It's Musical March Madness! The sprawling bracket — both a parody and a tribute to the NCAA basketball tournament, masterminded by MTV News' James Montgomery — takes the 65 biggest names in rock, splits them up into four regions, assigns them seeds and puts them up against one another in a single-elimination series of match-ups in a winner-take-all contest. We're leaving it to you to decide an actual champ in this field of 65. Over the next few weeks, we will present a series of polls that will allow you to vote for the match-ups presented in MTV News' Band Bracketology. You vote for the winners, we'll keep advancing the seeds and, in the end, we'll have some sort of champion. What will the winner receive? Little more than our esteem (as well as that of the fans) and some Internet bragging rights.
We go back to the East for two more intense match-ups.
(3) Owl City vs. (14) The Gaslight Anthem
Owl City put up an incredible late surge last year, posting up big numbers and covering a lot of bases without revealing too much. (In this case, the one-man-band is not unlike Gonzaga.) Mastermind Adam Young goes up against the Gaslight Anthem, an upstart group from New Jersey who carry the torch of rugged blue-collar punkers like the Replacements. Can they upset Owl City?
(6) Grizzly Bear vs. (11) U2
No, that U2 ranking is not a typo. Though their 2009 album No Line on the Horizon did relatively well and their tour was traditionally massive, they still feel a bit like a veteran team who just slipped in to the tournament at the last minute. At this point, they're probably the sixth best team in the Big East. As for Grizzly Bear, they put out a much-beloved album in 2009 and gained a reputation as one of the better live acts on the indie circuit. Still, U2 may be able to rest on the fact that they recorded "Where the Streets Have No Name" and nobody else did.
Who do you want to win the MTV News Musical March Madness tournament? Let us know your thoughts and predictions in the comments!