Pixies vs. New Order
Nirvana vs. Arcade Fire
Van Halen vs. Weezer
The Beach Boys vs. Van Morrison
Stevie Wonder vs. ramones
The Who vs. Parliament/Funkadelic
Elton John vs. The Clash
Simon & Garfunkel vs. Deep Purple

Pixies 20 vs. New Order 15
Nirvana 20 vs. Arcade Fire 17
Van Halen 12 vs. Weezer 5
Worst matchup of the fifth round, by far. The winner will be the least deserving act in the third round. I can't believe Weezer made it this far.
The Beach Boys 16 vs. Van Morrison 15
Toughest vote of the day.
Stevie Wonder 20 vs. ramones 13
Ramones get influence points, but their catalog is kind of sameish.
The Who 19 vs. Parliament/Funkadelic 12
Elton John 11 vs. The Clash 19
Simon & Garfunkel 18 vs. Deep Purple 12

I'm gonna add my personal rankings in this round. Accurately up to 100 and then approximations.

Pixies (#46) vs. New Order (#100-150)
Nirvana (Outside top 250) vs. Arcade Fire (#150-200)
Van Halen (#54) vs. Weezer (Outside top 250)
The Beach Boys (#12) vs. Van Morrison (#18)
Stevie Wonder (#33) vs. Ramones (#100-150)
The Who (#4) vs. Parliament/Funkadelic (#150-200)
Elton John (#200-250) vs. The Clash (#51)
Simon & Garfunkel (#17) vs. Deep Purple (#100-150)

Pixies
Arcade Fire
Weezer
The Beach Boys
Stevie Wonder
The Who
The Clash
Simon & Garfunkel

New Order
Arcade Fire
Weezer (only because I have been listening to Pinkerton alot recently)
The Beach Boys
Stevie Wonder
PFunk
The Clash
Deep Purple

Pixies
Arcade Fire - interesting one, I went with my heart...
pass - yuck
The Beach Boys
Stevie
The Who
The Clash
pass

still not too difficult yet...

New Order 19, Pixies 8: It's still baffling to me why I don't like Pixies, but all of their heavy-hitters leave me quite cold. New Order, on the other hand, I find quite magical...
Nirvana 16, Arcade Fire 15: The Suburbs is still pissing me off, so although I would vote for Arcade Fire based on the first 2 albums, the bitter disappointment has me in a bit of an anti-AF frame of mind. Nirvana probably deserves to advance anyway.
Van Halen 6, Weezer 4: Yuck. It's shameful that one of these artists will make the top 32. The only Weezer song I sort of like is "Hash Pipe", while I actually like a few Sammy Hagar-helmed Van Halen songs. Still, yucko.
The Beach Boys 10, Van Morrison 8: Another matchup of artists I don't particularly care for, but both are much more deserving of a place in the top 32. I bought "God Only Knows" on Itunes and have nothing by Van, so The Beach Boys win.
Stevie Wonder 19, Ramones 16: Couldn't these artists have been paired against some of the last 4?! Stevie Wonder is just insanely amazing, and he opened my mind to soul. Ramones are a heck of a lot of fun and showcase the side of punk that I like best.
Parliament/Funkadelic 19, The Who 0: Good vs. evil again! Pioneers from one of my favorite genres (if not my favorite) vs. pioneers of music I generally loathe. Easy choice.
The Clash 15, Elton John 2: Another shockingly easy choice. Elton John's schtick never went over well with me, while The Clash can bang around all day in my book.
Pass on Simon & Garfunkel vs. Deep Purple: I know less than 5 songs by each, so I can't make an informed choice.

Favorite artist: New Order
Favorite artist not voted for: Ramones
Favorite album: Songs in the Key of Life
Favorite song: "My Eyes Don't Cry"

Pixies
Arcade Fire
Weezer
Beach Boys
Stevie Wonder
Who
Clash
Simon and Garfunkel

Pixies
Nirvana
Weezer
The Beach Boys
Stevie Wonder
The Who
The Clash
Simon and Garfunkel

Pixies
Nirvana (Going to be sooooo pissed if AF wins this. AF is incredibly overrated here, imo, so I could see it happening.)
Weezer
The Beach Boys
Stevie Wonder
The Who
The Clash
Simon & Garfunkel

Pixies
Nirvana
Weezer
The Beach Boys
Stevie Wonder
Parliament/Funkadelic
The Clash
Simon & Garfunkel

To me, the most interesting match-up is the Nirvana vs Arcade Fire one. Both are the flagship bands of their music style (punk and grunge vs indie rock) and have a decade-defining album.Nirvana gets the edge from me because neither Neon Bible or The Suburbs is nearly as good as In Utero.

New Order
Nirvana
Van Halen
The Beach Boys
Stevie Wonder
The Who
The Clash
Simon & Garfunkel

New Order
Arcade Fire
Van Halen
The Beach Boys
Stevie Wonder
Parliament/Funkadelic
Elton John
Simon & Garfunkel

New Order
Nirvana
Van Halen
The Beach Boys
Stevie Wonder
The Who
Elton John
Simon & Garfunkel

Pixies - I like New Order a lot, but not as much as the Pixies. Off topic, but yesterday I had the interesting experience of listening to the 7" mix of "Bizarre Love Triangle," which is nearly half the length of the 12" version I am familiar with. It was very ordinary without the extra space.
Arcade Fire
Weezer
The Beach Boys
Stevie Wonder
Parliament/Funkadelic - Very, very tough call.
The Clash
Simon & Garfunkel

Fave - Wonder
Fave not voted for - The Who

Pixies
Nirvana
Van Halen
The Beach Boys
ramones
The Who
The Clash
Deep Purple

New Order
Arcade Fire
Van Halen
The Beach Boys
Stevie Wonder
The Who
Elton John
Simon and Garfunkel

Had to think about a few of these, but no real agonizing choices

this was an easy vote for being the 5th round...

especially this matchup: PIXIES
Nirvana
Weezer
Ramones
the Who
the Clash
Simon & Garfunkel

Pixies
Nirvana
Weezer
The Beach Boys
Stevie Wonder
Parliament/Funkadelic
The Clash
Simon & Garfunkel

New Order
Nirvana
Weezer
Van Morrison
Stevie Wonder
The Who
The Clash
Simon & Garfunkel

Pixies
Nirvana
Van Halen
The Beach Boys
Stevie Wonder
Parlament/Funkadelic
Elton John
Simon & Garfunkel

Pixies
Arcade Fire
Van Halen
Van Morrison
Stevie Wonder
-
Elton John
Simon & Garfunkel

Pixies
Arcade Fire
Weezer
The Beach Boys
Ramones
The Who
The Clash
Simon and Garfunkel

This round, I’ll indicate how I would rank the 16 artists in each group.

THE ONLY BAND THAT MATTERS
1. The Clash*

ALL-TIME GREATS
2. Pixies*
3. Arcade Fire*
4. Ramones*
5. Nirvana

REALLY LIKE
6. Stevie Wonder
7. The Who*
8. The Beach Boys*
9. New Order

LIKE
10. Parliament/Funkadelic
11. Weezer*
12. Simon and Garfunkel*

NOT TERRIBLE
13. Elton John
14. Van Halen
15. Van Morrison
16. Deep Purple

Oh wow, shit has stepped up a lot.

PIXIES 19 - New Order 16
NIRVANA 19 - Arcade Fire 18 [sorry AF, you are incredible but it was a killer round]
Van Halen 11 - WEEZER 19 [can't fathom any hate for Weezer. They put out two of the greatest albums of the 90s - or ever, to be honest]
BEACH BOYS 16 - Van Morrison 15
STEVIE WONDER 19 - Ramones 14
- pass - (my P/F knowledge lacks)
Elton John 15 - THE CLASH 16
SIMON & GARFUNKEL 18 - Deep Purple 12

Pixies
Nirvana (just couldn't vote against 'em)
Weezer
The Beach Boys
Stevie Wonder
The Who
The Clash
Simon & Garfunkel

Pixies 18, New Order 13

New Order might be the best singles artist of the 80s, but the Pixies might be the best albums artist of the 80s.

Nirvana 16, Arcade Fire 14

Most acclaimed act of the 90s vs most acclaimed act of the 21st century, excluding Radiohead.

Weezer 8, Van Halen 3

Neither deserves to be up this high, but Weezer's peak is better than Van Halen's.

Beach Boys 19, Van Morrison 13

The Beach Boys are my favorite artist of these 16.

Ramones 12, Stevie Wonder 11

I would've voted differently on this a week ago, but I listened to the Ramones' s/t randomly and it really clicked.

Parliament/Funkadelic 14, The Who 10

Pairing Parliament and Funkadelic together is almost unfair. They're both really good, and I've only heard a small portion of their output.

The Clash 18, Elton John 1

I never want to hear another Elton John single again.

Deep Purple 15, Simon & Garfunkel 5

Deep Purple is a better band than most of you guys think. Their output extends far beyond "Hush" and "Smoke on the Water." "Child in Time," for one, is an incredible hard rock epic that should be a classic.

Pixies
Arcade Fire
Weezer
Van Morrison
ramones
Parliament/Funkadelic
The Clash
Simon & Garfunkel

winners in 5.1...
Pixies 61% / New Order 39%
Nirvana 61% / Arcade Fire 39%
Weezer 52.5% / Van Halen 47.5%
Beach Boys 73.2% / Van Morrison 26.8%
Stevie Wonder 73.2% / Ramones 26.8%
The Who 63.2% / Parliament/Funkadelic 36.8%
The Clash 78% / Elton John 22%
Simon & Garfunkel 76.9% / Deep Purple 23.1%

This sets us up for some good ones. Pixies vs Nirvana is pretty much a classic debate, and I think The Who vs Stevie Wonder will be really close. If PFunk can get almost 40%, I wouldn't be surprised if Stevie could pull off the (mild) upset.

The Blue Album is great, I like every song with standouts like "My Name Is Jonas", "Say It Isn't So", "Surf Wax America" and of course Buddy Holly...

Pinkerton is an amazing album. Every song is great, the whole album flows together from song to song with Weezers' best 3 songs "The Good Life", "Tired Of Sex" and "El Scorcho" plus "Pink Triangle" isn't far behind...

Weezer came back and released som okay albums from 2000-2008, some good songs, but every album was flawed and inconsistant. Though I have the red album on vinyl and I kinda liked it. It's just nowhere even close to Pinkerton.

2009's Raditude was a big heaping pile of _______. I downloaded it and listened to it in my car once. Never to even attempt to listen to it again...

Now in 2010, another new album. Not sure if I want to listen to it... Also in November a deluxe version of 'Pinkerton'...