My Year In Music 2021
I wish there were some grand thesis I could refer to to summarize the past year of my life. In reality, it’s just a bleak look at loneliness, yearning (à la many Spotify Wrapped results), and isolation. It’s difficult to feel like the most formative years of my life haven’t been stolen away from me and that I’d likely be living an entirely different and more joyous life had the world decided to play nice.
Last year I compiled a list of songs that meant something to me that year, and I decided I’d do the same again. A collection of 1 am thoughts — It’s therapeutic, I suppose. For the most part, these aren’t songs that came out in 2021, but rather songs that hold some significant meaning in the past year of my life.
Taylor Swift — Enchanted
One of the most grand and magical choruses of all time. The attention to detail on every little flourish is absolutely astounding and I’d be shocked if they did this track justice on the rerecording. The random yet methodical drum hits, violin crescendos, guitar twangs feel enchanting, like the first dance with someone you’ve been in love with for years. Late-night car rides spent in total silence as you try to keep yourself smiling uncontrollably, and the next day obsessively checking your texts, desperately waiting for her to respond to you.
Los Campesinos! — The Sea Is a Good Place to Think About the Future
LC! was my most listened-to artist of the year by a country mile. I have loved the band for the past six or seven years but dived deep into their discography this year to discover one of the most consistent and fun catalogues of music I’ve ever heard. 2021 is the first year that I can remember where I haven’t been considerably underweight. I feel both proud and ashamed of this as the anxiety of looking incredibly skinny and lanky has been replaced with worries about body fat and the fear of my body growing but my strength remaining static. The opening lyrics of this song are brutal — “I grabbed ahold of her wrist and my hands closed from tip to tip/I said ‘you’re taking the diet too far you have got to let this slip” — and feel like a memory that is thankfully distant from me at this point of my life.
SOPHIE — MY FOREVER (BODY MIX)
SOPHIE’s death devastated me in a way that no other celebrity death has shaken me. I remember sitting in my room, getting ready to go to bed at around 2 am and seeing this news. I cried myself to sleep that night with immaterial — the best pop song of all time — on repeat. I was Annoying about SOPHIE around the time that Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides came out. It was like nothing I had ever heard, and I still don’t believe that anything has come close to the pure industrial lust and fetishization of pop music that a track like “Ponyboy” or “Whole New World” has. I wish I could preach just how fucking amazing she is to everyone I know.
Terror Pigeon — No Ocean
It feels shameful to say that in many ways I’m still not over my incredibly messy and on-and-off high school fling almost four years removed, but here we are. The sinking feeling that something I thought was mutual was largely one-sided has left me questioning myself for years in an entirely unhealthy way. I’m doing better now, or at least I think I am. “I would know if a kiss was one-sided, right?”
Origami Angel — The Air Up Here
Holy Shit. Around the release of GAMI GANG, I finally came around on Origami Angel. The cheesy and childish lines that I brushed off as being, well, cheesy and childish just Clicked, much like the Adam Sandler movie. Somewhere City is like the self-help TikToks of music. An entirely wholesome and heartfelt album about supporting a friend through anxiety attacks and mental breakdowns by doing the most mundane tasks with them is the perfect concept for zoomercore emo. The medley, the lyrics, the guitar looping back to the first track. This is the perfect closer.
Remi Wolf — Street You Live On
Juno was my favourite album of 2021. The relentless creativity and wackiness of the album — jumping between songs about the Red Hot Chili Peppers to orgies at Five Guys — is so undeniably fun. Remi Wolf has created an album the equivalent of a Loony Toons gag where Wile E Coyote floats in the air for a few seconds, gives a contemplative look at the camera, and drops into a canyon of comically sharp rocks. The album’s closer, Street You Live On, is the antithesis of everything I just wrote about. A slow and methodical breakup song, and the most memorable moment on the album.
Faye Webster — Jonny & Jonny (Reprise)
This year I took dating apps head-on and hated every moment of it. The lowlights were either being told I sound like Ben Shapiro, or asking someone else only for them to tell me “that would be cringe.” It just wasn’t my year I guess. “A white wall may seem empty/But it’s ready to be filled/And, in its readiness, needs nothing/It stands complete.”
Sidney Gish — New Recording 180 (New Year’s Eve)