Over at www.esquire.com they have a neat little competition going on to determine 'The Best Song of the 21st Century". Looking like one-half of the NCAA brackets (which, by the way, start tonight - and, no, I do not count that game between the 64th and 65th teams in as part of the tournament), 32 songs from 2000 on are paired up in 16 groups. You pick your favourite of each pair, submit your choices, then the winners are matched up and you vote again, repeating the process until you pick the best song of the last six and a quarter years. Simple, huh?

Round 1 went fairly smooth, with the only real brainwork going into my selection of "Feel Good Inc." by Gorillaz over The Killers' "Somebody Told Me". Other good tracks knocked out this round included the Dixie Chicks' "Landslide" and Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman", although neither had a chance against Kanye and Green Day. On some of these pairs, I had to pick songs I really didn't much care for, either because I wasn't familiar with the opponent or disliked the chosen song less than the other. Round 2 was similarly easy, with all the pretenders knocked out. The one truly great tune that didn't make the cut was "Jesus Walks", but as time would prove Kanye's competition, Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out", had considerable staying power for this listener.

In Round 3, there were three easy wins: "Take Me Out", Coldplay's "Clocks" and "Feel Good Inc." (which, while a good tune, would have been a first-round loser if paired with different competition - a factor to remember when looking at the NCAA brackets also). The fourth pitted my favorite song of a few years back, 'Hey Ya!" by Outkast, against Green Day's "American Idiot". But in the end, this was just as easy, because even today I still search for "Hey Ya!" on my Dell, but the Green Day track only gets played if I play the whole album. Plus, for my money, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" is a much better song. Outkast moves on.

In Round 4, Outkast crushed Gorillaz without any hesitation. But now I had "Take Me Out" up against "Clocks". Until "Hey Ya!" was released, "Clocks" was my favorite tune of that year, and I fully believed in its Grammy win over the Outkast track. I still consider it an incredibly haunting and beautiful song, very evocative and richly cinematic in its suggestion of great and exciting events. But a week doesn't pass by when I don't listen to "Take Me Out" once or twice, and while "Clocks" is mostly background noise to me now, when Franz F. rips from my stereo, the girls and I are on the floor. It's still exciting to hear it, almost two years and depressing ubiquity later. In the end, an easy win.

Which put it up against Outkast in the finals. While Outkast would have beaten Coldplay, they are no match for Franz Ferdinand. No other recent tune hits me in the gut quite like "Take Me Out", and I feel a rush of energy when it plays. While "Hey Ya!" remains great, it's also starting to feel a little campy, while that will never be the fate of "Take Me Out", my champion.

However, I am rather alone in this opinion. While "Hey Ya!" presently sits in fifth with 6% of the vote, "Take Me Out" doesn't even register. The most popular choice? "Feel Good Inc.", with 21%, proving that most people, or at least esquire.com voters, have short memories. While a good tune, an honest appraisal of how songs made you feel when you first heard them and how long they stuck with you would lead you away from the current flavour-of-the-month. On the other hand, this could be temporary, as the current print issue of Esquire shows that as of January 30, 2006, the leader, with 14%, was Johnny Cash's "Hurt", followed by U2's "Beautiful Day" at 11% and "Hey Ya!" at 10%. So much can still change.

Now, go vote!