Welcome To The 80s Pop Bracket Challenge 2025

Every Friday at 1pmPT/4pmET on twitch.tv/samnation3000

For those playing along:

• Scoring is 1 point for bands that make it to the Semifinals; 2 points for bands that make it to the Finals; 3 points for bands that make it to the Championship; and finally 4 points if you name the winner.
• The bracket player with the most points at the end WINS! For winning, they will get to pick the artist battle for the following week.

How the Bracket works:

• After searching for the top Pop bands of the 80s, I narrowed it down to this Top 16. You may or may not agree with the choices or the order, but that is what I came up with based on my research.
• Once the order of the Top 16 was established, I followed typical playoff seeding rules: The #1 band plays the #16 band in the First Round. The #2 band plays the #15 band in the First Round, and on and on. See below.
• There are 4 levels: First Round, Semi-Finals, Finals, and Championship
• The First Round will have 8 battles. The winners go to the Semi-Finals narrowed down to 4 battles. The winners from Semi-Finals move on to the Finals narrowed down to 2 battles. And finally, the 2 winners of the Finals will battle it out in the Championship.

How the twitch.tv/samnation3000 battles work:

• Each individual battle will have 2 bands facing off against eachother for your votes.
• I like to start with one warm-up song before the battle as people arrive.
• The actual battle consists of 9 rounds. One song from each band will be played against eachother in each round.
• The songs are chosen by me and put together based on tempo, popularity or sometimes at random. Dealer's choice. But I do alternate which band goes first for each round.
• During the second song of each round, a poll will appear at the top of the Twitch chat window for 2 minutes.
• You vote in the poll for your favorite song of the round. Your votes decide the winner of each round, and the winner will be awarded one point for that round. VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!
• After 9 rounds, the band with the most points WINS and advances on to the next level of the bracket.
• If a round ties, each band will get one point.
• In the unlikely event that a battle ties, there will be one "winner take all" poll to decide who wins.

AND REMEMBER...

This is all just for FUN. It's not scientific or conclusive. It's purely subjective, and just another way to enjoy some music from some terrific bands - adding a little competiveness to the spice things up.

Please, no angry attacks on fellow viewers for their band preferences, and no angry complaining about anything being "rigged" or "fake." I have no interest or personal gain from rigging anything. Also, please refrain from complaining about the song choices or order. And if you don't like a particular band, please don't hate on them in the chat. Good vibes only!

All song choices are subjective and not conisdered perfect or "the only way." Just have fun with it.

I've tried to make it as fair and easy as possible. Every viewer has an equal opportunity to vote. Every band has their equal shot at winning.

Want to see the final 80s New Wave Bracket 2024?