Best Albums of 2021
For a year that consistently felt like a do-over and a time loop at the same time, 2021 featured some great music from artists old and new. My own favorites feature a band that wasn't even a band a few months ago, an album distributed by the Smithsonian, some impressive solo debuts, and an inspired collaboration between very disparate artists.
We’re heading into the third year of a global pandemic (2020, 2021, 2022...), and albums conceived and created under the cloud of COVID 19 are starting to see the light of day. It's interesting to see a generation-defining event dissected in near-real time by artists with the time and opportunity to share their perspective. There are fewer and fewer truly shared experiences in our society, a real detriment to our collective understanding of each other. We can't even agree on basic things like reality and truth. And even though most of the albums on my list aren't chock full of songs about COVID, the sense of isolation, disorientation, desperation, and forced distance from friends and loved ones shines through. Those shared experiences - even if they're bad ones - bring us closer together.
I’ve always been someone who falls hard for songs, albums, artists that I like. Hearing a favorite song or listening to a well-worn album is like talking to an old friend again. So it follows that, bereft of actual, physical friends to hang out with for long stretches of the 2021, the music I listened to took on added importance. There was more time to listen uninterrupted and really dig in on the music that dug it’s hooks into me. So while I didn’t listen to more albums than usual in 2021, I listened more to the ones I did hear.
This wasn’t just new releases. I fell back into more than a few albums that I’ve cherished for years, hearing them with new ears and appreciation. My Epic by Sharon Van Etten, Ray Charles’ Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, and Madlib’s reinvention of Blue Note recordings, Shades of Blue, all became touchstones that I returned to throughout the year. Sometimes when shit gets too heavy, you need a safe hang, and what better for that than some old friends?
Speaking of old, this was also the first year I’ve really started to feel “old” in relation to the music I’m listening to. Sure, there are some artists on this list that are more or less my peers, age-wise, but there are also a number of 20-somethings starting to creep in. It’s exciting to hear a new generation express itself. The fact that they’re reinterpreting a lot of the music of my youth can be a double-edged sword. It’s nice to hear songs that sound kinda familiar, until I take a minute to realize that this is the same as the grunge bands of my youth aping the 70s rockers my dad listened to.
Casual jokes about my burgeoning mid-life crisis aside, let’s get down to business. We’re here to count down my ten favorite albums of 2021. As usual, they’re presented in no particular order.
Arlo Parks - Collapsed in Sunbeams
Drenched in cool, laid-back beats, Collapsed in Sunbeams is clearly a showcase for the young Arlo Parks’ songwriting skills. The evocatively sparse, jazzy, beat-heavy soundscape is like a warm blanket in the best possible way.
The prodigiously talented 21 year old’s debut arrived in the midst of a pandemic and spoke directly to the state of mind of people everywhere struggling to cope. Especially - and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but at 42 I have to own up to the fact that it’s appropriate and correct terminology for me to use - young people. Gen Z isn’t exactly starved for talented songwriters, as genres blur and lyricism moves to the fore, and Parks’ catapults herself toward the front of the pack with an impressive debut album featuring a string of impressive songs like Caroline, Black Dog, the beautifully devastating Eugene, and the radio fave, Hurt.
“We all have scars, I know it’s hard. You’re not alone.” is something we’ve all needed to hear over the past two years. And there it is, delivered in Parks’ casually hushed delivery, inviting us to sit back, relax, and commiserate.
Allison Russell - Outside Child
Tackling trauma through music has a long, long history (the blues, anyone?), but that well-traveled path has rarely sounded so empowered and triumphant. Allison Russell plumbs the depths lyrically while musically soaring above them. It's hard to think of a more effective "f-you" to an abusive relationship than creating beautiful, inclusive, affirming art out of that pain and suffering. That’s exactly what Russell has accomplished with Outside Child.
Whether it's the evocative Nightflyer, the glorious sanctuary of Persphone, the strutting confidence of The Runner, the haunting Hy-Brasil, or the cheeky closer Joyful Motherfuckers, Outside Child is one of the essential releases of 2021. Allison Russell’s solo debut is a gorgeous artistic statement and clarion call of intersectional vibrancy for a genre that has for too long been stuck in well-worn pathways.
No-No Boy - 1975
It’s hard to think of a better vehicle to highlight overlooked, ignored pieces of history than music. That’s exactly what historian and musician Julian Saporiti has done with No-No Boy, a musical history project masquerading as an Americana album. The result is a stunning achievement that educates as much as it entertains. Saporiti is a fascinating young artist. For more, check out this great interview my friend, journalist Jerad Walker, did with him earlier this year.
One of the standout songs on the album, “The Best Goddamn Band in Wyoming,” tells the story of a real jazz band, the George Igawa Orchestra, comprised of Japanese-Americans stuck in WWII concentration camps in rural Wyoming. It’s masterfully written, insightful, clever, and biting. But really, it almost feels like you could say the same thing about a half dozen other songs on this album, depending on your mood or taste in music. Saporiti doesn’t hand-hold listeners, charging ahead with densely-packed narratives of forgotten US history and the immigrant experience.
Each song swings and sways through a world of uncertainty, shifting genres with ease. Yet it never strays too far from a general kind of Americana that has really taken root over the past few decades. Spanning roots and rock, country and jazz, ragtime and folk, Saporiti’s voice is an anchor through it all, guiding you through a storm of language and history told from a point of view that most of us haven’t honestly heard. Or haven’t heard enough, anyway. The result is somehow more sweet than bitter. The melodies burrow in deep and stick to your bones. Lyrics run round and round in your head. Genuinely great art tends to have that effect on people. Even though I’m not officially numbering my list these days, 1975 is definitely right at the top.
Margo Cilker - Pohorylle
From the opening lines of “That River,” singer-songwriter Margo Cilker sounds as sure and confident as someone with years of writing, touring, and recording under their belt. That confidence is an infectious strut that is nearly impossible not to get swept up in, and Pohorylle invites you in immediately.
Cilker's unpretentious delivery settles perfectly over well-worn (but not worn out) song structures and pulls you in with familiar specificity. Pohorylle may not be a groundbreaking artistic statement, but it stands it's ground proudly and honestly. These are songs that clearly come from experience, and that unvarnished authenticity shines through.
Floating Points & Pharoah Sanders - Promises
After nearly a year of listening to Promises, I’m still not entirely sure what to make of it. All I know is that it draws me in, surprises me, and comforts me with each listen. The interplay between the electronic music of Floating Points, the classical flourishes of the London Symphony Orchestra, and the legendary Pharoah Sanders is a truly inspired match. Each compliments the other perfectly and the result is a meditative masterpiece. In a year filled with turmoil and tumult, Promises was a soothing balm.
Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime
We all have at least one song that we love, but never bothered to learn the words to. You get the general gist, teach your mouth to make a noise that approximates what you think you’re hearing close enough to fake it. It wouldn’t stand up to the scrutiny of a karaoke mic, but it does the trick when you’re singing in the shower or the car. We all have a couple of songs like that in our collections, right?
Growing up as a Pearl Jam fan, this is something I know all too well. If you want to compare interpretations of what the hell Eddie Vedder is singing in Yellow Ledbetter, or better yet, what that song is even about, I’m your guy.
Whether or not I ever learn the lyrics to Yellow Ledbetter, I love that song. It transports me to a special place, brings back memories of good times. What it’s actually “about” doesn’t matter to me as much as how it makes me feel when I hear it. And, at a certain level, isn’t that what any of us are asking of music when we hit play?
Well, that’s exactly how I feel about Tuareg musicians that have caught my ear over the years, starting with Tinariwen and continuing on through Bombino and Kel Assouf. Something about their sinewy guitar lines and the elemental, percussive nature of the music they create pulls me in, even though I don’t speak a bit of Tamasheq. So the political and social consciousness of their music doesn’t make its way to me, which is unfortunate because Afrique Victime is apparently filled with both anti-imperialist and feminist messages. But the feeling does, and that’s more than enough.
Filled with bare-bones arrangements that leave plenty of room for improvisation and freedom, Afrique Victime grooves and crescendoes, and occasionally flying off into the stratosphere. As a child of the Midwestern plains, I hear echoes of that space and distance and openness throughout. If you close your eyes, you can almost see the endless skies and beautifully harsh landscape that influences such wide-open soundscapes.
Strand of Oaks - In Heaven
Timothy Showalter might just be the most earnest musician working today. Over and over, he has peeled back the curtain to reveal his processes, motivations, hang-ups, and fuck ups, weaving incredibly honest touches into almost every album as Strand of Oaks. I mean, he’s even gone so far as to write about band members who left being better off in their new gigs and wishing them well. This self-referential streak makes him all the more endearing, like that one friend who's always ready with a welcoming hug.
As a follow up to 2019's excellent Eraserland, In Heaven doesn't soar quite as high as songs like "Ruby" or "Weird Ways." There is joy here, to be sure, but melancholy and loss shoot through much of the album, a predictable result of such an emotive artist living through a global pandemic. Still, this is undoubtedly the sound of a man on steadier footing who is dealing with tough losses. Jimi and Stan, a love letter to his pet cat, Stan (who, yes, is hanging out in heaven with Jimi Hendrix) is particularly bittersweet. When he questions why we hang around in this life as long as we do, thus far outliving our furry friends, he tells on himself - "for me it's all the songs I haven't found." Given how vital working through tragedy and drama seems to be to his creative output, I don't doubt it in the slightest. In fact, I'm just happy he's out there searching, especially if albums like In Heaven are the result.
RIP Stan.
Cautious Clay - Deadpan Love
I’d be lying if I said I had a nuanced understanding of soul, Neo-soul, and R&B. I’ve come to terms with that fact. But I do know what I like, and Cautious Clay’s latest is definitely it. Straddling genres, mixing and matching this and that, Deadpan Love is a whole vibe, and I'm digging it.
Aeon Station - Observatory
It’s bittersweet for me to listen to Aeon Station, the new project led by Kevin Whelan and two other members of indie rocks’ perpetual tinkerers The Wrens, his brother Greg and drummer Jerry MacDonald. Like many fellow fans of the now officially defunct band, I have been waiting for follow up to their 2003 masterpiece, The Meadowlands, for eighteen years now. Turns out, we weren’t the only ones frustrated with the wait. Kevin took his half of the songs for that long-awaited album and fleshed it out to a full-length over the course of 2021. As of now, Observatory is probably the closest any of us are going to get to new material from The Wrens.
Even without the special spark provided by former bandmate Charles Bissell, Observatory still feels in some ways like it picked up right where The Meadowlands left off 17 years ago, slightly out of place and ahead of its time. There are breadcrumbs throughout that allude to the breakup of the band, winks and nods at the frustration and fallout. The most obvious being the repeated "You said it was all in" that crescendoes during the second half of "Queens." A likely callout to the final mixes of the Wrens album being sent to the label in 2013...only to pulled back for more tinkering by Bissell, and then withheld again by Bissell in 2019.
Taking away that tinkerer’s ethos has let a prettier, more melodic side show through. Of the two main singers, Whelan’s voice always soared higher. His songs more wistful and aching, and now there is nothing left to tether him down. The result is a long-awaited beauty of an album. Observatory stands on it’s own, even if it’s hard for me to hear it without thinking of what could have been. Here's hoping that it’s not a swan song, but a new beginning. I don't want to have to wait another decade for more from Aeon Station, and these three still make beautiful, endearing music together.
Home is Where - I Became Birds
It feels genuinely weird to fall head over heels for an album created by people half my age, playing a genre of music that helped shape my listening habits when I was their age. Voyueristic isn't the right word to describe the feeling, but it doesn’t feel too far off. Self-consciously bopping my head along to the absolute burner "Assisted Harakiri" or screaming along with every "Hey Samantha!!!" in "Long Distance Conjoined Twins" is not something a self-respecting 42 year old adult should be doing. But here I am, doing it. Because, well, sometimes you just have to let yourself feel some feelings and rock out.
The EP-length I Became Birds is a 19 minute long force of nature. To break it up into individual tracks almost defeats the point. Sandwiched in-between oddly evocative verses are cathartic sing-alongs that build and build. Like how, in On Sewn Together from the Membrane of the Great Sea Cucumber - “Look at all the dogs / look at all the dogs / I want to pet every puppy I see / I want to pet every puppy I see” - somehow ends up feeling weighted down with importance, before it cracks open into a raw catharsis of crashing cymbals, frantic guitars, and howling distortion.
For older emo kids who lived through this all the first time around, there’s a lot to enjoy here. But what’s really great is the way that Home Is Where take those tropes and hooks and wield them so expertly. I don’t care so much if it’s fifth-wave emo or third-wave screamo or whatever iteration of folk punk we’re at these days. It’s messy and exhilarating and absolutely essential.
Worth a Spin
Webbed Wing - What's So Fucking Funny
Public Service Broadcasting - Bright Magic
Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
Boom Bap Project - Return Flight
Leon Bridges - Gold-Diggers Sound
girl in red - if i could make it go quiet