Yes, 2021 again! A year of TV good enough that it inspired me to make these lists, but not good enough to inspire me to finish them. And 2022 has shown just how good a year of TV can really be. So after my best songs and albums list on January 1 and 2, expect an even more stacked TV list the following week.
10. The Owl House season 2, first half 10 episodes (now 41 total) stream: Disney+
Like the path that Gravity Falls took before it, The Owl House was assuredly going to get more dark and plot-intensive after its lighter first season. Though 2021 only offered us ten half-hours, The Owl House met the challenge and upped the ante, especially shining in triptych episode “Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Hooty’s Door.”
9. Reservation Dogs season 1 8 episodes (now 18 total) stream: Hulu
Reservation Dogs is about both the ordinary and the extraordinary, well-defining the Oklahoma reservation and the hope-crushing monotony our heroes feel subsumed by while also occasionally popping off into dreamlike zaniness. While the first half of the first season is a great introduction, the show starts really going for it in the latter four episodes.
8. Ranking of Kings season 1, first cour 11 episodes (23 in season 1) stream: Crunchyroll
Not many anime have felt as good as Ranking of Kings, the fantasy tale about a deaf child whose birthright is stolen from him. The story of Bojji is the main attraction, but while the show introduces many of its other characters as caricatures – like Bojji’s wicked stepmother and stepbrother – where it really shines is expanding these characters and making Bojji just the largest branch of a wildly satisfying plot. It’s also just so refreshing for a shonen anime to look like this does.
It’s bewildering to see animation look so unique and so expensive. If you can make it past Imagine Dragons in the opening credits, your eyes will be instantly treated to the best-looking show around. Likewise, it’s gone pretty all out with its story, its three-act structure expertly working its major beats through the whole cast. With a bit of an edge, Arcane is a rare Western cartoon geared towards more mature audiences, and it’ll be a joy when it comes back, I dunno, three years later.
6. Station Eleven limited series 10 episodes (7 in 2021) stream: HBO Max
The narrative ambition of Station Eleven is pretty astonishing. Jumping liberally across space and time, each episode has its own hook, whether it takes place in a collapsing city, an airport, a small apartment, or a hospital. A startling beginning and an emotional ending put Station Eleven in rare esteem among limited series.
5. How To With John Wilson season 2 6 episodes (12 total) stream: HBO Max
There’s really nothing like How To With John Wilson. I get how that’s a pretty easy statement for anything with Nathan Fielder involvement, but the vibe of watching the man with the camera giving often trite narration to plain moments is so uniquely captivating. Then suddenly, John Wilson will find a weirdo. Perhaps it’s a person obsessed with Avatar (2009). Perhaps it is a Second Life land baron. It will always be a total marvel that John Wilson gets these people to open up to him. Season two is a step up for this main reason: John has found more weirdos this time out.
4. ODDTAXI limited series 13 episodes stream: Crunchyroll
ODDTAXI is truly humble. It weaves its web of mischievous, city-slacking animals so casually, not trying too hard to sell a rapping porcupine, a puma hellbent on fulfilling his dreams with a gacha game, or a gibbon trying to salvage his happiness through dating apps. A bit like the first act of Durarara!!, ODDTAXI builds an interconnected city and brings it all together in the best anime miniseries in a long time.
3. Mare of Easttown limited series 7 episodes stream: HBO Max
Two mysteries, a murder and a disappearance, hang over Easttown, and the disgruntled people of the small town hang all of their frustrations on Mare, who in turn has a recent divorce and the suicide of her eldest child hanging over her. The character drama is fantastic, but the whodunnit is the beast that sends Mare over the top, with so many suspects, twists, and shocking action setpieces. In the era of the prestige miniseries, Mare of Easttown is among the very finest.
2. Yellowjackets season 1 10 episodes (7 in 2021) stream: SHOWTIME
Dynamite. Yellowjackets is clearly something special from the jump: a ’90s high school girls’ soccer team flies to the national championship only to crash into the Canadian wilderness. As we follow the girls devolving and the wilderness getting spooky, we also see the survivors living their lives in the present day until their past starts bubbling up again. Though filled with death and horror, Yellowjackets is an absolute blast, and it’ll be great to greet it in early 2023.
1. Succession season 3 9 episodes (29 total) stream: HBO Max
Now they’re just showing off. The story of four siblings vying for their megabillionaire daddy’s favor has been great its past two seasons, but only now has stepped into rarefied territory and is making a serious run to join the greatest live action dramas of the past twenty years. The characters and dialogue are all clicking in that special way you sometimes see, and now more than ever its comedy makes its drama seem that much less strained, particularly when something so cringeworthy occurs that you have to pause and pace around for ten minutes before continuing. And of course, even before this season Succession was notable for its killer tentpole moments, and “All The Bells Say” did not disappoint. If they can keep this up, we’ll be talking about Succession for a very long time.
Honorable Mentions
For All Mankind, season 2 Hacks, season 1 Invincible, season 1 I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, season 2 Only Murders in the Building, season 1 Squid Game, season 1 The Expanse, seasons 5 & 6 The Underground Railroad, limited series The White Lotus, season 1
Yeah, this is a little late! Got really bogged down when it should have come out and then it became a whole thing. But I’m getting this out of the way now to unclog this drain for when I put the 2022 TV lists down it in early January.
Let’s get started, yeah?
10. “Wheel of Fire” Station Eleven episode 1 stream: HBO Max
Oh. Great. Just what we needed in December, 2021. An hourlong episode about the swift disintegration of Chicago as a kill-everyone pandemic hits it like a tidal wave. This is a panic attack of an episode, and while the show’s ultimate worth lies in its emotional conclusion, this hour sticks in my memory the firmest.
It’s no “Obsidian,” but the final Adventure Time chapter – “Wizard City” was released out of order – brought us deep into the future to see the final chapter of Finn and Jake’s friendship: death. An old tension between the two arises when Jake waxes philosophic, appreciating the poetry and beauty of the end, but Finn still needs his friend. A beautiful second ending to an incredible series.
8. “The Monster You Created” Arcane season 1, episode 9 stream: Netflix
Though I imagine the cliffhanger won’t wind up as cataclysmic as it feels in the moment, this pressure cooker of an episode is an excellent culmination of a wild season, and it promises a second season which tears down the walls of the first.
7. “Where I Really Come From” Invincible season 1, episode 8 stream: Amazon Prime
Invincible’s premier ends with a real doozy of a twist, and “Where I Really Come From” pays it off so wildly with some of the most brutal cartoon violence I can remember, and the conversation that follows its horrifying climactic fight is just as harsh.
6. “California Dreamin’” Reservation Dogs season 1, episode 7 stream: Hulu
As Reservation Dogs finally gets to That Thing we’ve been waiting to learn about, it also gets to That Thing that Elora has been dying to know. All of this on the back of the longest driver’s test ever.
5. “True Colors” Amphibia season 2, episode 20 stream: Disney+
Amphibia is perhaps the most humble of this new wave of story-focused children’s cartoons, forwarding its plot with occasional nudges and then with slightly more frequent nudges. Which is why it’s totally fucking nuts when “True Colors” cold knocks the dominoes down, beginning with like five different payoffs and ending with about five different twists.
4. “Gganbu” Squid Game season 1, episode 6 stream: Netflix
Though Squid Game went massively viral due to the insidious theatricality of its games, the fourth event drops all of this and gives us a heartrending but suspenseful episode focused on character relationships. Of course, the show proceeds to eventually waste basically all of this and even actively tries to ruin this episode. Still! This one’s a real triumph while it lasts.
3. “How To Appreciate Wine” How To With John Wilson season 2, episode 2 stream: HBO Max
Most episodes of How To With John Wilson revel in mundane absurdity, and for a while “How To Appreciate Wine” seems like more of this, beginning with a young man whose hobby is collecting and eating expired military rations and a bowling ball company whose hook is that it scents its balls. But even there, the outrageous moments are already more frequent, and by the time you get to John’s story about his college a capella group or the journey to meet the CEO of Bang energy drinks, you’ll be spinning. It’s disorienting, and it doesn’t help you to appreciate wine in the least.
2. “All The Bells Say” Succession season 3, episode 9 stream: HBO Max
You could really pick anything from the last three or four episodes of Succession’s third season, but “All The Bells Say” in particular rises to the occasion, bringing you the seismic shifts of past season finales and then some.
1. “The Last One” To Your Eternity season 1, episode 1 stream: Crunchyroll
Maybe it’s a little unfair to credit “The Last One” quite so much. After all, it’s mostly just a straight upreplication of Yoshitoki Ōima’s first chapter of her manga of the same name, probably one of the best individual chapters of manga ever.
A white orb is sent to earth, where it takes the form of a rock in the snow. One day a wolf dies near it, and it takes the form of that wolf. It sets off, where it meets a boy, the fallen wolf’s owner, who’s delighted to see his dear pet again. This boy was left years ago to care for the sick and elderly while most of his people set out hoping to find greener, warmer land. Now he’s alone, and upon the return of his pet wolf he decides to set out himself and find his tribe again. He and “Joann” embark on their quest, with the boy cheerfully imagining what “fruit” might be like.
I won’t spoil how it ends, because you should watch it right now even if you don’t plan on picking up the series – the above embedded video is the whole thing put on YouTube for free by Crunchyroll. “The Last One” is powerfully simple, packed with gutpunching moments and a mindblowing resolution.
Sometimes when an artist puts out an album of 18 or 19 songs, it signifies confidence, a point in an artist’s career where they’ve found a can’t-fail groove in their creative process. Even the filler sounds like magic. So is Lover Taylor’s Sign o’ The Times?
I mean, you already know the answer. Lover, though not among her very worst, is probably on the lower end of Taylor’s discography. Still, there’s a lot of promise, right? That front half is really nice.
So I asked Twitter earlier this year to rank all 18 tracks on Lover with the hope of being able to authoritatively pare it down without anyone accusing me of playing favorites. Depending on how the tiers shake out, I planned on keeping 10-14 tracks. In parentheses are the mean rankings of each song.
“Cruel Summer” is a very odd Taylor Swift song. It’s such a unique bit of pop alchemy, which is maybe why she neglected to release it as a single (instead opting for “ME!,” “You Need To Calm Down,” “Lover,” and “The Man”). She managed to release six (!) singles for Reputation, so it’s a little odd she couldn’t do the same for the better, deeper album. But yeah, not a shock to see “Cruel Summer” up top. It’s probably her most beloved post-1989 song. Its median ranking was a flat 2.0. 30% of voters rated it #1. 55% rated it top two. 75% rated it top three. “Cruel Summer” is real good, y’all.
For listeners eager for a new masterpiece to go with “All Too Well” or “Enchanted,” “Cornelia Street” was pretty quickly identified. I think it feels probably a little less special than those do, but that’s a tall comparison and this is still top tier Taylor.
People love “Lover.” I think its music is a little too gentle and compared to her best love songs doesn’t give me a ton to latch onto. I’d go as far as saying it’s a little plain. But it’s a strong third, per The People, and it’s not particularly controversial.
Kind of a cool kid pick for best song here, yeah? It’s one of those songs that reminds you that she could just kind of do this forever. Listening to it makes me dearly miss when her music had a bit more zip. Hope we can get back to that.
A lot of cringe Taylor moments come from when she tries to have it both ways. You can’t be both cool and uncool, and here she goes full uncool and it’s always magic when she does that.
A favorite of fans who don’t really like Taylor Swift very much and regard 1989 as far greater than anything else she’s done. A very good dream pop song, but not the kind of thing I subscribe for.
Hard to imagine, but here she writes a song even more Lana Del Rey than “Wildest Dreams,” complete with chirpy little “okay!” bits that would slot right at home on Born To Die. It’s good.
Massively popular with fans who think “Clean” is top ten Taylor. It has the highest standard deviation of any song here (5.45!), possibly revealing that some people have just not made it to track 18 of Lover very often.
Obviously this it Taylor at her most indulgently girlboss outside of the “Bad Blood” music video, but she definitely pulls it off. Come on! This shit’s a blast. Cringe, but the kind I’ve signed up for.
I’m a little baffled here. Most people that voted preferred “I Forgot That You Existed” to “I Think He Knows,” which I think is a perfect little pop song that’s emblematic of the strengths of her approach in her pop era.
“I Forgot That You Existed” puts Taylor’s most annoying foot forward, doing the weird rap thing where she goes “in my feelings more than Drake” and the like. Its median ranking was 9, even beating “I Think He Knows” and obliterating “False God” and “Soon You’ll Get Better.” But it’s controversial. Its standard deviation of 5.36 is only lower than that of “Daylight.” Two people had this at #2, which is just entirely inexcusable, but unlike other songs in the front half of the album, some folks dared to put this one low.
Very interested to hear “False God” supporters explain themselves because this one is so fucking weird to me. I suppose it’s good that irreverence is clearly the point because the sexual imagery just comes out wrong. Sonically fits the album pretty darn well but ends up feeling tedious anyway.
Very sweet. It’s great that she wanted to do another “The Best Day,” because that’s just one of her best songs. But it feels a little stiff, so it’s a little less successful at jerking any tears out.
Kind of occupying the role of “The Lucky One,” where it’s the thing that most people will forget was even here. “The Lucky One” deserves better. I don’t really think this does. Solid, serviceable, not more. Should probably be above “False God,” though.
Look, maybe I’m a dick about this cringe-ass song. The Clash got to make “Ivan Meets GI Joe” on their longest album and everyone’s fine with that. Some sick fucks like “Piggies” or “Wild Honey Pie.” I actually think the verses on this sound fine, but my goodness the chorus and bridge are decidedly Not It.
The music video for “Mean,” a great song about how critics (perhaps correctly…) criticized Taylor’s Grammy performance with Stevie Nicks, opens with a gay-coded young man being bullied by football players. Certainly a worthy cause for 2011, but an odd conflation of conflicts, no? Whatever, not a big deal. Fast forward to 2019, and the first verse of “You Need To Calm Down” is about haters in Taylor Swift’s mentions and the second is about homophobia. I don’t want to make too big a deal out of this, two nickels isn’t very many, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right? I think Taylor has trouble compellingly framing the songs about her haters. I think “Mean” worked because it’s detached enough to achieve a sort of universality. I mean, also because it sounds good and doesn’t feature Taylor rapping. I’m not sure how she figured people had the stomach for two straight indulgently irritating lead singles. Speaking of…
It is absolutely heartbreaking that Taylor believed in this Playhouse Disney self-belief anthem so much that she made it this album’s lead single and enlisted Brendon “High Hopes” Urie to turn in what might just be the most annoying vocal performance of all time. This kind of thing might be more appreciated if she debuted it on Yo Gabba Gabba! (and again, leave Brendon at home).
The New Album
The top ten are obviously in. The question is whether to leave it at that, add just “I Forgot That You Existed,” or add that plus “False God” and “Soon You’ll Get Better.” I’m pretty torn!
Over half of people think “I Forgot That You Existed” should be in a nine-songs-long version, so I suppose I’ll keep that – though I’ll note the 25th and 75th percentile ranks for “I Think He Knows” are 4.75 and 12.25 vs “I Forgot That You Existed”‘s 6.00 and 15.00 (!). I kind of think both “False God” and “Soon You’ll Get Better” are very clearly below the clearly-in songs. And they’re both so awkwardly slow and weighty that they muck up sequencing. You can crucify me for this, but I really did try to include them. Nothing worked!
So…it’s the first ten songs of the album plus “Daylight.” Maybe we didn’t need a poll to figure it out. But at least we’ve verified this truth with science.
Here is Lover in brief…Lvr.
1. “I Think He Knows” 2. “Cruel Summer” 3. “Paper Rings” 4. “Lover” 5. “The Man” 6. “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince” 7. “Cornelia Street” 8. “The Archer” 9. “I Forgot That You Existed” 10. “Death By A Thousand Cuts” 11. “Daylight”
I did a great job of finding and listening to new music that I enjoy this year, so much so that this feature contains one hundred albums released in 2021. Earlier this week I expected to have about 70, so I was pretty surprised to add everything up. Which just makes me all the more excited to share the product of my hard work with you.
As a final note about my list, it’s pretty cool to see all of my top three albums by artists who owe a lot to Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is one of the biggest recording artists of the last twenty years, but I’ve always felt like not a ton of artists were very obviously influenced by her. That’s changing! And I’m clearly a big fan of that development.
I’m doing this a bit differently (and more thoroughly!) than in recent years, so here’s a rundown of the order of things. First, I’ll be going over some fantastic albums that I won’t include as 2021 albums for whatever reason. Then I’ll dive into the top ten of 2021. After that, I’ll show the remaining ranked top 25, the remaining unranked top 50, and then a lot of honorable mentions.
I’ve also given one song recommendation for each album, each of which is among the album’s best but is not one of the 40 songs included in yesterday’s best songs of 2021 feature.
Here we go! I’ll see you next week for the best TV episodes and TV shows of 2021.
Ineligible But Worthy
Low Cut Connie: Tough Cookies: The Best of the Quarantine Broadcasts
Excluded because it’s kind of a live album (the rare sort of those recorded in 2020), Tough Cookies is an essential document of the 2020 Instagram Live quarantine concert era. Everyone who’s heard it rightly praises “Little Red Corvette,” but I think the cover of Cardi B’s “Be Careful” is really nasty, too.
Taylor Swift: Fearless (Taylor’s Version) & Red (Taylor’s Version)
It would feel weird to compare remastered/expanded editions to actually 2021 music, but it’s not like there was nothing new (or new-to-us, anyhow) on these versions Taylor, and while for the most part it’s understandable why these are the vault tracks and not the album tracks, they still represent output from the periods surrounding her two finest albums.
Discovered less than a month too late for my last list, Medicine became by far my most listened to release of this year. Songs about technology are hard to write, but “Pretty Girl Lie” and “Internet Religion” work because yeah, her psyche has been wildly impacted by screens and algorithms. Heck, she writes this awesome thankful-but-glib song about SSRIs and it’s somehow the fifth best of six songs here.
I finally hear it! I finally hear the beautiful song hidden within Paul McCartney’s horrible house of mirrors known as “Wonderful Christmastime.” Then right after McKenna conquers that song and makes it hers, she wallops us with two tearjerkers about how Christmas illuminates the sad little ways that life changes.
8. McKinley Dixon: For My Mama And Anyone Who Look Like Her
Despite all of the obvious comparisons (which all speak very well of this album), McKinley Dixon insists he wasn’t influenced by To Pimp A Butterfly so much as he was influenced by everyone who happened to make that album. In interviews, he’ll light up about Kamasi Washington and Terrace Martin. And indeed, the most important comparison point between the two works is the use of live music, brought to life here by Dixon’s perennial producer Onirologia. All this supports Dixon emerging as one of the finest emcees right now. Every single thing about this album works so well that it’s a little alarming that it’s a debut.
In announcing Ordinary Life, We Are The Union lead vocalist came out as a trans woman, and the album is one big coming out party in the way only a ska album really can be. Some songs are loudly about that theme, “Boys Will Be Girls” is a lovely fuck-you to anti-trans motherfuckers everywhere, but there’s also a lot of giddy stuff about the weird ways that brains occasionally are, like on earworm “Short Circuit” or on what should be the new ADHD wave’s anthem, “Broken Brain.”
Billie’s left behind the bells and whistles from her debut, but in turn her writing has gotten a fair bit deeper. Her story of growing up with superstardom is well-trodden ground, but her approach and meditation on the subject are not only good for her but genuinely captivating.
Though some of it is also about the recent death of Pearce’s longtime producer busbee, 29: Written In Stone is largely about her divorce from fellow country singer Michael Ray after just eight months of marriage (so, “the year that I got married and divorced”). Pearce seemingly can’t help herself from writing classic country divorce songs, warning the next girl to mess around with this guy, dreading the many painful milestones of losing someone, recounting what he, uh, didn’t do. She even dares to call out to the god of the genre herself. With 29: Unwritten In Stone, Pearce has done Loretta more than proud and released one of the best country albums of the last ten years.
Occasionally I think that some albums should come with lengthy footnotes, but Julian Saporiti’s 1975 is actually part of his PhD dissertation in American Studies. He tells many stories of Asian American history throughout 1975 (and one about crossing the US-Mexico border), and the most impactful are those that trace history and trauma directly through family lines, as he does through his mother and his mother’s mother on “Tell Hanoi I Love Her” and “St. Denis or Bangkok” and through one of his Cambodian American Students on “Khmerica” (“be my eyes, father”). 1975 is wondrous because Saporiti sings with a tenderness that doesn’t let these songs be merely sorrowful while still giving room to their emotional weight.
SOUR is wonderful because Rodrigo relays her breakup like a car crash where every microsecond is remembered. Take one of the lesser singles, “traitor,” and look at how the drama of the chorus just spills out. She captures these things so well so consistently likely thanks to a central anxiety that emerges throughout the album: that she might not be exciting, interesting or smart. And that relatable element helps her almost too-detailed teardown of some “not the compliment type” asshole really stick.
Straight up, Kalie Shorr is the most sure-thing songwriter right now. You could set your watch to her next song being a great one. I barely missed Open Book in 2019 and now reckon it’s probably just the best album of that year, so it’s no surprise that she hits five for five here, snarling through “Amy” and making us sob to “Love Child.” And even when she’s feeling some contentedness, she either hates the way it feels or expresses her friendship through murder. Her writing is so consistently sharp and her new turn towards guitar rock works perfectly.
Sure, it’s pretty brief, and sure, it’s not a perfect album (in fact, Bella herself calls this a mixtape so we can properly anticipate her true debut album this year). Still! Still. No 2021 release gave me even close to as much listening pleasure as The Yearbook.
The first playlist below features the suggested songs from every album (except Sir Babygirl’s, which is not on Spotify) in this feature. The second is just the top ten albums of 2021 in their entirety.
To me, the last truly great year for music was 2016. 2017 and on have been solid, but more and more my decision to focus on the top ten for this annual feature instead of a top 25 like I used to seemed like the wiser and wiser choice.
Then, this year! After a wild decrease in music releases in 2020, 2021 is solidly the best year for music over the last five.
Here, we go over the best songs of the year. We begin with two songs that weren’t eligible for this year’s list but I missed last year for whatever reason (late 2020 release, pre-album single), and then dive into the top ten. In addition, I’ve ranked the entire top 25 below that and also list fifteen honorable mentions.
Tomorrow, I’ll be releasing my best albums of 2021 list (featuring well over 50 albums), and in the next couple of weeks I’ll be going over the ten best TV episodes and TV shows of 2021, something I’ve never done before.
PS, if you want more song recommendations, I give you a lot more tomorrow.
Here we go.
Ineligible But Worthy
Carly Pearce: “Next Girl”
On Valentine’s Day of 2020, Carly Pearce released her second album, partly inspired by her new marriage. Just half a year but many world events later, Pearce dropped this absolute scorcher warning anyone who finds themselves involved with Michael Ray. Co-written with Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne of “Merry Go Round” fame, to wildly understate their prolificness, it’s no real surprise that “Next Girl” is the best country song of the past few years, and an easy top five song of 2020.
Baby Queen: “Want Me”
I’m just not aware of many songs as infectious as this, a shameless embrace of unhealthy obsession (that’s actually about Jodie Comer). Its finale is unrivaled. Everyone should pay attention to the movements of producer King Ed, clearly a genius who’s just getting started. More on Bella herself later. Song of 2020.
Top Ten
10. Maisie Peters: “Psycho”
Yeah, it’s a lot. “Psycho” is aggressive as hell in its catchiness, Steve Mac’s production bringing out the manic glee on the other side of getting two-timed. Easily the best thing with Ed Sheeran’s name attached.
9. Kalie Shorr: “Amy”
Wronging Kalie Shorr seems like a preposterously poor idea. My goodness, this is the most thorough musical evisceration put to tape since “The Story of Adidon.”
8. WILLOW (ft. Travis Barker): “t r a n s p a r e n t s o u l”
Travis Barker continues his silent mission to bring back pop punk by lending his bonafides to preexisting superstars trying their hand at the genre, and while “running like the Flash” shows us the limitation of the lyric sheet, pop punk vocals fit Willow Smith like a glove. Kickass song, no two ways about it.
7. illuminati hotties: “MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA”
I’ve always found Sarah Tudzin slightly terrifying, here more so than ever. Listening to her effortlessly leap between her dozens of voices is like standing on shifting sands. Guessing which layer of irony she’s on always feels so uncertain. Do you reckon “the DNC is playing dirty” is an odd or even-numbered layer?
6. MUNA (ft. Phoebe Bridgers): “Silk Chiffon”
Naomi McPherson (guitarist, MUNA): “We should define queer music as music of longing.” Josette Maskin (other guitarist, MUNA): “That’s literally the gayest thing ever.”
5. Billie Eilish: “Happier Than Ever”
I love Happier Than Ever but I sympathize with those that find it kinda sleepy. So when she sneaks up on you at the two minute mark with the most fun thing she’s ever done (saying something), you get that much more into it. Maybe she’s not talking shit about this guy on the internet, so here she is on record.
4. Olivia Rodrigo: “good 4 u”
SOUR made its bones on Olivia Rodrigo’s hyperspecific details, so it’s funny that its finest song is its broadest. She keeps things as simple as possible here, methodically outlining that her ex’s happiness is not only at her expense but in fact because of her in the first place, Rodrigo finding no consolation that her efforts to find him a therapist will make things smoother for the next girl. Rodrigo’s sour grapes kick tons of ass, her hair-raising backing vocals and “LIKE A DAMN SOCIOPATH!!!” should put the fear of God in this guy, however happy he was before this sucker dropped.
3. Baby Queen: “Raw Thoughts”
Not her best lyric sheet, but that’s because she’s so dedicated to the rawness of these thoughts, best expressed in the double somersault, “They’ll never get it unless they sat under my skin/And saw what I did/Actually fuck that god forbid/They see what I did.” But this is here for that big, big, big hook, an absolute monster of a refrain that makes you wonder why no pop song has punctuated “I got fucked up” quite like this. But what makes “Raw Thoughts” is that it really, really sounds like Bella had a truly awful night.
2. Indigo De Souza: “Hold U”
At no point this year did my ears perk up the way they did when I heard “Hold U” bloom. A celebration of romance and camaraderie and everything in between, De Souza’s band locks the fuck in for this one, thrilling with every dramatic strum of the guitar.
1. No-No Boy: “The Best God Damn Band In Wyoming”
Graduate student Julian Saporiti was making his way through a Wyoming museum when he came upon a picture of a band at Heart Mountain Relocation Center, a Japanese internment camp. He was so blown away to find such a thing existed that he tracked down singer Joy Teraoka, struck up a friendship, and wrote this song to help the history endure.
Saporiti’s songwriting and performing approaches are pretty simple, but he gets a lift from the tenderness with which he approaches his topics. Here, he gets into this one like it was the song he was put on this earth to sing. Indeed, the topic is particularly close to him, and set him on the path of writing these songs for his dissertation in American Studies.
And though this is a tale of finding joy in tragedy, it still can’t escape the dark conclusion underneath. The story ends with Yone going to fight for the country that just imprisoned him. Still, the epilogue finishes with the only line that could have ended this song: “Locked up in prison camps for no fucking reason, but they still found a reason to sing.”
At a time when hate towards Asian Americans and use of prison camps are again spiking in this country, “The Best God Damn Band In Wyoming” is at once essential history and eerily prescient.
Joey Daniewicz 