Here we are friends. The final "week" of the third round. Kind of the easiest? But not for me, as there are two songs I can give a four too. Let's start!

The Cranberries, performing ODe to My Family

Kylie Minogue, performing Breathe

The Smashing Pumpkins, performing Disarm

Bjork, performing Hyperballad

Stick or twist - the choice is yours. Onto the finale!

Wait, there's another one? And here I was thinking we'd finally made it to the finale...

Me too.

Kylie
Smashing Pumpkins
Bjork
The cranberries

In that order.

I keep forgetting to do this ****. I've been so busy.

Thanks for bumping this up guys! I'll do this tomorrow.

We'll be in the final round by Thanksgiving!!

Kylie
Bjork
The Cranberries
Smashing Pumpkins

This round was a really satisfying cathartic experience for me. It may have been the emotional state I was in this week, but I found all the songs to be pretty powerful, yet oddly pleasant—or vice versa, in the case of The Cranberries—in their own ways. I hate that I have to rank any of them as a 1.

The Cranberries, performing Ode to My Family: 1
Simply exquisite. It makes no pretensions to be anything other than musical comfort food; those strings and those harmonies wrap you up in their loveliness. This is the kind of song you want to come home to at the end of a long, crappy day.

Kylie Minogue, performing Breathe: 4
In terms of emotional impact, it's sort of like an electronicafied version of "Ode to My Family." Despite the self-doubt and searching expressed in the lyrics, there is something immensely comforting and quietly empowering about the progressive structure of the synths and Kylie's warm, airy vocals. The chorus is a moment of beautiful release.

The Smashing Pumpkins, performing Disarm: 2
Honestly, all these Smashing Pumpkins songs are starting to run together in my mind, but they do the baroque rock thing so well that each one is a uniquely fulfilling listening experience. This one goes to some deep, dark places in a rather short amount of time, but the band sells it with intense gravitas. (That orchestra!) It's like the abridged version of an emo autobiography, as told by Billy Corgan.

Bjork, performing Hyperballad: 3
In contrast to "Disarm," "Hyperballad" takes a single emotional note and draws it out to the entire length of a song, exploring every facet of what it means to feel and express that sentiment. Yet Björk can make a minute pass in an instant; her entrancing voice and hypnotic post-industrial production are like the best fever dream you've never had. She's really the Dalí of modern pop music: if you buy into what she's doing, then she just might blow your mind with the places that she takes the art form.

The Cranberries, performing Ode to My Family 4
The best of the week without any doubt.

The Smashing Pumpkins, performing Disarm 3

Kylie Minogue, performing Breathe 2

Bjork, performing Hyperballad 1

This is already the most interesting week, vote wise, of the entire round. Let me get my two cents in!!

Breathe - It might shock one to know that the lyrical conceit is based in mundanity (Kylie wrote the words being trapped in Japan, away from her boyfriend at the time.) She gets at something here, though, that is so universal it boggles the mind that this wasn't successful. What really works is how she sits in the synths, in the drumbeats, how she makes herself one with the world she's in. Maybe one of her best vocals, in terms of impact; it's a word by word depiction of being caught in something you can't break out of. 3

Disarm - Worked so well in the 90s, but fifteen years removed, the loudest emotion to take away is irritation at Corgan's adenoidal whine. 2

Hyperballad - A very similar lyric to Breathe, in a way - but this is ultimately more frightening. It's one thing to not know what to do what yourself, but quite another in deciding how you'll give up control of your heart to anyone else. Does one even get to decide? Bjork takes matters into her own hands, painting pictures that only she can. Just heartbreaking. 4

Ode to My Family - It just can't compare to the rest, can it? 1

Deciding between Breathe and Hyperballad is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my internet life.

Absolutely! There's a universality to the weakness and humility of the verses that draws in the listener, but at the same time, there's a sense of hope in the chorus that is very uplifting. I also have to give credit to the producers for infusing the techno orchestration with such a sense of human warmth, but Kylie is hugely appealing here and completely wraps you up in her voice.