Probably unpopular opinion: Roland Gift’s voice drives me crazy and I can’t help myself voting for Tears for Fears. For almost 40 years Gift’s vocal stylings have been like nails on a chalkboard for me.

Easy one. From my Round 1 listens: FYC: I could live without "...Crazy" but this has held up well - from the northern soul one to the jangle pop one to the one that sounds like Prince messing with a 303. ✅ TfF: Fan of their [first] two, but this is some bloated bullshit. "Advice..." is lovely! ❌

Throw in one of the Sparks brothers so they have a Ronald, too.

I could not hear any FYC or UB40 song ever again and be very happy. Seeds of Love for me!

She Drives Me Crazy and Good Thing especially are jams!

Three Rolands and the Truth

The Best Album of 1989 Round 2 Match #94 #27 Fine Young Cannibals, THE RAW & THE COOKED vs. #38 Tears for Fears, THE SEEDS OF LOVE forms.gle/VbzRwJRqF3zp...

Did they ever team up with the drummer from Big Black?

This is more or less my exact feelings about T4F. And Roland Gift is pretty fucking amazing.

Roland Gift is an actual gift. Seeds of Love, outside of that one song, never really held me. Songs from the Big Chair, that’s a T4F cassette I played to death,,,,

Seeds of Love is great, but it feels almost ornate for it's own good. Voting for FYC

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In another unbelievable coincidence, “orzabal” is the Basque word for “gift.”

this is the sort of trivia I'm here for!

I didn’t catch that before but what are the odds really

This might be the first matchup where I don't immediately have a clear answer as to who should win. I think I lean towards The Raw & The Cooked because it's more solid beginning to end but Sowing The Seeds Of Love is a perfect pop song.

And another thing: both bands/albums have singers named Roland!

I think the main reason, though, is that "She Drives Me Crazy" (in particular) has become one of those songs that everyone takes for granted. It's remained a pop radio staple. And it's an understated mid-tempo song, so it tends to fade into the background.

It's so arbitrary how a big hit may or may not remain "in the discourse", isn't it? It often comes down to the personal tastes of the relatively small number of people who write about retro music for major outlets.

Holy shit, you totally can! www.youtube.com/watch?v=9obv...

If you’re DJing you can slam Gloria Jones original version of Tainted Love (the superior version) into FYC’s Good Thing. FYC

The Seeds of Love is absolutely one of my favorite albums of the 1980s. It's a rather opulent comfort album for me, but I think that Baroque magnificence means it's probably doomed here. Not everybody appreciates the sound of an artist disappearing up their own ass and that's fine.

Easy vote for FYC, The Seeds of Love is too overstuffed for my tastes. You still hear "She Drives Me Crazy" in public a lot in 2025! Also IIRC that Oleta Adams album *almost* made the 1990 bracket.

Had to go with FYC here because they introduced 14-year-old me to the Buzzcocks. Also “I’m Not the Man I Used to Be” rocks the “Funky Drummer”/Madchester beat.

Isn’t this a pretty common practice for rock records? Lots of perfectly good-to-great albums by the Stones, Bowie, Neil Young, etc. are hodgepodge collections.

I’d vote for the title track of Seeds Of Love over any of the FYC singles but ALL the FYC singles in one place present a pretty compelling argument so Cannibals it is

Raw and the Cooked hasn't got a duff track on it. And one of those albums that was a massive hit, everyone seemed to have it, yet no one ever talks about anymore.

This feels like a very Brits At It Again sort of match but also one I don’t actually have a strong opinion on

Voted FYC. The margin is not huge, but this is probably my biggest flip so far from '89 me to today me. From 2025, the funky minimalism pop of FYC (with producers Jerry Harrison & David Z) sounds better than TfF's big swing at Beatlesque density.

Read our blog post!

*extremely fred durst voice* Keep Roland Roland Roland

Incidentally, Fine Young Cannibals gets my vote. These are both good records, I had both of these on tape, but for some reason this Tears For Fears record always seemed a little too overwrought or overcooked or something.

I’ll never forget walking through an endless IKEA while Seeds of Love played, maybe 20 years ago, realizing for the first time how many changes this song goes through as I meandered from one showroom to the next.

I bet this is the first match in the tournament between two albums i listened to all the way through *in* 1989.

Where are our pedants? This FYC album is really just two EP's stitched together, and one of those is a soundtrack! (TIN MEN, 1987 (!!!,) Barry Levinson.)

There can be only one... guy named Roland in the bracket.

we are nearing the end of round 2 of @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social 1989! today, tears for fears and fine young cannibals square off, and I watch a video that is an overindulgent showcase of late 80s computer animation and a video that showcases a truly beautiful face that is a pleasure to behold

Fine Young Cannibals completely devouring Tears for Fears, appropriately enough

Tough choice for me and I have no idea how this will shake out but I voted FYC as Tears’ overindulgence is too much as times

Well, when you put it like that, it makes sense.

BLEACH defeats EARWIG, 100-51.

The Best Album of 1989 Round 2 Match #94 #27 Fine Young Cannibals, THE RAW & THE COOKED vs. #38 Tears for Fears, THE SEEDS OF LOVE forms.gle/VbzRwJRqF3zp...

Rolling Stone has decided that Missy Elliot's 2001 track Get Ur Freak On is the greatest song of the 21st C. That track is on album that will surely be in the @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social '01 tourney, so I was curious what alternatives the Electorate proposes www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

The Best Album of 1989 Round 2 Match #93 #6 Nirvana, BLEACH vs. #59 Blake Babies, EARWIG forms.gle/x5MyByyTmvvo...

Who knew that being a Flipside darling would lead to a major label album?

Oh, no, Bleach is a better album than Steel Wheels.

The Beatles get too much credit. Their success is built on Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly and etc., and if the Beatles had never existed teenagers would have gone crazy for Herman's Hermits and The Hollies or somebody. (just kidding, mostly)

Pour one out for Butt Trumpet.