Following last week’s Honorable Mentions for the best records of the year, I posted 100 of my favorite songs and 50 of my favorite albums of 2021 on omg!nyc. You can find both lists below. If you read this email regularly, or check out my blog, you should be pretty familiar with what made the cut, but I hope you still find something new to enjoy or maybe reconnect with something you liked earlier in the year that may have fallen by the wayside as time progressed. This was another excellent year for music and I hope there is something you’ve had on repeat all year as well.
Best of the Year
I know that long, numbered lists can be overwhelming and you might only be interested in certain bands, artists, or genres. With that in mind, I broke things down and am sharing my favorite releases this year based (loosely) on genre, so if you only care about rocking out, digging deeper into jazz, singing along to pop bangers, following the best flows in hip-hop, or breaking into some experimental releases, I hope this helps.
To be clear, I generally dislike genres and try to avoid them as much as possible because I never think it does justice for the art that has been created and music has a dangerous history of categorizing music, but I understand it can be helpful when looking for new tunes.
If there is something on here you enjoy, please consider buying it from the band or artist and don’t just stream it on Spotify. Happy listening, everyone!
Electronic:
Dean Blunt | Black Metal 2
DARKSIDE | Spiral
Madlib | Sound Ancestors
Mr Twin Sister | Al Mundo Azul
Anna Fox Rochinski | Cherry
Experimental:
Chris Corsano / Bill Orcutt | Made Out of Sound
Floating Points / Pharoah Sanders / London Symphony Orchestra | Promises
Godspeed You! Black Emperor | g_d's pee AT STATE'S END!
Grouper | Shade
L’Rain | Fatigue
Hip-Hop:
Czarface / MF DOOM | Super What?
Armand Hammer / The Alchemist | Haram
Ka | A Martyr's Story
Mach-Hommy | Pray for Haiti
Tyler, the Creator | CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
Jazz:
Vijay Iyer / Linda May Han Oh / Tyshawn Sorey | Uneasy
Makaya McCraven | Deciphering the Message
Nala Sinephro | Space 1.8
Sons of Kemet | Black to the Future
Mia Doi Todd | Music Life
Pop:
Lucy Dacus | Home Video
Cassandra Jenkins | An Overview on Phenomenal Nature
Magdalena Bay | Mercurial World
Olivia Rodrigo | SOUR
nasimiYu | P O T I O N S
Punk:
Black Country, New Road | For the first time…
black midi | Cavalcade
Iceage | Seek Shelter
Squid | Bright Green Field
Turnstile | GLOW ON
Rock:
Julien Baker | Little Oblivions
Dinosaur Jr. | Sweep It Into Space
Low | HEY WHAT
Mdou Moctar | Afrique Victime
The War on Drugs | I Don't Live Here Anymore
R&B:
Arlo Parks | Collapsed in Sunbeams
Dawn Richard | Second Line: An Electro Revival
Sault | Nine
Serpentwithfeet | DEACON
Jazmine Sullivan | Heaux Tales
And finally, this playlist includes every song that I included in these emails (Gold Soundz) in 2021! 440 in total. Happy listening