#218 The Guessing Game is tomorrow! Here are the rules.
Hey folks!
I hope you’ve had a chance to peruse the first 125 albums entered into the upcoming Best Album of 1989 tournament. If not, you can find a list of them + links to hear them right here. Look at the list carefully, because four of those got the most nomination votes of any other album. And if you can correctly guess which four, and in the right order, you can enter any qualifying 1989 album into the tournament!
The Guessing Game will happen on the Best Album Bluesky account (@bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social), tomorrow (Wed April 30) at 6pm CST. To play, you’ll need to follow the rules carefully. They are:
First things first: the game doesn’t start until I post START on the Bluesky.
You only get one guess! (Unless the game goes over an hour; see below.)
You are trying to guess the Top 4 nomination getters. #1 got 98 nomination votes, #2 got 88 nomination votes, and at #3 two albums tied with 82 nomination votes. (That’s not super important; I put it here for context.) Your ballot should list the artist and/or album, from #1 to the #3 albums. Since two albums are tied at #3, you can list those in any order, but the first two need to be the #1 and #2 albums.
You can write the full album title, or just the artist, or both, or even abbreviate them, as long it’s clear what albums you’re talking about. An example of an acceptable ballot looks like the example below. Here, I’ve guessed Jodi Bongiovi, JODI BONGIOVI for #1, W.A.S.P.’s THE HEADLESS CHILDREN for #2, The Call’s LET THE DAY BEGIN and George Strait’s BEYOND THE BLUE NEON tied for #3. I am wrong, and I don’t get to guess again. (Unless the game goes over an hour; see below.)
After each guess comes into my notifications, I will retweet (repost, reskeet, whatever) it with either WRONG or CORRECT. Obviously, nearly all of them will be WRONG.
Here’s where it becomes a game: the longer you wait before guessing, the more information you have to make your own guess. At the same time, the longer you wait, someone could come along and snipe it out from under you.
This barely counts as a hint, but just in case: the four named albums are all extremely well-known and popular with music aficionados; if you’re the kind of person who participates in music-themed online tournaments, none should come as a surprise. This is true every year, but it’s a little more difficult this year because, IMO, there’s a pool of around 8-10 albums that meet this criteria. (Also, you have to guess 4 albums instead of the usual 3.)
Every year, there are people who throw out funny, obviously-wrong guesses. Nothing wrong with that, but I highly suggest giving it a real shot this time. With 4 required albums and a large pool, there’s going to be a lot of wrong answers, and I think anyone could take it. I would suggest going through the list and make a note of what you think are likely suspects and keep that nearby during the game. (Watch, someone will get it in the third guess.)
If at the end of an hour, there is no winner, the game is reset. Everyone gets a new guess. This time, after each retweeting of the guess with a WRONG, I will also offer “Mastermind”-style hints with each guess. I will provide two numbers. The first will be the number of correct albums mentioned in the post, and the second will be the number of correct albums placed in the correct position. For example, if the correct answer is #1 George Strait #2 Milli Vanilli #3 Jodi Bongiovi #3 2 Live Crew, and my guess was
Then I would retweet this with “2/0”: 2 because I got two of the artists correct (Jodi Bongiovi and George Strait) and 0 because neither of those are in the correct position.
Normally, the “Mastermind” version delivers a winner very quickly; with only a handful of incorrect guesses, the correct answer soon becomes obvious. However, with two albums tied for the third position, I suspect those Mastermind clues will be slightly less helpful this time around. Hopefully, someone will get it the first hour and all of this will be moot.
I think that’s all the rules that need to be covered. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at kentmbeeson@hey.com or contact me at @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social.
Hope to see you tomorrow at 6pm CST at @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social!
Kent