Hey folks!

We now know the Best Album of 1989. It’s:

Pixies, DOOLITTLE

DOOLITTLE defeated De La Soul’s 3 FEET HIGH AND RISING, 204-183. 3 FEET trailed by 20-30 votes for nearly the entire duration of the match, always keeping up, but forever out of reach. DOOLITTLE handily defeated 3 FEET and DISINTEGRATION, and I feel confident it would’ve done the same with PAUL’S BOUTIQUE. DOOLITTLE: without a doubt, the best album of 1989. [cue boos.]

I was asked to give a rundown the complete 128 albums in order, based on the match results, and I usually don’t do that, since, effectively, the first 64 are all tied, then the next 32, and so on. But they also suggested using the vote totals as a way of breaking ties, and that’s really intriguing. Also a bit of work. I’m not promising anything, but I’ll see what I can put together before the year is out. Also, I plan to have a shareable spreadsheet that has all the vote totals and whatnot for each match. That I hope to have ready by next weekend.

THE BEST ALBUM OF 1989 PREDICTION BRACKET TOP 20

This is the last Prediction Bracket Top 20 chart of the tournament, so everything you see below may as well be etched in stone. Before we get to the winners, let’s go through it as if it was just another week in the Top 20.

Congrats to B-Sky Bouillabaisse, number one for a second week! Numbers two and three, No Movement In a Bad Bracket and Deep Dark Truthful Bracket, also remain the same from last week. Big moves from EDWARD JONES'S RHYTHM ESTIMATION 1989 (up 8 to #4), Andy Karison and his Large Bracket (up 10 to #5) and PRETTY much HATE tin MACHINE (up 14! to #6). Debuting this week are Despite The Times (#20), Pretty Bracket Machine (#19), Cure Your Enthusiasm (#18), Pretty Vote Machine (#12), Got Me a Bracket, I Want You to Know (#10) and Un Chien Andalusia (#9). Re-debuting are 6 Feet High and Drivin' N' Cryin’ (#11, last seen week #6) and The Bracket's Gone To Heaven (#7, last seen week #12). Glad you could make it back!

The big droppers were Prediction Blvd. from #6 to #13, and Nose Chain Nation, from #7 to #14. Falling completely off the chart we have That one Turtles sample that got De La in trouble (last week #18), DJL Actual Prediction (last week #16), Going with the Obvious (last week #14), Strange Angels (Predicting Just For Me) (last week #13), CaptFuzz Dreams of 1989 (last week #10), Partyman's Revenge (last week #9), Tin Roof, Bracket (last week #8), Lol Tolhurst is Johnny Ryall (last week #5) and Drink Milk (last week #4), which, landing at #22, is the highest bracket without DOOLITTLE as the final winner.

My bracket, ice cream slipping into a crack, was #9 in the first week of the chart, and never showed up again. It finished at #75.

THE PRIZE WINNERS

As you can see above, the winner of the Prediction Bracket contest was B-Sky Bouillabaisse, who is @somejerkoff.bsky.social on Bluesky, and is the Artist Formerly Known as SpimTobley, who won the Prediction Bracket last time. That’s some good predictin’, Tex. Assuming there will be slots available, @somejerkoff.bsky.social will select an eligible 2001 album of their choice to enter into the upcoming Best Album of 2001 tournament.

But that’s not all! I also run a concurrent version of the Prediction Bracket where I give points each week to the brackets based on their chart performance — #1 gets 20 points, #2 gets 19, #3 gets 18, and so on. This rewards brackets that have staying power, even if they don’t ultimately win. Often, the contest winner based on picks also wins the longevity points version, but this time that’s not true. The longevity points winner this tournament is No Movement In a Bad Bracket, who is @yourbf.bsky.social on Bluesky. No Movement In a Bad Bracket was in the Top 5, more or less, the entire tournament, and is only one of two brackets that was on the chart for all 14 weeks, the other being sctttnnnt. @yourbf.bsky.social will also select an eligible 2001 album of their choice to enter into the upcoming Best Album of 2001 tournament, slots permitting.

(If there are no slots available to award a prize, the prize is transferred to the next tournament after.)

THE BEST ALBUM OF 2001

The next tournament will be The Best Album of 2001, which, if you’ve been here for a bit, you know we’ve already made some progress in identifying albums that should be heard and considered. If you haven’t been here for a bit, or just need a reminder, please check out the newsletters HERE and HERE and HERE for some discussions about worthy 2001 albums.

So when will this tournament start? Or a better, more precise question is, When will begin the process of getting this tournament up and running? Normally, I give myself about a two week break after a tournament before revving up again. However, it’s December (more or less), and I could use this time to push some other projects forward, and do y’all really wanna do intense 2001 research for two weeks during the hustle and bustle of the holidays? (Some of you will answer “yes.” Please sit down.) At the same time, some indication of a timeline would be tremendously helpful for everyone, I suspect. So here’s what we’re gonna do:

Nominations for the Best Album of 2001 tournament will open on January 17th, 2026 and run through January 31st. That’s seven weeks to listen to as many 2001 releases as you possibly can. If you need help getting started, click here to find a crowdsourced document of 2001 releases. This list is continually being expanded, so keep an eye on it. (Feel free to request editing privileges, but know that the email request will likely get buried under the 50 newsletters I don’t read, so it may take a bit for me to see it.)

And my plan is to keep posting newsletters every weekend, keeping everyone apprised of 2001 records that I think are worth a listen. (God, I’m so behind on listening to 2001 records.)

Okay, this newsletter is long enough. In case you missed it elsewhere, a huge thank you to everyone who nominated albums, voted for the seeds, voted in the matches, wrote Designated Cheerleaders, set up websites(!), wrote blog posts about the matches(!!), and kept the discussion going on Bluesky. This thing doesn’t exist and doesn’t work without you. Give yourselves a hand!

Love,

Kent