Welcome to Games 31 and 32 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.
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This is it, y’all: The final games of Round One. As we hit the weekend, we’ve got the former symbol versus the current Yeezy and eight miles of big, big butts.
Game 31 (Groove Thang Division)
“Jesus Walks” (Kanye West) v. “Kiss” (Prince)
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7. “Jesus Walks” (Kanye West)
Kanye wasn’t yet a star but he knew the game, and he’d been living with his own crazy ass for a long time, so he saw what was coming. Rather than sing out and repent after he super-sized his ego, pissed everybody off, and joined all the rappers “who rap but don’t think,” he decided to bring Judgment Day Realness as his opening gambit. He almost, almost disguises that wink in his eye as he frets that God is a taboo topic in America (ha!) and that radio might never cotton to a spirit-fearing jam with enough broody, sonorous bass to blast the Walls of Jericho. Surely he knew he had all the DJs in the nation sewn up? He surely had me, as soon as the Monkeys from Oz dropped in to chant that killer background vocal, Oh-Oh-Oh’ing and more lightly OOO-Ooo-ooo’ing under that rapturous choir that wails out the title phase. The production shakes the sky like a timpanum. Someone is in the house for sure, whether it’s Yahweh or Kanye. One of modern pop’s most overwhelming declarations of intent, wittily disguised as a “Who, me? But I’m just here to Praise!” –Nick
10. “Kiss” (Prince)
Plenty of Prince songs wear their weirdness right on their paisley sleeves, but “Kiss” doesn’t seem to. On first, second, and twentieth pass, it may seem like a very modest plea (“I just want your kiss”), but for someone who’s asking so little, he sure works up a crazy lather by the end, going full-on Alex Forrest for that final verse. So is the Imp of Minnesota so sex-starved that he doesn’t care who gets him off, as long as somebody does? Is he generously opening wide the door to lovers of all stripes (“You don’t have to be beautiful!”), or has he got so much self-pleasure in mind (“Just leave it all up to me!”) that he’s not sure what your body’s got to do with it? And despite Casablanca, is a kiss not just a kiss? What’s with the pregnant pause, the furtive blush of the falsetto? Why the “extra time?” Why the climactic hysteria—what exactly is Mama supposed to kiss? It’s all so dapper, funked-out, and scrumptiously constructed that your aunt will dance to it at your nephew’s bar mitzvah, but this blue-balled soliloquy might have been taped at the psycho ward. –Nick
Game 32 (Groove Thang Division)
“Lose Yourself” (Eminem) v. “Baby Got Back” (Sir Mix-a-Lot)
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2. “Lose Yourself” (Eminem)
The viselike guitar, the cardiac throb of percussion, the rafter-shaking chorus: so much about “Lose Yourself” feels commanding and instantly relatabl—a born stadium-filler. The track coils around you like a cobra, scary and majestic. Universal built the film and the trailer for 8 Mile around it, because as dramatic as it is in context, it’s a sales hook all by itself. Still, if the anthemic chorus unmistakably hails an audience of millions, the verses are vividly, remarkably particular to Rabbit Smith’s mounting predicaments. This is sonic storytelling at a Springsteen level, as evocative and universal in its diaper-buying, bill-dodging, sleep-losing details as “Fast Car” or “Livin’ on a Prayer,” and falling somewhere in between them in its mad, hopeful lunge at one final way out. Do you lose yourself in music because its comforts never die, or because it’s the only narcotic that blunts the pain of whatever’s making Eminem, of all people, sound so thoroughly and plausibly terrorized by his own life? A track like this comes once in a lifetime, and it hasn’t dated a nanosecond. –Nick
15. “Baby Got Back” (Sir Mix-a-Lot)
“I like big butts, and I cannot lie” is surely one of the great American opening lines, right up there with “Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me.” Given the choice, I for one would rather be alive in the era of rapturous odes to sexy women who eat more than the salad course. And as if Sir Mix-a-Lot has even thought about lying! He has clearly, delightedly dwelled on why he loves buns, ‘hon, and he’s elated to spin the variations, along with Casio whip-cracks, record scratches, and cleverly smuggled 2 Live Crew samples. This high-velocity, genuinely appreciative ode to healthy hamhocks rolls out big pop-rap welcome mats to everybody in the club, from back-packing ladies to white boys to anyone with a thing for anacondas. Everyone’s got to shout, and who wouldn’t want to? –Nick
18 responses so far ↓
1 SashaPT // Jul 29, 2011 at 11:37 am
For #1: “Act your age, mama, not your shoe size.” How could it be anything else?
For #2: One particularly rocky morning I was listening to “Lose Yourself” on the way to work and the line “And there’s no movie | There’s no Mikhi Phifer” just struck me as being so sad (even in a song that has a lot of sad stuff in it), I teared up a little. “You can do anything you put your mind to, man…”
2 Tyliag // Jul 29, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Both matchups boiled down to which songs I still had memorized, so obviously Kiss and Baby Got Back won over for me. I’ve been known to drop “My anaconda don’t want none unless you’ve got buns hun.” at the most inopportune times.
And Prince? He name dropped Dynasty. Of course he wins!
3 Maggie // Jul 29, 2011 at 12:12 pm
I like Sir Mix-a-Lot as much as the next person, but Lose Yourself is pure genius.
I don’t remember hearing Jesus Walks before today. It’s fine, but it’s no Kiss.
4 Holly F. // Jul 29, 2011 at 12:17 pm
I’ll admit, when I saw the match-up of ‘Ye versus Prince, I audibly said, “Nooooooooooo. NO!” I can’t vote between these two songs. I refuse.
But, seriously, can it get any better than, “Oh my God. Becky, look at her butt. It is so BIG”? I urge you to agree that it cannot.
5 Kristen // Jul 29, 2011 at 12:24 pm
I want both of the songs in the second match-up to defeat the two songs in the first match-up. I haven’t heard that Kanye song, and Prince has never been my thang. But to choose between 8 Mile and Baby Got Back (the first rap song I embraced and bought the cassette tape single for!)? This is nearly impossible!
6 Guy Lodge // Jul 29, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Both very easy calls for me today. I feel like you’re punishing Kanye for his egotism not only by positioning him in a hopeless battle against Prince, but by handicapping him with one of his least lovable (however admirable) singles.
Frankly, you could have picked something from ‘The Rainbow Children’ and I till would’ve voted for Prince on, er, principle alone — we all have our single figures that represent the be-all and end-all of pop, and the funny little purple guy is mine. I don’t even know what process you used to pick one Prince song to represent him — pointing, blindfolded, at one of his hits compilations perhaps seems the fairest way.
“Baby Got Back” is tirelessly daffy fun and all, and it scores bonus points for inspiring one of Jennifer Aniston’s best line readings on Friends (“That girl is all about the ass!”), but I just don’t know how you say no to the tightly coiled, lickety-split rhymes of “Lose Yourself” (that sweaty/heavy/already/spaghetti run shouldn’t work at all, and miraculously does), the ferocity of which still kind of catches me off-guard every time I hear it.
Plus it’s the first rap record my mom ever bought for herself — how can I not love it for that alone?
7 jessica // Jul 29, 2011 at 12:44 pm
I, too, will bust into Baby Got Back at ANY GIVEN MOMENT. My high school BFF and I even had our own little dance to it. Yes, we did. And I mean, the song was featured on an episode of Friends, for chrissakes. It’s a cultural touchstone. It’s undeniable. Which is what makes ultimate pop sensations sensational.
And, Kiss is one of my favorite songs ever (my other, Poison’s Talk Dirty To Me, is sadly unrepresented here), so it always gets my vote. Again: Julia Roberts in the tub = Cultural. Touchstone.
8 jessica // Jul 29, 2011 at 12:47 pm
Also re: Baby Got Back: Bart Simpson’s locker combination was 36-24-36, I mean, COME ON!
9 Erik R // Jul 29, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Lose Yourself vs Baby Got Back is my first Sophie’s Choice on the entire tourney. Agonizing, but I went with the beknighted Mix-A-Lot.
10 Erica S. // Jul 29, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Prince eventually changed the line in live performances from “You don’t have to watch ‘Dynasty” to “You Don’t have to watch ‘Sex and the City’.
11 Mark Blankenship // Jul 29, 2011 at 1:16 pm
@Guy Punishing Kanye? For dropping such a thunderously awesome track on the world? It’s WE who are being punished… punished into submission by lines like “the way that Kathie Lee needed Regis, that’s the way I need Jesus!” It’s a sweet, wonderful punishment indeed. AHEM. Obviously, I took the lead on nominating “Jesus Walks” because for me, that is the only Kanye West song that I absolutely could not live without. It’s rhythmically grand, it’s spiritually conflicted, and it features those exciting sonic fillips like the gasps for breath and the loud “huh?” after “we eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast. HOLLA!
@Everyone I am shocked that Eminem is losing. I thought it was an acknowledged fact that “Lose Yourself” is a timeless masterpiece. I even expected Eminem to give MJ his lone serious challenge in this division. But clearly, you all really like big butts!
12 jessica // Jul 29, 2011 at 1:24 pm
And we can not lie, Mark. We can not lie.
13 Katie // Jul 29, 2011 at 1:30 pm
This is the very first match up in this contest that didn’t break my heart/have me agonizing over the “right” choice. But then I choose Eminem’s crowning achievement “Lose Yourself” and find it’s losing to a song about BUTTS? Ugh, I am distraught…
14 Dan Turner // Jul 29, 2011 at 2:22 pm
I think in both of these games you see songs that take themselves so seriously and songs that enjoy life. I’m chosing the latter in both competitions. I don’t particularly like Prince’s Kiss ever since one newly monikered radio station played back to back for an entire day. But I still voted for it as a better song than Kanye’s self-aggrandizing contrivances. “Jesus Walks” is full of sound and fury signifying nothing. His “Workout Tape” is a better song in my esteem. Similarly, Emmie Emmie is too big of a humorless, douchebox to live, let alone continue on in a no-stakes grudge match of internet commentariat. What the next round needs is a “sister-can’t-resister-her.” Whether red beans & rice come along is purely discretionary.
15 Emily // Jul 29, 2011 at 2:29 pm
I think the Eminem v Mix-a-lot match up comes down to what kind of a mood you’re in this Friday. If you’ve got a party/wedding to go to this weekend, I could see how one might lean toward the dance-friendly “Baby Got Back”, which will get even the whitest white boy out on the flo’. Whereas those who had to walk to the train in the rain this morning might tend to choose the darker “Lose Yourself”, which is just as insistent, but is a more punishing beat.
It’s been a “Lose Yourself” kind of morning for me, so that’s how I voted, but I’m shuffling up Sir Mix-a-lot for the ride home.
Prince beats Kanye every day in every way.
16 Kristen // Jul 29, 2011 at 2:59 pm
Dan Turner needs to write a blog. Every comment he posts cracks me up!
17 James T // Jul 29, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Mark – I love the Friends scene(s) Guy referred to and my mom didn’t buy Eminem’s album/single so I voted for the Butts. See? I have artistic reasons. It’s not about my sexual tastes :p
18 Kitty // Aug 1, 2011 at 2:34 pm
I voted for “Lose Yourself” because while “Baby Got Back” is a fun song, Emimem’s moving track totally has an effect on me that I cannot deny.
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