The Disney Theme-Park Background Music Bracket -- Round One, Day Seven

Who's ready to go to the big golf ball?

First of all, to those who celebrate it, I wish you a happy Easter! While lots of stores close down for this Sunday, akin to Christmas Day, the bracket is not taking a break today. And neither should you! (From voting in the bracket, that is.)

Plenty of very solid pieces of background music are up for a vote today, so whether you’re celebrating with a fine Easter ham, or just gobbling down some Peeps (or, like me, avoiding Peeps like the plague), let’s get into the matches.

(1) Epcot Entrance Plaza loop vs. (16) Seasons of the Vine loop: One of the more underrated stretches of Disney California Adventure is the section between Cars Land and Paradise Park/Pixar Pier. (I like alliteration just fine, but they overdo it in part of DCA.) Here, you can find not only Pacific Wharf, which is about to go through a big overhaul to link to some intellectual property, but the Golden Vine Winery area. It’s a natural fit for a park initially themed to California, and I do like the corresponding Seasons of the Vine background loop. It’s laid-back and pleasant…

…and we all know the Epcot loop is winning, right? Here is a perfect example of a musical medley that’s both of its time (the early 1980s) and yet weirdly timeless in how it transports you to the various sections of the original iteration of the theme park. I don’t adore the old-school Epcot the way some folks do, but in this matchup, there’s no question.

Epcot Entrance Plaza

Seasons of the Vine

(8) Trader Sam’s loop vs. (9) Enchanted Tiki Room loop: Two very similar loops of background music, each themed (in a way) to Adventureland. I will give it, if only slightly, to the loop for Trader Sam’s, the Tiki bar you can find at Disneyland. (There’s a corresponding version at Walt Disney World, but this loop — one of two parts, as it happens — is specific to the Disneyland version.) But I don’t want to give the Enchanted Tiki Room queue loop short shrift, as it’s effective in mentally sending you straight to Hawaii while you enjoy a Dole whip and wait to enter the show building. Both solid options here, but I vote for Sam.

How about you?

Trader Sam’s

Enchanted Tiki Room

(4) Disneyland Hotel - Frontier Tower loop vs. (13) Pandora - The World of Avatar loop: Now, I know, I’m confusing you already. “Josh,” you are saying, “how could there be a world of Avatar at Disney’s theme parks? Why, that’s a film that has had no cultural impact at all!!!”

Ahem. Anyway. I wish dearly that I could experience the World of Avatar — one day I will, but I have not visited Walt Disney World since before that section of Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened — and hear this music for myself. For the moment, I will vote for the Frontier Tower loop, if only because I love a good Western-movie soundtrack, and that’s what you get here. Two different types of film soundtracks going head to head, and I vote for the old-fashioned option. You?

Disneyland Hotel - Frontier Tower

Pandora - The World of Avatar

(5) Tower of Terror queue loop vs. (12) Club 33 loop: Sometimes, audio effects win the day. To wit, if you listen to the Tower of Terror queue loop, you may hear the types of 30s- and 40s-era music that might be piping through the speakers in the Jungle Cruise queue loop (or something similar). But the difference is all in the echo. The echo that runs throughout the Tower of Terror loop is both creepy and fitting to its location, and far better than the stately and elegant instrumental versions of Disney classics in the Club 33 loop.

I’m sticking with Terror this time. You?

Tower of Terror queue

Club 33