Graphic by Alex Bosserman.
I sifted through year end lists so you don’t have to! These are the diamonds from a rough year, featuring Arca, London Grammar, CHVRCHES, St. Vincent and more
By Alex Bosserman
January 23, 2022
2021. Not great for music. Not the resurrection many prayed for, but one foot in front of the other and look what we have now – a Lorde album that’s just OK! The years most engaging music came from unexpected places, just take a look at my top pick. Outside the top 10 were other successes, like from Magdalena Bay, Wolf Alice, Erika de Casier and Tyler, The Creator. Trust me – I checked – these are the top 10.
Listen to the strongest tracks from my list below.
There is nothing on this list comparable to Arca’s latest. Inaccessible isn’t the right word, neither is exclusive – daunting, perhaps. Massive in length, sound, and ambition, KicK iii is just one part of a four-series album drop that sees the construction of soundscapes and worlds that are out of this one. Inclusive of sound and considerate of all that is possible, transformation is the central theme.
KicK iii is arguably the strongest of the herd, pushing the boundaries of the world Arca is pioneering. Off kilter beats, experimental use of voice that reverses and loops, whizzing around and shifting forms, brash electronic rushes that glide against delicate harps and strings.
Each album wears nightmarish album artwork that reflects the content. All are computer generated scans of Arca, who splits and contorts into android bodies, surrounded by alien flora and fauna, artificial environments that depict hellscapes. To many, this album will literally sound like hell. To others, an exciting look into what music can and will sound like.
Early track “Incendio” crashes and titulates, Arca violently chanting against metallic textures. Her voice pitches up and squeaks, the rhythm contorting like a beast. Just after on “Skullqueen,” Arca pulls drill’n’bass into the ring, before shattering it into a delicate assemblage of ballerina jewelry box notes and synthetic gunshots. In her own confounding world, homage to old genres sounds entirely hers.
“Señorita” is the clear standout, something we can imagine Rihanna or Beyonce riding the beat of had they entered the scene decades from today. Aggressive and impulsive, Arca’s sexuality teases words into place, “Phlegm spit in your open hole before I cum in it, pullin’ it out then returnin’ it, like this is a revenant, all these other bitches are irrelevant, heaven-sent.”
While last year was singed with the tragic loss of sound adjacent and genre-pushing Sophie, the torch is not entirely extinguished. In fact, Arca has an army of sounds hungrily waiting to creep into the mainstream, even when projects like KicK iii are entirely above and beyond it.
London Grammar’s music is nestled gently between genres. Trip-hop, but without the breakbeats and psychedelia, electronic, but without the high BPMs, pop, but without the facade. Intimate lyrics and sweeping orchestras give them an aura few acts have, though no one really seems to talk about them. On their third album, they’ve grown aware of this fact, broadening the scope of their sound but retaining the rarity.
Lead Hannah Reid, with her deep, haunting vocal performances, often compared to Florence Welch, serves these new tracks well, the introduction crackling in like vinyl, her voice soaring alongside a string section. The title track hosts a guitar riff and percussion that conjures the wild wild west – fitting given the band’s brief relocation to the states.
On “Missing,” Reid’s lyricism touches upon personal perspective, and the people who come in and out of our lives as a result, “Everybody’s got their own idea of right and wrong with arms wide open.” Expansive in sound, she gracefully compliments producers Daniel Rothman and Dominic Major, who’ve also taken new liberties in sound.
“How Does It Feel” was penned for radio, but sits perfectly in the tracklist. The groove is distinctly unlike them, but Reid’s vocals are cushioned beautifully in the second verse, proof that an extroverted sound can compliment acts who shy away from fully embracing pop.
Ultimately, Californian Soil is a testament to the trio’s ability to formulate electronic-pop with solid foundations and legs to run. Next time, the hope is they run even further.
Lauren Mayberry’s voice is crystalline. It cuts through the hazy atmospheres built by producers Iain Cook and Martin Doherty, and on the opener to Screen Violence, “Asking For A Friend,” it sets the mood for a tunneling return to their origin – Fantastic synth-pop that rises in elation and sinks in darkness.
Screen Violence was the tentative name for the band before settling on SEO friendly Chvrches. Resurrecting old ideas makes sense given the band’s brief falter with Love Is Dead, their third album which shot for the charts but dug a shallow grave. Songs like “Miracle,” with it’s millennial whoops and Imagine Dragons-esque choruses, were a far cry from the magic Chvrches typically crafts.
This isn’t just a return to form, though, as drums and guitars appear more often than previous records, harkening to UK post-punk and new wave of the 80s and 90s. “How Not To Drown” with Robert Smith of The Cure exemplifies this direction, both their voices swallowed by an expansive and desperate arrangement of kicks, snares, and sliding guitars. “Watch as they pull me down…”
There is a sheen of horror wrapped around most tracks, like on “Final Girl,” which levies the trope against Mayberry, who faced endless harassment from internet trolls, bad faith interviews, and entertainment industry misogyny. Clearly exasperated, but not surrendering, Mayberry pens earworm hooks and biting lyrics that rebel against the mirage of shit. “Good Girls” is the crystal clear reply to what’s demanded. Good girls do this, that, and the other, Mayberry stepping in, “but I don’t!”
Chvrches successfully shed the weak elements of their discography and steel manned their strengths, “He Said She Said” being the best example. The pre chorus is a revolving door of overthinking, supersaws building into a thumping chorus, “I feel like I’m losing my mind, over and over I try!” This is “Miracle” done right, an album done right, and a sequence of sound that builds anticipation for what’s next.
Marina’s fifth album is lightning in a bottle cracking underfoot the march of a demonstration with serious demands. The list of issues to address is long – racism, sexism, the patriarchy, gender, capitalism, coronavirus. It seems overbearing and naive on paper, but Marina’s flair has always been gaudy and dramatic. These are power punk anthems occupying a space unique to the pop genre.
It would be a mistake to hone in on the politics alone. Marina is clearly taking a holistic approach to songwriting, spilling out diary pages that rightfully conflate the personal with the political. In the title track and opener, the external flawed world becomes an internal war to personally address, or come to peace with. “I am here to take a look insidе myself, recognize that I could bе the eye, the eye of the storm.”
The production is driving and relentless, as quickly as new sounds enter, so do new ideas. On “Venus Fly Trap,” Marina opts-out of the success-failure dynamic, flies right over the scene, though the mincing of words does land her in hot water. On one song she critiques capitalism, the next she praises her successes under it, “but I earned it all myself, and I’m a millionairess.” At its worst, it’s capricious. At its best, it’s maximalism recognizing our contradictory nature.
When the synths and drum kicks subside, and the clouds part for Marina’s voice to beam earthbound, track five exemplifies the root of our manmade problems, “’We’re just highly emotional people, you don’t need to hide.”
In 2015, she was the cult leader on a screen beckoning you to find solace in withdrawal. In 2017, the latex clad domme with a prescription that needs filling and a gun pointed at the pharmacists who seduced her. Each St. Vincent album, headed by Annie Clark, comes with a concept. “Daddy’s Home” is no different.
Now, she’s taken on the gloss of a 70’s, rock’n’roll, disaffected housewife, who grimaces at the straight edged mothers across the playground, heading home to nurse a bloody mary in front of some daytime television. She’s wearing a fur coat, her lipstick is smeared, she’s sprawled across a loveseat waiting for daddy.
Commodifying her personal trauma, Clark translates her father’s white collar incarceration into a psyched out rock album that’s hypnotizingly smooth, relaxing, and funky.
“Pay Your Way In Pain” is a stumbling entrance into a shag-carpeted living room. David Bowie and Prince are clear influences, with Clark screeching the song to a halt, gasping for air, “I wanna be loved.” Just after, on “Down And Out Downtown,” Clark fills an elevator with percussion and bass similar in sound to bands like Zero 7 or early Sia. We’re headed to the top floor, it’s expensive and cool, we’re vibing.
While the interludes and latter half waver in punch, “Down” is Clark at her strongest, picking a fight with her guitar and some schmuck on the street, “Go get your own shit, get off of my tit, go face your demons, check into treatment, go flee the country, go blame your daddy.”
“My Baby Wants A Baby” brings it home, equating maternal spousal jealousy with her own artistic endeavors. “But I wanna play guitar all day, make all my meals in microwaves, only dress up if I get paid.” Why settle down when your music career seems to be aging like fine wine? Fuck daddy!
We’ve seen this arc before with Lorde and Olivia Rodrigo – skyrocket to fame as a teenager with a cellphone. Said cellphone bombards you with unsolicited opinions. It’s a situation you were never emotionally or developmentally equipped to deal with. Recede from social media, drop the toxic relationship, come out victorious! (hopefully…)
The first album is a smear against the system, the second a declaration that you’ve overcome it. But if you ignore the meta around Eilish’s “sophomore” album, you’ll be left with what really matters – excellent fucking music. The proof is in the pudding, and this pudding is a decadent serving of genre, a record dripped in personality, cool demeanor, slick production and effortless beauty.
Tracks like “I Didn’t Change My Number” and “Oxytocin” are striking in design and the continuation of Eilish’s trademark dark bombast. On the latter, the bass builds into a hypnotic trance, before collapsing into an epileptic’s nightmare, Eilish screaming in the shadows, “I wanna do bad things to you.”
“NDA” is similarly dark, with her celebrity issues teetering along the edge of a skeletal beat which grows into an overwhelming sub-bass that consumes her. “Billie Bossa Nova” embraces the jazzier abilities of her vocal range, and “Your Power” sees folk enter the arena, a sound akin to Phoebe Bridgers.
The title track is where Eilish shine’s most. Above trite ukulule, Eilish’s hushed voice glides in ethereal manner, before she reaches a conclusion – her relationship fucking sucks. At the fulcrum point, the song transforms calm acceptance into furious rejection of the way she’s been treated. Boy, bye.
There is a distinct lack of positivity, joy, and spiritedness in popular music. Positivity is often mistaken for naivety, a pitfall so wide in radius that most musicians have succumbed to it. Art needs pain, and pain needs art, so we’ve been sold.
Nurture is the antithesis of this perspective, and just what the doctor ordered during pandemic fatigue part four. It opens with an arrangement fit for a triumphant return to life. Pianos and violins spring to life, claps of movement and harps pluck, throwing us into an hour-long celebration of “being alive next year.” If the world has been stuck looking down at our own filth, Porter Robinson is inviting us to look up at our own futures.
On this record, Robinson is also hosting the revival of EDM from it’s dormant state. Popular music shifted to a hip-hop oriented mainstream, and producers of his era had clearly lost vision for the genre’s future. Nurture weaves choirs of voices and organic strings and samples to build waves of sound that breathe inspiration back into the genre.
“Wind Tempos” is a beautiful ballad framing a soft scene of grass in the breeze, a robotic sample reciting “it’s so holy.” On “dullscythe,” airy piano keys strike upwards, flying us into the next track which shuffles the puzzle back into place, “I won’t spend time resenting the way things are.”
The penultimate track is a fantastical way to view the burden of our lives. Similar to the strongest cinematic moments of artists like M83, “Unfold” revels in the moment, appreciating that which is right in front of you, “I watched the water unfold, it’s a feeling I want you to know.”
James Blake’s music is distinct – ballads embellished with minor details that compliment the somber atmosphere surrounding his musings. Occasionally his voice quivers from natural vocal breaks, or more frequently, synthetic autotune of his design. It mirrors the introspective nature of his writing, a deep and moody croan that aches in pain when moving towards a falsetto.
“Friends That Break Your Heart,” then, is an apt title for someone so well equipped to turn a spotlight onto heady anxieties and emotional ruckus. If you are feeling sad and you’re not sure why, there is a song here for you best enjoyed on a solitary walk in the cloak of night.
Take “Lost Angel Nights,” which opens with angelic vocals that descend into a simple click accompanied by Blake’s pondering. What isn’t said lyrically is conveyed in atmosphere alone, and then followed by the devastating title track, where he sings “I have haunted many photographs, in the background, in the fore.”
The hip-hop laden tracks are here as they were on Assume Form, but now feel cushioned by a heavier heaping of ballads ridden with themes of insecurity, doubt, and emotional malaise. Near the end, Blake reaches the peak of a mountainous, soulful record, clouds clearing for a moment of bliss, “If I’m insecure, how have I been so sure that I’m gonna care for you ’til I am no more?”
Kanye’s albums move people. They echo through the internet, pointing to mania or wisdom in reception, they grip his followers in anticipation, they reverberate through a home that looks more like a museum than a place to raise a family.
“Ye” directly confronted his demons, “Jesus Is King” attempted to cleanse them away. “Donda” realizes that you cannot have the presence of hard music without looking to the past, having softer revelations about life. The album is named after his late mother.
Donda still has character and quirk, reinforced by his slack-jacked one-liners and chuckled bars, but is also filled with moments that feel biblically cavernous. Take “Hurricane,” an early track which drones nocturnally and then opens and ascends to the sky. “Come To Life” literally sounds like the gates of heaven, the beginning of a new life, the redemption of a previous life marred with mistakes.
The beat on “Jail” is iconic, a descriptor sorely lacking from recent projects, and proof enough that West wasn’t lost in his pursuit of a higher calling, mingling with gospel choirs and cosplaying as the messiah in Los Angeles stadiums. “Heaven and Hell,” another standout, is the voice Kanye has been looking for in a tumultuous period of life, and didn’t quite find until now. The same can be said for Donda in its entirety.
Kneel before your queen. Tits out, but not for your consumption.
A clear turn from mainstream appeal, If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is an album with intention and massive energy. There is no investigation needed to determine who’s behind the first few notes of I Want Power, as the piano and arrangements are distinctly Nine Inch Nails. The result is a beautiful interplay between the cinematic and scraping chords of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and the angst and higher intentions of a jaded pop princess at war.
Extract the diary-like confessional “Without Me” and the explosive angst of “Nightmare” from Halsey’s discography and you’ll find the seeds of songs like “Easier Than Lying,” wherein soft spoken venting avalanches into a distorted wall of sound and release of anger.
On “Girl Is A Gun,” breakbeat 90’s industrial intertwines with Halsey’s sing flow, a manic sound that surprisingly works. It’s during songs like this where ownership of the atmosphere is contested – is this a Nine Inch Nails record or a Halsey record?
“I Am Not A Woman, I’m A God” resolves that question with decisiveness. While the bass pumps like a pulse, the blood running through is Halsey’s alone – a warm home weathering a cold storm of synths and piano notes. Oddly, after a milquetoast foray into music, Halsey has already turned the tables and conquered the throne.