​As March comes to a close, so does our month-ish-long battle royale between 64 New York musicians, all of whom were put in the mix to decide which one best embodied the spirit of the city. Each of the divisions—Uptown, Queens, Downtown, and Brooklyn—has now crowned a winner, and for our first semifinal matchup, we pit the saxophonist and composer (and No. 1 Uptown seed) against the scrappy New Wavers Blondie (who rose to Queens' summit all the way from the No. 12 seed). The ballot is below, as is a look at how both musicians arrived at this exalted point. Vote now; the polls close at midnight tonight!

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​After three weeks of feverish clicking and arguing, the final eight contenders in our search for the quintessential New York musician have been finalized—you can peruse the bracket here—and it's time for you to vote. Representing the Uptown division are No. 1 seed John Coltrane and No. 14 seed Alicia Keys; No. 12 seed Blondie will have it out with No. 3 seed Neil Diamond in Queens; No. 5 seed Sonic Youth will match Downtown bona fides with Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground (No. 3); and No. 6 seed Rakim will take on No. 4 seed Wu-Tang Clan in Brooklyn.

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​After three weeks of feverish clicking and arguing, the final eight contenders in our search for the quintessential New York musician have been finalized. Representing the Uptown division are No. 1 seed John Coltrane and No. 14 seed Alicia Keys; No. 12 seed Blondie will have it out with No. 3 seed Neil Diamond in Queens; No. 5 seed Sonic Youth will match Downtown bona fides with Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground (No. 3); and No. 6 seed Rakim will take on No. 4 seed Wu-Tang Clan in Brooklyn. The polls will roll out at noon and close at midnight.

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Will the Beastie Boys prove to be triumphant?

​​This week, our search for New York's quintessential post-1955 musician is about to get hectic, with the winner crowned as the calendar flips to April on Saturday night. (A rundown of all the matches so far is here.) So for the Round of 16 matchups--four of which kicked off yesterday, four of which begin right now--we're going to dispense with the punditry and get to the voting. The combatants, which hail from the Downtown and Queens quadrants: the still-kicking No. 16 seed Sick of it All and Sonic Youth; the Velvet Underground and the Beastie Boys; Carole King and Blondie; and Neil Diamond and Miles Davis. Ballot below. Please note that you have to vote in all four races in order for your vote to count.

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​Last round, Blondie safely navigated past Hollis, Queens icons Run-DMC and the trio's aggressive, raw rap sound. This time, the Debbie Harry-fronted new wave ensemble faces off against Nas, hip-hop's one-time prodigal son turned full-time Bill O'Reilly antagonizer. Will the quasi-rap stylings of Blondie's "Rapture" prove to be the key weapon in the group's arsenal against Nas's single-genre steez?

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​​The Round of 64 for Sound of the City's own version of March Madness—in which you, the Sound of the City voting public, help determine the quintessential New York musician—finishes up this week, with the Round of 32 scheduled to kick off Monday. (The schedule and results so far are here; the full, updated bracket is here.) Taking a cue from our neighbors at the Curbed Network, we're going to have a power hour—new polls every 15 minutes until 4 p.m., at which point we'll reveal more results. This time out, we're pitting Blondie against Run-DMC—check out the arguments in favor of each below, and vote at Facebook for your favorite.

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Blondie plays the Nokia Theatre in Times Square on Sunday, June 22. Tickets still available here.

"I was waiting for Debbie to come home, and across the street is a bunch of the neighborhood guys kicking this shit out of this black guy, right, for whatever reason. You know, just for the hell of it. Because he was in the neighborhood probably. And I'm just observing this and I hear a voice going, 'No, no. Stop. Call the police.' And it's fucking Debbie who has just arrived on the scene from visiting her parents, and after that we were like ostracized."

Brooklyn-born Chris Stein moved to Manhattan shortly before his 20th birthday. By the age of 30 he was a founding member of Blondie, the most commercially successful act to spring from the city's CBGB's heyday.

This year the band's best-selling album, the multi-platinum Parallel Lines, turns 30. And to celebrate--kind of--a retrospective disc will be issued later this month and all summer long the band will perform the record, start to finish, on dates that stretch from New Jersey to St. Petersburg (Russia).

We talked to Stein about the fiction of Cormac McCarthy, the writing of "Heart of Glass," New York City real estate and why Parallel Lines isn't even his favorite Blondie album.

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