The Best Album of 1989
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The Best Album of 1989
@bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social
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The Best Album of 1989 is Pixies, DOOLITTLE. Coming in early 2026: The Best Album of 2001!
Bracket: https://challonge.com/bestalbumof1989
Newsletter: https://buttondown.email/kentmbeeson.
Managed by @kentmbeeson.bsky.social
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Yes, that’s the spirit!
Game show host Bambi from THE YOUNG ONES.
December 7, 2025 at 4:56 PM
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Almost there.
The Google Form to vote on whether YHF is 2001 or 2002. The album cover has been changed in the first choice to blue and black, and in the second choice to gold and white, for reasons only known to the author (presumably).
December 7, 2025 at 4:21 PM
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Detail of a Google Form poll that reads: For the purposes of Best Album of 2001 tournament eligibility, what year was Wilco's YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT released?
December 7, 2025 at 3:31 PM
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JEFF TWEEDY: 50k? That’s a lot of money
JEFF’S LAWYER: But you’d have the album
LAWYER’S SECRETARY: There’s a call on line 1 from Reprise!
JEFF: Oh shit. Maybe they’ll release it after all
JEFF’S LAWYER: Put em through
REPRISE: You can just take your fucking POS album. Money suggests it has value.
Josh Grier, Wilco's lawyer, was able to negotiate a buy-out of the band from Reprise. The band would keep the rights to the album if they paid Reprise $50,000. Before Wilco could accept the deal, Reprise called the band and changed their offer to give the band the rights to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot for free.
December 7, 2025 at 2:25 PM
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The cover of Fugazi’s album THE ARGUMENT
December 7, 2025 at 1:45 PM
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if they don’t quit, then you know
cover for mc hammer’s single “2 legit 2 quit"
December 4, 2025 at 1:43 AM
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Robert De Niro in CASINO
November 27, 2025 at 10:31 PM
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The Best Album of 1989 is

Pixies, DOOLITTLE
On a brown background is a monotone photo of a small monkey. The monkey has a halo and is surrounded by three numbers: 5,6 and 7. The picture of the monkey has a green outline of a box around it, and within that box are green lines that make a bunch of connected shapes: squares, rectangles, circles, triangles, stars, trapezoids. etc.
November 27, 2025 at 5:11 PM
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The Second Best Album of 1989 is

De La Soul, 3 FEET HIGH AND RISING
Black and white photos of three young Black men, arranged in a circle as if you are on the ground and they are looking down at you from above. The background is very bright yellow. There are hand drawn flower shapes in blue and orange arranged around them.
November 27, 2025 at 5:03 PM
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The Third Best Album of 1989 is

The Cure, DISINTEGRATION
We see the face of The Cure singer Robert Smith, with pale white skin, black hair, black eyeshadow, and red lips. (He's one of the most Gothiest men alive.) Around him are images of flowers. The photo has a sense of distortion, because I believe it's actually a projection onto a wall or another surface.
November 27, 2025 at 5:02 PM
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The Fourth Best Album of 1989 is

Beastie Boys, PAUL’S BOUTIQUE
A photograph of a street corner in New York. There is a store called Paul's Boutique on the corner, as indicated by the sign that hangs over the sidewalk to the left. Above the store is a tall brick edifice, presumably apartments. On the sidewalk are clothes hanging from awning as a display, as well as a table with all sorts of objects on it, but difficult to identify any one object. There are two additional signs on the building, just below the brick edifice: "Lee's Sportswear" and "Ben's Shoes."
November 27, 2025 at 5:02 PM
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In honor of the Mirror Universe Best Album of 1989 final, I present to you a DC for SKID ROW by @lanna.bsky.social. (Technically, it’s for Jodi Bongiovi’s self titled, which that was knocked out in Round 4 by Nitzer Ebb, BELIEF, but there’s a bit about SKID ROW at the end.) Enjoy!
Despite the many times I watched the band lip synch the song, there was going to be a second shoot. The director had a vision: Jodi would see herself in a young fan (my sister), and she would flash back to her own childhood playing music. I thought it was a cool idea, especially since I had been asked to take place. We filmed in Long Island, I think, at someone's house. It was a big house and they had a big pool, and every kid who was there to be filmed was related to someone: the director's kid, maybe, Jodi's kid, for sure. There might have been one kid who was an aspiring actor, but also probably somebody's kid. We had been asked to bring "70s clothes," as it was a flashback. I didn't know anything about the 70s except that it was dated and that's where disco came from. My mom found an old peasant blouse of hers from back then and that was my "costume." It was the best we could do. The other kids-Carissa, and Tristan (who I remember because those names were amazing, I didn't know any Carissas or Tristans in real life, just an endless stream of Mikes, Jens, and Michelles) and everyone elselooked better, and they were playing Jodi and the band. I wasn't sure what I was there to do, and I felt so much bigger than the other kids, age-wise and size-wise. Of course they'd never put a fat kid in the video, I thought as I watched them do take after take of the kids pretending to play instruments, having a good time. Finally, it was my time. I think they'd forgotten about me, so I was given something simple to do: pull a wagon with lemonade in it and hand a glass to Carissa. I guess the director thought it was nostalgic, lemonade. Afterward, we got to play in the pool for a little bit. Tristan climbed a tree and I think someone said, "Film that" " and they did. 3 And that was it. We had to wait ages for the album to release and the video to drop -okay, probably not, but it felt like it. I was both thrilled and resentful, as I'd barely got to do anything but I might still end up famous! Or, more importantly, the child of a famous person. My dad kept eyeing this old monastery-or at least that's what he said it had been -to buy as a house when he hit it big. We were camping in the Pine Barrens when the single dropped (something we only did about twice, since I hated camping). They played it first at the shore, because the band was from the shore, so we could barely get the station, but my dad told us when it was going to debut. We kept the radio on as much as we could, but the static was driving everyone nuts. Finally, it played! "Somebody to Love" by Jodi Bongiovi. This was it! This was the beginning of the big time! Afterward, my mom or aunt shut off the radio and we toasted marshmallows over a fire and my cousin scared the crap out of them by jumping out from behind the fire in the hockey mask he'd secreted into his bag. Good times. The next morning, we tried the radio while we were cleaning up the site. The song played again! We were in shock. One time when they said they would debut it was one thing, but on purpose the next day? The station must've liked it! Maybe people were requesting it! Maybe this was it! Later, we got a VHS of the video I may still have to this day, or maybe my mom does. My moment of fame is barely a moment, with only the side of my face visible. The "vision" did not work, mostly because the video was in black and white periodically, not just in the flashbacks. One day, my dad called to tell us to turn on MTV. There was Kurt Loder, talking about Jodi! We watched Remote Control. They showed the video in two different episodes! No one got the answers right. I never saw the video on MTV proper, although I hear it was pushed and they did show it (why else would it have been a question on Remote Control), but nothing took off. I spent my childhood waiting for my dad to become famous. This was maybe the end of the optimism around it. As to why I wanted to post this with Skid Row, there was a time when they were rising to fame that my dad hung out with them-as he'd hung out with many other Jersey and New York musicians before they hit their zenith. Every time he did this, I wasn't there, in part because I didn't live with him and when he was really busy, my mom was more likely to host us half-sisters than he was. But my sister could brag about meeting "Dave" and "Rachel"-I seethed that she got to be on first name basis with famous people and I didn't. I remember once we were at Six Flags (with convenient benches for my dad to nap on after a late night as it took an hour or two to get on any major ride) while we waited in line for the brand-new Scream Machine. The people in front of us were wearing fresh new Bon Jovi/Skid Row tour shirts. We know them, I thought, excited. And soon, it would be my dad's band on on the shirt of the person ahead of us in line. That never happened. But you know what? | still like both albums- Skid Row and Jodi Bongiovi. They remind me of 1989. They ARE 1989: The big ballads. The big hair. The egos, the ambition. The fame machine that they were so willing to give themselves to. My dad never got famous, not the way he wanted. But for a moment, that machine opened up to him and he threw himself in. Unfortunately, it then spit him out. But hey, Sebastian Bach was on Gilmore Girls, so uh, that happened.
November 27, 2025 at 3:42 PM
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For the final time, here’s Head Cheerleader @bsglaser.bsky.social for DOOLITTLE:
I am not here to say DOOLITTLE is a good or great album; that's (technically) subjective stuff, and anyway it got the #1 seed so plenty of people here are already convinced. What I'm here to get to is the even more important idea that DOOLITTLE is an album that is FUN and EXCITING to listen to. These are big things, and there aren't enough records that do both. Really, we could do the whole argument via "Debaser" and be done. That intro bassline? The way the band kicks in at tempo? The wild, unhinged vocals? In just under 3 minutes, we all want to grow, up to be, be a debaser! It sounds like being a debaser will be wild! We'll watch Bunuel films and get groovy together! It's VERY EXCITING! But it's not just "Debaser that stirs up the excitable boys and girls. For the next half-hour or so, the band sounds both riled up and relaxed--they totally get into the groove and make the needle skip at every opportunity. This rhythm section is built for movement, the guitars never stop spitting out surprises, and the vocals sound like smiles and sneers and gulps and guffaws and kicks and kisses and everything that is right and wrong and in-between. Pray for the man in the middle. They kinda try pop moves ("Monkey Gone to Heaven," "La La Love You," "Here Comes Your Man") and antipop ("Tame," "I Bleed," "Crackity Jones"), and every one of the songs has its own internal logic that makes no sense at all. As it jumps from track to track, the whole record is FUN! It's EXCITING! I listen to a ton of music, and while I can argue that most of it is very good or even great, tbh, a lot of it isn't FUN. This is. It's great to have fun listening to a record! I wish it happened more. So forget the interpersonal dynamics of the band, or the Pixies records that came before or after. For 39 minutes, Black Francis, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago*, and David Lovering are plugged directly into the socket, pouring blood and silver into every bit of DOOLITTLE. Have FUN! Be EXCITED! Stay all day, if you want to! (*Disclaimer: My wife's cousin's wife's sister used to be married to Joey Santiago, so he is Cousin Joey and we are family.)
November 26, 2025 at 5:04 PM
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#3 De La Soul, 3 FEET HIGH AND RISING

Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/34LxHI...

YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlAJ...
Black and white photos of three young Black men, arranged in a circle as if you are on the ground and they are looking down at you from above. The background is very bright yellow. There are hand drawn flower shapes in blue and orange arranged around them.
November 26, 2025 at 5:01 PM
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#1 Pixies, DOOLITTLE

Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/0DQyTV...

YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D5v...
On a brown background is a monotone photo of a small monkey. The monkey has a halo and is surrounded by three numbers: 5,6 and 7. The picture of the monkey has a green outline of a box around it, and within that box are green lines that make a bunch of connected shapes: squares, rectangles, circles, triangles, stars, trapezoids. etc.
November 26, 2025 at 5:01 PM
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Boys don’t cry when you call them on The Robert Smith Hotline! Call now and let Robert tell you about his favorite things, like “Lolita” and Duracell batteries. Dial 1-900-A-FOREST. $4.95 for the first minute, 99 cents for each additional seventeen seconds. It’s 10:15 Saturday night; Robert awaits!
November 25, 2025 at 6:32 PM
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We are currently at 150 total votes! However, we have to clear 250, or else I’m forced to run the match again.

Ha ha, just kidding!

Right?
Queen Amidala looking unsure.
November 25, 2025 at 5:20 PM
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For the final time… @kevinalexander.bsky.social for DISINTEGRATION:
I'lI save everyone some time: Disintegration is one of my Desert Island Discs. Some Cure fans will swear by a record like 17 Seconds. For others The Head on the Door is a hill they're willing to die on. A chaos agent or two might even throw a vote in for Wild Mood Swings. Me? It's this record, and it's not even close. Last fall, as Sam Colt and I wrapped up or top 100 records of all time, I slotted Disintegration in at #4. Nothing has changed in the ensuing months. I'm resharing that blurb in full below: Do kids these days still go through their "Cure phase?" Growing up, it just seemed like something you were supposed to do, even if you weren't feeling particularly miserable. There was always a bit of irony there. Robert Smith was feeling down when recording this began. He felt pressure to follow up on the success Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me had brought, and he was disillusioned with the band's newfound popularity. He escaped those closing walls by taking a lot of LSD. Disintegration was every bit a group effort, but the result feels like we're on one of Smith's trips. This was Sam's #38 pick, and he wrote that he ".. threw on some headphones and was blown away by how big everything sounded..." I'm not sure when Sam first put this record on, but I can tell you my first impression was almost the same. Even when they wandered a bit, the band's previous records felt (relatively) compact. This was much more sprawling. Languid in parts, haunting in others. It was-and is-a sonic kaleidoscope, "Plainsong" especially. "Fascination Street" feels like the most on-brand track on the album, and even that sounds like new ground. The title track's riff is as good as any the band ever recorded. The shattering of a mind never sounded so catchy. For my part, I described the record as "A masterpiece. Gorgeous, lush music from the elder statesmen of the alternative/goth/whatever world. Reach into the bag and pick whatever superlative you want; they all fit. It was a record so good that one of their best tracks from that era ("2 Late") was relegated to being a B-side. Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me was one of the first CDs I ever bought. Growing up, I had a poster of Head on the Door in my bedroom. But if the house is on fire, this is the record I'm grabbing." In that same issue, I named Marvin Gaye's What's Going On my #36 pick, which, according to Sam, was an act of war. It became the yardstick against which every one of my future picks would be compared. I feel the same way with Sam "only" rating this #38. Gaye was looking to heal a splintered world. Smith was looking to heal his splintered mind. Both wound up delivering the best work of their careers.
November 25, 2025 at 4:03 PM
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#4 The Cure, DISINTEGRATION

Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/0A13Jy...

YouTube: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
We see the face of The Cure singer Robert Smith, with pale white skin, black hair, black eyeshadow, and red lips. (He's one of the most Gothiest men alive.) Around him are images of flowers. The photo has a sense of distortion, because I believe it's actually a projection onto a wall or another surface.
November 25, 2025 at 4:01 PM
bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social
#2 Beastie Boys, PAUL'S BOUTIQUE

Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/1kmyir...

YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iySa...
A photograph of a street corner in New York. There is a store called Paul's Boutique on the corner, as indicated by the sign that hangs over the sidewalk to the left. Above the store is a tall brick edifice, presumably apartments. On the sidewalk are clothes hanging from awning as a display, as well as a table with all sorts of objects on it, but difficult to identify any one object. There are two additional signs on the building, just below the brick edifice: "Lee's Sportswear" and "Ben's Shoes."
November 25, 2025 at 4:01 PM
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TOMORROW! Witness the battle of champions as #3 seed, De La Soul, 3 FEET HIGH AND RISING takes on #1 seed, Pixies, DOOLITTLE to determine once and for all The Best Album of 1989! Vote here when the match begins at 11am CST!
On a brown background is a monotone photo of a small monkey. The monkey has a halo and is surrounded by three numbers: 5,6 and 7. The picture of the monkey has a green outline of a box around it, and within that box are green lines that make a bunch of connected shapes: squares, rectangles, circles, triangles, stars, trapezoids. etc. Black and white photos of three young Black men, arranged in a circle as if you are on the ground and they are looking down at you from above. The background is very bright yellow. There are hand drawn flower shapes in blue and orange arranged around them.
November 25, 2025 at 3:15 PM
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The MAD MEN “I don’t think about you at all” but Don Draper has been replaced with Nanette and the other guy, I never made it this far into MAD MEN, the other guy’s head has been replaced with the cover of PAUL’S BOUTIQUE.
November 24, 2025 at 3:45 PM
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#3 De La Soul, 3 FEET HIGH AND RISING

Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/34LxHI...

YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlAJ...
Black and white photos of three young Black men, arranged in a circle as if you are on the ground and they are looking down at you from above. The background is very bright yellow. There are hand drawn flower shapes in blue and orange arranged around them.
November 24, 2025 at 3:01 PM
bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social
#2 Beastie Boys, PAUL'S BOUTIQUE

Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/1kmyir...

YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iySa...
A photograph of a street corner in New York. There is a store called Paul's Boutique on the corner, as indicated by the sign that hangs over the sidewalk to the left. Above the store is a tall brick edifice, presumably apartments. On the sidewalk are clothes hanging from awning as a display, as well as a table with all sorts of objects on it, but difficult to identify any one object. There are two additional signs on the building, just below the brick edifice: "Lee's Sportswear" and "Ben's Shoes."
November 24, 2025 at 3:01 PM
bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social
Film critic Gene Shalit
November 21, 2025 at 9:51 PM