The Best Albums Of 2021, According To Everyone
It's December, which means Best of 2021 lists are here. With so many lists out there, who has time to read all of them?
Turns out: We do. But because you probably don't, we rounded up all the Top 10 lists we could find, smashed 'em together in a big spreadsheet, and spit out overall Top 10 lists for the year's best albums, songs, books, TV shows and movies. You're welcome.
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The Best Albums Of 2021
10. Mdou Moctar, 'Afrique Victime'
On "Afrique Victime," his first release for Matador, Moctar chases lively arrangements even further while excoriating the traumatic legacy of brutal French colonialism in Africa. His solos rip like lightning bolts across a storm of melody and rhythm, with Mikey Coltun's bass roiling in ecstatic complement. […] Reports of the death of rock have been greatly exaggerated: "Afrique Victime" is a uniquely vibrant and kinetic recording, one that proves that the future of rock music exists far beyond what any genre or geographic borders can define.
9. Olivia Rodrigo, 'Sour'
From the petty bitterness of "Good 4 U" being channeled through snotty pop-punk to the creepy-crawly beat lurch of "jealousy, jealousy" symbolizing the inescapable resentment of scrolling through social media, it's clear that as much care was put into the sonic details as lyrical. Basically, as the album title promises, "Sour" doesn't sugarcoat things: "I'm a songwriter who writes from a place of authenticity and truth," Rodrigo told Billboard for her May cover story. "And truthfully, love and happiness and everything weren't feelings that I was feeling at the time." So she took those not-so-sweet emotions and instead of keeping them to herself in a diary — like most of the rest of us did at her age — she expertly rolled them into an 11-song pop master class. "Where's my f—ing teenage dream?" Rodrigo whines on "Brutal." For scores of new fans, it's this album.
8. The Weather Station, 'Ignorance'
After the culmination of 2017's "The Weather Station," "Ignorance" is something new — a Weather Station that is slicker and poppier but also darker, an album that mingles beauty and chaos. Wracked by anxiety of living in an era when post-apocalyptic climate scenarios seem ever more imminent, Ignorance wrestles with huge, sprawling emotions but situates them in small moments — staring into the vastness of the sea on "Atlantic," a tour stop in "Parking Lot." With "Ignorance," Tamara Lindeman's made her biggest statement yet, without losing the aching human core that defines the Weather Station's music.
7. Arlo Parks, 'Collapsed In Sunbeams'
Deftly maneuvering between elements of indie folk and R&B, "Collapsed in Sunbeams" isn't content with being just good vibes. Instead it's ripe with introspection and emotional complexity, bringing a much needed depth to the genreless pop that's risen out of the streaming age.
6. Japanese Breakfast, 'Jubilee'
On "Jubilee," Zauner goes all-out and then some, an outburst of indie-rock joy sprinkled throughout each track, whether it's the near-perfect opener, "Paprika," the aching "Kokomo, IN," or the mystical "Posing in Bondage" (for Kate Bush-meets-Duran Duran, see "Be Sweet"). "Jubilee" was released off the heels of "Crying in H Mart" — Zauner's heartbreaking, bestselling memoir about her late mother — which proves she was at a creative peak this year, and has no intention of slowing down soon.
Buy it on vinyl
5. Jazmine Sullivan, 'Heaux Tales'
Sullivan has been one of R&B's most compelling truth-tellers since she broke through in the '00s with the defiant "Bust Your Windows." On the compact, thrilling "Heaux Tales," she continues to distill deeply felt emotions into spirited, profane, yet nuanced tracks that feel as immediate as a late-night catch-up session with an old friend. The lived experience vibrating through each, whether it's a showcase for Sullivan's pointed songwriting or a first-person recollection of Black womanhood, made "Heaux Tales" worth digging into over and over as the year dragged on.
Buy it on vinyl
4. Little Simz, 'Sometimes I Might Be Introvert'
Nevertheless, 2021's "Sometimes I Might Be Introvert," the follow-up to Little Simz's excellent 2019 long player "Grey Area," seems cut from the same royal cloth as Queen Latifah's "All Hail the Queen" and Roxanne Shante's "Bad Sister." Like those hip-hop titans, Little Simz is sweeping in the cinematic scope of her vision and musical backdrops. Like Latifah's "Ladies First" and Shante's "Independent Woman", Little Simz celebrates the majesty of womanhood in "Woman". Imagine LL Cool J's "Around the Way Girl" with a global point of view.
3. Turnstile, 'Glow On'
Throughout its 15 tracks, [TURNSTILE's] newly expanded sound never falters, and it sees them toying with fresh effects and textures while still maintaining their forceful approach. At the same time, TURNSTILE move forward without losing sight of what made them so intriguing to begin with. "GLOW ON" isn't just one of the best hardcore albums of the year; it's one of the best albums of the year in general.
2. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra, 'Promises'
Listening to "Promises" is like driving through an ever changing coastal landscape, as sheer cliffs, flowing rivers and rolling fields of purples and reds emerge out of the haze. Organized around one recurring ethereal riff, the unlikely collaborative duo of Sanders (an 81-year-old Arkansan free-jazz saxophonist) and Floating Points (a 35-year-old British electronic producer) build a topography of reverie and chaos, with some help from the magisterial London Symphony Orchestra. It's a stunning nexus of jazz, classical and ambient influences that transcends genre to create something wholly new.
[Time]
1. Tyler, The Creator, 'Call Me If You Get Lost'
At its core, "Call Me If You Get Lost" is about guilt, of what happens when hip-hop's nihilist incarnate allows himself the room to hurt. […] The more Tyler raps, the more conflicted he becomes. Ten years after Tyler's cringe-inducing stalker ode "She" was unleashed on the world, it's jarring to hear him rap lines like, "It's morals I really have, it's lines I could never cross." Up until recently, Tyler's brand was built on the idea that a line's primary reason for existing was to be jumped over. "Call Me If You Get Lost" is vital, because it reconfigures our base assumptions about Tyler. All it took to make the best rap album of the year was for the music industry's resident goblin to feel something.
Buy it on vinyl
Honorable Mentions
If you've already seen the top 10, here are some other notable albums of the year:
11. Low, 'Hey What'
12. Lil Nas X, 'Montero'
13. Adele, '30'
14. Billie Eilish, 'Happier Than Ever'
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A Note On Methodology
We wish we could say there was a super fancy algorithm that combed the internet and did this for us. But the truth is that the entity doing the internet combing was a human Digg Editor, and calculations were performed by an Excel sheet that ingested and re-ranked all the lists we fed into it (briefly: #1 ranked items received 10 points, #2 ranked items got 9 points... down through #10 ranked items, which got 1 point; items on unranked lists all got 5.5 points).
