march shredness took place in march 2018
w. todd kaneko and Loudness’s “crazy nights” defeated elena passarello and def leppard’s “pour some sugar on me” in the championship.
Read those essays here, and the other games below: they’re all under the March Shredness tab in descending order, from the Final Four down to the First Round and Play-in Games.
THE final BRACKET
(A blank, fillable excel bracket here. PDF here.)
Inclusion methodology
Songs must be in the style and genre of hair metal, meaning that they were released from roughly 1983-1992, which is about when grunge and the 90s ended the era, at least for most mainstream listeners. Songs feature shreddy, ostentatious guitar solos, big hair, and flashy outfits. As "hair metal" as a genre is one dependent on video, all songs in the tournament must have had videos (and must have them available online). The Committee is typically excluding Serious Metal outfits like Metallica or Iron Maiden unless they really took part in the tropes of the genre. Ditto straight-up hard rock acts like AC/DC or Judas Priest. We're less interested in artists' careers than in individual songs that play all the right notes, so you might see a hair metal song by a band with a longer and more distinguished non-hair-metal career in there.
& our writers are
Aerosmith, Rag Doll — Amorak Huey
Autograph, Turn Up the Radio — Mark Ehling
Bang Tango, Someone Like You — Hanif Abdurraqib
Blue Murder, Valley of the Kings — Jim Warner
Bon Jovi, Livin on a Prayer — Lisa O'Neill
Bon Jovi, Wanted Dead or Alive — Laura CJ Owen
Britny Fox, Girlschool — Brad Efford
Bulletboys, Smooth Up in Ya — Katie Moulton
Cinderella, Don’t Know What You Got Til It’s Gone — Ander Monson
Cinderella, Gypsy Road — Dan Gibson
Alice Cooper, Poison — Nick Ward
The Cult, Fire Woman — Raquel Gutierrez
Damn Yankees, High Enough — Michael Schaub
Dangerous Toys, Teas'n, Pleas'n — Matthew Vadnais
Def Leppard, Rock of Ages — Drew Burk
Def Leppard, Pour Some Sugar on Me — Elena Passarello
Dokken, Dream Warriors — Steven Church
Europe, The Final Countdown — Nick Greer
Faster Pussycat, Poison Ivy — Amy Rossi
Femme Fatale, Falling Out of Love — Leah Sottile
Fifth Angel, Time Will Tell — Josh Borgmann
Lita Ford, Kiss Me Deadly — Beth Nguyen
GNR, Welcome to the Jungle — John Melillo
GNR, Paradise City — Karyna McGlynn
Great White, Once Bitten Twice Shy — Kristine Mahler
Grim Reaper, Rock You to Hell — Ryan Grandick
Hanoi Rocks, Boulevard of Broken Dreams — Adrian Smith
Heart, Alone — Susan Briante
Helix, Wild in the Streets — Dave Madden
Jackyl, The Lumberjack — Lawrence Lenhart
Kix, Don’t Close Your Eyes — Gabriel Palacios
Krokus, Eat the Rich — Eric Scott Fischl
LA Guns, Ballad of Jayne — Thomas Mira y Lopez
Loudness, Crazy Nights — Todd Kaneko
Yngwie Malmsteen, Heaven Tonight — Martin Seay
Madam X, High in High School — Aurelie Sheehan
Motley Crue, Dr Feelgood — Jennifer Rice Epstein
Motley Crue, Home Sweet Home — Cybele Knowles
Nelson, Can’t Live Without Your Love & Affection — Joni Tevis
Ozzy Osbourne, Mama I’m Comin’ Home — Andy Segedi
Ozzy Osbourne and Lita Ford, Close My Eyes Forever — Matthew Conley
Poison, Every Rose Has Its Thorn — Katie Jean Shinkle
Poison, Talk Dirty To Me — Janine Arnett
Queensryche, Eyes of a Stranger — Mark Athitakis
Quiet Riot, Cum on Feel the Noize — Garrett Caples
Ratt, Round and Round — Brian Oliu
David Lee Roth, Yankee Rose — Kirk Wisland
Scorpions, Rock You Like a Hurricane — Matt Fredrickson
Skid Row, 18 and Life — Jennifer Gravley
Slaughter, Fly to the Angels — Natasha Padilla
Stage Dolls, Love Cries — Kenneth Caldwell
Stryper, To Hell With the Devil — David LeGault
Tigertailz, Love Bomb Baby — Moira McAvoy
TNT, 10,000 Lovers (in One) — Berry Grass
Twisted Sister, We’re Not Gonna Take It — Kathleen Rooney
Van Halen, Panama — Joe Bonomo
Vixen, Edge of a Broken Heart — Chelsea Biondolillo
Warlock, All We Are — Megan Campbell
Warrant, Cherry Pie — Dan Kois
W.A.S.P., I Wanna Be Somebody — Jonathon Reinhardt
White Lion, Wait — James Charlesworth
Whitesnake, Here I Go Again — Lisa Wells
Winger, Seventeen — Dan Shapiro
Zebra, Tell Me What You Want — Will Slattery
We do, however, still need writers for the winners of the play-in games, so if you're interested, send us a note.