Those familiar with Sonic Subway will know that the albums that I tend to gravitate towards are not necessarily those that are critics' darlings or wildly popular, though some are. They may not be trying to make any grand social statements or commentaries about the world we live in. In some cases, they may not even be considered to be very good by others. I don't really care. They are albums that grab me and take me someplace else for whatever reason and I find myself wanting to go back there...again and again. So here they are, my top 10 albums of 2021.
10. Japanese Breakfast, Jubilee
Michelle Zauner and her band Little Big League had finished their second album when she learned that her mother had stage four cancer. Zauner immediately moved back home to Eugene, Oregon to care for her. During that time, she made a few lo-fi recordings under the name Japanese Breakfast. Zauner also started writing a memoir about her life as a half white, half Korean American and whether she could lay claim to that identity anymore.
Following her mother's passing in 2014, Zauner took on the Japanese Breakfast moniker in earnest and released two albums over the next few years. Both centered around grief, loss, and identity. Both received wide spread attention and praise. For me, I appreciated them both, but never returned to them after a listen or two.
Earlier this year, Zauner's memoir, Crying In H Mart, was published. It became a New York Times best seller. A few months later, Zauner followed it up with the release of her third album, Jubilee. And as the title implies, things are feeling quite different for Zauner these days. And you can sense it from the opener Paprika as the synthesizer kicks things off and then, as the song builds and the chorus rises, the horn section comes in. It's an '80's inspired synth-pop delight that Kate Bush would love. And then there's her lyrics. Drawing inspiration from sci-fi film maker Satoshi Kon's movie of the same name and its opening psychotic parade dream sequence, Zauner's lyrics paint a surreal world where real life and dreams blend together. It truly feels like a different artist at work here.
Jubilee is by far Zauner's best work to date and an album that should be celebrated.
9. Charlie Marie, Ramble On
The first time I heard Charlie Marie's debut album Rambling On, it just blew my socks off. This does not happen that often with me. But right from the beginning I knew that I was discovering and experiencing something special.
"I wanted the record to sound like if Patsy Cline and Dwight Yoakam had a child...It doesn't just symbolize everything I'm working toward: it symbolizes where I come from, too."
Marie, who grew up in Rhode Island, fell in love with country music at a young age. By her mid-teens she was fronting a band and playing fairs and festivals in New England...a far cry from the heart of country music land. That all changes when she made her way to Nashville for college. There, Marie honed her songwriting skills. Writing songs about her own experiences, Marie portrayed herself not as some 'guitar-strumming southern belle, but as a proud outsider who had fallen in love with country while living far from the genre's Bible Belt headquarters.'
You can hear Nashville by way of Rhode Island in Marie's songwriting. While she no doubt pays homage to her musical idols and influences, she is not afraid to step outside their very traditional country lanes. It is how she so perfectly balances the two that sets her songwriting and songs apart from so many others.
I will say that Marie's debut album is simply a stunner. It's a classic country affair for the times that we are living in today.
8. Wheel, Resident Human
There are albums that test my time and patience in ways that frustrate me. And then there are those albums that pay big rewards for diving in deep. Wheel's Resident Human is the latter. It's a 50 minute epic album of mood and tone that can be intense, heavy, and at times dark and ominous as this Finish band with English frontman James Lascelle try making sense of the turmoil and emotional toll that the last few years have taken on us all.
If this all sounds too much to handle, it is not. Wheel masterly moves from heavy and ominous to welcomingly melodic and quiet at all the right moments giving needed space for Lascelle, who sings with such intensity, the album, and the listener time to breath. It all makes listening to Resident Human absolutely captivating. Not since Tool's Fear Inoculum have a found myself so drawn to a prog metal album and I suspect that this will be the case for many others as well. This is one of the fiercest albums and most rewarding listens that I have experienced all year and it definitely deserves your time.
7. Sad Night Dynamite, Sad Night Dynamite
I have always been a bit enamored with artists who can mash-up samples and music genres successfully to create something new and moving. They're a bit like music magicians with me asking 'how did they do that?' Enter Sad Night Dynamite.
Childhood friends Archie Blagden and Josh Greacen love film scores and film makers like Quentin Tarantino who play with contrasts between beauty and violence. They also 'adore' bands like The Clash, Stone Roses, Portishead, I Monster and MIA. So why not throw all of this together and see what happens? So they did. The result is Sad Night Dynamite, the duo's debut mixedtape.
Described as a nightmarish trip through hip-hop, dub, Britpop, punk, electronica, and beyond, Bladgden and Greacen have created a fully realized other-world. It's one that 'tries to pull you out of real life and take you somewhere else.' Ever evolving and changing, but always 'dark and sexy' the duo's music is a thrill to listen to. And while it doesn't take itself too seriously they say, it has heart which is ultimately what they hoped to achieve.
6. Adam Melchor, Melchor Lullaby Hotline, Vol. 1
Along the way, his lister group grew to ten thousand and he racked up over 40 million streams. This all brought new attention to Melchor including Warner Records who came knocking and signed him to a record contract earlier this year. So why all the fuss over Melchor? Because he is a damn fine songwriter and musician. In fact, he is one of the more impressive artists that I have heard in quite some time.
After a year of recording Sunday songs, Melchor released a selection of them as a mixed tape. Entitled Melchor Lullaby Hotline, Vol. 1, Mehchor's artistry is on full display, showing a level of craft that is unusually strong...this is especially the case when you understand that some of these songs were literally written and recorded in a few hours at home.
I suspect that big things are in store for Adam Melchor. We shall see. I will say that I will be rooting for him all the way.
5. Lice, Wasteland: What Ails Our People Is Clear
Every once in a while, an album comes along that defies my understanding of what music can and should be. Lice’s Wasteland: What Ails Our People Is Clear is one of these albums.
As DIY Magazine wrote, Lice’s debut albums feels like their ‘conscious uncoupling from the contemporary musical landscape. A conceptual commentary on the band’s perceived banality of the ‘satirical guitar music boom’, they lampoon the cliche across 11 barnstorming tracks. But for all the bridge burning, there is still a touch of the familiar. Deeply rooted in modern left field sensibilities, they combine their unique brand of artistic experimentation with the grounding influence of their peers. The result is a collection of biting, esoteric hymns that readily combine the earthly and the cosmic.’
This is an album not to be missed, but come ready to be challenged.
4. Birdy, Young Heart
It's a bit wild to think that Birdy is now..and only..24. Since she won the open Mic Uk competition in 2008, at the very young age of 12, Jasmine Lucilla Elizabeth Jennifer van den Bogaerde has been a tremendously successful singer-songwriter who seems to have no limits to her talents....or success. Yet in 2016, after finishing her Beautiful Lies tour, Birdy hit her own limits in terms of energy, creativity, and feelings of authenticity with her music.
Three years, and a personal breakup later, Birdy escaped to a cabin in Topanga, CA. With it's"kind of Laurel Canyon, seventies-like feel," Birdy found herself listening to Joni Mitchell's album Blue and finding new inspiration. With it came Young Heart, what Birdy describes as a "heartbreak Album" which she used to navigate and work through her own failed relationship. It's a beautiful and mature piece of work and seemingly well beyond Birdy's young age. It once again shows the talent or I should say gift, that Birdy possesses. And I'm thankful that she is sharing it with the rest of us.
3. The Vintage Caravan, Monuments
Formed when they were just twelve years old, the Icelandic trio The Vintage Caravan's songs and sound had always stayed close to the 'hard hitting riff fueled' music of the bands they loved and idolized; Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Mastodon, Rush, and Cream. But, as lead singer and guitarist Óskar Logi Ágústsson said in an interview earlier this year, they never set out to be a band that sounded like it was frozen in 1971 and then put in the microwave all these years later.
In February of 2020, after extensive touring that brought new attention and fans to the band, they entered the studio to record their fifth album Monuments. Twenty-two days later, after more or less living at the studio, the band walked out feeling that they had really found and stamped their own sound for the first time. And what a sound.
Monuments is a hard hitting, hard rocking, superb album with all the right riffs, hooks, and surprises to keep even the most ardent rock fan totally engrossed in it. For me, it's one of the best albums by a rock trio that I have heard in a long time.
2. Deafheaven, Infinite Granite
Deafheaven's Infinite Granite might have been the most surprising album that I heard this past year. Formed as a black metal band, Deafheaven have challenged themselves and their fans over the years, shifting musical directions as they toned down the screaming and heart pounding double-kicks and blast beats for more melodic overtones and a more shoegazing-like sound.
Now, with their fifth album Infinite Granite, the band completes their musical evolution, fully abandoning their earlier sound and fully embracing a shoegazing one. As George Clarke's soft and melodic vocals float over an ethereal wall of sound, I find it impossible to associate this band with their younger self. It's a stunning transformation and the result is their most exciting album to date.
1. The Pretty Reckless, Death by Rock and Roll
I miss good old fashion rock. Thank goodness for The Pretty Reckless. At one time they were tagged as the next 'big' thing in rock. Then, a few years ago, the band was upended by the deaths of two people close to them. Drugs, booze, and depression then followed for lead singer and co-songwriter Taylor Momsen. Writing and recording new songs helped bring Momsen out from her darkness and earlier this year Momsen and the band returned, and in a BIG way, with their fourth album Death By Rock and Roll.
'Freedom found me when I first heard the Beatles sing. Music surrounding me. The Church bells start to ring. I stole my Daddy's vinyl. And burned that needle out. Jimi, Janis and Morrison. A garden full of sound.'
Paying homage to the bands and music that influenced and impacted Momsen, she said in an interview that she really poured herself into this album in the most literal way possible-physically, mentally, blood, sweat, and tears. Listening to The Death by Rock and Roll you can tell that this is the case. The album, as Classic Rock Mag wrote, 'is proof that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.' And this is a band that is stronger and better than ever. This one fantastic, super-charged album and my favorite album of 2021.
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