Welcome to Games 25 and 26 of the Ultimate Pop Song Tournament!
These games are CLOSED. (ALL OPEN GAMES)
To see the complete bracket, just go here. For info on how we chose the songs and everything else Tournament-related, go here.
—
Welcome to the Groove Thang division. To kick things off, the current queen of soul will battle some New Jack Swingers while a backward-rapper will wrangle with four adult Boyz.
Game 25 (Groove Thang Division)
“Crazy in Love” (Beyonce feat. Jay-Z) v. “No Diggity” (BLACKstreet)
—
1. “Crazy in Love” (Beyonce feat. Jay-Z)
Tennis fans know that the best solo players rarely make for the sturdiest pairs in doubles, but Beyonce and Jay-Z are like the Williams sisters, except better. They’re in control of their abilities, they don’t betray any sense of rivalry at all, and nobody can beat them, alone or together. The brass explosion at the beginning of “Crazy in Love” would be tough enough to upstage before Hova shows up vamping at the edge of the stage, but Beyonce commands the floor like a newly galvanized pro—like Hillary letting Bill stop into the party, not because she needs him but because she likes him, and she’s happy to throw him some attention, especially when he can seem like a genius just for saying “chinchilla.” Okay, I’ve lost the Clinton thread, but I blame B, because “Crazy in Love” makes you delirious with all of its breathless ecstasy. The production alternates even faster than Beyonce’s outfits, but every calico element blends perfectly. A pure rush. — Nick
16. “No Diggity” (BLACKstreet)
If you were a fan of hip-hop, New Jack Swing, and radio-friendly pop at the beginning of the 90s, then the union of Dr. Dre and Teddy Riley was an upper-case Occasion—and lore has it that 2Pac was off whimpering in the corner, after losing the instrumental track, which Dre had devised for him. Ultimately, though, it’s a Riley jam through and through, braiding a funky-swoon melody around tart percussion the way Guy and other Riley outfits used to do, without ever transcending the “Urban” charts in Billboard. “No Diggity” at last landed with everybody, but the song wears its massive success as lightly as it does its bitter production history. The lyrics sound improvised, with the simple, jazz-club delights of sipping on vowels and biting off consonants. The whole is souped-up and sweetened to be the best gift you ever gave to your car radio. It still thanks you, and there’s not a person alive who can’t sing along to “ay-o-ay-o-Ay-O-AY-OOHHHH!!!!” — Nick
Â
Â
Game 26 (Groove Thang Division)
“Work It” (Missy Elliott) v. “End of the Road” (Boyz II Men)
Â
—
8. “Work It” (Missy Elliott)
Come back to the 5 & Dime, Miss E, Miss E! While part of me admits there are flaws in this song, to include the increasingly arbitrary lyric and the temporary collapse into Mickey Rooney chinglish, another part of me wonders why there are 63 other tracks in this tournament. Just like Missy made such a roaring impression years ago that all of us are putting up with the radio silence, “Work It” blasts out of the gate as such a perfect combo of crazy and charming, smooth and strange, that the tune glides right over the iffy bits at the end. You have never thought of anything as simply, straightforwardly awesome as the elephant sample in your life, and neither have I. And who can hold a candle to the silver-tongued, plum-nuts persona that Missy devises here: a stranger so randy she’s eager to lure you away from your stank-acting girlfriend, but practical enough that she wants to shave her chocha before you arrive? Play all that backward, plus the hip-hop sitars and the unbeatable lyric “Don’t I look like a Halle Berry postah?” and what you hear is still perfection. — Nick
9. “End of the Road” (Boyz II Men)
Girl… I’m here for you. All those times at night when you just hurt me? You just don’t understand how much I love you, do you? You usually have to visit Melissa Etheridge’s house to hear such masochistic pledges but the Boyz flog the shit out of eleventh-hour supplication, without getting any stains on their ivory-colored tuxedos. They’re like the tubercular beauties of opera, hell-bent on suffering so gorgeously that God (i.e., their girlfriends) might take pity and keep them alive. The group’s barbershop boilerplates got a little dull over time (what happened to the party guys of “Motownphilly”), but their voices never caught so convincingly in their throats as they do here. And when the guy doing the basso profundo bridge monologue has to talk louder just to get heard over the harmonic swells of the other Boyz? Kitsch perfection. — Nick
17 responses so far ↓
1 Amy // Jul 28, 2011 at 12:27 am
Nostalgia wins battle #26 for me – 8th grade school dance, wanting so badly to dance with my crush to End of the Road. Sadly, I never did get up the courage to ask him. Wonder what he’s doing these days…
2 Jen // Jul 28, 2011 at 12:59 pm
I (irrationally) hate Beyonce with the heat of a thousand suns, so No Diggity easily won by vote, but I have such a love for No Diggity (seriously, I STILL know every word even though I haven’t heard the song in years) that it probably would have beaten anything for me.
3 Diana // Jul 28, 2011 at 1:11 pm
This round broke my brain. I love all four of those songs so completely that I don’t know how I would begin to choose. Damn you, Mark!
4 Hellcat13 // Jul 28, 2011 at 1:13 pm
I voted for No Diggity because I hate Beyonce too, but I have NEVER heard that song. @elsewise tried to convince me I should know it, but I was in a pretty hardcore alterna/grunge bubble at that time. Not a single iota of recognition.
5 Emily // Jul 28, 2011 at 1:55 pm
Although I say “Play on, Playah” at least once a day, “Crazy In Love” cannot be denied. CAN. NOT. I could listen to it all day every day. It’s one of those songs that double-dog dares you to stay in your seat while it plays. When it comes on my iPod while I’m on the train there is a wholly terrifying moment when I wrestle with the compulsion to BUST A MOVE RIGHT NOW.
6 Nathaniel R // Jul 28, 2011 at 1:57 pm
I need a glass of wat-ah
7 Courtney // Jul 28, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Amy: End of the Road was also the last song played at my 8th grade graduation dance. And two weeks later I moved across the country, so of course I had to vote for it.
8 SashaPT // Jul 28, 2011 at 5:25 pm
Voted for “Work It” because “get your hair did” has become part of my vocabulary even though I am a cardigan-wearing soccer mom.
Plus, for me “End of the Road” is when Boys2, I mean BoyZ II (lordy, had to scroll up to get the spelling right) Men jumped the shark and it became too much Wanya and not enough Other Three Guys. (I liked Nate the best.)
9 verucaamish // Jul 28, 2011 at 7:51 pm
Wow. Crazy in Love is KILLLING it. It is a breathtaking song that really takes you for a ride. I had to go with End of the Road. The lushness of the music and the cheese factor makes it iconic.
10 Lola // Jul 28, 2011 at 8:46 pm
Even though No Diggity was the first cassette tape I ever owned, and I played it ALL THE TIME , I have so much mad love for Bey and Crazy in Love that it was a no-brainer. Haters to the left!
Work It v End of the Road was a little tougher, but EotR evokes so many great memories that it won out.
11 Andrew K. // Jul 28, 2011 at 8:52 pm
Great writeups on great songs. I love “Crazy in Love” like crazy, but that second lineup is killer. “End of the Road” is heartbreaking but “Work It” is pure genius. It’s such a brilliant song, and the thing is you could pick a number of Missy tracks and they’d still be better than a number of the nominees int he running.
12 Kitty // Jul 29, 2011 at 3:26 am
“I like the way ya’ work it…”
But damn, I had to vote for “Crazy in Love” anyway. It cannot be denied.
I went with Boyz II Men solely because that song reminds me of an incident that happened in college with one of my best friends. It’s too complicated to get into here, but suffice to say I’ve never laughed so much in my life. Good times.
13 Hebby // Jul 29, 2011 at 6:03 am
I hated End of The Road. It was one of six songs that just repeated on MTV and The Box ad nauseum and even as a kid, I just thought it seemed so passive aggressive and made me sympathise with the cheating girlfriend and… ugh! “I forgive you, even though YOU’RE TOTALLY A CHEATING HO and I can’t let go, and I -unlike you-am sweet and loving and a perfect boyfriend not a horrible cheating slapper like you. Come back to me!” And I’m normally on board with unhealthy relationship songs and desperate heartbreak!
Though my opinion may be distored by how much I resented the fact the song played *constantly*, taking time away from songs and videos I actually wanted to see.
14 Nora // Jul 29, 2011 at 9:14 am
If the girls on my 8th grade volleyball team bus broke into spontaneous belting of “End of the Road” one more time, I can’t say what I would have done. That song was beyond ubiquitous and being an 8th grader at the time and hating that song was kind of like hating cinnamon and working at Cinnabon. I have no objectivity on “End of the Road.”
15 pamie // Jul 29, 2011 at 10:39 am
Forcing me to choose between “Crazy in Love” and “No Diggity” is the meanest thing that’s ever happened to me.
16 Tyliag // Jul 29, 2011 at 11:17 am
The girls won their respective heats for me. Crazy in Love can not be stopped (CAN NOT!) and come on. It’s Missy Misdemeanor. She knows how to take some catchy, pervert and change it into something that looks like a weird science project and still makes it something that gets stuck in your ear that you can’t let go. Not even my BoyzIIMen nostalgia could stop her.
17 Mark Blankenship // Jul 29, 2011 at 11:24 am
Hi Pamie — We’ve actually created a few support groups for the difficult votes. Let me know if you want the pertinent phone numbers/apps.
Leave a Comment