Hey folks!

Today’s Best Album of 2001 match is:

#52 Old 97s, SATELLITE RIDES

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vs.

#77 The Knife, THE KNIFE

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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 for SATELLITE RIDES, and it’s from Head Cheerleader @bsglaser.bsky.social! Take it away, Brian!

In the summer of 2001, a friend knew someone who knew Rhett Miller, and we ended up on the guest list for one of his solo shows at Fez, a much-missed NYC venue that was under the Time Cafe. I didn't know Miller or the band he fronted, The Old 97's, but the price point was right and I'd never seen anything less than fun in the small basement club.

When Rhett took the stage and kicked off the show, I was immediately impressed. He seemed to have it all: the look, the voice, the delivery, and the songs. One jumped out: "Question," a deceptively simple song about a marriage proposal. Two verses, a chorus, no bridge, just enough detail to create a full world in which a couple walks into a park, he pops the question, and they walk home together. That's it, but it's a complete, melodic, romantic story.

The show sent me to The Old 97's new LP, SATELLITE RIDES, and the one just before, 1999's FIGHT SONGS. The band, from Austin, TX, was three records deep into a deal with Elektra Records, which had signed them out of the Insurgent Country/No Depression/Y'allternative/Whatever scene. Both the Fez gig and the records made it pretty clear why a major had picked them up: They had a charismatic frontman with a sharp pen, a lead guitarist with a hot hand, and a snapping rhythm section that could propel the whole thing. They had solid songs that they could deliver both on record and on stage. It was a small leap to imagine them hitting big, or at least big enough.

SATELLITE RIDES, which has a baker's dozen of fun tunes given a studio polish by Wally Gagel (go ahead and check, he's all over your record collection), sounds like Wilco if they'd never turned away from their AM sound, or maybe The Replacements if they'd moved to Austin and gotten their act together.

The LP revs right up with "King of All the World," a bright, high-energy track that does what the title says. Then it rolls into "Rollerskate Skinny," ostensibly about Winona Ryder--I think every Gen X alt-rock dude had to at least try to write about her at some point; it's got lots of non-specific specifics about a boy in awe, if not love, with a girl who is "gonna wake up with a ghost instead of a guy."

Even better is "Buick City Complex," a short story about GM closing down a Michigan auto-manufacturing plant that finds the narrator ignoring the devastation and, instead, seeing if this woman who also lost her job wants to fool around. On paper, it sounds like a drag--the song is anything but.

Like any good rock album with a pop sensibility, pretty much everything here is about boys who like girls and girls who maybe like the boys liking them. "Question" is on here, along with "Designs on You," which I nervously added to the last mix-CD I ever made for a woman I was dating. "I don't want to get you all worked up/Except secretly I do/I'd be lying if I said I didn't have designs on you." Reader, we've been married for 20+ years.

Maybe the songs are too literate or maybe there are too many country-ish touches (like the bottleneck licks that give some songs an extra gear) or maybe it just wasn't the right time. The Old 97's didn't hit it big, and this was their last record for Elektra. Since then, they've bumped around from mid-size indie to mid-size indie, stayed on the road, and are still a going if not growing concern. (If they show up in your town, go see them play!)

Maybe that's for the best, in its own way. A band like this is built to last, but a pop hit or big tour can throw that out of whack. SATELLITE RIDES is one of the highlights of a broadly solid catalog, with songs and a sound that ask you a bunch of questions that you should say yes to.

Thanks again, Brian!

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, #13 Rilo Kiley, TAKE OFFS AND LANDINGS defeated #116 Blink-182, TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS AND JACKET, 187-80-2.

Thanks,

Kent