2021 had no shortage of musical events – another Kanye/Drake face-off, a new Adele record, and an ABBA reunion to boot. We even saw the return of live music, something we seemed to lose sleep over if we’d never heard the likes of again. And like the film world, music is forever evolving, which the pandemic seems to have expedited. But the music of 2021 tended to focus on the small and intimate. There weren’t any grand gestures or complex concept albums (save for Donda), but a resounding sigh of relief that the music world is cobbling itself back together after being knocked down. Here are the best albums of 2021.
10. GOJIRA – FORTITUDE
Perhaps the best and most “accessible” metal band working today, Gojira has been putting out solid records for the past two decades, finally achieving mainstream relevancy with Fortitude, their seventh studio album. It doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel – no math-metal breakdowns, odd time signatures, or noodling riffs that are tricked for self-importance. What we have here is straight-forward, undiluted metal, one not only for the mosh pits, but for the curious minded. Featuring perhaps the most anthemic metal chant to come out in the past 10 years, the more Fortitude is listened to, the more visceral it becomes.
9. VIAGRA BOYS – WELFARE JAZZ
Sweden’s Viagra Boys spent the better part of the last two years making a name for themselves in the alternative punk world, and they seemed to have delivered: Welfare Jazz is an exploratory movement in art punk, mixed in with saxophone and synthesizers as components for improvisation. In fact, if their chord structures were just a little more complex, some of these songs could be mistaken for jazz. Despite having their guitarist Benjamin Vallé pass away this year, they’ve managed to trudge on with their best record yet while refusing to repeat themselves.
8. IDLES – CRAWLER
On Crawler, IDLES take a note from Pantera’s Far Beyond Driven, or even something to the effect of Code Orange. It’s a more inverted punk approach as opposed to what we’re used to hearing from the Bristol band: half-time jams, off-beat rhythms, and counter intuitive structures. It’s a band testing the limits of what they’re capable of, subverting expectations of what punk can sound like.
7. PARQUET COURTS – SYMPATHY FOR LIFE
Cutting in with the best dance/art punk of the year is Denton, Texas’ Parquet Courts. The Brooklyn-based band has been kicking around the festival and public radio circuits for years now, but it wasn’t until Sympathy for Life where they achieved real mainstream attention, gaining praise from Iggy Pop and Mark Reilly along the way. It’s also an evolution in their sound. In Sympathy for Life, they’re not afraid to slow things down and try different musical palettes their fans aren’t accustomed to. Taking notes from Franz Ferdinand and Talking Heads, if I had to point to one bad that’s pushing dance rock to its fullest, its Parquet Courts.
6. ARLO PARKS – COLLAPSED IN SUNBEAMS
This year’s Mercury Prize winner ultimately became the self-help guide to 2021. Listening to these songs as a whole collection sounds as if they are working in service for someone else. Who could she be singing to? A friend? A foe? A heartbroken lover? Collapsed in Sunbeams actually feels like sunshine – light, clean electric guitars, E-piano hooks, gentle delivery of lyrics that don’t speak in the definitive – it’s an SSRI of an album if there ever was one, or like Vitamin D that soaks beneath your veins.
5. LITTLE SIMZ – SOMETIMES I MIGHT BE INTROVERT
It’s true that we all live two lives: the one we choose to share with other people, and the one in our heads. Introvert straddles these two points of perception: the interior and subjective is characterized by pleasing, joyous orchestral pieces, and the objective with the gritty grime setting of South London. And sometimes the two meet in the middle, albeit rarely. But it’s a special occasion that occurs – proof that there is a way to bring your true thoughts out. London rapper Little Simz does this with delicate detail, where daydream-like instrumentals come into contact with the grit of living in South London. But the interiority is a stark magnifying glass: we spend our lives inside ourselves so much that it’s true when people say “we are born alone and we die alone, everyone else is just a bonus.”
4. LOW – HEY WHAT
Low’s electronic a cappella reaches new depths with Hey What. It’s an album that doesn’t sound like an “album” in conventional terms. It’s more as if they start and stop whenever they please. The songs play like comets coming in and out of our orbit, and with a set piece like “Days Like These,” the harmonized vocals continually become more distorted, as if they’re a distress signal drifting farther and farther away. It’s a haunting record, no doubt, but one that shows proof of musical evolution by transmitting emotion through electronics.
3. AROOJ AFTAB – VULTURE PRINCE
Sometimes a song’s emotional emphasis lies in between the notes. Saudi-born, Booklyn-based Pakistani artist and Berklee College of Music professor Arooj Aftab has spent enough time teaching that she’s been able to carve out her own space in music theory. And thanks to a shoutout from Barrack Obama, she’s now becoming a part of everyday music lingo with a grammy nomination to boot. Perhaps the most transcendental album of the year, Vulture Prince leaves you in a meditation accompanied by sounds that don’t really belong on this earth, acting on a near-unconscious level.
2. DRY CLEANING – NEW LONG LEG
On paper, Dry Cleaning shouldn’t work. A girl rambling on about the mundanities of life as if they were coming from her own consciousness? I don’t think so. But it works. There are no frills to New Long Leg, only that it’s a proper step toward a new type of rock music. Sure, it’s been done before: the rambling stream of consciousness, the post-punk instrumentation, the bass taking over as the lead instrument… they’re elements that have been recycled. But Dry Cleaning assigns their own definitions. They claim a space that’s theirs. They’re called “Dry Cleaning” for a reason: you get your attire back but in a new and improved way.
1. JAPANESE BREAKFAST – JUBILEE
Following up her 2017 album Soft Sounds From Another Planet, Michelle Zauner seems to have taken it up a notch. I couldn’t really tell you what Jubilee is about, but more so of what it feels like: a shot for cathartic release. Soft vintage synths (an evolution from the plug-ins used previously) give way to flying horns, as if they’re waves washing ashore causing one to deep dive into anxious self-reflection. This album’s about desperately wanting to be happy, and the neurotic state that comes with questioning if you are so. But what is happiness? It’s just a moment before you want more happiness. We all wish it could be this prolonged feeling, but it’s good to confront that thought from time to time. That’s what Jubilee feels like. And by the end of it, you’ll swear you felt something intangible.
