Hey everyone and welcome back to the second matchup for Round #2 of The Finest Flock! The Finest Flock (TFF) is a bracket-style tournament that myself and u/qunix, as mods of the sub, have developed in hopes that it may inspire newfound engagement, discussion, and active listening within the Counting Crows fanbase. Also of note, while this is the bracket’s 2nd Round, certain tracks are only just now debuting as apart of this tournament. However, with that being said, this is not the case with either of today’s competing songs, those being Walkaways (RTS) and Amy Hit The Atmosphere (TDL) respectively, as both were featured in Round #1.

All in all, this is simply due to the fact that challonge as a polling website has limits as to how many matches any single bracket can have within its “first round”, leaving many songs included in this event to take advanced placement for reasons beyond our control. So with all of the songs from August and Everything After that were immediately sent into the second round by chance, it’s easy to see that this website is but a casual crows fan, and thus, hasn’t listened past Mr. Jones seemingly enough. Anyways, the order of these songs as they appear within the bracket is randomly generated, so there is no outstanding reason as to why certain songs have taken longer than others to be featured at all.

—Over the course of this event, our intention is to continue staggering each matchup over what will likely be each day of the next few weeks-/months or so. In this way, the bracket will last just under a year in terms of overall length whilst acting as a comprehensive look into each of the band’s officially-released songs and the quality therein at every step of the way, that being, as our community progresses through each of the bracket’s 5 seating rounds, semifinals, and at last, finals matchup. All in all, this makes for seven total rounds of what are some of the greatest songs ever written.

—In total, we’ve included 104 unique Counting Crows songs as a part of this event and arranged them amongst each other through challonge.com and it’s randomization functionality. Hopefully these songs -in their arbitrary selection- will give all of those who are willing to express their idea of what constitutes a great song, and more significantly, an even greater counting crows song the chance to do so in a way that involves all views on all things good music. And for those who are simply here for the hits, may the odds be ever in your favor (cause they probably will be).

—Feel free to contact me or u/qunix for any further details concerning this bracket that you may currently have. Pursue conversation with one another, talk about the results of each round to your hearts content, and make this shit real fun. I’ll also be voting on this poll, however, as to avoid any effect of my biases on others’ instinctive choices, I won’t try and skew the results of this event in any way, shape, or form; I’ll be suspending my personal judgement on CC music -for the time being- on all related polls. However, at times, either myself or u/quinx may pitch in with either our own thoughts on the matchups at hand/the songs that they match up, or with any personal experiences that we can relate to these same tracks and the albums from which they originate, etc. Feel free to do the same.

—Also it goes without saying that this event is entirely impartial to big-hitter-tracks such as Mr. Jones, A Long December, or Mrs. Potters Lullaby and, as such, it will be only myself, u/qunix, and the voice of this community at large that shall determine the answer to a question which I’m sure we’ve all been dying to know…

…that being: why the fuck does Adam say, ”And man its a really good place to find yourself a taco.” at the end of “Los Angeles”?

…or, ”What’s the best Counting Crows song ever?” (if you want to be really lame).

—This community is fucking awesome so I already know that, together, we’ll make this a more than memorable experience within the CC sub’s history, and one that I am certain we can all thoroughly enjoy.

—Here’s the link to the actual polling website we have used to organize the rankings/matchups deriving from this bracket:

—The Finest Flock’s Challonge Bracket

—And just to be clear, the polling for this individual matchup will close sometime tomorrow just as/before the next bout of this bracket comes out; this applies to every TFF post. Thus, in the event that a matchup is allotted more than 1 day’s worth of polling time by our mistake, any votes casted outside of the match’s initial 24hr release period —or until the next post under this event is created— will not be of influence to its final result(s).

—TODAY’S TFF MATCHUP:—

•Walkaways (RTS)

•Amy Hit The Atmosphere (TDL)

—MATCHUP BREAKDOWN:—

•I’m sure a lot of people have a lot of mixed thoughts about both of these songs, so on that note, I hope this matchup is just as unpredictable and of parity as I imagine it may be. Because in the end, that’s really what keeps this tournament interesting for all sides of the community.

•Aside from that, once again, I genuinely want to thank each and every one of you who have consistently participated in this event thus far, as well as this amazing community at large, for supporting TFF at every step of the way. I know it’s been a long (and rather variable) journey to get to this point in the tournament, but I promise that, no matter how inconsistent the posting-timeline here has or hasn’t been on occasion, I am certain that TFF will come to its natural conclusion soon enough (so no, this project hasn’t or ever will be given up on until it is definitively completed). In fact, we’re well past “most of the way there” already, and for that I am appreciative of you all. And even though it’s probably obvious, the Third Round should be even more exciting than these last two combined.

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