Going down to two matchups per week instead of four on the theory more people will have time to listen to the albums they haven't heard. If participation doesn't increase I'll go back to four.

The only band with three albums in round three is Belle and Sebastian.

Acts with two albums: Beck, Elliot Smith, Pavement

Here's all 32 by AM rank:

444 The Knife - Silent Shout
456 Depeche Mode - Violator
473 Elliot Smith - Either/Or
512 Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
575 Elliot Smith - XO
595 The Beatles - Help!
668 REM - Life's Rich Pageant
675 Beck - Sea Change
695 Marvin Gaye - Here My Dear
722 Beck - Mutations
760 Bruce Springsteen - The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle
866 Gorillaz - Demon Days
1096 Belle and Sebastian - Tigermilk
1126 Super Furry Animals - Rings Around The World
1169 The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
1171 Belle and Sebastian - The Boy With The Arab Strap
1179 Pavement - Wowee Zowee
1260 Sleater-Kinney - One Beat
1282 Pink Floyd - Meddle
1387 Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues
1438 Pavement - Brighten The Corners
1450 White Stripes - Icky Thump
1503 Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
1549 Brigitte Fontaine - Comme a la Radio
1628 Beth Gibbons - Out Of Season
1713 Sufjan Stevens - Michigan
1913 The Go Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
2000 Joanna Newsom - The Milk Eyed Mender
2278 Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue
2504 Nico - Chelsea Girl
2851 Ennio Morricone - Once Upon A Time In The West
Unranked They Might Be Giants - Flood

The matchups for the first week are:

Division 1:

16 Brigitte Fontaine - Comme a la Radio (1971, #1549)
def 1 Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour 5-4
def 9 The Monks - Black Monk Time 6-4

vs

5 Nico - Chelsea Girl (1967, #2504)
def 12 Cat Stevens - Teaser and the Firecat 8-5
def 4 Simon and Garfunkel - Sounds of Silence 9-5

In probably the lowest AM ranked matchup in the third round, Gonzaga err Brigitte Fontaine - Comme a la Radio tries to continue its unlikely run.

Division 5:

2 Elliot Smith - XO (1998, #575)
def 15 The Dandy Warhols - Come Down 11-2
def 10 PJ Harvey - Is This Desire? 11-3

vs

3 Beck - Mutations (1998, #722)
def 14 System Of A Down - System Of A Down 11-2
def 11 Smashing Pumpkins - Adore 9-3

This might be the toughest matchup yet in the tournament. Neither album faced much resistance in the first two rounds and both are by popular acts.

Voting will be open one week and end at midnight board time next Tuesday.

5 Nico - Chelsea Girl

2 Elliott Smith - XO

Comme a la Radio

Mutations

Chelsea Girl

XO

"XO" is just a brilliant album. I honestly think it's Elliott Smith's best, much better than "Either/Or." Plus, it has one of my all-time favorite tracks in "Waltz #2 (XO)"

Darn... Brigitte Fontaine isn't on Rhapsody... I don't know how I'm going to hear it so I can give it a chance... what an underdog... it has to be good!

Just listened to the Fontaine album, and it's a tiny bit worse than Nico (that's not to say that either of them is bad), so:

Nico - Chelsea Girl
Elliott Smith - XO

Elliott Smith - XO

Since everyone else has done the heavy lifting and narrowed it down to these last 32, more than two-thirds of which I've actually heard, I'll put in my two-cents worth.

Div. 1: Push, haven't heard either

Div. 5: "XO" - I'll just echo everything Penguin said and add that while "Mutations" is a good album, not only does it fall short of "XO," but it also falls short of most Beck albums.

Brigitte Fontaine - Comme a la Radio
Elliot Smith - XO

My votes:

Brigitte Fontaine is an easy vote for me. Chelsea Girl is good but Comme a la Radio is in my all time top 100.

Mutations is a closer vote. I think what gives it the edge to me is that Elliot Smith songs all seem to have a similar mood. Elliot Smith can fly at one speed really well, whereas Beck can fly at several different speeds.

Jonah: I'm pretty sure Comme a la Radio is on Lala.

Division 1:
16 Brigitte Fontaine - Comme a la Radio

Division 5:
2 Elliot Smith - XO

Division 1:
Brigitte Fontaine - Comme a la Radio

Division 5:
Elliott Smith - XO

One more day to vote.

One of the votes is very close. The other isn't.

NICO "Chelsea Girl"
The icy German goddess or the eccentric French chanteuse? Both are fascinating women, adventurous artists and obscure icons. Difficult choice but I think I’d go with icon Nico.

ELLIOTT SMITH "XO"
With “Sea Change” I could have doubted but not with “Mutations”. The X of the unknown quantity is XO.

First one is very tough. Maybe I want to see Brigitte Fontaine in the next round so point to her.

And the other point goes to XO.

It does not seem to be much needed, but I vote for XO too.

And the results:

16 Bridgitte Fontaine - Comme a la Radio 6 def
5 Nico - Chelsea Girl 4

The 16 seed marches through by the same vote counts it beat Blank Monk Time. I wonder if it'd still be winning if everybody who votes had heard it. Either way, it'll be interesting how it does when it goes against some of the real heavyweights.

2 Elliot Smith - XO 11 def
3 Beck - Mutations 2

I expected XO to win but I thought it'd be a little closer.

Since the vote totals aren't up much from last round, I think after next week it'll go back to four per round, at least through round 3. I think it's gotten to the point where anybody who's going to go listen to the albums they haven't heard already have.