plus those top 16 songs (complete list is below). There was no way to fit in Iron Gland, Pry to, Master/Slave, Stupid Mop, I'm Going Crazy (hidden song on Gish)and the untitled hidden song from Sap, but all other 'hidden/filler' tracks are included
4. Single elimination. Voting generally lasts one day, and will typically close out between 8-9 AM est, depending on my schedule.
5. Ties will carry over into the next round, unless a tie prevents the tournament from moving forward, in which case voting will remain open for specified intervals of time.
6. Enjoy! There is a ton of great music here to rediscover

The bracket can be found here

The pre-tournament bracket can be found here

The Tournament

Alice In Chains
Would?
Nutshell
Heaven Beside You
Man in the Box

Nirvana
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Breed
Heart Shaped Box
All Apologies

Pearl Jam

Ten
Alive
Black
Jeremy
Release
Animal
Daughter
Last Exit
Not For You
Tremor Christ
Corduroy
Hail Hail
In My Tree
Smile
Red Mosquito


Smashing Pumpkins
Soma
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
1979


Soundgarden
Jesus Christ Pose
Mailman
The Day I Tried to Live
Burden In My Hand



Stone Temple Pilots
Vasoline
Trippin on a Hole in a Paper Heart

Misc
Seasons - Chris Cornell

[stip]

Not a bad list. really Smile, Heaven Beside You, and Mailman are the only songs I'm not sure should be here

[ABNorman]

More Nirvana, less AiC

[evenslow]

Everyone should start instituting a "tie goes to the non Pearl Jam band" rule.

[epilogue]

nah

[Norah]

Everyone should start instituting a "tie goes to the non Pearl Jam band" rule.

I vote non Pearl Jam unless I find the Pearl Jam song is ridiculously better than its challenger.

[Norah]

This tournament would have been infinitely more interesting without Pearl Jam songs in it.

[epilogue]

This tournament would have been infinitely more interesting without Pearl Jam songs in it.

Yeah, it would have been fun to try this without PJ.

[stip]

I went back and forth, but then it's not really best of grunge. Pearl Jam had a LOT of great songs in this period, and you're left with a lot of asterisks.

[epilogue]

I went back and forth, but then it's not really best of grunge. Pearl Jam had a LOT of great songs in this period, and you're left with a lot of asterisks.

I totally get why you kept them in. Makes all the sense in the world. It's just... we're about to be left with nothing but Pearl Jam songs, so it'll just be a mini-MM tournament soon. It might have been more interesting to do a full tournament w/o PJ and then a subsequent tournament were the take the sweet 16 from this one and match them against top PJ songs, or something like that.

But maybe that would be dumber and would take twice as long.

Regardless, I get it. And I'm not mad atcha.

[Norah]

This is what happens when you let ideological purity get in the way of pragmatism.

[epilogue]

I DEMAND A RE-DO!

[Norah]

one for martin, two for martin

[Anders]

We should do a poll about whether or not to vote about it.

[epilogue]

[Jammer XCI]

Should have ditched Pearl Jam for Screaming Trees and Melvins.

[stip]

Your final 16

Alice In Chains
Would?
Nutshell
Heaven Beside You

Nirvana
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Heart Shaped Box

Pearl Jam
Black
Release
Animal
Last Exit
Corduroy
Hail Hail

Smashing Pumpkins
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
1979

Soundgarden
The Day I Tried to Live

Stone Temple Pilots
Vasoline

Misc
Seasons - Chris Cornell

[stip]

a bit pearl jam heavy, but not quite the apocalypse some people feel. I doubt there's much of an overwhelming pearl jam bias among RM regulars, compared to other grunge bands. Pearl Jam isn't getting votes because it's Pearl Jam, and everyone is familiar and attached to these catalogs.. It's true that there are a small percentage of voters who just don't like SP much, or AIC, or whoever, but this last round saw Smile, Jeremy, Daughter, and Red Mosquito beaten by other songs. It could just be that pearl jam wrote a lot of amazing songs during this period, and more than the other bands.

Really Heaven Beside You is just here as a result of some crazy easy (comparatively) seeding. Everything else is a worthy top 16 song (as are another 30 songs we've already eliminated). A lot of 1-3 vote margins of victory in these later rounds

[stip]

with that as a preamble, the final 8 will probably be overwhelmingly pearl jam. I think they're getting my vote in 5 out of 6 matches, although a few are close.