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Congratulations to A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (approx.), our 16th winner!

The winner's bracket will kick off this Sunday, followed by a brief break; one week will be devoted to determining the next major tournament, and the other will be for the mini-tournament voted on earlier, Web-Aligned Game Changer episodes. After that, we'll move on to the Second Chance Music brackets.

Other Music Tournament Round 1

When He Died vs. Gloomy Sunday

Albuquerque vs. Devil Went Down to Georgia

Strange New World vs. Ambiguous Morality

Cider Road vs. Invisible Light

Veteran of the Psychic Wars vs. Kiss the Go-Goat

One Night in Bangkok vs. Mad Genius' Dance

Made in America vs. A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (approx.)

Who is the Doctor? vs. I'm Ellie the Barmaid Song

Violence and Spiders vs. Spring and a Storm

Welcome to the Internet vs. My Time

You're Always Welcome At Our House vs. Alice

The Lethal Temptress vs. Promise to the Moon

The Woods vs. It's Terror Time Again

Everything at Once vs. Transcendenal Cha Cha Cha

Suburbia Overture vs. Seven Seas of Rhye

The World Has Gone Insane vs. War of the Worlds

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Favorite music you've discovered from running these tournaments?

I'm just going to go based on my favorite submission that I hadn't heard before from each tournament

Pity Party, Melanie Martinez

Pet Sematary, The Ramones

I Hope You Die In A Fire, Grand Commander

Propaganda!, Crusher-P

Big Town Banky Blaine’s Rockabilly BBQ, Bear Ghost OR The Devil in Camp, American Murder Song

Air, Talking Heads

Snuff Out the Light, Eartha Kitt

Psycho Bunny, The Orion Experience

Wires, The Neighbourhood

Deuteronomy 2:10, The Mountain Goats

We'rewolf, Every Time I Die

The Coast, PUP OR Lake Pontchartrain, Ludo

The 1919 Influenza Blues, Essie Jenkins

Suit, Boom! Bap! Pow!

Break Stuff, Limp Bizkit

Gloomy Sunday, Rezső Seress

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Were there any songs that you legitimately found scary by themselves (be because of their subject matter, lyrics or because they just sounded fucked-up)?

Everywhere At The End Of Time for sure; dementia is probably my biggest fear, and the way it wears on for six hours getting increasingly distorted is disturbing.

No One's Home by The Student was pretty creepy as well, and as discussed, many of the Extinction submissions got me feeling a certain way about the state of the world.

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Transcendental Cha Cha Cha Propaganda: A genuinely fun song about the nature of the Multiverse, and how while there are many realities, we can just let go and have fun

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Other Music Tournament Final

A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (approx.) vs. Welcome to the Internet

Other Music Tournament Round 1

When He Died vs. Gloomy Sunday

Albuquerque vs. Devil Went Down to Georgia

Strange New World vs. Ambiguous Morality

Cider Road vs. Invisible Light

Veteran of the Psychic Wars vs. Kiss the Go-Goat

One Night in Bangkok vs. Mad Genius' Dance

Made in America vs. A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (approx.)

Who is the Doctor? vs. I'm Ellie the Barmaid Song

Violence and Spiders vs. Spring and a Storm

Welcome to the Internet vs. My Time

You're Always Welcome At Our House vs. Alice

The Lethal Temptress vs. Promise to the Moon

The Woods vs. It's Terror Time Again

Everything at Once vs. Transcendenal Cha Cha Cha

Suburbia Overture vs. Seven Seas of Rhye

The World Has Gone Insane vs. War of the Worlds

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A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (approx.) (The Yellow Dress) This song lists a truly impressive number of the entities in it's chorus, and it also reminds me of the themes of connection and loss that are present in the main narrative of The Magnus Archives.

"'Cause it's: birds and heights and movie credits Crowds and puppets, dying in a fire Being washed right out to sea Losing all of my front teeth Being buried half-alive Bugs that burrow deep inside Wild dogs, and things like that Domesticated mice and rats Not all of them, just their feet Or that my whole life could be sleep Ferris-wheels and certain blues Oh, but mainly losing you These days, mainly losing you"

Welcome to the Internet (Bo Burnham) See a man beheaded, get offended, see a shrink Show us pictures of your children, tell us every thought you think Start a rumor, buy a broom, or send a death threat to a boomer Or DM a girl and groom her, do a Zoom or find a tumor in your— Here's a healthy breakfast option, you should kill your mom Here's why women never fuck you; here's how you can build a bomb Which Power Ranger are you? Take this quirky quiz Obama sent the immigrants to vaccinate your kids

Could I interest you in everything all of the time? A little bit of everything all of the time? Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime Anything and everything, all of the time Could I interest you in everything all of the time? A little bit of everything all of the time? Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime Anything and everything, all of the time

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Anti-Transcendental Cha Cha Cha propaganda: it's just too damn cheery to be a proper Fear song. Like not even ironically cheery, it's just genuinely quite upbeat.

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Other Music Tournament Semifinals

Devil Went Down to Georgia vs. A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (approx.)

Welcome to the Internet vs. Transcendental Cha Cha Cha

Other Music Tournament Round 1

When He Died vs. Gloomy Sunday

Albuquerque vs. Devil Went Down to Georgia

Strange New World vs. Ambiguous Morality

Cider Road vs. Invisible Light

Veteran of the Psychic Wars vs. Kiss the Go-Goat

One Night in Bangkok vs. Mad Genius' Dance

Made in America vs. A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (approx.)

Who is the Doctor? vs. I'm Ellie the Barmaid Song

Violence and Spiders vs. Spring and a Storm

Welcome to the Internet vs. My Time

You're Always Welcome At Our House vs. Alice

The Lethal Temptress vs. Promise to the Moon

The Woods vs. It's Terror Time Again

Everything at Once vs. Transcendenal Cha Cha Cha

Suburbia Overture vs. Seven Seas of Rhye

The World Has Gone Insane vs. War of the Worlds

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Welcome to the Internet (Bo Burnham) See a man beheaded, get offended, see a shrink Show us pictures of your children, tell us every thought you think Start a rumor, buy a broom, or send a death threat to a boomer Or DM a girl and groom her, do a Zoom or find a tumor in your— Here's a healthy breakfast option, you should kill your mom Here's why women never fuck you; here's how you can build a bomb Which Power Ranger are you? Take this quirky quiz Obama sent the immigrants to vaccinate your kids

Could I interest you in everything all of the time? A little bit of everything all of the time? Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime Anything and everything, all of the time Could I interest you in everything all of the time? A little bit of everything all of the time? Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime Anything and everything, all of the time

Transcendental Cha Cha Cha (Tom Cardy) Welcome to the interplanetary ballroom The only dance hall playing hits from the past, present and future temporal sector psychotaneously! A little warning to all our dancers tonight who only perceive in three dimensions, this next one's a bit of a doozie!

Incorporates surface-level elements of Spiral and Vast most predominantly, but ultimately this is a dimension outside of time and space and beyond Fear, as these strange extra-dimensional forces seek to encourage and embolden the listener to actively participate in the ever-shifting beauty of the universe.

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Devil Went Down to Georgia (Charlie Daniels) The Devil went down to Georgia He was lookin' for a soul to steal He was in a bind 'cause he was way behind And he was willing to make a deal When he came across this young man Sawin' on a fiddle and playin' it hot And the Devil jumped up on a hickory stump And said "Boy, let me tell you what"

"I guess you didn't know it, but I am a fiddle player too And if you'd care to take a dare, I'll make a bet with you Now you play a pretty good fiddle, boy, but give the Devil his due I'll bet a fiddle o' gold against your soul 'cause I think I'm better than you" The boy said, "My name's Johnny, and it might be a sin But I'll take your bet and you're gonna regret 'cause I'm the best there's ever been"

A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (approx.) (The Yellow Dress) This song lists a truly impressive number of the entities in it's chorus, and it also reminds me of the themes of connection and loss that are present in the main narrative of The Magnus Archives.

"'Cause it's: birds and heights and movie credits Crowds and puppets, dying in a fire Being washed right out to sea Losing all of my front teeth Being buried half-alive Bugs that burrow deep inside Wild dogs, and things like that Domesticated mice and rats Not all of them, just their feet Or that my whole life could be sleep Ferris-wheels and certain blues Oh, but mainly losing you These days, mainly losing you"

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With it out of the running, I do have to wonder: How come no one submitted Gloomy Sunday to the End tourney? Seems to me that maybe it would have swept in that category. Me personally would have submitted it to that one had I known about it back then...

Same. Feels like it would've swept in the same way Shadows from the Wall of Death did in the Leitner tourney.

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Other Music Tournament Round 3

Devil Went Down to Georgia vs. Strange New World

Veteran of the Psychic Wars vs. A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (approx.)

Welcome to the Internet vs. Alice

Transcendental Cha Cha Cha vs. The World Has Gone Insane

Other Music Tournament Round 1

When He Died vs. Gloomy Sunday

Albuquerque vs. Devil Went Down to Georgia

Strange New World vs. Ambiguous Morality

Cider Road vs. Invisible Light

Veteran of the Psychic Wars vs. Kiss the Go-Goat

One Night in Bangkok vs. Mad Genius' Dance

Made in America vs. A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (approx.)

Who is the Doctor? vs. I'm Ellie the Barmaid Song

Violence and Spiders vs. Spring and a Storm

Welcome to the Internet vs. My Time

You're Always Welcome At Our House vs. Alice

The Lethal Temptress vs. Promise to the Moon

The Woods vs. It's Terror Time Again

Everything at Once vs. Transcendenal Cha Cha Cha

Suburbia Overture vs. Seven Seas of Rhye

The World Has Gone Insane vs. War of the Worlds

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Transcendental Cha Cha Cha (Tom Cardy) Welcome to the interplanetary ballroom The only dance hall playing hits from the past, present and future temporal sector psychotaneously! A little warning to all our dancers tonight who only perceive in three dimensions, this next one's a bit of a doozie!

Incorporates surface-level elements of Spiral and Vast most predominantly, but ultimately this is a dimension outside of time and space and beyond Fear, as these strange extra-dimensional forces seek to encourage and embolden the listener to actively participate in the ever-shifting beauty of the universe.

The World Has Gone Insane (Anthony Warlow) In the context of the Jekyll and Hyde musical, it is a song about Jekyll losing his sanity as he and Hyde are fighting for control. Outside of it, though… It could just as easily be a song about the Eyepocalypse, with some verses making allusion to a number of different Fears: "Parasites are eating at my brain" (Corruption), "a pack of wolves is howling at my door" (Hunt), "nameless ghosts and faceless ghouls, bid me join the dead" (End) and of course, the Spiral pretty much everywhere.

"The world has gone insane And parasites are eating at my brain And nothing is the way it was before A pack of wolves is howling at my door I'm living in a nonstop nightmare, a dead man's dream Filled with screaming pain Turning me to mad extremes In a world that's gone insane…"

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Welcome to the Internet (Bo Burnham) See a man beheaded, get offended, see a shrink Show us pictures of your children, tell us every thought you think Start a rumor, buy a broom, or send a death threat to a boomer Or DM a girl and groom her, do a Zoom or find a tumor in your— Here's a healthy breakfast option, you should kill your mom Here's why women never fuck you; here's how you can build a bomb Which Power Ranger are you? Take this quirky quiz Obama sent the immigrants to vaccinate your kids

Could I interest you in everything all of the time? A little bit of everything all of the time? Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime Anything and everything, all of the time Could I interest you in everything all of the time? A little bit of everything all of the time? Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime Anything and everything, all of the time

Alice (The Mechanisms) I think there's enough different shit going on that the Spiral alone is insufficient to encompass it. A lot of the madness that Alice experiences in this song is directly related to the senseless violence of The Slaughter as well, not to mention the cloning/skin-suit stuff The Stranger likes.

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Veteran of the Psychic Wars (Blue Öyster Cult) This song’s lyrics were written by Cyberpunk godfather Michael Moorcock, science fiction author and editor of New Worlds Magazine when that magazine gave birth to New Wave Science Fiction.

This story is delivered in the voice of the Eternal Champion, a “modern myth” experiment with by Moorcock, and occasionally his writers at New Worlds. It’s a character whose story is relived uncountable times through the history of a universe comprised of infinite parallel dimensions. The most famous of these, and probable narrator in the song, is Elric of Melnibone, the last emperor of an ancient civilization, who wields the cursed sword Stormbringer. Moorcock wrote two other songs for BÖC, one of which (Black Blade) was specifically about Elric’s struggle and bond with that weapon.

This song, on the other hand, also tells the overall story of the Eternal Champion’s endless, miserable toil throughout the multiverse, not just as Elric, but also Lord Erekose, Jerry Cornelius, Jherek Carnelian, and ostensibly infinite other incarnations (in reality expressed in various fiction, mostly by Moorcock).

"You see me now, a veteran of a thousand psychic wars I've been livin' on the edge so long where the winds of limbo roar And I'm young enough to look at and far too old to see All the scars are on the inside I'm not sure that there's anything left to me (Me)"

A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (approx.) (The Yellow Dress) This song lists a truly impressive number of the entities in it's chorus, and it also reminds me of the themes of connection and loss that are present in the main narrative of The Magnus Archives.

"'Cause it's: birds and heights and movie credits Crowds and puppets, dying in a fire Being washed right out to sea Losing all of my front teeth Being buried half-alive Bugs that burrow deep inside Wild dogs, and things like that Domesticated mice and rats Not all of them, just their feet Or that my whole life could be sleep Ferris-wheels and certain blues Oh, but mainly losing you These days, mainly losing you"

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Devil Went Down to Georgia (Charlie Daniels) The Devil went down to Georgia He was lookin' for a soul to steal He was in a bind 'cause he was way behind And he was willing to make a deal When he came across this young man Sawin' on a fiddle and playin' it hot And the Devil jumped up on a hickory stump And said "Boy, let me tell you what"

"I guess you didn't know it, but I am a fiddle player too And if you'd care to take a dare, I'll make a bet with you Now you play a pretty good fiddle, boy, but give the Devil his due I'll bet a fiddle o' gold against your soul 'cause I think I'm better than you" The boy said, "My name's Johnny, and it might be a sin But I'll take your bet and you're gonna regret 'cause I'm the best there's ever been"

Strange New World (Lucy Monostone) "Welcome to the end of days of lust and confusion. Abandon all your wicked ways, your tired illusions. You're not the same man that you were just a moment ago, no you burn like a fire…"

"The same blue sky in a strange new world. The same blue sky in a strange new world. The same blue sky in a strange new world. Spinning 'round, turning 'round, spinning 'round…"

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Other Music Tournament Round 2

Gloomy Sunday vs. Devil Went Down to Georgia

Strange New World vs. Cider Road

Veteran of the Psychic Wars vs. Mad Genius' Dance

A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (approx.) vs. Who Is the Doctor?

Violence and Spiders vs. Welcome to the Internet

Alice vs. The Lethal Temptress

It's Terror Time Again vs. Transcendenal Cha Cha Cha

Suburbia Overture vs. The World Has Gone Insane

Other Music Tournament Round 1

When He Died vs. Gloomy Sunday

Albuquerque vs. Devil Went Down to Georgia

Strange New World vs. Ambiguous Morality

Cider Road vs. Invisible Light

Veteran of the Psychic Wars vs. Kiss the Go-Goat

One Night in Bangkok vs. Mad Genius' Dance

Made in America vs. A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (approx.)

Who is the Doctor? vs. I'm Ellie the Barmaid Song

Violence and Spiders vs. Spring and a Storm

Welcome to the Internet vs. My Time

You're Always Welcome At Our House vs. Alice

The Lethal Temptress vs. Promise to the Moon

The Woods vs. It's Terror Time Again

Everything at Once vs. Transcendenal Cha Cha Cha

Suburbia Overture vs. Seven Seas of Rhye

The World Has Gone Insane vs. War of the Worlds