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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​Sound of the City's search for the quintessential New York City musician enters Round Two this week, with battles in the Round of 32 daily. Keep up with all the action here.

In round one of Sound Of The City's March Madness, jazzmaster Miles Davis dispatched Cyndi Lauper with tonally perfect blow, and Strong Island rabblerousers Public Enemy fought the power of Mariah Carey and came out on top. Both of these icons of American music helped push their genres into artistic maturity and wildly explorative places. It is not overstatement to say these people were the rock on which the rest of their art forms were built. So have fun choosing this one.

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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 this weekend, with the Round of 32 hicking off Monday. (The schedule and results so far are here; the full, updated bracket is here.) We've already had a couple of upsets so far, and in this Queens Division matchup, No. 2 seed Miles Davis takes on No. 15 seed Cyndi Lauper. Is it time for another shocker? Check out the arguments in favor of each below, and vote at Facebook for the musician that you think should move on to the next round.

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Coltrane totally slays on this

So last week, our fearless and/or hapless panel of rock critics finally knocked one out of the park, proving a whopping 68 percent of writers can name all three members of Sleater-Kinney. Our seven-week parade of humiliation finally turned to a brief moment of joy as our nationwide panel rose up and shouted, "Yes! We actually know something (as long it was made by white people in the last 10 years)!" So as not to rest on our laurels, I figured we should bring it back to the ritual bloodbaths of shaming. So this week, we asked our panel of 15 music critics:

How many musicians can you name that played on Miles Davis's Bitches Brew?

That's right, it's jazz, you fuckers! It's the stuff that every rock critic swears he or she listens to but secretly fears you'll ask for even a modicum of elaboration. We figured we'd give our panel a leg up by picking what is probably the most important jazz record of the last 45 years (sorry, A Taste of Bublé). It's pretty much one of the most visible influences on your Flaming Lips and your Oneidas and your Mars Voltas, and probably even some jazz people, too, if we could name any. So we cobbled a consortium of 16 professional and semi-professional rock critics, all given the usual rules:

1. I will not identify you AT ALL, so it is OK to be wrong. [We will say that our esteemed panel edits magazines, websites, and alt-weeklies. They have written for pretty much every outlet you've ever heard of, from Rolling Stone to Spin to Billboard.]

2. You can't use Google.

Will our panel run the voodoo down, or will they be feeling kind of blue?

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