Best music of 2021

Last year I think I overdid it with trying to keep up with new music. “Circa 200 albums, comprising more than 190 hours and 2,535 tracks” I said it was. I wondered whether lock-downs and extensive WFH were a factor. And then overall, both old and new, I listened to over 72 days’ worth of Spotify over the first 11 months of 2020, an average of over 5 hours a day. OK, I said to myself, that was a fun experiment, no doubt with the world going back to normal in 2021 my listening habits will go back to normal too and I’ll be binging on whichever back catalogues I wish to and not checking out the umpteenth release of an artist I’ve never really listened to before but they have a new album out so now’s the time I ought to. So that’ll explain why my “2021” playlist is only c.240 hours and 3,240 tracks long. Oh. Wait. FFS.

And I listened to more than 94 days’ worth of Spotify over the first 11 months of 2021, which averages at more than 6 hours a day. So I suppose there were plenty of back catalogue binges in there too. In an attempt to really dive into / show off about this, last year I essentially grouped loads and loads of releases by genre (as best I could) and put an asterisk or a comment against the odd few. Doing that once is quite enough thank you, so I’ll just link to the full playlist below then pick out for discourse a few things that really struck me.

Link: 2021 Longlist

In terms of disappointments, there were none, really, this year. At worst a few idiosyncratic frustrations. Things like Adele’s new record being a total mess, Black Country, New Road being touted as the next big thing (it’s better than fine, sure, but the vocals are marmite and little of the instrumenting hasn’t been done by post-rock or jazz artists before), Lana Del Rey’s inevitable and totally understandable mean reversion after 2019’s stunning masterpiece Norman Fucking Rockwell (although, tbf, at least one of her two 2021 releases is still very good), AFI’s weakest album in a while (although not without its moments, and in some cases the lyrics aren’t as bad as Davey Havok’s post-Sing the Sorrow average), or Lorde’s misfiring and trying-far-too-hard-to-sound-like-Lana-Del-Rey-and-not-succeeding third album and its bizarrely sexualised marketing. Deafheaven’s Infinite Granite is fine if you like atmospherics but not so much if you like black metal. Great Mass of Color is one of the songs of the year though. IDLES’ CRAWLER, on the other hand, is a return to form after last year’s trying-far-too-hard Ultra Mono.

No, 2021 was far from musically disappointing. There were some marvellous surprises, inspired comebacks (I mean more in terms of quality from bands that have been around but in 3/5 star territory for a while, rather than, say, Abba), and even where legacy bands are still resting on their laurels there were decent and solid releases from many of them (looking at you, Dream Theater and Iron Maiden). Genre music is alive and well, from jazz (a plethora of excellence this year, including big band which is never normally my first jazz love) and post-rock (god bless the appreciation society group on Facebook) to ambient/electronic/DJ/produced and post/hardcore both traditional and innovative. There was some incredible women-led music, in genres both typical (singer/songwriter, pop) and less so (alternative, non-operatic metal).

As usual, I’ll have missed and overlooked and forgotten things, particularly releases from near the end of the year (Arca’s four albums kick ii-iiiii, for example), but here are some records that really stood out for me.

Link: 2021 best songs playlist

Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster – The World Inside

There were a tonne of great post-rock releases this year. All the ones I’m aware of can be found in my full 2021 playlist, plus BRUIT <_’s The Machine is burning and now everyone knows it could happen again which is on Bandcamp but not Spotify, but MONO’s Pilgrimage of the Soul (a return to form after 2019’s largely low energy Nowhere Now Here), God Is An Astronaut’s Ghost Tapes #10, Barren Lands’ The Singularity, Where Mermaids Drown’s And the Raging Winds do Blow, RWYR’s Distance, KAUAN’s Ice Fleet, and Glasgow Coma Scale’s Sirens are particularly wonderful. Post-metal wise, Cult of Luna struck again with the 5-track (but still long enough to be an LP) The Raging River and Bossk returned with their most Cult-of-Luna sounding record yet, Migration (no complaints from me on that front, but the album does perhaps contain one or two too many intros rather than full songs). Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Mogwai’s 2021 releases are both decent but perhaps not spectacular. Well anyway, The World Inside is heavy at times without being full on metal, borders on math-rock at other times, and is incredibly solid and listenable from start to finish. It gains points for only having a few thousand listens on Spotify.

Ulysses Owens Jr. Big Band – Soul Conversations

While I don’t always keep up to date with new releases, occasionally I’ll have a look at what Jazzwise or Jazziz or whoever is saying is getting released next month, and this year I managed over 40, so ok. And I don’t dislike any of it. With jazz I never comprehend why what gets picked up by non-jazz fans gets picked up by non-jazz fans, so even though Sam Gendel and Sam Wilkes’ Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar albums are excellent, I suppose they were also in the right place at the right time (I believe the track BOA features on a TV show). On Cairn, Fergus McCreadie’s piano trio alternates effortlessly between calm and intensity. McCreadie features energetically on saxophonist Matt Carmichael’s Where Will the River Flow. Portico Quartet’s Monument is their most satisfying effort since 2009’s Isla. The groups Ill Considered and Artifacts on the freer end of the jazz spectrum. But the record that really made me sit up and take notice (I’m going to use this phrase a lot) was drummer Ulysses Owens Jr.’s Big Band’s Soul Conversations. The problem I often have with big bands is the same as jazz “with strings”, where the more instruments you add the more constrained and confined it all becomes (I like solos that shoot for the moon and adore non-vocal showboating, as long as it’s not done at someone else’s expense). There are exceptions of course – Stan Getz with strings, Miles Davis with Gil Evans, Mingus Big Band, and so on, but in general no thanks. Until now it seems – high energy, lots of solos, good material (Two Bass Hit, Giant Steps, Human Nature), this is big band music right up my alley.

Architects – For Those That Wish to Exist

Should that be who rather than that, maybe? Well anyway, this came out in February and I kept listening to it for ages. On the more melodic side of metalcore, great tune follows great tune. I’m going to say it culminates with centrepiece Goliath, featuring Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro (who in another example of championing British metalcore, also features on While She Sleeps’ NERVOUS) but there are a further three guest spots – Winston McCall of Parkway Drive, and Liam Kearley of Black Peaks, and, most surprisingly, perhaps, Mike Kerr of Royal Blood. While this is certainly one of my favourite songs of the year, I am not totally convinced that it transcends the genre – while that matters little to me it does mean I would be more self-conscious about recommending it to others.

The Armed – Ultrapop

There’s a lot made around the marketing of this collective – no-one’s totally sure who’s in the band, the videos are a bit odd, the album cover seemingly more suited for, say, hip-hop or R&B maybe, but thankfully the music is great regardless. Definitely on the more innovative end of this year’s hardcore (see Dreamwell’s Modern Grotesque and Every Time I Die’s Radical for examples of greater purity but no less excellence. The latter features a guest spot from Manchester Orchestra’s Andy Hull – I have to say, I am enjoying these melody-focussed popular band people finding their way to heavy!). If you want a band that dropped off that end completely but still made something great, check out Genghis Tron’s Dream Weapon.

Turnstile’s Glow On is most people’s favourite hardcore record from 2021, I gather (it is fabulous, tbf), and I liked Quicksand’s Distant Populations too (albeit not as much as their previous album).

Chantal Acda – Saturday Moon

Onto the singer/songwriters now. On the female-side, weird but wonderful Acda’s Saturday Moon is my favourite. Her voice sounds like a vibrating (and female) Nick Drake, which trust me is a good thing. Julien Baker’s Little Oblivions, Lucy Dacus’ Home Video, Meskerem Mees’ and Tamara Lindeman’s The Weather Station’s ignorance are all close seconds. Willy Mason’s Already Dead wins on the male-side.

Wheel – Resident Human

Of all the bands that sound a bit like Tool (apparently this was a whole thing at some point), this one I like. A lot. Something like Chevelle, on the other hand, I do not.

Gojira – Fortitude

Definitely as fantastic as all the year-end lists suggest. It’s nothing less than metal in its sound, and decidedly Gojira – that sweepy djenty thing they do never seems to get old – but it’s almost pop-like in its immediacy and high hit-rate.

Glen – Pull!

Instrumental but not really post-rock I don’t think – it’s more riff-y and solo-y, for instance.

Dinosaur Jr. – Sweep it into Space

This is a prime example of a band I finally bothered to listen to, having not before. Turns out the umpteenth album of the lo-fi grunge stalwarts is excellent. I had it on repeat for a while; it’s catchy as hell.

Body Metta – The Work is Slow

Not actually a double-t – a Pi I think? Well anyway, this is the more ambient and noisy and experimental and instrumental side of things, and it’s a winner for me.

Garbage – No Gods No Masters

I absolutely adored 2012’s comeback Not Your Kind of People. 2016’s Strange Little Birds kinda passed me by. No Gods No Masters is another doozy, though. Quite surprising though – who knew a mid-tier pop-rock band whose heyday was the mid/late 90s could make an album this abrasive – musically, lyrically, and politically – witty, and good after all these years? The bonus tracks are all joys too.

Yasmin Williams – Urban Driftwood

One woman and a guitar. Well, not quite, as she plays other things too, but it’s all just her I think. On the guitar, at least, she is both a virtuoso and an innovator.

Jinjer – Wallflowers

In terms of excellent female-fronted metal in 2021, we had the melodic Spiritbox, the slick Employed to Serve, and the slightly more jagged and experimental Jinjer. All three are excellent but Wallflowers wins out for the occasional curveball and frontwoman Tatiana Shmailyuk’s flawless transitions between clean and dirty vocals (I showed the Pisces video to several people earlier in the year). There is something endearing in what would be cringy in English if it came from someone whose first language it was – the sheer fact that the band is called something that sounds like “ginger”, the “stop / go” thing on the track Mediator – but they get away with it, being both Ukrainian and masters of their craft.

Halsey – If I can’t have love, I want power

A pop star in the vein of P!nk, at least image/attitude-wise, I’d say, but I’m no connoisseur. I only came here (as they say in youtube comments) to the album because Nine Inch Nails produced it. I listened to it once and thought nothing of it, then moved on. Maybe I was distracted or focussed on work or something, because when I listened to it again I fell for it big time. That’s what good pop records are supposed to do, right? Well a great pop (and “alternative”) record it certainly is, and Trent and Atticus’ production is beautiful (see the stunning Bells in Santa Fe, for instance). Some other notable personnel include Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham and Dave Grohl, who plays drums on the track honey. Speaking of honey, what a song that is. I posted a video of a live version with Halsey in a room awkwardly pirouetting in a mullet and a Miss Haversham dress and throwing her mic around and trying not to drop it as she gets increasingly covered in literal honey. I was mesmerised by this bedroom-mirror style performance and when I fantasise about my alternative life as a rock star rather than an actuary I picture myself dancing like that. I showed the video to my wife who stared at me until I admitted there is perhaps a sexual element to it too. Halsey’s not unattractive, so what. Perhaps that’s why my post didn’t attract a single “like” – given my love of esoterica and disregard for social media niceties that’s not that uncommon, but still. When I played the song for the umpteenth time, in the car, some days later, I was asked whether I was obsessed. My wife was only teasing, but I have listened to that song A LOT. Which, with WFH and my SONOS setup around the house, means so has she. Side note: the lyrics throughout the album are particularly good, too.

Ensemble 1 – Guitar, Bass & Drums

Sounds like a cross between Animals as Leaders and Steve Reich. What else do you need to know, go listen! With only 25 monthly listeners on Spotify, they’ll appreciate it.

Little Simz – Sometimes I might be Introvert

The problem hip-hop has with me is that I rarely sit and listen to music these days – it’s nearly always the soundtrack to something. Which means that I won’t be listening to the words that closely and I feel that with good hip-hop that’s missing 90 per cent of the point. But with Sometimes… I did sit up, and I took notice.

Thrice – Horizons/East

I loved this more than I’ve loved a whole Thrice album since 2009’s Beggars. Although as good as the whole thing certainly is (I’m looking forward to its counterpart Horizons/West, obvious in retrospect but still took me by surprise) I find myself constantly drawn to the tracks Northern Lights – song of the year material, for sure (one of the guitar parts is based on the Fibonacci sequence, apparently – take that, Tool!) – and Robot Soft Exorcism, in particular.

Public Service Broadcasting – Bright Magic

As well constructed as the album is, I have come to find that the band’s best songs are all on the earlier albums. So what a voyage of discovery this was. It was recommended to me so I did some digging. Looking them up on Wikipedia I was presented with two red flags – the band name, and the presence of banjo. But the name is not some twee meaningless indie nonsense, it is the perfect name for this band and what they do (in a way, set historical events to music), and the banjo only makes them sound like Mumford & Sons to the extent that Kraftwerk sounds like Mumford & Sons. So thank goodness for all of that.

The World is a Beautiful Place and I am No Longer Afraid to Die – Illusory Walls

The first 9 tracks present a fair variation of decent songs, a couple of them over five minutes. So far, so good. Then the last two tracks are 35 minutes between them. And they’re both incredible. Emo/rock band goes progressive, in a big way.

Alda – A Distant Fire

Black metal with some other things. So the opposite of Deafheaven, in a way (I like Deafheaven, for the record). Works really well. If we’re talking about good black metal / blackgaze in 2021 then An Autumn for Crippled Children’s As the Morning Dawns We Close Our Eyes (I swear there’s steel pan there on the second track), MØL’s Diorama and Wolves in the Throne Room’s Primordial Arcana all deserve a mention.

Flying Lotus – Yasuke

I streamed it. I loved it. I streamed it again. I loved it. And so it went. Then I discovered it’s a soundtrack album for the Black samurai anime series of the same. Well who cares it’s not a studio album, it’s still going on my list.

Other producers’ albums I have enjoyed immensely over the year include Bicep’s Isles, Madlib’s Sound Ancestors, edIT’s Come to Grips (his first record since 2007, although it’s not very glitchy), and:

DJ Format – Devil’s Workshop

I like DJ Shadow and this sounds like DJ Shadow so… A bit of research suggests that indeed this record was made by one man and a sampler and a record collection. So there you have it. A marvellous piece of work in its own right, nonetheless.

Happy New Year y'all