Who Ruled the ’70s and ’80s?

Picking the greatest women in music from the 1970s and 1980s sounds easy until you actually start naming names.

That was our mistake.

On What’s In Your Earbuds?, Jason Bahamundi and Santino Williams started with a simple question: Who were the queens of these two decades?

Then the audience got involved.

The ’70s Were Absolutely Loaded

Donna Summer. Diana Ross. Cher. Stevie Nicks. Janis Joplin. Carly Simon. Gloria Gaynor. Olivia Newton-John.

And that’s before everybody listening starts yelling the names we forgot.

The problem isn’t finding women deserving of the crown. It’s figuring out how to compare artists whose music, influence and careers were completely different.

Donna Summer gave us “Bad Girls” and “Hot Stuff” in 1979. Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks brought “Rhiannon.” Diana Ross, Heart, Blondie and Gladys Knight all entered the conversation.

Suddenly, picking one queen didn’t seem remotely possible.

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Then We Reached the ’80s

Whitney Houston and Madonna immediately rose to the top of our conversation. Santino’s challenge was simple: If those are the top two, who exactly are you removing?

Fair question.

But the audience wasn’t going quietly.

Cyndi Lauper kept getting votes. Pat Benatar entered the discussion. So did Tina Turner, Annie Lennox, Joan Jett and Anita Baker.

Every answer created another argument—which is exactly what makes talking about music fun.

Fine. We’re Making a Tournament.

Eventually we realized there might be only one reasonable solution: stop pretending we’re going to agree.

We’re building a tournament.

The idea that emerged during the show was to let artists represent their eras, advance through rounds and eventually determine who deserves the crown.

Will Whitney beat Madonna? Does Stevie Nicks survive the ’70s? Does somebody we’re overlooking blow up the entire bracket?

That’s where you come in.

Drop your queen from the 1970s and your queen from the 1980s. We’re collecting nominations, and based on what happened during this episode, we’re probably going to regret giving everybody a vote.

But that’s also the entire point of What’s In Your Earbuds?

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