Hey folks!

Welcome to a special edition of the newsletter! Did you know you could publish guest editorials here? I didn’t, and it’s my newsletter. But it’s true! Today, we have one from Jeremy, who you perhaps know from Bluesky as @megabrow12.bsky.social a.k.a. Shamp. On Friday, I published, here and on Bluesky, the opposite of a Designated Cheerleader (a Designated Jeerleader, if you will) for the album THE INVISIBLE BAND by Travis. (You can find that here.) Judging from the reactions, it was a little controversial, with people both pro and con on the concept of a “jeerleader.” Jeremy had some thoughts on it that were a bit too in-depth to broken up into posts on Bluesky, so he asked that they be published here in complete form. It’s good, it’s heartfelt, and I think you should read it.

Jeremy, the floor is yours:

This might be a cheerleader piece for cheerleading. Or maybe it’s a jeerleader piece against jeerleading. You decide.

I chose to write this in direct response to the first (that I recall) piece of writing from someone on this here bestalbums account specifically against one of the albums up for voting. The album in question was seeded at 117 and was up against the 10 seed. The jeerleader was encouraging people not to vote for an album which was always destined to lose (insert Simpsons he’s already dead meme here).

Obviously, obviously I am not here to police your social media. Many accounts on bluesky and elsewhere do very well with negativity, with sneering at what they believe to be inferior – that’s all fine and dandy. I can choose to follow or not – I can’t imagine someone who’s favourite album is Parachutes deciding to hit follow on ColdplayRShit.bsky.social – we all have free will here. However, the best album account is a little different. Reasons follow!

1 – The music that we are voting on is selected by the people who follow the account. All of the 128 albums in any tournament have ended up there because some people could be arsed enough to fill in a google form indicating that this is an album that they like so much it’s one of the best of that given year.

2 – Kent re-posts everything. If you are replying to, or quote-posting a match then Kent is going to re-post it. Therefore, if you decide to say something negative about the thing, you are definitely saying it directly to people who love the thing. It is fundamentally different posting “I think everyone who likes Blur should die in a fire” on your own account as it is posting it in relation to a match on bestalbum involving Blur. Again, it’s fine (obviously OBVIOUSLY) not to like stuff, but how you decide to express that can make the difference between someone’s day being slightly worse, or not. Is your negative opinion so important to express that it’s worth making someone else’s day worse for?

Aside from the specifics though, I’ve increasingly come to the conclusion that I’m just not interested in negativity. Especially punching down. Everyone who makes and releases an album created something. They spent time and emotional energy (and often now their own money) to create a thing and put it out in the world in the hope that some people might like it. That’s a brilliant thing to do! Even my least favourite album of the..what… 500+ I’ve listened to in these tournaments, even that has merit. It was someone’s dream realised. I love the DCs because people are celebrating that creative effort which someone made and it connected with them – what a splendid thing.

Being negative is easy. It’s infinitely easier to explain why you don’t like a thing (celery is a bitter stringy cunt (a bit like me)) than why you do (pizza…it has cheese on it but why do I like cheese..is it the fat and salt..but other things have fat and salt and I don’t like them etc). It’s also just lazy and boring – oh you don’t like, say, Grandaddy? Amazing you edgelord. You know who else doesn’t like Grandaddy? Fucking everyone mate. Less than 0.01% of the population like Grandaddy – they sold a handful of records and a few critics liked them, so well done! You don’t like a thing nearly everyone doesn’t like – thrilling stuff. Tell me what you do like – I guarantee it’ll be more interesting.

I guarantee the people that half-read this will respond with ‘criticism is fair and good’ and ‘people are too thin skinned, if you don’t want to see negative opinions don’t follow this account’. Here’s the thing: I don’t take the matches too seriously – it’s a pop poll on a small outcrop of the internet – I am not offended, I am just bored by negativity (but also, see above – you’re talking directly to people who love the album you’re trashing). But here’s the other thing – take a look around you – the world is, and has been for a while, relentlessly negative. It’s fucked lads, and we’re bobbling along trying to keep our heads above water whilst the negativity tries to drown us. Do we really to make this little outcrop of the internet as shit as everything else? I vote no.

This ended up being more ranty than I intended, so I’ll end with these two thoughts.

1 - If you are going to be negative, at least try and make it interesting.

2 - I like 95% of the bestalbum people – it’s mostly been a great place to hang out for quite a few years – but if this is the direction of travel, it’ll be time for me to find a different place. And that’s okay – we’re all having to do that all the time these days – no drama. But it’ll be a shame.

Peace & Love,
Jeremy

Thank you, Jeremy.

A new match tomorrow. See you then!

Kent