One Last Reminder: Lottery Starts Tomorrow
Get your name in the lottery if you want to write for March Sadness 90s
March Xnessers, here one last reminder to get your name in the lottery for the March Sadness 90s 2026 tournament.
We will start pulling numbers tomorrow (Sunday, 7/20).
Here’s how it works: we have 275 entries in the lottery as of this writing. Doubtless, some of those are double or triple entries by some of you! We’ll strip those out. Then we draw numbers.
There are 64 slots for the tournament. Writers whose numbers are selected may choose a song off the longlist or pitch us another song. As long as it’s eligible (commercially released in the 90s, not by a previous Xness winner, song hasn’t appeared in a previous Xness: sorry [Nothing Compares 2 U]), you can choose whatever.
The longlist isn’t definitive, obviously: it’s just a set of songs we think are the best starting point, at least that we could think of as we researched for the tournament. So don’t fret if the REM song on there isn’t the one you think is the saddest or best. We are right, but don’t let that stop you!
We’re also still working through the longlist and all the suggestions you gave us. Thanks for that! It’s a lot of work.
Once a band or musician has had a song selected, no one else can select a song by them for this year. So when someone selects a Sade song, we cross Sade off the list.
If your name comes up we’ll send you a note to ask you to pick your song. We ask that you give us three ranked options to make the process faster.
We have a couple people who deferred from March Danceness 00s who have automatic berths. We will randomly assign them in the selection order. And we reserve 16 spots for folks who have not written for March Xness before, so as to make sure we get new folks coming in.
Otherwise, it’s just a lottery: chance rules.
If you’re not picked, you’re in the majority! But don’t give up hope! We keep a list of folks who want to be alternates in the case where someone gives up their spot between now and January 31, when the essays are due to us, because they can’t write for the tournament. And, as you know if you follow us, we welcome extracurriculars on songs that aren’t in the tournament. So pitch us! We will start running those in the fall through tourney time. We love to whet your appetite with songs about sad stuff or essays about sad songs or the 90s or sadness more generally.
We’ll be posting the lottery pulls on Bluesky, and we’ll send a note out to the substack once we have those in.
Yes, writers can change their minds about their sad songs later, up until October or so where we start assembling the bracket.
Yes, this is going to be great.
Ander & Megan