Jacob’s Top In 2021
On the whole, this was a fairly solid year in music for me. There were a lot of really good new albums, including releases from 7 of the 10 artists on my most-anticipated list at the end of last year. After having to fill a whole section last year with a list of concerts that were canceled, this was probably the best set of shows I got to see in a single year, and it was mostly all within the span of two months. I can’t say that this was a particularly strong year for music discovery for me, but the old favorites came through pretty well.
Having done my 2010s retrospective last year, I can’t help but approach this process thinking about how 2021’s music lines up next to 2020’s and how I’ll be thinking about both when I’m looking back on them and the next eight years. One year out, I think I was right about my top three albums from last year, but I don’t think I quite appreciated then how great they were. It’s maybe a little odd to have current the frontrunner for album of the decade come out in the first week of February of the year ending in “0," but Brave Faces Everyone is still it. We haven’t gotten anything as good as Down In The Weeds, Where The World Once Was in the time since last August. Punisher still tickles all of the sensitive parts of my brain that it did the first time I gave it a listen on a nighttime walk. These are still probably my three favorite records of the past 3 or 4 years. With all of that said, this is (mostly) meant to be a celebration of the good things we got in 2021, so I’m going to stop with the long-term reflection and get to the picks.
Below, you’ll find my favorite albums and choices for a bunch of other categories. There are two Spotify playlists to go along with this post: my Top 25 Songs of 2021 and the much more expansive What’s Good In 2021. The Fans will appreciate that I also put together the second annual version of the Empowered Wallowing playlist to let you have the best bad time getting into 2022.
As always, thank you for reading. I hope you find something new to love.
Every year, I look at others’ AOTY lists to find new things, and I always have a few records I’m keeping an eye out for to indicate whether a given list might be ripe for discovery. Inevitably, I end up judging lists on whether they ranked some of those albums too low or at all, especially if there are others from a similar genre near the top. This year, Home Video was the first marker I looked for each time I scrolled to the next post, and it was the one that led to the most bafflement when I found it near the bottom of a list or omitted from another full of other favorites. I refuse to believe that someone who cares about music enough to rank albums could listen to “Hot & Heavy” and “Thumbs” and “Triple Dog Dare” and every other song on this record and not fall in love. These songs are so human, so personal, and so incredibly well-crafted. Lucy took huge steps forward with Historian, 2019, and her work in Boygenius, but Home Video is something else. I know in my head that there are others who could write songs this good (a few other artists even did it this year!), but it also really doesn’t feel like anyone else could do both a “Please Stay” and a “Brando” and have them on the same album, let alone back-to-back. Both of those, plus “Christine?” And those others I listed above? And “VBS?” It’s rare to hear someone write with such specificity and nostalgia and for that artist to also have the skill to make it sound so singular and relatable at the same time. This is a special record by a special artist. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Everything I wrote above about judging lists is just as true for Radical. I’ve been so in love with this band for so long and this album is so good that I can’t imagine liking heavy music and listening to this one and genuinely thinking that there were even a handful of better records this year. Several of my favorite artists put out albums I’d waited years for in 2021, and that type of anticipation can sometimes be really difficult to live up to. Every Time I Die somehow manages to exceed those expectations on a regular basis, and Radical is no exception. It’s riffy and heavy and lyrically dense in all of the best ways. It lets you take time to breathe for exactly one song, and that song is one of the prettiest and most heartbreakingly personal in the band’s discography. The album doesn’t get quite as bleak as Low Teens, but its pressure points are a bit broader and Keith Buckley’s writing is more direct that it’s ever been. And, even with some of the content being kind of depressing on its face, it’s just a blast to listen and scream along to. There aren’t a lot of bands that scratch this specific itch for me anymore, and there are even fewer that do it so well, so consistently. Radical is Every Time I Die firing on all cylinders, and I can’t wait to see how they somehow manage to top this the next time around.
For as much as I enjoyed Soft Spots, I didn’t foresee Driver being my choice for AOTY midway through the year and in such strong contention for the top sport at the end of it. I absolutely love the production on this record and how it feels so immediate, intimate, and tactile. I know I spent a lot of time above talking about how Lucy Dacus has been writing songs in a way that no one else was, but Stevie Knipe was right there with her on this one. The energy is a bit different, but both albums are full of those subtle lines that continue to twist the knife a little in the stark, sad songs and sometimes doubly so in the bigger, catchier songs. There’s a lot of The Format in some of the instrumentation and catchiness, especially on “Breathing,” “Checking Up,” and “Sober,” and that last song in particular really has no business being as fun to listen to as it is, given its lyrics. The first and last songs on the record are both more or less perfect, and the only thing I don’t like about this album is that it always feels like it’s over too quickly. I want to live in this sound forever.
Gami Gang feels like a throwback to a lot of albums I loved when I was younger, from the shreddy guitar parts and endlessly catchy vocals to the little clips spread throughout (the Terry Tate, Office Linebacker one is one of the best things included on any record in 2021). It reminds me a bit of Relient K’s mmhmm in the way that it effortlessly bounces around its different sounds and the type of energy it brings from start to finish. Even when it’s pressing some/all of those nostalgia buttons, the album still feels really fresh and contemporary. I like that they really just let these songs be what they wanted to be, and didn’t try to extend anything longer than necessary. This is a really breezy 20 songs. And they’re all just ridiculously fun. I didn’t hear a more infectious record all year.
5. Julien Baker — Little Oblivions
There are only a handful of new artists over the past few years that have been as compelling to me as Julien Baker. I’m constantly in awe of her musicianship and songwriting, and I’ve spent more than a few nights going down different rabbit holes of her playing sessions in as many formats as I could find. While Sprained Ankle and Turn Out The Lights were intimate, confessional, almost tragic records, Little Oblivion finds her filling out her sound more, letting the sadness of these songs push and pull the dynamics in different ways that make a ton of sense and create a more varied listen than her past albums. My favorite here is still the fragile, vulnerable “Song In E,” but I also love the huge sound of tracks like “Hardline” and “Faith Healer.” Little Oblivions is a bit heavy to listen to all the time, but it’s such a rewarding listen each time you come back to it. Even though Julien played just about every note on, it really sounds like a band playing together, and that dynamic carried over into her live show in a way that heightened everything she played. This is her best work yet, and I remain on the edge of my seat to hear whatever she does next.
11. Joe Vann — Found In The Smoke
12. CHVRCHES — Screen Violence
13. Kacey Musgraves — Star Crossed
14. Bleachers — Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night
15. Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine — A Beginner’s Mind
16. John Mayer — Sob Rock
17. The Night Game — Dog Years
18. Modest Mouse — The Golden Casket
19. Mini Trees — Always In Motion
20. ’68 — Give One, Take One
Top 10 Songs:
1. “Please Stay” — Lucy Dacus
2. “Stop Making This Hurt” — Bleachers
3. “Camera Roll” — Kacey Musgraves
4. “Song In E” — Julien Baker
5. “Passenger” — Adult Mom
6. “Planet Shit” — Every Time I Die
7. “Sticky” — The Maine
8. “Steve” — Sydney Sprague
9. “Silk Chiffon” — Muna (Ft. Phoebe Bridgers)
10. “Bed Head” — Manchester Orchestra
I listened to over 2,300 new songs this year. Here are my top 25: Top 25 Songs 2021
Best Album Art: Mayday Parade — What It Means To Fall Apart
There honestly wasn’t a lot of album art that I truly loved this year, but I’m really looking forward to getting to see a big print of this one when I get my copy on vinyl in the mail this year.
Favorite Live Show: Ruston Kelly and Margaret Glaspy at The Theatre of Living Arts in Philadelphia, PA, 11/12/21
2020 was the first year since 2006 that I didn’t get to see a single show in person. In this section of last year’s post, I listed everything I had tickets for that got canceled, and said that, “Extrapolating forward from these tickets I’d already bought, it was shaping up to be maybe my best concert year ever.” I did just about everything I could to make sure that the last half of 2021 fulfilled that extrapolation, and I really didn’t need to say “maybe” before. I got to see Bright Eyes three times, Lucy Dacus five times, Modest Mouse four times, and Julien Baker twice. I got to see Bleachers, Ruston Kelly, Bayside, Senses Fail, Hawthorne Heights, Pinegrove, All Time Low, The Maine, Movements, Hop Along, City & Colour, Waxahatchee, Mini Trees, Claud, and a handful of other opening acts. There were even a few more livestreams thrown in for good measure (I’m still looking forward to seeing The Format reunion, an in-person version of the 10-year anniversary show for Circa Survive’s Blue Sky Noise, and The Wonder Years with Spanish Love Songs (plus Origami Angel now), unless they all get pushed back yet another year). There was a week or two where I went to concerts on more days than I didn’t. I didn’t take a single one of these shows for granted.
Because of that, it was really hard to pick a favorite here (Bright Eyes and Lucy Dacus were strong contenders), but I the last show I saw felt like one of the best in the moment, so I’m going with that one. I was pretty unfamiliar with Margaret Glaspy before this concert, but seeing her from near the barricade turned me into a fan. She was doing so many cool things with her guitar, and her voice sounded really great. It was also my first time seeing Ruston Kelly, but Shape & Destroy was one of my favorite albums from last year, I love Dying Star, and I was seriously overdue to hear those songs live. The whole band was really locked in, and the mix was about as good as any show I’ve seen in my life. After the previous year and a half, it just felt so good to sing along and bang my head to those songs. It was also pretty fun to hear his version of “All Too Well” on the day Taylor Swift put out Red (Taylor’s Version), and new song “The Weakness” makes it sound like his next record is going to be every bit as good as the last few. It’s always nice when you walk away from a show as excited about it as you were when you got there, and this one definitely did that for me.
Biggest Surprise: Hayley Williams — FLOWERS for VASES/descansos
Petals For Armor was kind of a surprise in its own ways, but getting another album so soon after it was one of the best parts of last winter. FLOWERS for VASES/descansos carried over a lot of the things I loved about Hayley’s first solo record, but it also explored a much more interior version of those emotions and experiences. Parts are darker, parts are sadder, and it doesn’t have quite the overt cathartic release of the bolder tracks from its predecessor, though it’s overall a more cohesive and moving body of work. It’s so impressive that she made all of these sounds herself, and it’s one of the most affirmative statements of her independence in an era full of them. I’m excited for more Paramore, but I wouldn’t complain for one second if Hayley were to surprise us one more time with more music like this.
Biggest Disappointment: Bleachers — Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night
What a weird section to be writing. A big part of this choice is my own expectations. If you catch me on the right day, I’ll tell you that Gone Now was my favorite album of the 2010s, and I think Jack’s production has been pretty consistently great for everything he’s done in the last decade. That track record makes it so strange that the production is the thing most holding Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night back. Some of the record sounds like it’s being played in another room, and you almost have to turn the volume up with each passing song. There are a handful of truly great songs on the album, from “91” to “45" to “How Dare You Want More,” and “Stop Making This Hurt” could’ve easily been my pick for my favorite song of the year. The problem is that that last song is one of the only ones here that feels like it checks every “Bleachers” box for me. I really hoped that the live show would open some of these songs up, but they were somehow about as muted even in that setting. All of this (minus “Stop Making This Hurt” being sublime) is honestly kind of baffling. I’m still a huge fan and do like this album (you saw it above, I bought five copies of it, and plan to see the full album shows in Boston in March!), but I also spent a lot of time this year thinking about how this one could’ve been better. Here’s to hoping for a swift return to form.
Best New Discoveries:
1. Sydney Sprague
2. Mini Trees
3. Rat Tally
4. M.A.G.S.
5. Pile Of Love
Most Anticipated:
1. The 1975
2. Pianos Become The Teeth
3. Ruston Kelly
4. The Japanese House
5. Underoath
6. Anberlin
7. Punchline
8. Bleachers
9. Overcoats
10. Frank Ocean
Again, if you ever need to fill a lot of hours with good songs, here’s almost everything I liked this year, all in one handy playlist (it’s in alphabetical order by artist, so I recommend just shuffling): What’s Good In 2021
Thanks again for reading, even more so for getting all the way to the end. Hit me up on Twitter if you want to talk about music.
P.S. I also started an Instagram account in January to document my vinyl collection, and it’s the most consistent music writing I’ve done in years (maybe ever?). Even if you don’t want to read a big paragraph most days, you might have a good time looking at all of my things. I certainly have so far.