Hey folks!

Today’s Best Album of 2001 match is:

#11 Missy Elliott, MISS E... SO ADDICTIVE

Listen on Spotify or YouTube

vs.

#118 Ruby, SHORT-STAFFED AT THE GENE POOL

Listen on Bandcamp 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 for SHORT-STAFFED AT THE GENE POOL and it’s from @lanna.bsky.social! Take it away, Alana!

Being on the spot to choose an album for the tournament when the guy who runs it picked your first choice is TOUGH, especially in a year like 2001, where a lot of bands put out their arguably worst albums, and a lot of “important” bands skipped the year to put out albums in 2000 and 2002.

You might wonder, how did I choose Ruby’s Short-Staffed at the Gene Pool? Well, here’s how it happened:

I looked through my nominations first. I thought about choosing Heather Nova’s South, but knew its sunny singer-songwriter pop would never make a dent. I thought about adding Curve to the mix, but which one? With two out that year, and me feeling pressured to make a decision, I didn’t have the time or energy to remember which was which, and moved on. I dismissed Majandra because it’s an EP and honestly, it’s got that “self-destruction, mental illness, or both?” thing that I knew wouldn’t land. P!nk was a close one, because it’s solid and it almost made it in, but it wasn’t dear to my heart. Captain Jack’s too silly for this crowd, and my most-listened-to discovery, Uneasy Listening Vol. 1, didn’t feel like it should be in a top 127, although it is top 50 in my heart. (If you wonder what my life is like, it’s a lot of sitting around in front of a laptop for work, and then Uneasy Listening Vol. 1 playing as I clean the house every Sunday afternoon.)

At this point, I had full-on decision paralysis. Everything flattened to be as valid as everything else.

I turned to my trusty 2008 laptop–well, “trusty” in that it still turns on, even if the USB ports no longer work and the charging cord can never move or the laptop will immediately run out of power and shut down. I opened up Ye Olde iTunes, and there it was: Ruby’s Short-Staffed at the Gene Pool. I checked the Master-ish List and it wasn’t there. I’d completely missed it.

So, yes, after major decision paralysis I chose an album that got overlooked. It was overlooked at the time, too; it’s much less of a cohesive work as their previous album, their debut Salt Peter, and it didn’t make it to all the soundtracks like Salt Peter did, but it’s got a lot going for it: a looser sound with more jazzy elements, and singer Lesley Rankine bringing it all together. “Lilypad” was at the time and continues to be a favorite of mine, but for a long time, I only had mp3s of the first three tracks somewhere because I couldn’t find the album for years. By the time I finally found a CD at a store, I had moved on to the next shiny thing, and never gave it the chance it deserved.

It’s up against Missy Elliott. I expect a Pac-Man. But I didn’t choose Ruby because I thought it had a shot; I chose Ruby because it never had a shot to begin with. Now it’ll get a few extra listens, and maybe some people will enjoy it as much as I did. Because while I, too, overlooked this album in 2001, 2026 me is a big fan.

Thank you, Alana!

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

Thanks,

Kent