Hey folks!

Today’s Best Album of 2001 match is:

#64 Rufus Wainwright, POSES

Listen on Spotify or YouTube

vs.

#65 Kings of Convenience, QUIET IS THE NEW LOUD

Listen on Spotify or YouTube

To vote, follow this link to the Google Form. You will need a Google login to vote. If you can’t or won’t have one, let me know ASAP (either through this newsletter, my email [kentmbeeson@hey.com] or on the Best Album Brackets Bluesky account) and I’ll see what I can do.

We have one Designated Cheerleader today, it’s from @megabrow12.bsky.social, and it’s for QUIET IS THE NEW LOUD! Take it away, Jeremy:

Even though l'll never need her, even though she's only given me pain

As the world is soft around her, leaving me with nothing to distain

Okay, okay. This needs to be a quick one. The match is tomorrow, no time for faff, no time for preamble. Quick and punchy Jeremy, all muscle no fat on this here DC.

It's 2001, and for me music is in a weird place. All of the pop has been taken out of Britpop, American indie just seems even more whiney than usual, Nu Metal is still stomping it's jack boots all over the place, REM haven't given up yet. Not much fun to be had in my usual places*

So you find it elsewhere. A British Rap album here, some quirky jangle pop there. And then a couple of Norwegian dudes singing little pop songs about what it was like to be me, when I was 19.

What it was like to be me, when I was 19 was to spend approximately 99% of my time and mental energy fancying unobtainable girls. I never had a physical 'type - but I absolutely had a thing for posh girls. They seemed to be everywhere, all full of the confidence which privilege, expensive education and expensive dentistry gives a person. Chattering happily on the tube to Wimbledon oblivious to the people around them, drinking champagne in the pub, smoking extravagantly - the cigarette a prop more than a fix. Out of my league, and not of my world. But sometimes paths would cross, conversations happened (if you have thing for posh girls, spending most of your time at a tennis club is about the best/worst thing you can do) enough to keep your hooks fully tentered.

She'll talk to you with no one else around,

But only if you're able to entertain her,

The moment conversation stops she's gone

Again.

Along comes Quiet is the New Loud. I've mostly grown of that phase by 2001, but it taps into it. These 2 Scandinavian nerds called Erik (subs please check this lazy assumption) with a perfect album of gentle pop songs about how they can't get a girlfriend. It's melodic, it's beautifully written and I'd put the opening tracks up against pretty much anything in this here contest. Give it a listen - it might just be your new favourite.

Good, good, kept it lean - no wasted words here, nothing to delay getting this important missive over to Kent. Well done me.

*I will obviously discover there's loads of fun to be had through this tournament, but 2001 me doesn't know that yet. Stupid 2001 me, let's all laugh in his/my stupid face.

Thank you, Jeremy!

Click here to see the current results for the entire tournament, and click here to see the current results for the prediction bracket contest.

Yesterday, #1 Wilco, YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT defeated #128 Slipknot, IOWA, 261-99-1.

Thanks,

Kent