Many thoughtful essays have already debated when the album shall die, so allow me to throw myself into the conversation. The runtime and literal concept of an album was born out of a technological constraint, in that pieces of vinyl generally can only contain 50ish minutes of audio–and more often than not they came with a bunch of filler to justify selling the singles at a higher price. As tech and our means of consuming music changes so rapidly, music itself is evolving and today’s streaming, playlisting and the algorithm favor singles releases over albums. Even song intros and titles are being influenced by what works best on TikTok. Hopefully this doesn’t come across as a middle-aged, white, “indie” (?) dude yelling “back in my day we had to burn CDs of ‘Sex and Candy’ by Nirvana downloaded on Kazaa!” because I probably listen to playlists more than albums and constantly discover new music from our Lord and Savior, the Algorithm. But, in my humble opinion, there still exists a romance and importance to a great lengthy body of work. Albums are mile markers in artists’ careers. Albums allow long and lush stories to be told. They create this personal, little universe to get lost in that seems like it was made just for you. Maybe the format will die one day. Having said that, here is an unironic playlist (littered with loosies not on albums). Welcome to my 14th annual list of my favorite albums of the year. Please share your favorites back!
SPOTIFY PLAYLISTS:
Regularly Updated / 2021 Choices
APPLE MUSIC:
Regularly Updated / 2021 Choices
Floating Points & Pharoah Sanders feat. London Symphony Orchestra — Promises
Now that I’ve given my unsolicited dissertation on the state of the album, Promises deserves to be in its own category. Or maybe it’s the “truest” to form in that the core of the album is literally just two long melodies repeating while Pharaoh performs solos one can only write in their 80’s. Even mentioning the London Symphony Orchestra might make this just seem like a quasi-film score which really sells short what a spiritual experience this album is.
Tyler, The Creator — CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
I loved the swerve of his last two albums. In fact, I’m pretty sure they became so big because of that huge Chewing Choices™ bump. Yet this pivot back to rap is refreshing, especially since it’s vulnerable and personal, kind of for the first time. CMIYGL is filled with two-minute banger after banger with the occasional nine-minute jazz odyssey, a legendary ’90s DJ serving just as a hypeman, and one of Weezy’s best verses (which given the millions he has, means a lot). All accompanied by gorgeous, inspiring, Wes Andersonesque visuals/fragrance line.
Charlotte Day Wilson — Alpha
Alpha is stunning and beautiful and will remind you of ’90s R&B but in an otherworldly, soulful, restrained, and gorgeous way.
Vince Staples — Vince Staples
This is my best chance to convert y’all to the imperfect, (un)intentional dry comedy and personal Long Beach-crypt-gospel of Vince Staples. He’s already gone through so many stages and sounds in his career to now give his most immediate, hooky, condensed album.
Kanye West — Donda
Look, I really wanted to just put this in the honorable mentions so I didn’t have to write anything. So many more qualified, thoughtful writers have already dissected Ye’s irresponsible, thoughtless, disgusting “marketing aspects” better than I’m capable of. Boycotting this album on principle alone is completely reasonable. But (and that single conjunction is already doing a lot of work) in the classic debate of separating the art from the artist; incredibly beautiful and hard songs fill Donda with Ye caring about inspiring visuals again. I listened to Donda so much that it made my Apple Music Top 10 Wrapped/Replay (shout out to all my fellow non-Spotify users). The album has all-time great verses from Jay Electronica, André 3000 and Fivio Foreign and also some all-time boring, bloated songs yet are all still better than anything from his last few uninspired albums. I actually made my own condensed tracklist/playlist if you’re jonesing for that secret menu Chewing Choices link, which is kinda the perfect commentary of the state of the album: just make your own album from releases with too many songs on it.
Madlib — Sound Ancestors
The perfect title for what this album sounds like: a collage of a million samples (curated by Four Tet) that flawlessly sound cohesive together. You know when you hear the original version of a sample and it makes you do a double take of confusion? Like seeing a TV actor IRL and thinking to yourself, “Wait was he in my freshman PSYCH 101 class or was he in… Step by Step…??” Madlib is so great at making me do those audio double takes.
L’Rain — Fatigue
I probably overuse the word “otherworldly” to describe innovative, fresh ideas. The way L’Rain consistently combines incredibly dense harmonies and complex rhythms, casually switching tempos and keys, all while sounding effortless, head bobby, personal and psychedelic, is IMHO… otherworldly.
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis — CARNAGE
After a few very understandably depressing albums, Nick pairs back with his favorite long haired, balding Bad Seed to make a kinda electronic punk record. CARNAGE is filled with righteous anger, strings that I can’t tell are real or fake and a bunch of heady references that I pretend to understand like I’m George Costanza discussing his favorite poet.
The War on Drugs — I Don’t Live Here Anymore
There’s something to be said about a band or artist perfecting a sound and then just doubling and tripling down; creating in the nuance of that space. Granted there’s a difference between the aesthetic created by Beach House and, well, basically… the classic rock of War on Drugs. On first listen, this could be misheard as painting by numbers. In fact, I’d argue A Deeper Understanding was the more formulaic album, while IDLHA lives in the margins of dead space, key changes and as much subtlety one can have while referencing Bob Dylan by name in the lyrics.
BADBADNOTGOOD — Talk Memory
A perfect mix of:
- Rich orchestration harkening back to over-the-top film scores à la the 1960s Golden Age of Cinema (I have no idea what decade counts as golden)
- Weird noises which sound like they’re made from synthesizers the size of a baby elephant
- BBNG’s now signature tight jazz
- A beautiful swan song album cover from Virgil
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
DARKSIDE — Spiral
Baby Keem — The Melodic Blue
Pino Palladino & Blake Mills — Notes With Attachments
Leon Vynehall — Rare, Forever
IDK — USEE4YOURSELF
TOTALLY UNBIASED HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Local Natives — Music from the Pen Gala 1983
Omotola — ITMOI
