Bracketology: Donna Summer Singles, Quarterfinals

Let's see how the first round match-ups panned out (for me, at least):

• 1 vs 16: No upset here. I can't hear "The Woman in Me" in my head just from reading the title, so there ya go.
• 8 vs 9: I never much cared for "She Works Hard for the Money" back in the '80s and I like it only slightly better these days, so I'm going with "The Wanderer."
• 5 vs 12: "I Feel Love" is a groundbreaking song. With none of the typical disco strings and high-hat cymbal, the backing tracks are all electronic. Pretty gutsy for 1977, but the song paved the way for techno dance music in the '80s and beyond. People may argue that Kraftwerk was the real pioneer in electronic music and there's certainly some truth to that, but Kraftwerk didn't get nearly the same amount of radio airplay as "I Feel Love."
• 4 vs 13:  This match is pretty much a "pick 'em" and I'm having trouble choosing. Okay, okay...I'm saying enough is enough and calling "No More Tears" the winner simply because I liked that one more than the other at the time of their respective releases.
• 2 x 15: Believe it or not, I didn't purposely seed this Hot vs Cold match-up, that happened randomly because of the chart positions, but I dig the coincidence. To be honest, I'm not sure I'm smart enough to have put those two together anyway. But enough of that. The winner? Hot Stuff in a landslide.
• 7 x 10: Tough to pick. While I'll acknowledge Heaven Knows is catchy as all get out, I'm going with the song that won the Academy and Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song as well as the Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.
• 6 x 11: These two songs are very similar in structure and I'd guess they were written by the same person and I'd be half-right (Summer gets writing credit for both, but shares credit with Giorgio Moroder for "On The Radio"). Both take advantage of the popular slow-fast arrangement, but I'm giving the edge to "Dim All the Lights" because I dig the half-time intro.
• 3 x 14: In this match-up of cover tunes, I'm opting for the epic "MacArthur Park" and the old men playing Chinese checkers by the trees.

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