We’re entering Week Four of Round One of Montauk Madness, just about halfway through the bloodbath that will result in 32 acts who live to fight another day.
Today’s matchup is a funny one, but then any pairing with Eminem was bound to be a little odd. Eminem is the only rapper represented in the contest, a fact that reflects both my general ambivalence to the genre and my admiration for the work of Marshall Mathers.
This is the Montauk madness first round matchup I’ve been dreading since I first peeked ahead at the random seedings.
It’s not that the decision between Miranda Lambert and Bob Dylan is ultimately all that difficult (Dylan gets my vote). I just hate to see Lambert exit so early. I adore this woman so much that she should be an Elite Eight or even Final Four contender, but the hand of fate will have her on the sidelines before the games have even begun.
I can’t see much overlap between the Barbadian R&B singer Rihanna and the Austin-based indie rock band Spoon, making this one of the oddest decisions yet in the first round of Montauk Madness.
Rihanna is one of the most commercially successful musical artists in history (she recently passed Elvis as the top-selling solo act of all time) and has received quite a bit of critical acclaim as well, especially in recent years. Spoon is a critics’ darling without the sales and notoriety.
I opted for random seeding in Montauk Madness, but the other avenue is to seed each particpant based on stature. That’s how March Madness works, with the #1 teams (based on record) facing off against the #16 teams in Round One.
That prevents any heavyweight matchups early in the contest. Ideally, you don’t want the two best teams in a division to battle on Day One.
Going that route in this contest, however, felt wrong. If I were to rank the participants before even setting the bracket, wouldn’t I be defeating the purpose of the game? If a top contender loses in Round One because of an unlucky matchup, well, that probably would have happened in Round Three of Four anyway.
Our next Montauk Madness matchup pairs two legends, one who sadly (and triumphantly) passed away last year and another struggling to remain relevant after spending the better part of four decades as the world’s greatest rock band. David Bowie vs. U2.
Had I faced this decision before Bowie’s passing, I likely would have gone with U2. Apart from the hits, I knew Bowie’s work mostly by reputation. Of course, Bowie’s hits alone put him in contention, but I own almost all of U2’s albums and consider them at worst enjoyable and at best masterpieces (The Joshua Tree remains one of the seminal listening experiences in my life as a music fan).
Meet Me In Montauk 