Welcome to Games 29 and 30 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.

—

Who’s your lover? Is it Billie Jean or a genie in that bottle over there? It’s time to choose. And after that, you need to decide if you like to get hypnotized before you shoop.

Game 29 (Groove Thang Division)

“Bille Jean” (Michael Jackson) v. “Genie In a Bottle” (Christina Aguilera)

—

3. “Billie Jean” (Michael Jackson)

For just a moment, clear your mind, and then fill it with everything you imagine when you hear the words “Michael Jackson”: the person, not the King of Pop. Now imagine writing him a song about being a reluctant baby daddy, one who’s too busy dancing to give a flip about the pup you claim is his. Even when he sang it—i.e., before he spoke like a toddler and looked like the skeleton of a dead lemur—this track should have been laughably wrong for MJ, like Clay Aiken singing Ginuwine’s “Pony.” But it’s sublime, as taut, rhythmic, and dramatic as a sonnet, and somehow soothing to the listener even though Michael sounds genuinely panicked. That’s what the most perfect, unflappable percussion will get you, plus the tightest, most neurotic bass line and the weird disco-owls-at-midnight motif: hoo!… Hoo!… HOO!… Hoo... An eerie, intoxicating foundation, with just enough give to allow Michael’s unmistakable vocal mannerisms. It’s not just anyone, confronted with this furious mama. It’s someone specific, someone we know. But did he do it? Could he? –Nick

14. “Genie in a Bottle” (Christina Aguilera)

We have to lay down one side of beef at the feet of the nation’s DJs. Christina obviously hit an apex a few years after this with “Dirrty,” proving to everyone but especially to Britney that you can be sexy without teasing, you can lend vocals of steel even to a thickly produced dance track, and you can journey all over the musical map and still generate the best, least dated, sharpest-edged pop tune that anyone in your Y2K-era cohort of radio phenoms ever came up with. But we can’t include it, because it didn’t chart in the Top 40, because radio wouldn’t play it. Still, even if “Genie” earns some extra credit for where its interpreter went next, this song deserves plenty of points on its own, voicing a cognate sentiment to “Hit me, baby, one more time” with a sexier air of I-run-the-show allure, a silkier production, and a sense that there’s a substantial singer inside this bottle of dry bubbly, not just a Pygmalion synthed up by eager producers. –Nick

Game 30 (Groove Thang Division)

“Hypnotize” (Notorious B.I.G.) v. “Shoop” (Salt-N-Pepa)

—

6. “Hypnotize” (Notorious B.I.G.)

What is that sound at the beginning of “Hypnotize”? It’s like the world’s dopest car horn has got a nasal cough, and for years my Eudora made that sound whenever an e-mail arrived. When it blasted through the THX cinema speakers on opening night of the Notorious biopic, I think I saw God a little bit. Biggie pulled off more intricate and furious rhymes in his time, but this was the biggest splash he made in the pool of pop. If he’s keeping it in third gear vocally, it only serves the song’s message that a half-drowsy B.I.G. can still squish almost every other mid-90s MC between his fingers. “Escargot, my car go 160, swiftly—wreck it, buy a new one”: a typically only-Biggie-would-do-it rhyme kicking off a line that shouldn’t flow at all, much less into an 60s-era beach-pop refrain, but B.I.G. da do run run like no one ever did. –Nick

11. “Shoop” (Salt-N-Pepa)

Everybody loves “Push It,” and “Whatta Man” charted higher, but “Shoop” crystallizes what slinky, dexterous narrators Salt-N-Pepa always were, spinning deftly worded backstory that always circles back to the same idea and the same underlying groove, like the dark-rum undertow in a river of cinnamon and honey. These girls are ready to jump off, as long as the guy is worthy. The song’s not about being horny but about being horny for someone in particular, a shapely and sexy-voiced brotha who seems likely to pace himself, and eventually to induce a truly retarded-sounding orgasm. No shame in that, not for these gals. Showcasing their separate but complementary personalities, satin Cheryl and denim Sandy manage to pull focus with their witty stage whispers even while pretending to cede the floor to the man in question. He raps about how fine he is, but I only have ears for the spry, saucy women who are unforgettably sizing him up. –Nick