America Song Tourney

America 1998 Song Tournament

The America 1998 Song Tournament is over and a champion has been declared. The championship round couldn't have been much closer. Sister Golden Hair ended up winning by a single vote.

For those of you who missed the song tournament (the brain child of Mark E. McVey), here's how it worked. The tournament functioned much like the NCAA basketball tournament with 64 songs competing for the championship. In order to get things started, Mark selected 128 of America's songs which were voted on to determine which songs would be included in the starting field of 64.

The preliminary round of voting went from February 5 until midnight on February 14. The votes were tabulated and the 64 song tournament began officially on February 16.

Once the tournament began, there were 6 rounds which ran from Monday to Saturday each week. The votes were tabulated on Sunday with winning songs advancing to the next round. Here is a list with the date of each round:

  • First Round: February 16-21
  • Second Round: February 23-28
  • Sweet Sixteen: March 2-7
  • Elite Eight: March 9-14
  • Final Four: March 16-21
  • Championship: March 23-28
Voters were able to track the success of each song by going to the bracket page each week. You can go there now to see the final results or to see how your favorite song did.

The song tournament was a lot of fun and we may do it again in the future, but next time we'll eliminate the charting songs and see what our favorite non-charting song is.


Last Revised: 2 May 1998