Music Dispatch 2021: Albums of the Year
Part 4 of 4 of my music year-in-review!
Welcome to the last and final installment of the Music Dispatch 2021 recap! Today we’re looking at my favorite albums of the year. The first Music Dispatch in proper will hopefully drop next Monday — or Sunday, if nothing happens this Friday. That will depend.
Around this time two winters ago, when I was more into music listening communities — by which I mean communities more defined by listening to as much and as varied (accomplished) music as possible — there were two camps of people: the ones that get into progressively obscured albums and manage to cramp a felt ten albums per day, and the ones that just don’t seem to find the time and energy to do much else. I remember somebody even saying like, I don’t have the time for a 40 minute album, which made me chuckle a bit. In the same way, people flaunting about their music taste make me roll my eyes. Music’s a background activity to me first and foremost, a way to quantify time in a meaningful way. That being said, though, the album as a form is sort of dying, sort of struggling to stay alive. You can’t stop it from becoming a glorified playlist, but playlists have also always been serious business to enough people (8mix, anyone?). But you can’t earnestly expect everybody to have a concept and narrative either; that would be silly. Art isn’t always serious, and shouldn’t be boxed in to such awkward delimiters. But that’s exactly why I think the album is the crown jewel of music and music criticism to this day. Somebody took the time to not just listen to one, but many albums, then form opinions on it, which may or may not clash with your own. The time commitment makes things more serious. Like, we’re getting real here. You didn’t just listen to the radio. You mean what you say. I know I do.
Below you can find my top 20; again, from 20 to 11 it’s shorter reviews, and the real meat begins from #10 on.
#20 Sinner Get Ready - Lingua Ignota
The follow-up record of CALIGULA and the third of a trilogy, Kristin Hayter’s newest record is a stark interplay of the beautiful and the devastating, leaving us a record that sounds as terrifying as catharsis often is. Her operatic vocals are just one highlight of an immaculately produced record.
#19 Dawn - Yebba
Yebba’s debut record sounds at times murky and moody, other times quietly confident; mixing hip hop, soul and rnb together successfully, the Alabama native’s vocals are given ample space and time to flex here. Like the titular time period, there’s a dreamy, contemplative vibe throughout.
#18 30 - Adele
“Divorce, babes, divorce” — Adele’s stunning new record is both an explanation to her son and a reckoning with herself after the fact. She sounds better than ever, tries out new things, and caps things off with the Inflo-produced orchestral Love is A Game. It’s her first album-like album.
#17 IF I CAN’T HAVE LOVE I WANT POWER - Halsey
Halsey and Nine Inch Nails. To this day, this combination sounds as unreal as it does on paper, and Halsey’s examination on love and pregnancy and late twenties is underscored by a soundscape that matches her terrified, angry, loving and hurt moods. Hopefully this is only the first of a fruitful collaboration.
#16 CRAWLER - IDLES
IDLES’ newest pairs the band with hip hop producer Kenny Beats, who brings out the poppy but also thrashing sides to the post-punk band. It is a far tigther, controlled record than their last Ultra Mono, creating an immensely fun, engaging album experience from start to finish.
#15 frailty - dltzk
Eighteen-year-old dltzk makes music that sounds like the future, so genreless and unbothered by any market trend is is frailty. At times it recalls emo, at times outright hyperpop (hyperrock?), but mostly the glitchy pop music left me gasping and wanting for more. There’s immense potential here.
#14 Taste of Love - TWICE
TWICE has never had a bad release in their discography, but Taste of Love is perhaps the most stunning display of how good their comfort zone is, each of these tracks pop in one way or another with sticky sweet hooks, all nine vocalists/rappers on top of their game for what’s only a summer release.
#13 Planet Her - Doja Cat
Split into the moody rnb half and the poppy first half, Doja Cat’s newest record is more consistent in tone than her previous Hot Pink, but never lets up just like the last one. Whether you’re looking for something with sticky hooks or somber rnb, Doja Cat always provides.
#12 Still Over It - Summer Walker
Summer Walker’s one-hour long drama filled new record is a masterclass in rnb, complete with the unbelievably strong vocals from Summer’s end; every track here stands on its own, climaxing to the ultimate takedown of ex-boyfriend London on da Track, 4th Baby Mama. He deserved it.
#11 flux - Poppy
Poppy’s newest record throws her fully into the metal and rock side of things. The entire record is competently produced, well-sung and offers an intense burst of energy throughout. Though it stalls at half an hour runtime, it feels like an entire album experience despite the fact.
#10 333 - Tinashe
Tinashe’s second release as an independent artist brings a tighter focus to the formless, boundless genre-hopping that made Songs For You so excellent. In each of these slightly futuristic sounding tracks, Tinashe’s vocals have pure command over each song: be it an emotional plea like in the moody synth-dripped Undo (Back To My Heart), the even more heartbroken Last Call, a piece featuring acoustic guitar and strings throughout, or cool confidence on a trappy beat like Bouncin (with a second part near the end of the record that is infinitely sadder than the last one). Every song is wonderful in its own way, creating an album experience that feels like glimpsing into an alternate timeline. More than anything, the independence shows just how easily the industry is content with boxing people into one single thing, were more than content with letting Tinashe in the label dungeon for years. In this way, 333 is a middle finger and triumph both: an assured step in realizing Tinashe’s endless potential.
#9 Happier Than Ever - Billie Eilish
The second album was always going to be hated on just by being the album after juggernaut debut WHERE WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? but Billie Eilish’s sophomore record is an at times graceful, at times seething examination of fame and the things it does to a young teenage girl, the stalkers she’s had to face, the people she can’t see normally lest people catch it; as a result, so much of the album feels fragmented in a good way. Gone is the foreboding, dark atmosphere of her debut. Here we have exercises in trip hop, bossa nova, jazz, acoustic guitar ballads, ukulele introductions that give way to outright rock. Billie’s flexible, beautiful vocals are given ample room to stretch and flex here, and though the narrative coherence of the album is often quite wonky, just like last time, it’s still an interesting glimpse in the creative potential Billie and her brother-producer FINNEAS both carry in spades. Also, the Your Power-NDA-Therefore I Am triple is absolutely killer.
#8 Jubilee - Japanese Breakfast
For two records, Michelle Zauner’s solo project of Japanese Breakfast has been in search of solace and the acceptance of grief. On Jubilee, her breakthrough record, there is still grief — In Hell is about the passing of her family dog — but there’s a joy in it now, a cautious one that comes in fits and starts. The excellent, effervescent Be Sweet is the centerpiece of it all: its grand, expansive production, 80s throwback, and poppy hook contains a plea for a refrain: I wanna believe in you / I wanna believe in something. It’s the desire of faith that allows for love and celebration after the passing of her mother, whether that means to playfully jab at the uber-rich (Savage Good Boy) or the remake of a b-side to something darker and sensual (Posing in Bondage) or the bright plea to make sense of all of the grief. And the ending Posing for Cars ends things off with a guitar solo as if everything that needs to be said can’t be said in words. Jubilee is a celebration of life: ugly and dark, but ultimately hopeful.
#7 LP! - JPEGMAFIA
If Veteran was the breakout angry record, and All My Heroes Are Cornballs was JPEGMAFIA slowly relaxing and showing a more comfortable record, with two EPs throughout that had him on a more conventional route, then last record on a contract marries both of these worlds. LP! has a laser-tight focused grip throughout, the rapping easy and the singing comfortable (complete with a off-studo recording of JPEGMAFIA declaring how fire the album is), but the anger is back too: at the music industry that won’t get him, the world that still has way too much of injustice around, the people that wrong him on a personal level. LP! comes in two forms: the online (streaming) and offline version, the former tighter in focus, the latter more immediate due to several cuts not making it to the online version. Regardless of the version, LP! feels like the culmination of everything he has been about so far and more.
#6 Vince Staples - Vince Staples
Violence, death, poverty, and guns. Vince Staples’ world and his lived experience is often grim, bleak, though you couldn’t really tell from the beats that often underscore these lyrics: be it outright catchy like for FM! or Detroit house with Big Fish Theory, Vince Staples registers more as a reliable bangers-kind of guy than somebody dealing with trauma. In that way, initial fan reaction to self-titled project Vince Staples made sense: suddenly there was no banger beat to back up the cold and cruel world, as well as the equally sad lyrics. But that’s the beauty of it altogether: when friends and close ones of Staples die, we feel how much of a slug that turns the rest of the world, of life itself through the quiet, somber production helmed by close friend and collaborator Kenny Beats, whether that’s on ARE YOU WITH THAT?, the slightly-Western sounding TAKING TRIPS, or the interludes. When the album ends with Dead homies, this time, we feel it for real.
#5 to hell with it - Pinkpantheress
Pinkpantheress’ debut mixtape is a short and sweet affair, one that nevertheless shows the depth of turning UK garage songs to something short of a daydream full of lovelorn musings that end as quickly as they started. Most of these songs are not new, as they have blown up over TikTok the past couple of months — you have quick, snappy Pain, breakout single Break It Off is a bonus track here, the somber acoustic / 2beat laden Passion, and immaculate Just For Me — but the ones that are show some exciting potential throughout. Take Nineteen, a track that features melancholy strings as Pinkpantheress softly sings about adolescent ennui and depression; or All my friends know, a track that is about ex-lovers where the narrator is afraid of getting back together, the anxiety of being seen at your worst in general. It’s cuts like these that provide a wonderful snapshot into adolescence, and in the process of it ends up as of the most exciting moments in pop music this year.
#4 Blue Weekend - Wolf Alice
On their third record, UK band Wolf Alice stretch their legs and show a stunning display of moods and genres throughout, be it somber and quiet on Feeling Myself or the feverish Play All The Greatest Hits. Throughout, a narrative emerges: something about being lost in a big city, music becoming the solace through that loneliness, only to realize that it was arrogance that led the narrator to this point, the insistence to wallow in self-pity; only when acknowledging it does the album end at the same spot where it began, the beautiful dreampop-laden The Beach II, but still the narrator is changed, now together with friends. Above it all, there’s Ellie Roswell’s beautiful vocals on top of it, taking us from one moment to the next with ease, never getting us lost in the wildly swerving moods of one blue weekend. Blue Weekend is a stunning, competent record, and proof that UK’s most exciting band is capable of both great capital P-pop moments and indie rock moments in equal measure.
#3 Sometimes I Might Be Introvert - Little Simz
It’s a marching band that opens Little Simz’s fourth record, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, or SIMBI for short, like her real name. The grand scale of the production doesn’t just stop there, though: most of the record is full of it as Little Simz discusses her moments both great and small, her artist self and the person behind it all, the way she wants approval but also rejects it. It’s the ambivalence that drives so much of the record. On top of it all, of course, is the British rapper’s immense talent and her pen as sharp as a sword, turning every song to a special event on its own. The interludes throughout give us breathing room but do not divert from the experience as a whole, and by the time you get to penultimate How Did You Get Here you get teary-eyed from the conclusion that Simz has for herself: I'm the version of me I always imagined when I was younger. To call this record a victory lap would undersell it. This is the record that pushes Little Simz up to the pantheon for good.
#2 Call Me If You Get Lost - Tyler, the Creator
The sun beamin’. Tyler, the Creator’s newest record introduces us to the newest alter ego of his, Tyler Baudelaire, a traveling, content, and rich persona that is just as comfortable giving life wisdoms as much as he shows off how much better off he is than other people. Most of the record takes place on a yacht in Lake Geneva, Switzerland. It’s the first time in ages since he’s rapping throughout again, and the extensive featuring of DJ Drama makes a fantastic to mixtapes on DatPiff back in the 00s. This alone, coupled with the immaculate production and features, would put this on the top 3 of Tyler albums, but an entirely different narrative emerges by the end of it, only hinted here and there: the love of his life, the girlfriend of his best friend, lost to him forever. And suddenly traveling and flaunting wealth seems like just a veil that Tyler has lifted at the most perfect time. Despite that, though, Tyler finds warmth in himself, warmth he gifts to others. It’s the most mature record of his yet.
#1 Heaux Tales - Jazmine Sullivan
This year has been a weird year; that’s not news to you, I know. I suppose if there’s anything that made it worth it for me despite that, though, it’s the fact that it made me appreciate community that much more; it’s made me respect other people’s voices more, the things they had to say, the perspectives they came from, which is perhaps odd to say given that I spend too much time on famed hellsite Twitter. It’s all too easy to look at a tweet you disagree with and immediately dunk on it with your hot take, but just clicking on a profile and checking age seriously went a long way for me. I got even more mileage from complaining about it privately rather than making it everybody’s business. And sometimes, I’d read the people I disagreed with. Sometimes I’d disagree with them even more — but then I’d close the tab, and it was gone.
Jazmine Sullivan’s newest record, her first in six years, also listens: listens to the Black women around her, the stories they have around men (or women), the relationships that went awry, the self-reflections that comes from the men, by Instagram, by their upbringing. Of the fourteen songs, six of them are interludes, each of them vitally building up to the next song in question (the most effective of them Rashida’s Tale, followed by the heartbroken, stunning ballad Lost One) — not a single one is useless here, none of them break the mood or elongate an already slight album uselessly. As much as the interludes inform the context, though, it’s Sullivan’s immaculate pen that bring all these situations to life, the songs bringing us right into the headspace of each of these messy and hypocritical women with vividity. And, of course, her immaculate, expressive vocals, able to go the length with everything that the song requires: equally at home when rapping like in Price Tags or crooning with Ari Lennox in On It. If you were to put any song on here on any other record, it would be the standout of that record. That’s how good each and every one of it is.
You’d think an album running at 32 minutes and released six days into 2021 (!!!) would mean that it was a forgettable record — not because it was actually forgettable, but because it was so early in the year that it would already feel like it was two years ago. And yet, it speaks to the perfection of each of these tracks, the way the concept is handled perfectly, the way there’s a clear narrative arc from Bodies all the way to Girl Like Me, that ensured I would repeat this over the months, that would make me think of it even when I wasn’t listening to it. There was no other record that came even close to the perfection of this one.
Music Dispatch 2021: Albums of the Year
thank U for recognizing my favorite little indie band TWICE.