1. Halsey - If I Can't Have
Love, I Want Power
The question of whether one of a young
chart-topping pop singer can 'get away' with an extremely dark album produced
by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross has been answered, in the respect that zero
songs from If I Can't Have Love, I Want
Power are currently in Halsey's Spotify top 10 and she only got one Grammy
nom in an alternative category. But the important thing is that she did get
away with recording and releasing this album and it's fantastic, a body horror
song cycle about pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood that's also probably the
most accessible and pop-savvy album Reznor has made since Pretty Hate
Machine.
2. Fishboy - Waitsgiving
Eric Michener has been leading the Denton,
Texas band Fishboy for over 20 years now, making weird poignant little rock
operas, and they endeared themselves to me giving a passionate performance to a
tiny Baltimore audience in a basement venue one night in 2008. And I was
delighted to see that Michener made a new album in 2021, which in many ways is
a salute to the perseverance of artists of all kinds, from a guy working at a
snocone stand to a forgotten ‘70s band whose used bin masterpiece became some
kid’s favorite album decades later.
3. Carly Pearce
- 29: Written In Stone
Carly Pearce made her third album after a
rough year that include her divorce and the death of Michael Busbee, who
produced and co-wrote her first two albums. Pearce eulogizes Busbee beautifully
on “Show Me Around,” but most of 29:
Written In Stone is more focused on her brief marriage and unsubtle odes to
her ex’s vices (“You’re Drinkin’, My Problem,” “All The Whiskey In The World”).
But even in the absence of Carly Pearce’s most significant collaborator, she
managed to make the most country album of her career and one that puts her incredibly
expressive voice to devastating use.
4. Dinosaur Jr.
- Sweep It Into Space
Dinosaur Jr. have now released albums in 5
different decades, with the definitive J/Lou/Murph lineup in 4 of them, and
there's not a dud in the whole dozen. And while it's true that I find comfort
in the rootsy twang of "I Ain’t" and "I Ran Away," J still
manages to surprise me here and there with sounds like the squelchy textures on
"Walking To You."
5. Brandi Carlile
- In These Silent Days
Brandi Carlile wields her voice like someone
who knows they’re an amazing singer, holding out the vibrato on quiet moments
and building to an impossible high note at the most dramatic possible moment,
and frankly I love it, she writes songs to take maximum advantage of her
instrument. The gorgeous Laurel Canyon throwback sound of “You and Me on the
Rock” and “Stay Gentle” provides the most inviting domestic bliss moments on In
These Silent Days, but the songs that
bring the drama really make it a gripping album. And Carlile was nice about
what I wrote about her album on Twitter, so that was pretty cool.
6. Megan Thee
Stallion - Something For Thee Hotties
It's me, I'm hotties.
7. Joyce Wrice
- Overgrown
Producer Dernst "D'Mile" Emile II
has had a great year, working on 2021 releases by Silk Sonic, Victoria Monet,
and Pink Sweat$, but he impressed me the most on Joyce Wrice's debut album, an
indie release that runs circles around most major label R&B albums this
year, kind of feels like a Tamia/Sunshine Anderson era type album without
overtly being a throwback. I don’t think I’m going to any concerts in the
next few months, but if I was I would be checking for the Lucky Daye/Joyce
Wrice tour.
8. Isaiah Rashad
- The House Is Burning
Just a few years removed from being one of
the hottest labels in the industry, Top Dawg Entertainment seemed like a shell
of its former self in 2021: Kendrick Lamar released a statement pointedly
announcing that his next album would be his last for the label, and SZA’s album
remained on the shelf another year even as she the biggest songs of her career
were all over the charts. But TDE’s one bright spot this year was longtime
second stringer Isaiah Rashad reemerging from a wilderness period of drugs and
rehab with an album that had the assured, relaxed vibe of a Dungeon Family jam
session. Occasionally he sounds animated and activated, but mostly Isaiah
Rashad just sounds happy back in a studio, putting cool reverbs on his voice
over lush, funky beats.
9. Billie Eilish
- Happier Than Ever
When We All Fall
Asleep, Where Do We Go? was a very impressive and unique world-conquering album made by a
teenager and her big brother in their parents’ house. But Happier Than Ever
is, to my ears, a much better album, Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell in
total command of the monster they’d created and subtly expanding their sound
and putting a little more texture and variety into everything while Eilish
manages to write a fairly grounded and relatable record about the things that
come along with suddenly becoming massively famous.
10. Moneybagg Yo
- A Gangsta's Pain
Moneybagg Yo got his first #1 album this year
by mostly sticking to his tried and tested formula of what works. But A Gangsta’s Pain has a more somber mood
than his other records, while also surprisingly featuring a lot more short
songs that run under 2 minutes. And when Moneybagg steps away from his usual
production stable to work with Pharrell and Chad on “Certified Neptunes,” it
sounds better than I thought it would.
11. Upper Wilds
- Venus
It’s been a decade
since the members of Parts & Labor went their separate ways, and the latest
album by Dan Friel’s current band is probably the closest any of them have come
to recreating P&L’s noise pop bombast, so I predictably love it.
12. Aimee Mann
- Queens Of The Summer Hotel
I wouldn’t have
necessarily guessed from listening to it that Aimee Mann wrote the songs on Queens Of The Summer Hotel for a stage
musical, maybe because it feels like such a logical continuation of 2017’s Mental Illness. But the piano and
strings-heavy arrangements made to be played in an orchestra pit suit her
melodies surprisingly well, and she remains one of the sharpest and most
creative lyricists alive.
13. Tim Foljahn
- I Dreamed A Dream
I was a huge fan of
Tim Foljahn’s band Two Dollar Guitar, which hasn’t released an album since
2007, and somehow managed to miss the fact that he’d started releasing solo
albums until he released his third this year. So one of the highlights of my
2021 was catching up on Foljahn’s last decade of music and interviewing him for
the first time since 1999, and the string arrangements on I Dreamed A Dream added a whole new cinematic dimension to his
songs.
14. Dawn Richard
- Second Line
Dawn Richard is the
only artist who started their career on Bad Boy Records and wound up on Merge
Records. And she might be the only artist who ever could ever take such an unpredictable
career path from major label R&B to art pop that reflects her New Orleans
roots and her continued exploration of dance music. She was one of my favoriteartists of the 2010s and Second Line kicks off a promising new decade on a new
label for Dawn Richard, but the album is also a continuation of what she did on
New Breed and all the way back to Armor On.
15. Tinashe - 333
Tinashe is another
artist who’s put in work in the major label R&B world but seems to be
better suited to doing things independently, although her music still has an
effervescent bubblegum appeal to it. Last week Tinashe said on Twitter that “I
have much more happiness and creative control without a label” and “I made more
money this year than ever before” and it’s great to see things work out like
that for her after all the handwringing over her not becoming a major pop star.
16. Nas - King's
Disease II
After decades of fans
begging for Nas to do a full album with DJ Premier or some other A-list
producer, 2018’s Kanye West-helmed Nasir was a complete bust, the worst album
of Nas’s career. But Hit-Boy, a spurned former Kanye protégé, came through and
helped Nas bounce back, and I think their second album together is even better
than the first, even if Nas really does rap a lot about brunch and vacation
now.
17. Flock Of Dimes
- Head Of Roses
Jenn Wasner’s first
Flock Of Dimes album in 2016 felt like a chance for her to flex her growing
facility with synths and programmed beats outside of the Wye Oak band format.
But Head Of Roses has a larger
backing ensemble and maybe the widest textural palette of any album Wasner has
made to date. It just feels like she can and does go anywhere from one song to
the next, although my favorite moments are her Neil Young-esque guitar leads on
“Price of Blue” and “Awake for the Sunrise.”
18. Olivia Rodrigo
- Sour
Four songs from Sour are in my top 100 singles of the
year, so I thought the album would be higher on here. But I will be honest, the
hits really do outshine most of the other songs, though I love “Jealousy,
Jealousy.” Also, I haven’t watched “High School Musical: The Musical: The
Series,” but I was pleasantly surprised by how good the album of her songs from
that is, a few of those songs would sound right at home on Sour.
19. Vince Staples
- Vince Staples
Releasing a
self-titled album in the middle of your career usually carries the implicit
gesture that ‘this one’s important, this one really represents who the artist
is.’ That Vince Staples would choose to do this with a compact 22-minute album,
his only project in the last 3 years, further demands that you savor every word
and every musical choice, all the dry punchlines and stark real life details
that Staples recites in his most plainspoken flow over spacious, melodic
production by Kenny Beats. It’s hilarious to think that an album as willful and
uncompromising as Summertime ’06 is
now considered the more accessible early work that some fans unfavorably
compare the artist’s new records to, but I love that Vince Staples is sticking
to his guns and putting his name on an album like this.
20. Eric Church
- Heart / Soul
Eric Church has always been one of modern
country’s most ambitious classic rock-style artists, so it felt inevitable that
he’d do a big sprawling double album at some point. And it felt right that he’d
do it after his shortest and sparest album, 2018’s Desperate Man. In fact, he made a triple album, although the & part of Heart & Soul was only available on vinyl to fan club members,
which is why I’m awkwardly listing just the Heart
and Soul parts of the set that were
widely available.
21. Low - Hey
What
I’ve been voraciously consuming contemporary
music since the early-mid ‘90s and there are still bands that have been making
acclaimed albums that entire time that I’ve just never gotten around to
properly checking out. Hey What is
Low’s 13th album, and I think I
maybe heard one of their first 12 albums at a friend’s place once many
years ago, but this album is so impressive, especially that arresting opener
“White Horses,” that I’m resolved now to catch up on their catalog.
22. Wolf Alice
- Blue Weekend
I’m not one for
lamentations of the commercial decline of rock music, there’ll always be great
stuff at the underground level. But it is a little surprising to look at the
Billboard 200 over the past year and realize that not a single rock album has
gone to #1 in America this year (I mean the Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo
albums have some rocking tunes, but you know what I mean). So it’s a little
heartening to look at the UK charts, where younger acts like Wolf Alice, Sam
Fender, and Royal Blood went to #1 with excellent rock albums. Wolf Alice is a
versatile band that does a lot of different things well on Blue Weekend, from thunderous festival rock to slowly simmering
power ballads and brooding Wurlitzer grooves, but the way Ellie Roswell layers
her voice in these beautiful cathedrals of reverb is what really makes the
album work.
23. Young Thug
- Punk
Young Thug has a
way of setting up and then subverting expectations for his albums. Naming his
latest album Punk and doing multiple
promotional appearances with a live band featuring Travis Barker might give the
impression that Thug was trying to follow in Machine Gun Kelly’s footsteps. But
the album he released features some of Thug’s most melodic songs to date, with
lots of acoustic or clean electric guitar, a little more in line with what I
expected from the advance hype for 2017’s Beautiful
Thugger Girls.
24. PinkPantheress
- To Hell With It
PinkPantheress
began her career as a teenager uploading brisk but emotive little bedroom pop
songs, that are often over in about 100 seconds, to Soundcloud and TikTok. And
if she was from America her music would probably have played out trap beats.
But because she’s from Bath, England, her music often features shards of ‘90s
drum’n’bass or dembow riddims, which is a much more interesting musical palette
for this kind of thing.
25. Hayley Williams
- FLOWERS for VASES / descansos
The debut solo album Hayley Williams released
in 2020, Petals For Armor, was a pretty big musical departure from Paramore, despite
bandmates Taylor York and Zac Farro working on the album. But since she
released it right at the beginning of the pandemic, she did what a lot of other
musicians did: unable to tour, she recorded at home, and wound up with a true
solo album with no other musicians just 9 months later. Ironically, this is the
more accessible of the two albums, lots of beautiful ballads full of acoustic
guitar and piano, a lot less of the twitchy eccentricities and confrontational
honestly of the Petals songs, but she
remains an absolutely amazing singer and a more multi-talented musician than I
realized.
26. Young Dolph & Paper Route Empire - Paper Route Illuminati
When Young Dolph
died tragically last month, he was at the top of his game and had released my
favorite album of his career, Rich Slave,
in 2020. But the last project Dolph released in his lifetime was the July
compilation by his Paper Route label. And while he turns a lot of the record
over to his roster of artists, Dolph pops up on about half the songs, and opens
the album with a incredible solo track “Talking To My Scale,” which starts to
fade out after 3 minutes, before the beat cranks up and Dolph announces “Nah, I
ain’t done yet!” and kicks another verse.
27. Turnstile
- Glow On
It’s so weird that
the most acclaimed rock band of 2021 is frequently compared to 311 (and has
even won the enthusiastic endorsement of Nick Hexum himself). But really I
think these guys just excel at shouty hardcore, and it speaks to how stale the
scene had gotten that Turnstile could upset purists with some keyboards and
programmed drums here and there. But it’s a kickass record, I love the squealy
guitar solo on “Don’t Play” and that quick Go-Go breakdown at the end of
“Blackout.”
28. King Gizzard
& The Lizard Wizard - Butterfly 3000
I’m so glad that a band as talented and unrelentingly prolific as King
Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard exists right now, but that doesn’t mean I
necessarily have the bandwidth to digest everything they put out – I think
their 18th studio album is one of their best that I’ve heard, but I still
haven’t caught up to most of the first 10 albums. But I dig the dreamy synthy
vibe of Butterfly 3000 and look forward to the upcoming remix album Butterfly
3001.
29. They Might Be
Giants - Book
They Might Be Giants’ kitchen sink approach to any subject matter, any
style of music, any warped word puzzle could’ve painted them into a corner
after a few albums. But somehow they’ve made over a thousand songs and manage
to keep coming up with more words and more sounds that have that TMBG signature
to them but don’t repeat previous ideas (is “If Day For Winnipeg” a callback to
“weep day for urine man”? Who knows, who cares?). I’m honestly in awe of their
creativity.
30. Adele - 30
The best album by
the biggest artist of the past decade, no big obvious covers like her previous
albums and no holding back on the emotional catharsis, she even ends the album
with three consecutive 6-minute bawlers. But it’s not all piano ballads, and
between Greg Kurstin’s incremental push toward the club on “Oh My God” and
Chris Dave’s fantastic drumming throughout (especially the shuffle on “Cry Your
Heart Out”), the album moves move than I expected it to. 30 for 30, no ESPN.
31. Lainey Wilson – Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’
You would know that
Dolly Parton is Lainey Wilson’s idol just from the way she sings even if her
debut album didn’t have a s song, “WWDD,” that asks “What would Dolly do?” But
the only new female singer with a #1 country radio hit in 2021 isn’t just
cosplaying her heroes, and there’s a lot of musical creativity in here from the
dusky noir of “Rolling Stone” to the feisty 7/8 of “LA.”
32. Pink Sweat$
- Pink Planet
The major label career of Pink Sweat$ has
mostly consisted of constantly lobbing out singles trying to catch that one hit
that will put him in the spotlight – he’s already released 3 new singles since
his debut album Pink Planet was
released in February. But this album is a fantastic calling card for how
sublimely smooth his songs are, sort of a throwback to the super slick
R&B/pop of the ‘80s, I hope it doesn’t get forgotten whenever he does land
that big hit that I think is inevitable.
33. Tyler, The
Creator - Call Me If You Get Lost
For the last decade
of Tyler, The Creator’s very successful and acclaimed career, my year end lists
have been a Tyler-free zone. Even after he dropped the lame shock value lyrics,
I just thought he was a boring rapper limited by his Pharrell hero worship. But
I’ll give him credit, he finally made a record that held my attention, I didn’t
think he was capable of writing an 8-minute rap as compelling as “Wilshire.”
34. Kacey Musgraves
- Star-Crossed
Kacey Musgraves had
a weird year where the crossover audience she won over with The Golden Hour lost interest in her,
but her sound had moved away from country enough that she started getting shut
out of country categories at the Grammys and continued being ignored by country
radio without ever having an actual pop hit. And it’s a shame she ended up in
this weird no man’s land with a good old-fashioned breakup album with an
interesting palette of sounds, I love how it ends with a disco flute solo and
then a Violeta Parra cover sung entirely in Spanish.
35. Starrah - The
Longest Interlude
A couple of singles
Brittany “Starrah” Hazzard co-wrote for Camila Cabello and Maroon 5 went
Diamond this year, and she continued her run of hits with Normani. But Starrah
(who I believe went to Cape Henlopen High School in Delaware a few years after
I did!) has never seemed especially interested in making that Ne-Yo jump from
hitmaking songwriter to pop star. And her self-released debut solo album is a
moody, nocturnal record that doesn’t seem aimed at any radio format, but her
unparalleled ear for catchy vocal melodies and cadences still shines through.
36. Morray - Street
Sermons
The current
business model for up-and-coming rappers with a hit single is to wait as long
as possible to put out a major label album and pack it with every big name
feature and producer they can get. But Morray made my favorite rap hit of the
year, “Quicksand,” and I’m glad he got to quickly follow it up with an album
with 12 more songs with great melodic flows and no guests. It may not maximize
his spot on the charts but it lets him really establish his voice and be
himself, which is something few people get to do on their debuts anymore.
37. Better Days
- Better Days
Jason Butcher has
been one of my favorite singer/songwriters in Baltimore since even before I
shared a practice space with his old band Among Wolves a few years ago. And
after the breakup of Among Wolves, it was exciting to finally hear what he’d
been working on with his new project Better Days, it kind of stays in his roots
rock comfort zone but there are some cool sort of groove-driven outliers on
here too.
38. Crowded House
- Dreamers Are Waiting
Neil Finn started
Crowded House to establish his own name out of the shadow of the band his
brother Tim Finn started, Split Enz. But eventually Tim became an occasional
member of Crowded House, and three decades later the band is a total family
affair, with both of Neil’s sons Liam and Elroy becoming members of Crowded
House (along with longtime producer Mitchell Froom). And Dreamers Are Waiting has a cozy familial air to it, with Neil
Finn’s voice aging like wine – even his falsetto still sounds pretty good.
39. Willie Nelson
- The Willie Nelson Family
Willie Nelson has
been making record with his family (and his band The Family) for a long time,
mainly with his sister Bobbie Nelson on piano. But for the first time on The
Willie Nelson Family, Willie makes music with four of his seven kids, with his
most successful progeny Lukas Nelson singing lead on a beautiful cover of
George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass.” But mostly Willie leads his ensemble
through an interesting selection of relatively obscure tunes from his ‘70s
songwriting peak, as well as the early signature song “Family Bible.”
40. Maxo Kream
- Weight Of The World
Maxo Kream has a
great ear for loping, gnarly beats that perfectly suit his big, commanding
voice. And in an era where awkward, arbitrary-sounding beat switches like
“Sicko Mode” are in vogue, the beat switch on “They Say” actually feels like
compatible ideas that come together to make two halves of a whole.
41. Robin Thicke
- On Earth, And In Heaven
I get whiplash just
thinking about how Robin Thicke released the biggest song of his career,
released a flop a year later unsuccessfully begging his ex-wife to come back,
and then didn’t release an album for 7 years. But On Earth, And In Heaven is a nice little course correction back to
the feather light acoustic soul that was his niche before “Blurred Lines,” and
it’s good to have him back. There is one Pharrell-produced song that sounds
like old people could dance to it at weddings, but Thicke never released “Take
Me Higher” as a single, possibly afraid of tempting fate.
42. Mac McCaughan
- The Sound Of Yourself
When Mac McCaughan
started releasing music outside Superchunk, it was often lo-fi experiments with
synths and drum machines, before his Portastatic and solo albums eventually
became more polished guitar-driven affairs. So when Mac stayed home during the
pandemic and made The Sound of Yourself with whatever old gear he had in the
house, it kind of unintentionally became a nice throwback to the early
Portastatic records. And although I worked on a few concerts in 2021, the only
time I actually bought a ticket and attended was Mac and Jim Wilbur playing
Superchunk songs acoustic at the Ottobar, which is a pretty good memory to have
of that brief moment when I felt optimistic about going to concerts again.
43. Lil Nas X - Montero
When people call
Lil Nas X talented or a genius, it’s usually in the context of his ability to
play social media and the new cycle like a fiddle and entertain the world with
Twitter antics and manufactured controversies. And I mean, he really is a
mumble rapper, to the point that I’ll hear a song a hundred times and still
have to google the lyrics, but he’s got an undeniable ear for beats and flows,
and he gets pretty real on songs like “Dead Right Now.” I don’t think I really
would’ve predicted that he had a pop rap blockbuster in him even after “Old
Town Road.”
44. Repelican with
Friends - I'm Not One: Vol. 1
I already wrote
about Jon Ehrens’s other Repelican release of 2021, Tough Light, in my EPs list. But I’m Not One: Vol. 1 is one of his most ambitious records to date,
recorded where he currently lives in Vermont but featuring a lot of remote
collaborations with friends from his time in the Baltimore music scene,
including members of Future Islands and Soft Pink Truth.
45. Joy On Fire
- Another Adventure In Red
Joy On Fire is
another artist that I became a fan of when they were based in Baltimore
(initially under the name SuperSharpShooter) and have continued to follow and
enjoy since they moved elsewhere. And guitarist John Paul Carillo and
saxophonist Anna Meadors, now based in New Jersey, make fantastically original
‘punk jazz’ epics. I just saw that they released another record last week so
I’m gonna go check that one out, but this album they released in April is one of
my favorite things they’ve done so far.
46. Nick Jonas
- Spaceman
Greg Kurstin will
probably never have the name recognition of Max Martin or even Jack Antonoff,
but his production was everywhere this year, from Adele and Foo Fighters to
Twenty One Pilots and Halsey. And in the middle of all that, Nick Jonas quietly
dropped an entire album produced by Kurstin that seemed to be a little test of
whether the Jonas Brothers’ recent comeback would boost his solo career as
well. The album kind of disappeared very quickly, and Nick Jonas went back to
releasing singles with his brothers, but this little album of smooth synth jams
is some of the best stuff he’s ever made.
47. Mariah The
Scientist - Ry Ry World
I feel like it must
be tough growing up and deciding to be a singer when your name is Mariah,
especially if you’re not a powerhouse vocalist. And this year it kind of felt
like Twitter turned on Mariah The Scientist and started obsessing over viral
clips of her not sounding too great singing live. But if her talent lies in
deploying her limited range over great production in the studio, hey, that’s
fine, we can’t all be Mariah Carey, and Mariah The Scientist is pretty good at
being herself.
48. Sevyn Streeter - Drunken Wordz Sober Thoughtz
Just as I will hope that Mariah The Scientist
distances herself from Tory Lanez at some point, I have been futilely hoping
for over a decade that former Rich Girl member wouldn’t rely on her association
with Chris Brown to further her career. But oh well, I’ll tolerate a Breezy
feature here and there to get her great songs with Jeremih and Lucky Daye and
BIA on Drunken Wordz Sober Thoughtz.
49. Lindsey Buckingham - Lindsey Buckingham
The creative chemistry of the Rumours-era lineup of Fleetwood Mac has
always been a magical, volatile thing, and I’m sad that after 45 years they’re
still squabbling and feuding. And even though I was annoyed when Lindsey
Buckingham got kicked out of the band a couple of years ago, everything he’s
said on the matter this year has made him seem less and less sympathetic. But
I’m glad that he’s still doing his own thing, this is an excellent record.
50. Heartless
Bastards - A Beautiful Life
Erika Wennerstrom’s
voice is a marvelous sound, especially with the cavernous reverb and country
twang of earlier Heartless Bastards records. And while A Beautiful Life has this sort of AM gold vibe that I wasn’t
expecting, Wennerstrom still sounds great.
