Hey folks!

Today’s Best Album of 2001 match is:

#24 The Coup, PARTY MUSIC

Listen on Spotify or YouTube

vs.

#41 Sparklehorse, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

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 for PARTY MUSIC, and it’s from @renamj.bsky.social. Take it away, Rena!

2001 was the year that I started getting deeper into music. Sure, I had always liked music and grew up watching music videos. But now I was reading reviews on AllMusic and posting on message boards (I was 17 and something of a late bloomer in this regard). I remember when year-end "Best of" lists were released for the greatest albums of 2001 according to critics, featuring acclaimed albums like The Strokes' Is This It, Bob Dylan's "Love and Theft," The White Stripes' White Blood Cells, etc. But there was one list I recall, maybe a record store newsletter, that had The Coup's Party Music. At that time, I had never heard of the leftist hip-hop group from Oakland. The original cover from June 2001 depicted Boots Riley and Pam the Funkstress blowing up the World Trade Center(!!!). After 9/11, the band created a second cover for the album with a flaming martini glass. Boots Riley on the original album cover after September 11:

"There's been a whitewash in the media over the past couple days over what the U.S.'s role in the world is, and the fact that they kill hundreds of thousands of people per year to protect profit. Now how can I get to the point where I could be saying that on the world stage, and interrupt the lies that CBS, CNN, NBC, and everyone is saying? In my view, that [would be] by keeping the cover. Not because I think by looking at the cover you get all of this message that I'm telling you, but as a way to have a platform to interrupt the stream of lies that are being told right now."

I didn't actually hear Party Music, my first Coup album, until years later but I instantly became a fan. It features some of their very best songs - "Everythang," "Wear Clean Draws," "Ride the Fence," "Heven Tonite." It is fiercely political and makes for an ideal soundtrack while living in the hellscape that is America in 2026, with lyrics addressing late capitalism, social justice, and racism. Worth a listen even if the music itself (West Coast funk/hip-hop/R&B) isn't exactly in your wheelhouse. Donald Trump is even mentioned by name! There is a track titled "5 Million Ways to Kill a C.E.O.," long before Luigi Mangione and the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. But my favorite lyrics are from "Heven Tonite":

"Let's make health care centers on every block
Let's give everybody homes and a garden plot
Let's give all the schools books
Ten kids a class
And give 'em truth for their pencils and pads
Retail clerk - 'love ballads' where you place this song
Let's make heaven right here
Just in case they wrong"

Look, I know everything is so terrible right now. It's impossible to read the news without falling into despair. But I sincerely hope like-minded people can work on building a better world.

Pam the Funkstress sadly passed away in 2017, and Boots Riley is now a director who made the arthouse black comedy Sorry to Bother You and the upcoming I Love Boosters featuring Demi Moore. I'm glad I got to see The Coup over a decade ago at Brooklyn Bowl - they put on a great live show! And we'll always have Party Music.

Thank you, Rena!

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, #9 Spoon, GIRLS CAN TELL defeated #56 Spiritualized, LET IT COME DOWN, 125-72.

Thanks,

Kent