My favorite albums of 2021
I wrote a lot for my 2021 album review this year. So much, in fact, that the whole production had to get pushed back a few days as I struggled to put into words my thoughts about all of these projects. I also cheated and included eleven albums instead of ten, purely for the sake of variety. But despite the delay and the breaking of format, I hope you enjoy reading a bit about these eleven albums that helped me move through a year that was at times challenging, at times exuberant, yet always intriguing.
1.) Sometimes I Might Be Introvert - Little Simz
Introvert opens with a marching snare cadence that, after about two measures, adds three booming, descending bass hits. Then, a few measures later, what sounds like a trio of blaring trumpets join in with a two-note harmony. All of this continues until a chorus of voices sound and, 48 seconds in, everything shifts into an infectious 8th-note snare pattern, carried forward by the same booming bass sound. Such a grandiose opening sets the tone perfectly for an album that listens like a dramatic play, full of well-placed interludes and lyrics that echo melodramatic introspection. The first words we hear from Simz carry the theme — “The kingdoms of fire, the blood of a young messiah/I see sinners in a church, I see sinners in a church.” Then, the title of the project — “Sometimes I might be introvert/There’s a war inside, I hear battle cries.” This six-minute intro track might be my favorite of any project I listened to throughout the year, so it’s fitting that Simz gets to open the list here of my favorite albums from 2021.
Introvert runs one hour and five minutes, but at no point does it lag or feel lethargic. Each song and interlude is used wonderfully, even if the project can’t be said to follow one definite narrative throughout. Some themes persist, though, no doubt. Simz tackles feelings of isolation, misplaced love, womanhood, and self-image, among others. “Woman,” the album’s second track, featuring Cleo Sol, is about her mother, while “I Love You, I Hate You” is about her strained relationship with her father. “Standing Ovation” includes a number of excellent thematic instrumental changes throughout. Obongjayar features on the dark soul track “Point and Kill,” which is reminiscent of any number of excellent SAULT songs. That makes sense, as Inflo, who I mentioned in last year’s review of SAULT’s Untitled projects, handles the production on this record as well. “How Did You Get Here?” and “Miss Understand” round out the record, a brilliant pair of closing tracks after the final interlude that see Simz at her most direct and introspective. “Miss Understood,” in fact, is the most stripped back track on the record, a far departure from the grandiose opening, with Simz talking straight at the listener in a constant, stream of consciousness flow.
While Simz expresses self-doubt at points throughout Introvert, she simultaneously acknowledges that, on this project, she is at her best. I can’t help but agree.
Favorite tracks: Woman (with Cleo Sol), Two Worlds Apart, Protect My Energy
2.) New Fragility - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Certain albums remind me very distinctly of specific periods in my life. New Fragility — Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s (CYHSY) first full album since 2017 — is one such record. Released February 12, New Fragility walked alongside me as I picked my way through a spring semester at college that shaped me in ways I’m still trying to figure out. I’ve returned to it countless times throughout the summer, fall, and now the winter in order to pull myself back to that sequence of time, as St. Olaf thawed from another Minnesota winter and I pieced together my plans for the summer. Alec Ounsworth, now running CYHSY by himself, provides gorgeous balladry and lyrics that have stuck with me long after I first heard them. “I can’t believe the things I do to myself/I want to leave what I had never intended/To never set foot inside this burning house again,” he sings to end the album’s title track. “We could spay the lion/We could save ourselves some time/But am I really gone/When anywhere I hang my head is my home?” he asks on “CYHSY, 2005.” And, in a fitting ode to publishing this list on January 1st, Alec sings on “Mirror Song,” “Oh, despite our best efforts here comes another new year/Walking in circles, you say, ‘I swear I’ve been here before’.”
Alec’s intonation is entirely unique, each song comes packed with intimate portrayals of transient feelings and emotions, and it all comes together into 41 minutes of listening that helped me define such a rollercoaster of a year.
Favorite tracks: Thousand Oaks, CYHSY, 2005, Where They Perform Miracles
3.) Vince Staples - Vince Staples
Vince Staples, by Vince Staples. Speaking of albums that very clearly pull me back to a certain period of my life, Vince Staples by Vince Staples will forever be lodged in my memory as the soundtrack to my 2021 summer in Chicago. I would get off work at midnight and, before hopping on my bike to begin the half-hour ride home, pop my headphones in to begin listening to Vince Staples by Vince Staples straight through. The entire project only runs 22 minutes — by far the shortest on my list this year — but the ground it covers in such a brief run time is astounding. Propelled by Kenny Beats’ production, Vince tells stories of life in Los Angeles and how the past few years have shaped him as an artist and a person. Similar to The Alchemist (see below), Kenny Beats is a producer who has had a compelling run of projects — his collaboration with Denzel Curry last year the most notable. Now, his work alongside Vince can add to a catalogue for both artists that I hope will only continue to grow in the years to come.
The opening notes of “ARE YOU WITH THAT?”, right into the beat drop and the introduction of Vince’s lyrics a few measures later, will forever transport me back to those nighttime bike rides north through the streets of Chicago. And, for that, I am eternally grateful.
Favorite tracks: ARE YOU WITH THAT?, THE SHINING, TAKE ME HOME
4.) Bo Jackson - Boldy James and The Alchemist
The Alchemist had a big year. The prolific producer followed up his 2020 Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album, alongside Freddie Gibbs, by releasing a total of seven projects in 2021, a mix of solely instrumental and producer roles alongside notable lyricists. Haram, which The Alchemist released in March with Armand Hammer (who featured in my Honorable Mentions last year), has seen the widest critical acclaim, landing in year end lists for several prominent outlets and freelance music lovers. Don’t get me wrong, Haram is a phenomenal record in its own right. However, my choice Alchemist from 2021 is his near 45-minute long August project with rapper Boldy James, Bo Jackson.
Bo Jackson has a raw and gritty feel that is less noticeable on Haram and other Alchemist projects from the past year. James’ intonation is similar to that of Freddie Gibbs, so the record echoes the general tenor of Alfredo, the duo’s 2020 Grammy nominated project. I think The Alchemist’s production style best compliments the type of melancholic, straightforward delivery that is produced by James and Gibbs alike. Gibbs even features on the record. So too does Benny the Butcher, another rapper cut from the same cloth, if you will. Earl Sweatshirt, who features on Haram, pops up on the album’s sixth track too.
Overall, Bo Jackson is full of twisted stories of drug dealing and ill-found love, delivered distinctly by James on top of an eccentric, sample-heavy collection of Alchemist beats. The project is both artists at their best, and it clearly stands out among the voluminous and rapidly growing catalogue of The Alchemist.
Favorite tracks: Brickmile to Montana, Photographic Memories (feat. Earl Sweatshirt), Fake Flowers
5.) Occult New Age - Book of Wyrms
Like many things, I’m a sucker for a heavy, sludgy brand of rock music. Whether it’s Inlet by Hum (see last year’s list) or the classic tones of Black Sabbath records like Paranoid or Master of Reality, there’s something cathartic about listening to a heavily reverbed guitar tucked inside a mix alongside a chunky bass and a drum pattern propelled by a driving high-hat. Occult New Age hits this auditory combination right from the off, with a quick intro drum fill that leads directly into one of the most infectious guitar riffs I heard all year. Sarah Moore Lindsey, who handles vocals on the record and is one quarter of the group that makes up Book of Wyrms, offers a vocal style that is slightly muted and forlorn, pushed a bit farther back in the mix than you’d usually find a vocal track. But such a delivery perfectly compliments the instrumental stylings of Occult. The tracks feature numerous time signature and tempo changes, adding to the record’s complexity. There’s even a laid-back acoustic cut three songs in; maybe a little early for such a breather, but an intriguing song nonetheless.
If you’re a fan of Black Sabbath (who isn’t?), you’ll surely enjoy all 40-odd-minutes of Occult New Age.
Favorite tracks: Meteoric Dagger, Hollergoblin, Weatherworker
6.) Talk Memory - BADBADNOTGOOD
BADBADNOTGOOD (BBNG) are a strange group. I’ve always enjoyed their music and frequent collaborations with other artists, but I recognize their complexities, most notably their contentious split with former keyboardist and artistic director Matthew Tavares in 2019. The group was most prolific early in the decade, but they saw a decrease in output under their own name with a shift of focus to contributing production and instrumentals to other projects in the latter part of the 2010s. Among their most notable contributions during this period is the instrumental for the song “LUST” off Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN., production of “WEIGHT OFF” with KAYTRANADA from 99.9%, and the closing track off Mick Jenkins’ Pieces of a Man. Their sound is distinct and often easy to pick out when they do contribute an instrumental or feature on an album or a remix. Sour Soul, their 2015 project with Ghostface Killah, is easily one of my favorite hip-hop projects from the last decade.
But, despite this continuous musical output, Talk Memory is the first project under their own name since 2017. It represents, for me, a clear return to form — if not alongside a stylistic shift — for Alexander Sowinski, Chester Henson, and Leland Whitty, the trio that now make up the core of BBNG. While elements of the group’s electronica-infused jazz fusion stylings are present throughout Talk Memory, the incorporation of strings and piano make the project feel more like a classical jazz album. I’m sure this instrumental change is due in large part to the arrangements of Arthur Verocai, a Brazilian jazz musician whose 1972 self-titled album has been cited as an influence for artists like Cut Chemist and Madlib. BBNG even pick out the record in their 2017 “What’s in My Bag?” video with Amoeba Records. Verocai’s influence bolstered the orchestral instrumentation heard distinctly on tracks like “City of Mirrors,” “Beside April,” and “Love Proceeding.” It’s this combination of more traditional strings with BBNG’s unique blend of jazztronica that make Talk Memory stand out.
No single cut from the record displays the potency of this combination better than “Talk Meaning,” the final song from Talk Memory. It features Terrace Martin — saxophonist, Kamasi Washington collaborator, and the acclaimed producer for Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly — and Brandee Younger — a harpist who has featured on acts ranging from Moses Sumney’s Aromanticism to Resavoir’s self-titled record to, most recently, Kanye West’s DONDA. It’s Younger’s harp notes that bring the record to a close, a fitting end to a project that showcases the musical versatility and the collaborative ability of BADBADNOTGOOD.
Among these different aspects of Talk Memory, I think the best way to describe the project, in relation to BBNG’s previous records, is maturity. It’s a revelatory growing-up moment for the group and an excellent entrance into a new decade that, I hope, can bring as much proclivity for the group as the previous one.
Favorite tracks: Beside April, Love Proceeding, Talk Meaning
7.) For the first time - Black Country, New Road
I’ve heard them referred to in a number of different ways. The English speedy wundergrounders, the British post-rockers, our new favorite prog-men — all monikers for the trio of bands that is Squid, Black Midi, and Black Country, New Road. Where each group’s sound is distinctive, their shared youth and sudden rise up the ranks of British rock have inevitably found the three grouped together in the minds of me and other music fans. All three bands released albums this year, and while the decision between including Black Midi or Black Country in this list was certainly a difficult one to make (sorry Squid), I came to my senses and put For the first time on here, a record that is at once more approachable without losing its uniqueness and progressive rock appeal. Plus, I already hyped up Black Midi in 2019, so I figured it’d be better to write about Black Country this time around.
For the first time was a hugely anticipated record after Black Country, New Road jumped into the spotlight with their excellent song “Sunglasses” that appeared on NPR’s year-end singles list in 2020, primarily due to the band’s performance at the South-by-Southwest music festival. Although the album version of the song differs slightly from the earlier single, the track is a perfect encapsulation of how Black Country shape and mold a track — a ponderous opening that builds slowly into a frenetic climax and then a steady close that you never really want to end. This pattern is effortlessly repeated on songs like “Opus” and my personal favorite track from the record “Athens, France.” The instrumental opening to the project, aptly named for its vocal absence, is a punctuated introduction to an enthralling 40 minutes of music. (40 minutes really is the sweet spot for album length, innit?)
Apparently Black Country, New Road have the 2022 follow-up to their 2021 debut record — Ants From Up There — mostly put together and ready to release in February. If For the first time had high expectations, its revealed quality has created a seeming fervor to discover where Black Country, New Road go from here.
Favorite tracks: Athens, France, Sunglasses, Opus
8.) The Turning Wheel - Spelling
My story with The Turning Wheel is interesting. The first I heard of Spelling’s album, released in late June, was from a review by theneedledrop, the YouTube standout music reviewer who shaped much of my music taste in high school and early college. Anthony Fantano, man behind the channel, famously gave the album a 10 out of 10, making it his fifth project out of hundreds reviewed to earn the prestigious “perfect” designation. This immediately turned me away from the project, as its release and subsequent needledrop review coincided with a time when I was pretty turned off from Fantano. I had begun to find I no longer got much out of his reviews, and I found his online persona quite annoying.
But, when I began to see other’s heap praise upon the album, I realized I inevitably had to check it out. I listened to the first song, “Little Deer,” once, and thought it was just okay, nothing too special. Then I put it on again and made it through “Little Deer,” this time thinking, “Huh — there might be something here!” After several subsequent listens, I, just like Fantano, fell in love with the album and all of its theatrics.
In a somewhat similar vein with Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, The Turning Wheel listens like a massive dramatic play, with cascading ups and downs fueled by a 30-piece orchestral backing and Spelling’s overexaggerated vocal style. The production is immense and the themes of the songs are unique, even strange. “Little Deer” is definitely up there with “Introvert” for best opening tracks of 2021, greeting the listener with two staunch piano chords accompanied by an ascendant string arrangement; a hi-hat pattern helps move the whole thing along. “Turning Wheel,” the album’s third song, sees Tia Cabral, the artist behind Spelling, take the role of a societal outcast imploring her peers to ignore the constant need for attention from others and to join her “up on the hill.” “Boys at School,” which opens the album’s second half, details Cabral’s isolation and ostracism in school and her adulation of a fictitious figure on their TV, who “gave me a heartbeat” when she metaphorically hadn’t had a real one before.
The Turning Wheel feels like a luscious, grandiose escape into a world that is somehow beyond ours, a dramatic pantheon of a musical project that echoes the ‘turning wheel’ of life, its chaos and its mystery. I’m very happy I did decide to listen to this one.
Favorite tracks: Little Deer, Awaken, Boys at School
9.) I Know I’m Funny haha - Faye Webster
Each year I like to include one record in my year-end round-up that is simply a really nice listen. Last year it was Lianne La Havas’ self titled record. 2019 had some highlights in the pop subsection. This year it’s Faye Webster’s I Know I’m Funny haha. Another album that, like Vince Staples by Vince Staples and Spelling’s The Turning Wheel, featured heavily in my Chicago summer soundtrack, Webster’s 40-minute record is just really sweet and warm. There’s a few themes that shine throughout, like anxiety, loneliness, distracted love, and long-sought happiness. These plethora of feelings that Webster covers on Funny (is that a useful abbreviated title for the record? idk it’s kind of comical tho) come off like the introspective musings that have been heightened by an isolated and pandemic-stricken world in 2021. When you don’t have much of an outlet, you wind up rewinding moments or feelings in your own head over and over, and that comes through on Funny. Webster’s lyrics are complimented by the primarily smooth and laid back instrumentals underneath. It’s not that I would necessarily call Funny a ‘feel good’ record, but it’s certainly a record that I’ve put on at times when I’ve felt down and wanting to brew in my own poorly introspection.
Why journal when you can just listen to Faye Webster?
Favorite tracks: In A Good Way, Both All The Time, A Dream With a Baseball Player
10.) For Those I Love - s/t (David Balfe)
Loss is a theme that has been at the forefront of many lives throughout 2021. The last two records on my list deal with loss, but each in very different ways. For Those I Love, a self-titled project from David Balfe, a Dublin-based poet and musician, is one of the most direct, unapologetic explorations of what it means to experience loss that I’ve ever heard. Balfe shares memories and exhortations about the time he shared with late bandmate, fellow Dublin poet, and childhood friend Paul Curran, who took his own life in 2018. It’s Balfe’s debut solo record, and it’s an album that expounds deeply personal experiences in a way that is fraught with universal expressions of frustration over what will never be again.
On For Those I Love, Balfe expresses a love for Curran that “will never fade” — the record’s motif that is pronounced over and over again in a singularly Irish accent on top of piano-infused dance-electonica beats. This instrumental combination caught me a bit off guard on first listen. It seemed like a clash — stripped down spoken-word, poetic stories of childhood and teen exploits over instrumentals that sound like something you could reasonably dance to if divorced from their accompanying lyrics. But the more I listened through For Those I Love, the more I came to appreciate the unique dynamic formed by the combination. Balfe and Curran had in fact been working on the project together before Curran’s death, and the final verse on the album’s intro track portrays a moment of the two’s special musical connection.
“And a year ago or so I played this song for you on the car stereo in the night’s breeze/
This bit kicked in with it's synths and its keys and you smiled as you sat next to me/
You in the front, Gilly in the backseat, going ninety to the sounds as we roared down the street/
The other boys stompin’ feet, and me in utter disbelief from the joy from the break in the beats/
We got out and stood, by the Kia Rio caged stage, and I felt like I had it all/
Because I have a love, and it will never fade/
And neither will you, Paul.”
The record balances storytelling with both introspection and social commentary. “Top Scheme” asks, “How can we not feel this rage?/When the therapy costs more than half your wage,” and, a few verses later, derides a commercialized society that “jokes about the junkies” — “Addicts that get dehumanized ’cause they’re poor/But those problems start at your door.” The next song — “The Myth / I Don’t” — sees Balfe reflecting on how such a society has personally affected him and his battle with drugs. “I’ll take debt over death/And stress to keep breath/’Cause I see no other option yet,” he says. “The weight of this hangover/Hungover this year/And you drink to stop the trembling fear.” “Birthday / The Pain,” one song later, questions the purpose of aging when no amount of time will bring things back to the way they were — “So don’t fucking ask me why I don’t want to age/It just marks the time of things staying the same.”
The same song holds one of my favorite moments on the record. The track opens with what sounds like a muffled, far off crowd chanting. This sample came from the sounds of fans at Tolka Park, the home field of Shelbourne FC (the Shels), Curran’s favorite Irish soccer team. During the first game after his death, the Shelbourne ultras — depicted on the album’s cover — joined in a 27th-minute celebration of Curran’s life, full of red banners and flares and the chants that are heard on “Birthday / The Pain.” Curran was 27 when he died, and after the game was over, Balfe and other fans spread his ashes on the pitch. The story is gut-wrenching but beautiful, an encapsulation of how the love of sport can bring people together during periods of sorrow. Balfe using the chants on the album shows his musical aptitude and, of course, his continuous love for his friend. The next song finds Balfe expressing these memories with candor and sincerity.
“You live in every twist and turn at Shels/Alan Byrne head the ball/And all the glory and hell/And at times we win as well,
Still sit in your spot at the New Stand/Watch the young ultras throw cans and get banned/Beside old men smoking subpar soapbar hash/As we look out onto the field where we laid your ash.”
For Those I Love packs adolescent rage and memories into a forthright expression of pain carried onward by a love that will never fade — a simplistic yet impactful motif that exemplifies how difficult and confusing loss can be.
Favorite tracks: I Have A Love, The Myth / I Don’t, Birthday / The Pain
11.) By the Time I Get to Phoenix - Injury Reserve
Injury Reserve, alongside other artists like MF DOOM, Kendrick Lamar, A Tribe Called Quest, and Danny Brown, provided much of the soundtrack to my four years in high school. I’ll go back and listen to Floss, Injury Reserve’s enigmatic 2016 project, to hear Parker Corey’s boisterous production under Ritchie with a T and Stepa J. Groggs’ braggadocios and slightly off-kilter lyrics. “Ttktv” from their first record sticks in my memory, and “S on Ya Chest” from Floss is one of my favorite rap songs of all time. So when I heard the news that Stepa — Jordan Groggs — had died in June 2020, I, among countless others, was floored. An act that had all the potential to become one of the great hip-hop trios of all time, fusing glitchy electronic production alongside witty lyricism in a seemingly natural symbiosis, was suddenly divided, never to be reformed again.
Corey and Ritchie pick up the theme of loss on By the Time I Get to Phoenix, their first full length project since the loss of Groggs. But in contrast to For Those I Love, the way Ritchie and Corey deal with loss is much less straightforward, not as candid, and more confused. Corey’s production and Ritchie’s lyrics express the disorientation the duo feels following Groggs’ death. Where For Those I Love states simply the certitude that Balfe’s love for his lost friend will never fade, By the Time I Get to Phoenix sees the hip-hop duo still searching for the right way to mourn and to move forward.
Phoenix opens with “Outside,” a six minute track that finds Ritchie rapping in a somewhat abrasive, disjointed style, imploring the listener to “Let me talk to ’em kindly!” and that “We cannot end this with an agree to disagree.” The last two minutes and thirty seconds or so of the song, after Ritchie’s verses, is one of the standout musical moments of the year. The track builds and builds into a stuttered rhythmic beat, where Corey mixes the sounds of heavy breathing with a monotonous drum pattern and a simple repeating synth melody. It’s just off-kilter enough to be intriguing and even anxiety-inducing, and it sets the tone for the production style throughout the remainder of the record.
As soon as you think the beat is going to find a reliable pattern on any song, something to latch onto for more than a few seconds, it switches again, keeping the listener constantly off balance. The disjointed, fractured nature of each track matches Ritchie’s lyrical expressions. “Postpostpartum,” the ninth track on the record, is where Ritchie most directly addresses these feelings about the death of Stepa and its aftermath, how it shaped and altered his relationships with other people while looking for some sort of guidance — “I had my arms to the sea but now they gotta close.” “Bye Storm,” the record’s closing track, and its lyrics somewhat echo Lupe Fiasco’s “The Show Goes On,” with Ritchie acknowledging that he and Corey must continue to make art despite the loss they’ve experienced. Yet Ritchie and Corey must go on in a way that is forever altered by the loss of their groupmate and friend; you can’t have a “Three Man Weave” — the closing song from their 2019 self titled album — without a third man.
The hardest hitting, standout song on Phoenix is “Knees,” which comes between the two tracks just mentioned. It features posthumous lyrics from Stepa in verses that are difficult to listen to. He acknowledges his battle with alcoholism, sharing the advice his aunt told him shortly before his passing. He knows his drinking habit is dangerously unhealthy, and he promises, “Okay, this last one is my last one, shit.” But he knows that he “Probably said that about the last one” and is “Probably ’gon say it about the next two.” Ritchie’s own verses, before and after Groggs’, refer back to the song’s title, where he says, “My knees hurt ’cause I’m growing/And that’s a tough pill to swallow/’Cause I’m not, I’m not gettin’ taller.” In one sense loss can help a person to grow. But growth is never assured, and Ritchie acknowledges that here. The combination of Ritchie’s feelings of stagnation and pain with Stepa’s verses about his addiction — made more meaningful in light of his untimely death — make this the most emotionally potent moment on Phoenix, a sobering understanding of a future minus one.
With loss, it seems, Injury Reserve are saying that there’s nothing to really ‘get over.’ It’s just confusing and painful — “It rains, it pours, but damn, man, it’s really pourin’,” as Ritchie says on “Bye Storm” — until, after some indeterminate period of time, it suddenly isn’t anymore. I don’t know where Corey and Ritchie go from here, but I’m entirely glad the two were able to come together in reflection and sorrow on By the Time I Get to Phoenix — what is, without a doubt, my favorite record of 2021.
Favorite tracks: Outside, SS San Francisco (feat. Zelooperz), Knees
Honorable Mentions
Haram - Armand Hammer & The Alchemist
Lonely Guest - s/t (Tricky)
WE ARE - Jon Batiste
30 - Adele
CRAWLER - IDLES
LP! - JPEGMAFIA
Friends That Break Your Heart - James Blake
The Melodic Blue - Baby Keem
GLOW ON - Turnstile
Animal - LUMP (Laura Marling & Mike Lindsey)
Dark in Here - The Mountain Goats
I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES - Backxwash
Imaginary Everything - L’Orange & Namir Blade
Super What? - CZARFACE & MF DOOM
Promises - Floating Points & Pharoah Sanders
Notes With Attachments - Pino Palladino & Blake Mills
CARNAGE - Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
IMMEDIATELY Remixes - Perfume Genius & others
Jubilee - Japanese Breakfast
Uneasy - Vijay Iyer, Linda May Han Oh, and Tyshawn Sorey
I wrote at the close of last year’s review, “If 2021 as a year overall can match the type of music released in 2020, I think we’ll be in for a good one.” I think we might have missed the mark on that prediction a little bit. But, with hope forever lodged in our hearts, I echo the same sentiment for 2022. We all know even-numbered years are better anyway.
