Different Kind of March Madness

I've been working on creating a top rock songs bracket in my free time.  It's completely frivolous and an easy way to relax while enjoying some great music.  It made me realize how much great music has been created and how little of it I listen to.  I definitely revolve my listening habits to my comfort zone of the grunge era and many things alternative, but I always try to throw in some tunes that I either used to listen to more frequently or have always had them on a back burner rotation.  I used to listen to classical music more often.  I used to play Sinatra more often.  And my favorite band from the 90s (Live), I barely listen to them anymore.

I find it amazing how times have trended me in a certain direction.  I used to be an avid sports fan and watched sports as much as I could take in.  Now, AM radio is my key tool for keeping current with the sports world.  I grew up listening to DC 101.  Now, I barely listen to any FM radio and when I do it's because I've flipped over from AM radio during a commercial on my ride home from work.  The point is to tell you that I'm no expert in music.  I'm a big fan of music and appreciate the music that I really enjoy, but when I do complete this bracket it is in no way telling anyone else that their taste in music or their favorite songs are wrong.  It will just be an opinionated bracket that I hope will, if not please anyone else, will please me with the simple fact of creating it.

I do wish I was current with today's rock and I should listen to more pre-U2 rock.  Yesterday was great listening to songs from a wide assortment of bands.  I went through so many artists, but I'll name a few.  Chuck Berry.  The Beatles.  Buddy Holly.  R.E.M.  Lynyrd Skynyrd.  Eric Clapton.  Stone Temple Pilots.  Creating this list is so unnecessary, but it is so fun.  And I do know that there will be plenty of musicians and great songs left off of this bracket and there is a great possibility that I'll think of another song once I've made the bracket and posted it online.  My hope is to get feedback once I post this top rock bracket to help move songs onto the next round and so forth until there is one amazing song left.

The tournament of songs will have 64 songs.  The catch will be that I'm selecting one song per band.  One band.  One song.  Also, I'm breaking up the bracket into four segments (like the NCAA Basketball Tournament), but I'll be ranking songs a little bit differently.  Instead of ranking 1 - 64 and splitting them into brackets, I'm putting the songs into brackets first and then ranking each bracket 1 - 16.  Example:  One bracket would be filled with 60s songs only, then rank accordingly.

I don't know when I'll have the bracket posted, and honestly, don't know if there's any interest for friends to participate.  I just really like the idea of doing something fun like this with my down time.  To be continued...