A Personal List of 2021’s Best Albums
I always believe that the first three years of a decade helps sets the tone for a decade’s release. Whether its the rise of a new genre, alternative music quirks being used in mainstream music, or the resurgence of the old, you can easily see the incoming trends of the decade by concentrating on these three years. I am not music expert by the way — so please note this while reading the list and its cases — and I wouldn’t know the intricate details about trends. However, just looking at music released this 2021, we will see releases from all genres have a creative outlook on their genre’s trope and history. The following albums embody this refreshing or innovative take on their genre(s) of choice, which make these nine records the best out of the bunch.
My Top 9 Albums
This listicle aims to do a simple thing — list down why I loved the album, give you tracks from that album that you should listen to, and some personal thoughts about it. No rankings, because that’s really stressful, so I’m using alphabetical order as a basis (although I do mention a favorite album). This is just me geeking out about music and why I love it so much.
Before we start, a short declaration of biases: there is a lack of fluidity in genre (and even gender, not that it matters but there is only one entry comprised of male singers) in this list. I need to do some exploring in other genres, and there is a ton of music made by white women, as you will see. I will miss on some iconic moments in music, but hey I am not the Recording Academy. I am just one person. Also to my fellow Swifties, I will not be counting the Taylor’s Versions as a candidate for Best Album: instead, only one (yes, one) will have an honorable mention.
aespa — Savage — The 1st Mini Album — EP
Is it tough to follow up a career-defining single? Western one hit wonders might say yes, but aespa is not backing down after their iconic single Next Level. aespa then introduces Savage — The 1st Mini Album — EP, a record that does two things: introduce the lore and faces of aespa, and change the direction of K-Pop forever. With hyperpop influences in their entire discography, tracks like the single Savage, prove the genre’s place as a future-forward sound that can penetrate the music industry when given the right singers and producers. While I’ll Make You Cry and ICONIC serving as hyperpop staples for K-Pop, I found the EP-ender Lucid Dream a new take on the mid-2010’s electro-pop, with 2010’s alternative darling Hayley Kioko sitting in with a composition credit. This record expands an already extensive shared universe and leaves MYs (aespa fans) invested in stanning the group, as well as something you should recommend people who think K-pop is not innovative and original. In the end, with production geared towards making music for the future and the expansion of Nævis’ Holy and Unending power through immersive world-building, aespa is ready for inevitable world domination in 2022, with Savage — The 1st Mini Album — EP as the foundation.
Clairo — Sling
After seeing Clairo’s Tonight Show performance of her new single Blouse, there was only one thing in my head: I cannot wait for this album to come out. Who would’ve known that the girl who innovated the genre of bedroom pop that we know today would come out with a folk album? Tracks like Amoeba and Partridge could’ve easily been bedroom pop tracks, condensed into a two minute lo-fi song. But no, Clairo takes her time in crafting this grief and healing laced record. She has embraced the sound of the seventies with the help of producer Jack Antonoff with Zinnias and Harbor that put a gleaming spotlight on her songwriting skills. What makes Sling an amazing record though is its organized chaos: complex composition and prolific songwriting are wrapped with Clairo’s soft and improved vocals. Clairo’s interpretation on the process of grief and how life goes on becomes a unique one because of a conscious choice: adding her modern takes on an human problem as old as time through a sound that is miles away from her catalog. Odes like Just for Today and Blouse allow for the grief and pain to seep in to the listener, and allow — for even just one person — someone out there to feel her niche pain in order for it to be universal.
Doja Cat — Planet Her
This is Doja Cat at her prime — her magnum opus, her album of the year, no, album of the life. Planet Her is a conglomerate of unique sounds and a spectacle of what it means to be a woman of this generation. This is an album every artist should be jealous of and should yearn to have: an album that is both good sonically and commercially. Tracks like Kiss Me More, Ain’t Shit, and Need to Know embrace the amazing production Doja has in her music and takes a risk and embrace’s Doja’s “weird” side. However, these tracks did so well on TikTok this year and have become staples for the many trends the app put forward using Doja’s music. Artists in the industry have struggled to make both a commercially successful record that also won’t be labeled as just a “cash grab” (see Yummy by Justin Bieber), but Doja’s individuality allows for tracks like Get Into It (Yuh) and Naked to work. Planet Her is an culmination of Doja Cat’s work, from her charming Acapella videos, to her first of many viral moments with Moo, and even the numerous times she performed viral hit Say So as if held at gunpoint: a body of work that embraces femininity and its many challenges and triumphs. Easily, I have to say that this is my bet to win the Recording Academy’s Album of the Year!
Lady Gaga — Dawn of Chromatica
This remix album is one of the releases I anticipated the most, with its many delays and controversies. Dawn of Chromatica was a beautiful attempt into giving its base album a second life. With people — specifically, its queer cult following — not being able to party in clubs to Chromatica due to COVID-19 restrictions, Dawn of Chromatica is the second life the planet needed in order to cement its relevance in the pop culture stratosphere. With many anticipated remixes from hyperpop staples like Arca and A.G. Cook and rising pop icons like Rina Sawayama and Ashnikko, Dawn of Chromatica elevates and expands upon the niche of vibrant and hair-raising sounds Chromatica stans thought the record might have needed. Tracks like Alice (LSDXOXO Remix) and Sine From Above (Chester Lockhart, Mood Killer & Lil Texas Remix) bring new life to the original songs, but tracks like 911 (Charli XCX & A. G. Cook Remix) and Replay (Dorian Electra Remix) elevate their original songs and the producers absolutely compose an entirely new song with what they did. This is a remix album that we have not seen before, and sets a precedent as to how far remixers should go in exercising the creative freedom that is given to them by the people who made the source material.
Lana del Rey — Chemtrails over the Country Club
How do you follow up one of the best albums that you have ever made, and probably one of the best albums of the 2010s? Being yourself, apparently. The controversial mesh mask wearer Lana del Rey releases a not-so controversial record Chemtrails Over the Country Club, tapping in to what she does best: provide yet another Americana take on the lavish lives of the rich and famous. However, this rendition of the Americana woman is something that I gravitated towards more compared to previous efforts such as Honeymoon and Lust for Life. To me, Lana’s Chemtrails record served as a more vulnerable account because of the laid-back production and its exceptional writing (note that she had released a poetry book last year) that her audience didn’t get in 2020. A breath of fresh air from fans seeing her problematic actions and takes during the pandemic, we got an assurance that Lana’s still got it with tracks like White Dress (and its iconic line “Down at the Men in Music Business Conference”) and Dance Till We Die. However, the album’s gems lies in tracks like Dark But Just a Game and Wild at Heart, which provide a new take on Lana’s Americana music for white bourgeois decadence. This was a beautiful prelude to Lana’s second record of the year, Blue Banisters (a good album by the way, but doesn’t make the cut).
Lorde — Te Ao Mārama
We thought that Lorde would disappear into the sun yet again after the release of Solar Power. However, we were proven otherwise. Coinciding Te Wiki o te Reo Māori (Maori Language Week), Lorde pays homage to the indigenous peoples that own the country she lives in through releasing five Solar Power tracks in the Maori language. These versions have elevated their English versions, and were not a joke to make. The album involved consultation with language experts from indigenous tribes and language academes, as well as featuring singers fluent in the Maori language such as iconic legend Bic Runga. With the meticulous process and the added heart and soul to Lorde’s already beautiful efforts in this record, tracks like Te Ara Tika / The Path and Hine-i-te-Awatea / Oceanic Feeling are elevated and are easily better than their source material. In hindsight, the listening experience that I had with Te Ao Mārama is better than my experience with Solar Power. Although I made such a long defense for its English counterpart, listening to the tracks in Maori just made me stare into my bedroom roof and say, “well, that makes more sense.”
Lucy Dacus — Home Video
If there’s one thing that Lucy Dacus can do right, it’s to create a vivid picture of the growing pains of someone who lives in a tight-knit family and or community, and feels indifferent to the conventions of that group. Home Video does exactly that: a retrospective exploration of how the past can become a defining feature of one’s present. It’s the usual Lucy Dacus record — embracing the 2000s alternative rock sound that she grew up with — but tends to be a deeper exploration compared to her sophomore album Historian. With confessionals like VBS and Triple Dog Dare, we are taken to current-day Lucy singing in the perspective of a Lucy struggling to fit her queer identity in a small town that didn’t quite get her struggles. This is what makes Lucy’s Home Video work — embracing the vulnerability that made Lucy the Lucy that would’ve created a seminal piece of indie pop, Night Shift. Knowing what we know about her personal life, which is someone who has then abandoned her Christian roots, songs like Christine and First Time serve as prophecies of who she would end up becoming. This is what makes Home Video such a moving listening experience: its retrospective reflection of how people change and grow.
Sloppy Jane — Madison
Phoebe Bridgers tweeted an NPR Tiny Desk performance of the band she was previously in, and my life has never been the same since then. Sloppy Jane has been one of my favorite discoveries of the year, and their art pop record Madison was my favorite listening experience of the year. The band’s take on art pop with lengthy songs such as The Constable and Jesus and Your Living Room Floor took its time, and did it flawlessly. Recorded in a cave, Madison is nothing but hollow, with a narrative-rich record just waiting to be unfolded by a listener who comes across the tales — if one dares to listen. Tracks like Party Anthem and Wilt, like all the record’s tracks, tell tales of loneliness and grief, as well as how to deal with those feelings. But what shines most for me is the theatric live performances the band has. After seeing not just their Tiny Desk performances, but various live performances of their Madison record, the entire band provides an extra layer of theatrics that elevate the studio recordings. With frontwoman Haley Dahl leading the ensemble, Madison’s whimsy and quirk allows for an immersive experience of a unique and unapologetic sound.
TOMORROW X TOGETHER — The Chaos Chapter: FREEZE
As a group that aims to make music for Gen-Z, TOMMOROW X TOGETHER’s (TXT) sophomore effort The Chaos Chapter: FREEZE makes TXT the standard bearer of K-Pop’s 4th Generation boy groups. With strong singles like 0X1=Lovesong (I Know I Love You) and Magic, TXT can pull in casual K-Pop listeners or people new to the genre and are interested to know more about the group. What is interesting about The Chaos Chapter: FREEZE may be its daunting production credits (a lot of writers, including BTS’ RM writing credit for Lovesong and Ashnikko for Frost) is the member’s writing credits: Taehyun’s writing credits for songs like the catchy What If I Had Been That PUMA, disco track No Rules, and electrifying Dear Sputnik solidifies his role not only as a vocalist, but a rising songwriter. This record’s repackage includes a cheeky single so good that my friend has the title tattooed on their body: Loser=Lover, is a great attempt towards elevating the K-Pop 4th Generation’s approach to the pop-rock subgenre. I could go on all day as an beginner MOA (TXT fan), but TXT’s second album sets the stage for what K-Pop groups should pick up from motifs in rock and alternative music when elevating the pop music they want to put out as a rising power. The Chaos Chapter: FREEZE is a solid body of work that achieves the group’s goal — making generation-defining music.
Honorable mentions
Because I am a college student that has a lot going on in their life, I cannot write about all the albums I have listened to that I loved. It would take forever as writing may be fun, but it takes up most of my academic workload. I would love to write about all the albums I am about to mention, but I also want to rest these gentle typing hands that just want a break and watch reality TV. And with that, last but not the least, an honorable mention to the following albums.
- Because of an amazing followup to her seminal works MASSEDUCTION and its piano version MassEducation, Daddy’s Home by St. Vincent was an iconic release, and had one of the best publicity Annie Clark’s had in her career.
- For elevating her first Recording Award winning album, Fearless (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift deserves a mention for its uncanny production for all reproductions and fresh vault tracks.
- Finally, the Recording Academy is not sleeping on her anymore. Thank heavens the vibrant sounds of Jubilee by Japanese Breakfast shook up critics and the public alike, as many are getting more exposed to Michelle’s amazing music.
- Give it up for the best concept album of 2021 — My Crown: The Album by xoBrooklyn. Not the best production-wise, but the record stood its ground and wanted itself to be heard.
- Province of Vagina by The Palomas was an album meant to not be forgotten. One of the many records that aimed to resist the Duterte regime, their punk rock sound separates themselves from other protest art.
- A great record that jumps on current pop rock trends in K-Pop, SEVENTEEN 9th Mini Album ‘Attacca’ by SEVENTEEN serves as a textbook definition attempt on how pop rock should sound like in the industry.
- tick, tick… BOOM! (Soundtrack from the Netflix film) by The Cast of Netflix’s Film tick, tick… BOOM! is hands down the best soundtrack for a movie released this year. The precision and care that the cast and crew did to adapt the source material deserves so much praise.
- The highly anticipated to hell with it by PinkPantheress was worth the wait. Elevating the trends and quirks of bedroom pop, all tracks are a hit and hype up what PinkPantheress might do next.
- Earworm filled tracks infect XOXO by JEON SOMI: another attempt to revamp how K-Pop co-opts alternative sound. The lore Somi provides in the music videos for this era are a bonus too.
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