flipping through those posters was like Disney character, anime character, Steph Curry, another anime character, LeBron James, Radiohead?
a middle-aged librarian living on the flatlands of central Illinois magnificent weirdo, guardian of the corn trophy, teller of stories “music critic” at thebestthing.blog not a professional account by any means, it gets weird in here
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flipping through those posters was like Disney character, anime character, Steph Curry, another anime character, LeBron James, Radiohead?
saw a Radiohead poster at five below. was unaware that tweens are super into Radiohead.
another Monday means the beginning of another week of @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social matchups! today is the Vaselines vs Tom Petty. one of these artists made no videos (at least, in 1989) and the other made at least one video where it looks like Vaseline was smeared on the lens for part of the video
listening to the Vaselines and making flourless chocolate cake (the comments on the recipe contained a helpful tip in case you wanted to add flour to your flourless chocolate cake)
another perfect song from a perfect album
my kid was reading the facts from one of these books out loud and that’s how I learned that horses have only one toe AND that birds do not have arms or legs, they have wings instead
oh well good for you Ohio State, first home win against a #1 team since 1985 I know how fun it is for your team to defeat the #1 ranked team at home! enjoy!
he’s talking shit about me OF COURSE
okay we want to know if they get stickers in the middle of the game
dude had to change his gloves so he’d stop dropping the football
nobody’s getting any stickers today
I’m not going to engage with this
that xtc album is bad and shouldn’t have made it out of the first round
that sounds really good!
this is awesome!
watching the Illinois pregame and why does everything have to be about betting? can they just show the marching Illini instead?
This one is so special. This Mortal Coil performing Song to the Siren live on Loose Talk in 1983 (THREAD) youtu.be/SuwfsS5-iM8
today’s @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social match is between Prince and Chris Isaak, and we’re underwhelmed. digressions include stats, VH1 circa 1989, and a truly awful cover of a Prince song! also it is the blog’s first birthday! thank you for reading, it’s been an excellent year!
you seem very passionate about this issue
I know you are eating my small cookies
driving home from work I smelled cloves and I thought I was having some kind of hallucination until I saw a hand reach out of the powder blue BMW convertible in front of me (vanity plate: TAYLOR) to ash what was very obviously a clove cigarette
now playing: the sequel, “who has been eating my small cookies?”
YES Curve and YES Vurt! I saw Curve at the Double Door sometime in the late-ish 90s and they were so good. Doppelgänger is one of my all time favorite albums!
Thursday’s @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social match features N.W.A. vs Robyn Hitchcock! also more excerpts from the album guide (they really love Robyn Hitchcock over there), listening without reacting, and how a weird music video by a weird dude made 15 year old me embrace her weirdness a little more
iceblink luck, personal jesus, and song to the siren were all released this week
behind the scenes bonus content. please note that if we ever monetize the blog (haha unlikely) this is the kind of bonus content our subscribers could enjoy
![Screenshot of a conversation: Me: Stats are good today Jon: Done [this is in reference to scheduling tomorrow’s post] And yes I noticed Me: Because stats Jon: Because I'm one of those people Me: THOSE people I bet it's the picture of the dick shaped cloud Jon: Haha Some big cloud balls](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:w6fq4ageqofplofgkw7znanx/bafkreidw66gdfy4me7upjszu4znnf2u3hwvql5jf7732awtsn6pdz4a56q@jpeg "Click to view full size")
there’s also a request for an omegaverse reverse harem hockey romance and I should be allowed to go home now
LL is going to need to add a new verse because he’s going to leave Lisa for the sentient Kool-Aid Man
look I try not to judge and I certainly do not want to yuck anyone’s yum but this is a sentient Kool-Aid man we’re talking about here
vendor just called me “Natalie” in an email and now I’ve got this song going through my head
today’s @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social match is between Faith No More and Weird Al! also: ill-advised body piercing decisions, the sound of the future, squishmallow names, and a cloud for Jon to yell at
senator howell tankerbell (dixiecrat)
a perfect song from a perfect album
I think it’s fandom culture and all the related pile-ons rather than snobbery but hey what do I know, I do not have a podcast
I hope both your surgery and recovery are completely uneventful!
the round 1 galaxie 500 post is really good too, it features Jon getting heckled for his ice cream topping choices and me in this very cool “vampires don’t exist, grow up” t-shirt that I wish I still had
On Fire is the 1989 album I’ve listened to most since this tournament started…I really love it! and one of these days I’m going to sing “Strange” at karaoke and I’ll make sure that it sounds extremely petulant because having to eat your Twinkies while waiting in line at the drugstore is an insult
Tuesday brings a @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social match between Galaxie 500 and 808 State! also: my sworn enemy J.D.C. says something incorrect again, Walkman vs Discman, Naomi’s earrings, and an indictment of lazy music criticism (we would never!)
daily updates with voting info are posted by @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social. There’s also a newsletter with voting links!
the cats are loving this comfortable false fall weather we are having (so am I but I don’t have a window perch to sit in)
@putnam39.bsky.social has already put Lateralus on our list!
Hey Mercedes! and I remember liking that Burning Airlines album.
I listened to I Get Wet last week and it holds up well!
Girls Can Tell and The Tyranny of Distance are my two standouts from 2001! Both remind me of late summer/early fall, when I first moved to Champaign for grad school
okay @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social folks…what’s an album from 2001 that you really LOVE? not just like or enjoy, but LOVE? I’ve been looking at the pared-down list that I’m working from for preliminary listening and there’s plenty that I like but nothing that I actually LOVE. help me out here!
it’s fun, yes, but it’s also an excellent album!
it’s Monday, which means a @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social match between the D.O.C. and Screaming Trees. we’re looking at the critical response to these albums and their cover designs! also I have an early 90s rock critic enemy but he doesn’t know it…YET
the 10 year old wants to play basketball but the court is occupied by some kind of fitness class and we really think Tim should join the class and grunt and say weird things like “that push-up made my butt cheeks sting!”
the only time I ever clicked on it and read it I thought to myself “what library do you work at because none of this is true” “a group of librarians is called a cardigan” whoa never heard a joke about librarians wearing cardigans before, what a novel take
every time I see that awful (and not written by a librarian based on the writer’s bio) mcsweeney’s list of “collective nouns for librarians” go around I check to see who’s been liking and reposting and it’s never librarians which proves that it’s actually terrible and it’s not just me
between the pleasant weather, the sound of college football coming from the living room tv, and nutcracker auditions I do believe we are on the cusp of my favorite season
which makes far more sense!
that guy could easily be a member of Titannica or Wyckyd Scepter
attn: @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social friends, you may find this amusing ALSO there’s a moment in this commercial that caused me to let out a dramatic gasp. no spoilers please, everyone deserves this experience ALSO ALSO chewing your gum like a ruminant is totally punk which is great news for Jon
I’m allowed to change my mind
by the way I ended up voting for beat happening
unfathomable to you AND to my sworn enemy, one of the critics in @putnam39.bsky.social’s 1992 rolling stone album guide
oh shit, that’s going to happen, isn’t it? we may never recover
Kim Deal Dayton vs Rob Lowe Dayton
I had this on videocassette (it may still be out in the garage somewhere!)
Braid!!
round 2 of @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social begins with Pixies vs Beat Happening, and I’m doing what I was born to do: looking at the aesthetics of 4AD and the aesthetics of K Records! also: who wore it better: the guy from Nirvana or me, bad takes from a record guide, and a cool Beat Happening video!
Nu-metal dark romance is next
oh shit there’s gonna be a sequel (design choices here are not at all subtle)
today I learned that there are “at least three” Britpop-themed romance novels and someone tell me what the other two are and how I can get a hold of them I only have this one (from the library, and yes I was excited to purchase it for the collection)
probably somewhere in my basement!
when my aunt lived in SF in the 90s she’d tape Live 105 for me in exchange for tapes of WXRT Chicago!
dude I already said that
that sucks but whew glad it wasn’t Jason Pierce
how many of us are going to be annoyed with autocorrect changing “Pere” to “Pete” today?
it’s the final round 1 match of @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social ‘89—Spacemen 3 vs Pere Ubu! also our round 2 plans, our 2001 plans, the final R1 word count (we wrote a whole ass book this summer!), and of course the albums. PLUS the blog is a year old next week (!!)
If You’re Feeling Sinister! I’d love to go to both but I’m not made of money
he fought the good fight though
ANYHOW we are going to see Belle and Sebastian and unless something crops up between now and the end of May 2026 it will be my kids’ first concert
this is general admission, too! seats are $95 which is even worse
I am trying to buy tickets for the Belle & Sebastian tour (the if you’re feeling sinister night) and tickets are $75 with ridiculous fees and taxes and a) how do young people go to shows these days, this sucks, and b) did Eddie Vedder accomplish nothing when he fought Ticketmaster in the 90s?
old farts, the both of you
no it doesn’t
it’s the PENULTIMATE day of round 1 of @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social ‘89! today we’ve got Neil Young vs. Pauline Oliveros. also: whale farts, fun facts, the ambient sounds of my home as of 9:30 last night, and my shitty attention span
yeah, perfect. gonna bring the house down with this one as long as “the house” consists of a bunch of galaxie 500 fans
was thinking about songs I’d like to do at karaoke while I was singing in the shower tonight and this was the second result for “galaxie 500 karaoke” and it was exactly what I was looking for
made up a slug bug game only it’s for cybertrucks and instead of punching someone in the shoulder you make a jerking off hand motion and laugh uproariously
Tuesday’s @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social match features the Pogues vs. Nomeansno! also: amateur filmmaking, slug poison, a decades-long friendship that started with a “nice t-shirt,” and the Wright brothers (not the Dayton ones, apologies to the Day-hive)
this is like the first episode of one of those Netflix shows about a cult it starts with “only white people can live at our rural Arkansas compound” and pretty soon they’re poisoning the salad bar at the Golden Corral to avoid prosecution for human trafficking
see @putnam39.bsky.social he calls them “ice cream sprinkles” because you should put them on ice cream unless you are a WASN’T because a wasn’t has no fun at all no he doesn’t
no! because of the crumbs, silly
listening to songs of faith and devotion by Depeche Mode and making za’atar and labneh spaghetti (and also eating sprinkle cookies over the sink)
the final week of round 1 of @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social 1989 sees Fugazi taking on Paul McCartney! also: driveway power washing, a Fugazi love story, goofy uncles, places to eat in Northwest Indiana, and fine art it’s hashtag dad goals!
this time I know what is going on! because someone else posted about it!
wow, Kankakee has a combination fuel center/fast food restaurant/cannabis dispensary located conveniently off the highway what a world we live in
I was like Beatles, Dylan, whole bunch of Christmas albums, more Beatles…HE-MAN!
they smell musty like the basement but they seem to be in reasonably good condition
And some more (there’s also a bunch of Christmas music here that I listened to as a kid!)
going through my parents’ old records
there is a portapotty hidden behind this large American flag for when you gotta go on the run but you’re a patriot
those goats have Questions
Jon is very upset about the Thursday match he’s mentioned it multiple times!
seriously if you are ever in northwest Indiana first of all I am sorry and second you really should eat at Aladdin Pita
