The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @Pun_Trash for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! I remember the first time listening to Slint’s album Spiderland in full. I was aware of it from seeing people I followed on Twitter talk about it, ca...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @polytropos5 for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! Maybe everyone feels this way about where they come from, but Louisvillians are awfully proud. Maybe everyone believes that whether others do or do...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @bikemogacz for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! Talk Talk was a great band, sure, but what truly sets them apart is that they're the only band in history that got better with each record. As Laugh...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by Artist Unknown for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! I have always loved "Grey Cell Green." Once, in the 2010s, I experienced a fit of nostalgia strong enough, after failing to get Pandora or Spotif...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @savemeaseat_usa for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! Before going through the torturous recording process and glorious release of Achtung Baby, U2’s Bono told a crowd at the end of the Lovetown to...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @KolleenCarney for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! When people think of Courtney Love they think of Kurt Cobain, and in my opinion you can't be a Nirvana fan without at least tangentially being a ...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @sciallacooper for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! The death of Organized Konfusion (formerly Simply 2 Positive MCs)'s mentor and producer Paul C in 1989 might have left a less talented pair of ra...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @BrianZitzelman for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! The best selling album of the last 30 years. Five huge singles that remain remain radio staples. Depending on who you ask, the 4th, and definite...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @MichaelCHearn for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! I wanted to do this DC for the voters and players who were most like me: fans of The Magnetic Fields and especially their best works like 69 Love...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @blackcoat for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! Warren Zevon is possibly the most influential rock act you’ve never heard of, having released 15 albums between the years of 1969 and 2003, of which ...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @KindaLikeShaft for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! I remember being in high school, and having my life changed by London Calling. From the very first notes, everything was different. I also remem...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @KindaLikeShaft for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! What other band: Wrote their best songs in braces (I never saw them smile, so, maybe...) Recorded a genre defining album before their first kiss...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @mbswolf for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! Jesus Jones. A band I was introduced to when I was given a free copy of their debut album Liquidizer (1989) at the Nine Inch Nails show at the original...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @bermanmatt for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! I suspect a good chunk of Material Issue's fans first encountered Material Issue the same way I did: Late night on MTV's 120 Minutes. The first thin...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @LunarMariaRilke for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! Never popular anywhere else, The Tragically Hip were kings in their native Canada. When they played their final show in 2016, a full third of t...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @jays_ear for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! The Low End Theory is one of those albums where the best form of cheerleading would be to simply transcribe the rhymes from the album. Since you can (...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @bsglaser for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! Hey, what’s jazz doing in this Best Albums tournament? Other than probably losing… Ask the Ages by Sonny Sharrock is here to get right into your soul ...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @sjschillinger73 for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks!

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @zacharymullfor the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! Chapel Hill in the early 90s was an interesting scene. The biggest bands to emerge from it, Ben Folds Five and The Squirrel Nut Zippers, didn’t soun...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @jpjameshansenfor the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! As the prediction context winner (Justice for Opeth!!!), when I went about choosing an album for the bracket, I wanted to choose something unique ...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @BuyIncognitofor the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! Let’s get this out of the way: Ned’s Atomic Dustbin is not going to win this tournament. It might not even make it out of the first round. The Divi...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @KindaLikeShaftfor the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! Jonathan Richman is punk as fuck. His first band, The Modern Lovers, recorded one of the seminal proto-punk albums of all time. They were the fir...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @zacharymullfor the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! Ozzy got sober in 1990. His drug abuse and erratic behavior had dominated his career for years. Now newly sober, his wife and manager Sharon seized ...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @megabrow12 for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! Hullo there! Welcome to a designated cheerleader thingy over here on hey.com – it’s a bit more fancy than the old screenshots of an e-mail isn’t it?...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by Cliff Hicks (@Devinoch) for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! Where do you even begin with Loveless? It was the album that bankrupted Creation Records. Supposedly it cost around a quarter of a milli...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @AmateurDan for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! Mr. Bungle is not welcoming. When you look at the album cover of their self-titled debut, you are greeted by a painting of probably the grossest clo...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @SpimTobley for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! This is the mission of the day: Get people to vote for Mr. Hood, the debut album from KMD (listed as an abbreviation for “a positive Kause in a Much...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @PerlzFromRobbie for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! We live in polarized times. I know when many of you vote, it is less about who you are voting for than who you are voting against. You are voti...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @brendonbouzard for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! This Mortal Coil is a vibe. I mean, they’re certainly not a band. The pretense of This Mortal Coil is famous to anyone who knows their work: TMC...

The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @just_takes for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks! Most people who are lucky enough to have heard Speed the Plough or their preceding project the Trypes are likely to know them first of all as a “Fee...