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.
Second round action continues with the top part of the Wet bracket, featuring a handful of groups who could all make a run at the championship. But there is only room for one champ, which is why the voting must continue.
(4) Pearl Jam vs. (5) My Chemical Romance
This promises to be an especially intense battle, as Pearl Jam had to fight off a late surge by Hollywood Undead to take their first round victory and My Chemical Romance saw a similar eleventh hour run from Gorillaz. Each band has an extremely vocal online following, which is the biggest asset to have in this particular competition. Will the win go to the rock veterans or the arena-punk upstarts?
(1) Blink-182 vs. (9) 30 Seconds to Mars
As the only top-seeded group who survived the first round, Blink-182 should have an easy trip through the rest of the tournament. But they find themselves face to face with 30 Seconds to Mars, a worthy opponent who advanced easily past Modest Mouse. Expect a knock-down, drag out nail-biter for the opportunity to go to the Sweet 16. Which one will come out on the other side?