Joey’s Top Ten Albums of 2021

Here it is, the main event.

The thing I was most struck by in 2021 was the lack of consensus on an album of the year. In a rare occurrence, Pitchfork (Jazmine Sullivan), Rolling Stone (Olivia Rodrigo), the (now Uproxx) critics’ poll (Japanese Breakfast), and the Metacritic meta-list (Little Simz) all had differing takes on the album of the year, and it still doesn’t feel like those contenders are significantly ahead of the rest of the field. Perhaps consequently, my list looks less like a consensus list than it basically ever has. Which is just peachy with me!

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.

Listen: “Little Red Corvette”

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.

Listen: “Mr. Perfectly Fine (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”
Listen: “Message In A Bottle (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”

Baby Queen: Medicine


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.

Listen: “Pretty Girl Lie”

Top Ten

10. illuminati hotties: Let Me Do One More


The one we’ve been waiting for. After spurts of pop brilliance on last year’s mixtape, Sarah Tudzin does anything she wants here. An anticapitalist ballad? Check. Surf rock with a country twang? Absolutely. Straight up Bikini Kill shit? She’s here with it. And because one of her best skills is putting on so many faces, it’s that much more meaningful when she finishes with easily her most sincere and vulnerable song.

Listen: “Pool Hopping”

9. Lori McKenna: Christmas Is Right 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.

Listen: “Christmas Without Crying”

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.

Listen: “make a poet Black”

7. We Are The Union: Ordinary Life


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.”

Listen: “Morbid Obsessions”

6. Billie Eilish: Happier Than Ever


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.

Listen: “Getting Older”

5. Carly Pearce: 29: Written In Stone


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.

Listen: “Never Wanted To Be That Girl” (ft. Ashley McBryde)

4. No-No Boy: 1975


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.

Listen: “Tell Hanoi I Love Her”

3. Olivia Rodrigo: SOUR


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.

Listen: “drivers license”

2. Kalie Shorr: I Got Here By Accident


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.

Listen: “I Heard You Got A Girl”

1. Baby Queen: The Yearbook


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.

Bella Latham is a pop savant. “American Dream” is like the median-quality song here and it’s basically perfect. She understands the importance of a well-placed bridge, the “damned if I do and bored if I don’t” bit on “These Drugs” killing me every time. She expands on her the-internet-broke-me themes of Medicine by turning back her anger on the generations who created the internet’s algorithm factory yet bemoan gen Z’s vanity.

And she ends it with a song that goes, “I’m a mess, I’m a mess, I’m a mess, I’m a mess, I’m ashamed.” It’s quite a way to go out. I hope Bella has a better 2022. I hope we all do.

Thank you for reading.

Listen: “American Dream” (ft. MAY-A)

The Next 15

11. The Buoys: Unsolicited Advice For Your DIY Disaster (Listen: “Lie To Me Again”)
12. The Weather Station: Ignorance (Listen: “Atlantic”)
13. Tinashe: 333 (Listen: “I Can See The Future”)
14. Kiwi Jr.: Cooler Returns (Listen: “Waiting In Line”)
15. Jazmine Sullivan: Heaux Tales (Listen: “Put It Down”)
16. Lil Nas X: MONTERO (Listen: “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)”)
17. James McMurtry: The Horses and the Hounds (Listen: “Operation Never Mind”)
18. Lucy Dacus: Home Video (Listen: “VBS”)
19. Carsie Blanton: Love & Rage (Listen: “Down In The Streets”)
20. Magdalena Bay: Mercurial World (Listen: “Chaeri”)
21. Japanese Breakfast: Jubilee (Listen: “Savage Good Boy”)
22. Turnstile: Glow On (Listen: “Blackout”)
23. Mach-Hommy: Pray For Haiti (Listen: “Kriminel”)
24. girl in red: if i could make it go quiet (Listen: “Serotonin”)
25. Gully Boys: Favorite Son (Listen: “The Way”)

Further Top 50

Amythyst Kiah: Wary + Strange (Listen: “Black Myself”)
Arlo Parks: Collapsed In Sunbeams (Listen: “Black Dog”)
Ashnikko: Demidevil (Listen: “Deal With It” ft. Kelis)
Beach Bunny: Blame Game (Listen: “Good Girls (Don’t Get Used)”)
Dry Cleaning: New Long Leg (Listen: “Scratchcard Lanyard”)
Genesis Owusu: Smiling With No Teeth (Listen: “The Other Black Dog”)
Home Is Where: i became birds (Listen: “long distance conjoined twins”)
Indigo De Souza: Any Shape You Take (Listen: “Kill Me”)
Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert & Jon Randall: The Marfa Tapes (Listen: “Waxahachie”)
Jlin: Embryo (Listen: “Embyro”)
Lande Hekt: Going To Hell (Listen: “80 Days Of Rain”)
Lily Konigsberg: Lily We Need To Talk Now (Listen: “That’s The Way I Like It”)
Little Simz: Sometimes I Might Be Introvert (Listen: “Introvert”)
Mannequin Pussy: Perfect (Listen: “To Lose You”)
Mike: Disco! (Listen: “Crystal Ball”)
Nervous Dater: Call In The Mess (Listen: “Red String Map”)
Parquet Courts: Sympathy For Life (Listen: “Walking At A Downtown Pace”)
PinkPantheress: to hell with it (Listen: “Pain”)
Pinkshift: Saccharine (Listen: “i’m gonna tell my therapist on you”)
Remember Sports: Like A Stone (Listen: “Pinky Ring”)
Self Esteem: Prioritise Pleasure (Listen: “Fucking Wizardry”)
Sir Babygirl: Golden Bday: The Mixtape (Listen: “Bed”)
tUnE-yArDs: sketchy. (Listen: “hypnotized”)
Tyler, The Creator: CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST (Listen: “LUMBERJACK”)
WILLOW: lately i feel EVERYTHING (Listen: “Gaslight” ft. Travis Barker)

Honorable Mentions

Adele: 30 (Listen: “Oh My God”)
Backxwash: I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND DRESSES (Listen: “I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND DRESSES”)
Billy Nomates: Emergency Telephone (Listen: “Emergency Telephone”)
Black Country, New Road: For the first time (Listen: “Track X”)
Bo Burnham: Inside (The Songs) (Listen: “That Funny Feeling”)
Cassandra Jenkins: An Overview On Phenomenal Nature (Listen: “Hailey”)
Colleen Green: Cool (Listen: “I Wanna Be A Dog”)
Dijon: Absolutely (Listen: “Many Times”)
dltzk: Frailty (Listen: “your clothes”)
Doja Cat: Planet Her (Listen: “Need To Know”)
Doss: 4 New Hit Songs (Listen: “Puppy”)
Erika de Casier: Sensational (Listen: “Busy”)
Origami Angel: GAMI GANG (Listen: “Self-Destruct”)
Injury Reserve: By The Time I Get To Phoenix (Listen: “Knees”)
Isaiah Rashad: The House Is Burning (Listen: “Headshots (4r Da Locals)”)
Ka: A Martyr’s Reward (Listen: “I Notice”)
Kacey Musgraves: star-crossed (Listen: “breadwinner”)
Kiss The Tiger: Vicious Kid (Listen: “Motel Room”)
Lainey Wilson: Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’ (Listen: “Things A Man Oughta Know”)
Liz Phair: Soberish (Listen: “Soberish”)
Lorraine James: Reflection (Listen: “Running Like That” ft. Eden Samara)
Mach-Hommy: Balens Cho (Hot Candles) (Listen: “TRADITIONAL”)
Madlib: Sound Ancestors (Listen: “Road Of The Lonely Ones”)
Maisie Peters: You Signed Up For This (Listen: “Brooklyn”)
MAY-A: Don’t Kiss Ur Friends (Listen: “Swing Of Things”)
Meet Me @ The Altar: Model Citizen (Listen: “Feel A Thing”)
Miguel: Art Dealer Chic 4 (Listen: “So I Lie”)
Octo Octa: She’s Calling (Listen: “Goddess Calling”)
Palberta: Palberta5000 (Listen: “Big Bad Want”)
Pale Waves: Who Am I? (Listen: “Tomorrow”)
파란노을 (Parannoul): To See The Next Part Of The Dream (Listen: “아름다운 세상 (Beautiful World)”)
Pardoner: Came Down Different (Listen: “Donna Said”)
POLO G: Hall Of Fame (Listen: “RAPSTAR”)
Pom Pom Squad: Death Of A Cheerleader (Listen: “Red With Love”)
PONY: TV BABY (Listen: “Swore”)
Remi Wolf: Juno (Listen: “Sexy Villain”)
RP Boo: Established! (Listen: “All My Life”)
Sarah Mary Chadwick: Me And Ennui Are Friends, Baby (Listen: “Me And Ennui Are Friends, Baby”)
Silk Sonic: An Evening With Silk Sonic (Listen: “Skate”)
Sleater-Kinney: Path Of Wellness (Listen: “Shadow Town”)
Sleigh Bells: Texis (Listen: “Locust Laced”)
Snail Mail: Valentine (Listen: “Headlock”)
Sofia Kourtesis: Fresia Magdalena (Listen: “La Perla”)
Squid: Bright Green Field (Listen: “Pamphlets”)
The Hold Steady: Open Door Policy (Listen: “Family Farm”)
Toby Fox: DELTARUNE Chapter 2 OST (Listen: “A CYBER’S WORLD?”)
VIAL: LOUDMOUTH (Listen: “Something More”)
Vince Staples: Vince Staples (Listen: “ARE YOU WITH THAT?”)
Wednesday: Twin Plagues (Listen: “Handsome Man”)
Wolf Alice: Blue Weekend (Listen: “No Hard Feelings”)

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.

Joey’s Top Ten Songs of 2021

Folks, this is a good one.

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.

The Next 15

11. Baby Queen: “Dover Beach”
12. McKinley Dixon (ft. Micah James, Gold Midas): “Never Will Know”
13. Kalie Shorr: “Love Child”
14. Dawn Richard: “Bussifame”
15. The Buoys: “Carpark”
16. Jazmine Sullivan: “Pick Up Your Feelings”
17. Lil Nas X: “THATS WHAT I WANT”
18. Tinashe: “Bouncin”
19. TORRES: “Don’t Go Puttin Wishes In My Head”
20. Japanese Breakfast: “Be Sweet”
21. Doss: “Strawberry”
22. Wet Leg: “Chaise Longue”
23. Olivia Rodrigo: “deja vu”
24. PinkPantheress: “Just for me”
25. Remi Wolf: “Liquor Store”

Honorable Mentions

Adele: “Easy On Me”
Caroline Polachek: “Bunny Is A Rider”
Cassandra Jenkins: “Hard Drive”
Doja Cat (ft. SZA): “Kiss Me More”
Kacey Musgraves: “justified”
Low: “Days Like These”
Maisie Peters: “John Hughes Movie”
Mannequin Pussy: “Control”
MAY-A: “Time I Love To Waste”
Megan Thee Stallion: “Thot Shit”
Noname: “Rainforest”
Olivia Rodrigo: “brutal”
Snail Mail: “Valentine”
tUnE-yArDs: “hold yourself.”
Wet Leg: “Wet Dream”

First, here’s a playlist of all the songs in this article. Then, one of just the top ten.

Joey’s Top Ten Albums of 2020

Let’s get right to it, yeah?

Cursed By Calendar
Kiwi jr: Football Money

Big fan of Pavement and The Velvet Underground but tired of waiting for a new Parquet Courts? Well, do I have good news for you. Kiwi jr rereleased their debut this year and it’s just the thing to scratch the itch.

Even better, their second album comes out this month.

Listen: “Wicked Witches”

Cursed By Calendar
Kalie Shorr: Open Book

It was only a matter of time before an artist emerged who so obviously wore Taylor Swift’s influence, but Kalie Shorr’s debut (released late 2019 but given a great deluxe edition update last month) is also as fiery as early Miranda Lambert. Get in on the ground floor. Now.

Listen: “F U Forever”

10. Taylor Swift: evermore

It has a slightly lower batting average than folklore, but I still can’t enough of this side of her: doing what so many of us did this year, hitting pause, and staring unceasingly inward and looking back. Sometimes years. Sometimes generations.

Listen: “Gold Rush”

9. Beach Bunny: Honeymoon

Their debut sounds so effortless, but what takes it to the next level is just how much Lili Trifilio lets herself feel her songs, the ache in her voice as she sighs, “everything’s better in California.” And it gets in and out in just about one Wild Honey, brevity that’s all too rare these days.

Listen: “Ms. California”

8. Run the Jewels: RTJ4

Though their novelty has worn off, here they show us they can really keep this up forever, that they can keep making music that guides us to think deep and then properly channel our rage.

Listen: “JU$T”

7. HAIM: Women in Music Pt. III

After struggling to replicate the dynamite of the first half of Days Are Gone, Danielle Haim’s songwriting has taken a major leap forward, not only turning up the details in her trains of thought but also broadening stylistically. Women In Music Pt. III sounds like the Haim sisters going exploring. Look what they brought back.

Listen: “The Steps”

6. Lori McKenna: The Balladeer

No flash, all substance. Just storytelling chops for days. Even the sappiest track, “When You’re My Age,” might just end up getting you a little emotional when she dips the narrative another generation deeper.

Listen: “Marie”

5. Elizabeth Cook: Aftermath

It’s a little shocking that Elizabeth Cook lacks notoriety to the point where people aren’t giving Wikipedia pages to her new albums, because to my ears she keeps getting more intense, her lyrics both sharper and more beguiling. Stream Aftermath!

Listen: “Perfect Girls of Pop”

4. Waxahatchee: Saint Cloud

If her love songs sound a little sedate, it’s because Katie Crutchfield has been doing the hard work of kicking the substance abuse that she’s been singing about for the last decade. Of course she sounds exhausted, she’s climbed the mountain. It makes the twinges of joy she expresses as she looks out at the horizon just that much more meaningful.

Listen: “Fire”

3. Taylor Swift: folklore

Not quite the return to pop country I was hoping for, but I’m all for this detour, and even if there’s sometimes a little less bounce than I like from Taylor, her lyric sheets keep getting more and more incredible. Just look at the key change on “betty” or the prestige on “the last great american dynasty” (“and then it was bought by me”) and marvel at how effortlessly she keeps pulling out new tricks over three albums in just over a year. folklore is a strong case for Taylor Swift as the greatest American songwriter.

Listen: “Mirrorball”

2. Rina Sawayama: SAWAYAMA

Borrowing from Grimes and Gaga and putting out a better album than they ever have, Rina will often take a simple phrase (“shut the fuck up,” “who’s gonna save you now,” “I’m so confident,” “fuck this world, I’m leaving you”) and then building around that. But fuck a blueprint! Though she clearly has an ear for song structure, Rina isn’t exactly coloring inside the lines. Each track is entirely its own, and the chaos creates magnificent earned moments of sincerity in “Bad Friend” and the beautifully sappy “Chosen Family.”

Listen: “Paradisin'”

1. Fiona Apple: Fetch the Bolt Cutters

That’s four straight top of the line albums in four separate decades now. Here, Fiona expands on the ideas of “Hot Knife” and the children’s screams of “Werewolf,” giving us an album rooted not in melody but in percussion. There’s an almost improvised feel to a lot of this music, best exemplified by the tUnE-yArDs-esque outro to “Relay.” She’s coincidentally given us a homemade album that sure sounds like it during a time where that was the only place to be.

Her lyrics are deep and even inscrutably personal at times (“Hurricane Gloria in excelsis Deo” is literally her bird in her tree), but there’s a strong thread of thankfulness for women and rage on their behalf, from incalculable kindness of “Shameika” to the defiance of “Under the Table” onto the complicated emotions of shared secrets on “Newspaper” and finally the painful, horrifying climax of “For Her.”

There’s something about this music. Fiona Apple sounds so unrestrained and so comfortable, so confident that the world wants to hear her fucking scream “START IT OFF, START IT OFF, BABY, START IT OFF, START IT OFF, START IT OFF NOW!!!”

Pull up any one of her fantastic interviews from this album cycle. Read it. Turn this on. Enjoy her freedom.

Listen: “I Want You to Love Me”

Honorable Mentions, First Class:
Dua Lipa: Future Nostalgia
Jessie Ware: What’s Your Pleasure?
Billy Nomates: Billy Nomates
Flo Milli: Ho, Why Is You Here?
Dogleg: Melee
Lianne La Havas: Lianne La Havas
Phoebe Bridgers: Punisher
Chubby and the Gang: Speed Kills
Soccer Mommy: color theory
Juice WRLD: Legends Never Die
Bree Runway: 2000AND4EVA
Jeff Rosenstock: N O D R E A M

Honorable Mentions, Second Class:
Carly Rae Jepsen: Dedicated Side B
Grimes: Miss Anthropocene
Diet Cig: Do You Wonder About Me?
Hayley Williams: Petals for Armor
Miley Cyrus: Plastic Heart
Charli XCX: how i’m feeling now
Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist: Alfredo
Drakeo the Ruler & JoogSZN: Thank You For Using GTL
SPECIAL INTEREST: The Passion Of
City Girls: City On Lock
illuminati hotties: Free I.H.: This Is Not The One You’ve Been Waiting For
Open Mike Eagle: Anime, Trauma and Divorce
Touché Amoré: Lament
Adrianne Lenker: songs
Phoebe Bridgers: If We Make It Through December
The 1975: Notes on a Conditional Form
Hinds: The Prettiest Curse
The Beths: Jump Rope Gazers
Dramarama: Color TV
The Mountain Goats: Songs for Pierre Chuvin
Emperor X: United Earth League of Quarantine Aerobics
KeiyaA: Forever, Ya Girl
Lil Uzi Vert: Eternal Atake
Porridge Radio: Every Bad
Jay Electronica: A Written Testimony
Princess Nokia: Everything Is Beautiful
Bartees Strange: Live Forever
beabadoobee: Fake It Flowers
Ariana Grande: Positions
SAULT: Untitled (Black Is)
SAULT: Untitled (Rise)
Megan Thee Stallion: Bad News
amaarae: THE ANGEL YOU DON’T KNOW
Backxwash: God Has Nothing To Do With This And Leave Him Out Of It

Joey’s Top Ten Songs of 2020

Fuck 2020. Let’s get right to it. Songs are only eligible if they were first released in 2020.

Cursed By Calendar
Dua Lipa: “Don’t Star Now”

Though “Don’t Start Now” was released in late 2019, its quality became more evident than ever alongside the rest of the still-otherwise-excellent Future Nostalgia. “Don’t Start Now” is pop perfection, with producer Ian Kirkpatrick getting every moment just right.

10. Taylor Swift: “marjorie”

It’s certainly no surprise that Taylor Swift can make a tearjerker about one of the women in her family, but “The Best Day” was so heartrending because it was small and fragile and made you appreciate that the relationship was still in motion. But “marjorie” is no small, fragile song, it’s her biggest epic since “All Too Well,” at first a glorious tribute to her grandmother until the bridge takes it deeper: “I should have asked you questions/I should have asked you how to be.” The perfect song for a year when all our grandparents became more vulnerable than ever. Not everyone made it.

9. Jessie Ware: “Save A Kiss”

Jessie Ware’s best ever song takes a mundane moment in her domestic arrangement and turns it into everything.

8. Megan Thee Stallion (ft. Beyoncé): “Savage Remix”

It’s wild to think that Megan Thee Stallion is already threatening to conquer the world, finding herself in this year’s two bonafide event songs, and though “WAP” is wonderful, “Savage Remix” is the greater statement of that new power, complete with Queen Bey showing up to flex the rapping she developed on EVERYTHING IS LOVE.

7. Phoebe Bridgers: “Kyoto”

The Phoebe Bridgers song that’s least like the rest, “Kyoto” is a hazy romp through Phoebe’s insecurities about her own success and her rage towards her father. Yeah, that Copycat Killer version is pretty awesome, but I prefer the way the original is presented triumphantly, better encapsulating the contradicting feelings of the content.

6. The Chicks: “Gaslighter”

Not as important as “Goodbye Earl” or “Not Ready To Make Nice,” sure, but “Gaslighter” is the reborn Chicks’ tightest pop construction, and even at 50% the rage of “Goodbye Earl,” Natalie Maines’ ire is still inspirational.

5. The 1975: “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)”

Despite Matt always overindulging his stranger ideas on the verses and threatening his songs’ universality, The 1975 can do the hell out of a chorus, and “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)” is their greatest ever, the horns elevating the naughtiness to capture things far less specific than Facetiming.

4. Fiona Apple: “Shameika”

Yes, the key point is the power in small moments of solidarity among young women, but what sends “Shameika” over and above is that Fiona is wrong: she did see her again, “Shameika” unleashing an observer effect upon itself. The evolving story of “Shameika” resonates in a year where so many people focused inwards and took the time to look backwards

3. Will Butler: “Not Gonna Die”

The greatest Arcade Fire song in a decade is a little ill-timed. Outraged at the furor drummed up after the 2015 Paris Attacks, “Not Gonna Die” radically rejects any suspicion that your neighbor is going to kill you. Of course, the year is 2021, and for entirely different reasons your neighbor just might.

2. Emperor X: “The Ballad of HPAE Local 5058”

After a Super Tuesday that felt like the Red Wedding, this song about a New Jersey chapter of Health Professionals & Allied Employees was just about the only convincingly hopeful thing I heard all spring, the sort of hyperspecific song about political perseverance we honestly hear too few of.

1. Bree Runway (ft. Yung Baby Tate): “DAMN DANIEL”

The best song of 2020 ends up having little to do with this fucked to death year. For its first two minutes and fourteen seconds, it might actually sound more at home in the early 2000s (an album track or one of the lesser singles from some Missy Elliott album). Characters Keisha and Felicia each get their kicks with Danny before their worst suspicions about their lack of presence on his Instagram materialize.

Then 2:14 hits. Missy couldn’t do this.

They find power in their shared knowledge and spread the word to their community: If you fuck with him, he’ll fuck all your friends. Don’t trust the man!

They’re not sad for getting played. They’re finding enough joy in what revenge can be had.

Just a note on the Spotify playlist, my #2 song is not on the service, so make sure you listen to that separately.

One Week One Band: Alex Lahey

Back when Tumblr still mattered, One Week One Band was a fairly large deal. But it took me so many years later to finally realize I’d found an act that I both sufficiently loved and felt like, well, mine (who really needs to read more writing about The Clash?). So I spent a week in early August 2020 writing about Alex Lahey’s music. Links collected here for easy access.

1. “Awkward Exchange”
2. AL Loose Ends (part 1): “Air Mail”
3. B-Grade University
4. “You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me”
5. AL Loose Ends (part 2): Between The Kitchen And The Living Room
6. “Let’s Go Out”
7. AL Loose Ends (part 3): “Sucker For Punishment”
8. “Lotto In Reverse”
9. “I Don’t Get Invited To Parties Anymore”
10. The Best Of Luck Club
11. AL Loose Ends (part 4): “Welcome To The Black Parade”
12. “Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself”
13. The Top 20 Alex Lahey Songs