I deliberately left the Eagles out of Montauk Madness, but now I feel a little guilty about it.
I’ve always considered myself an Eagles hater, based mostly on my dislike of their signature album, Hotel California. But last September I took a dive into their whole catalog and realized I’m actually quite fond of their earlier, more country-folk songs.
Narrowing the first round of Montauk Madness down to 64 artists was a difficult task, particularly when it came to the final dozen or so contestants. To make room for a sentimental favorite like Toad the Wet Sprocket, I have to leave out The Wallflowers, The Who, Walk the Moon, Wilo and The White Stripes. And those are just the W’s.
I made a lot of hard decisions like that, which I could argue either way. If I started over, I might have a whole different lineup of acts filling out the 50-64 slots.
Today, we have a special shout-out to this blog’s number one fan, a man who has commented on all 3,259 songs to date. Happy 50th birthday to Dana!
At long last, here we are at the final matchup of Round One of Montauk Madness! Thirty-two battles to determine which 32 artists will advance to fight again.
Both of today’s contenders have shown up already in Round One in other incarnations: The Smiths’ frontman Morrissey showed up as a solo act, while Ben Folds showed up in the form of his band, Ben Folds Five.
I can’t pretend there’s any suspense in the penultimate Round One matchup in Montauk Madness. As much as I enjoy Shakira’s work, especially in her native Spanish, she ain’t putting up a fight against The Beatles.
Of course there is no shame in losing to the Fab Four. And this blog post led me to the discovery that Shakira just released a new album, El Dorado, which I promptly downloaded. So it’s really a win for her.
