Hey folks!

It’s time! Nominations are now open for the upcoming Best Album of 2001 tournament! Go here and fill out a form.

You should read the directions provided, but here’s a quick rundown:

1. To use the form, you’ll have to sign in to Google, like with the voting. If you won’t/can’t, let me know at kentmbeeson@hey.com and like the Beatles we’ll work it out.

2. Until the nomination period ends, you can go back and edit it at any time. So feel free to load up your faves now, listen to some new stuff and then update it if you find something that really floats your boat.

3. The accepted Best Album style is the artist name, then the album IN ALL CAPS. (Ex: Firewater, PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY.) Barring that, please try to put the artist first regardless. Furthermore, try to hit return after entering each album into the form, so you have a nice text tower of album titles. (See my list below.) It makes for a nice clean list to export later. Thanks!

4. Generally, greatest hits and live albums do not qualify for the tournament, nor do albums not released in 2001. That said: JUST NOMINATE IT. NOMINATE ANYTHING. Do not concern yourself with whether it qualifies. Nominate something by Benson Boone if you want. Fact is, if it doesn’t end up making the cut on nomination votes, the qualifications don’t matter. If it does make the cut, then I’ll determine eligibility.

5. Nomination period is two weeks — January 17 2025 to 11:59PM January 31 2025. (Note that I will likely turn off the nomination switch sometime on the morning of February 1.)

After the two weeks, I’ll collate the data, and every mention of an album counts as a vote. I’ll put the albums in order from most votes to least. As there are only 128 slots available in the tournament, I go down the list, giving each album a slot, until there are no slots left. What usually happens is that, say for example, I can fill up the top 113 slots with albums that have 8 or more nomination votes, but when I extend that to 7 or more nomination votes, I suddenly have 157 albums that qualify. When that happens, and it almost inevitably does, that would mean, in this case, that I have (128-113=) 15 open slots. Open slots are filled in a number of ways, but that’ll be another newsletter.

Now. Just because the nomination period has begun, doesn’t mean you can’t keep listening to 2001 albums for stuff to nominate. Here’s a list of what I’m likely to nominate, sorted into my personal ranking system (Love, Like/Love, Like, Interesting/Like, Interesting, Lukewarm, Leave). Anything Interesting/Like or lower isn’t getting a nom from me.

If you’re looking for recommendations of a heavier bent, be sure to check out @OneTruePoster’s 2001 survey of metal, which you can find right here. A number of his recommendations went straight to my Love list, so @OneTruePoster is a name you can trust.

I think that’s it for now! I’ll keep you updated if anything changes. Meanwhile, keep listening to 2001 albums, keep updating your nomination list, and we’ll meet back in two weeks! [CLAP] Break!

Kent