Reading through year-end album of the year lists almost always feels like an exercise in futility for me. Maybe it’s because I like what I like and what I like doesn’t necessarily meet the criteria a lot of publications that publish year-end lists are going for but it’s always interesting to see what albums I like show up on these lists and what albums don’t.
Cheekface was the latter case. Their record Emphatically No was one of the most enjoyable and entertaining albums to listen to from 2021 and I’m still scratching my head that I haven’t seen it in more places. What’s not to love about their unique brand of catchy music packed full of jokes delivered in deadpan over bouncy pop music?
The other 19 albums that made my list aren’t exactly charting a course of intrigue but they are all records I enjoyed enough to pick out of far too much music I listened to over the past year. They’re listed in alphabetical order.
- Aeon Station – Fade
- Arlo Parks – Collapsed in Sunbeams
- Billy Bragg – The Million Things That Never Happened
- Cassandra Jenkins – An Overview on Phenomenal Nature
- Cheekface – Emphatically No.
- Chime School – s/t
- Cloud Nothings – The Shadow I Remember
- Damien Jurado – The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania
- David Ramirez – Backslider
- Ducks Ltd. – Modern Fiction
- Last Days of April – Even the Good Days Are Bad
- Lucy Dacus – Home Video
- Massage – Still Life
- Middle Kids – Today We’re the Greatest
- Sam Fender – Seventeen Going Under
- Stephen – Radar of Small Dogs (reissue)
- Sun June – Somewhere
- Tangled Shoelaces – Turn My Dial (reissue)
- The Umbrellas – s/t
- Valerie June – The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers
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