At this point of the list, any of the remaining songs could have walked away with the year-end honours, including this batch. A very high-quality year continues...
21. Good Days (SZA): SZA unspools her anxieties over a failed relationship on “Good Days,” an achingly intimate song that spills out like a stream of consciousness. Over lush, glimmering guitar, she pleads for rest, to think of anything but her former lover, for her brain to empty out. In moments of strength, she can be cutting—“I don’t miss no ex/I don’t miss no text/I choose not to respond,” she croons—and the hope in her voice transforms introspection into something stunning. She wants to believe in recovery and redemption; and in SZA’s world, the want is enough. (PITCHFORK)
22. Truffles (Mick Jenkins): a powerful look at the fear black lives have to have over Karens and white superiority complex.
23. Amoeba (Clairo): a reflection on self-centeredness set to the lush combination of Claire Cottrill's piano/guitar combo and Jack Antonoff's signature production sensibilities, "Amoeba" is a song about Clairo's rise to stardom and the adjustments that come with it. With stacked background vocals acting like a self-critical Greek chorus, Clairo grapples with and realigns her priorities not just as a musician but as person. (NPR)
24. Hard Way (Kenyon Dixon): Dixon’s way of pairing upbeat jazzy textures with soul needs to be highlighted more after this show-stopper.
25. Foreign Things (Amber Mark): the youthful pop energy demanding luxe that we need!
26. Ju$t (What So Not remix) (Run The Jewels feat. Pharrell & Zack de la Rocha): another fabulous remix from a band of guys that clearly enjoying the creative process together.
27. Chemtrails Over The Country Club (Lana Del Rey): naysayers can argue and detract until they’re blue in the face, but it’s simply the truth: Lana Del Rey is still the queen of melancholy pop. Miss Del Rey carved out her own niche in the musical landscape with her distinct brand of tragic romance and aspirational glamour, all shrouded under an undeniable air of sadness. With the title track of her seventh studio album, the best of her 2021 offerings, she didn’t have to break the mold to make an impact. (COS)
28. Periphescene (Sheep Dog Wolf): no one does pastoral, dreamy pop like McBride.
29. Remember Where You Are (Jessie Ware): a touching look at a city’s fight against the Covid pandemic.
30. Pay Your Way In Pain (St. Vincent): for her ’70s soul indebted sixth album ‘Daddy’s Home’, the arch icon St. Vincent welcomed us into her new world of disco balls, big collars and seedy NYC backstreets with this sassy and super-fly double shot of whiskey-soaked funk. There are real ‘Young Americans’ overtones to its lounge-y swagger, but with a hip cocked and eyebrow raised, it remains quintessentially Annie Clark.(NME)
31. Operating Work (Five Steez feat. Nomad Carlos & The Sickest Drama): Steez has had some great collabs in the past but prior to Operating Work, I felt the other parts were slightly ahead of his pace but now—despite a sick beat and Carlos managing to work in a line about the Covid death rate—it is Steez who absolutely flies.
32. Hot & Heavy (Lucy Dacus): everything about “Hot & Heavy” radiates with heat. When she sings about revisiting her ex, her face gets hot from the memory; later, he’s a dangerous firecracker; and by the end, after she realizes she just wasn’t enough for him, he’s an uncontrollable blaze. Regardless, she can’t escape the effect he has on her. As the song ends, the synths swell and rise, releasing you from her memories and your reverie of a first crush, first kiss, your first broken heart. Lucy Dacus wants you to know that you’re much better off having lived through it. (TREBLE)
33. Scamboy (Guapdad 4000): released a couple years ago but only now getting visuals, Scamboy in most hands would sound like an entry point—and it is here too—but Guapdad 4000 had no right to get it so right!
34. Force Of Habit (Paris Texas): ostensibly a song about the daily grind, but also uncovers the violent by-products of that chosen lifestyle. The collective paper chase can take a terrible toll on a person, and this feeling of dread and industrial paranoia is captured perfectly here. The beat continues Paris Texas’s foray into the sordid world of No Wave punk, jangly, distorted guitar riffs and fuzzy bass lines colliding with stuttering hip-hop drums. The hooks are sung in the dramatic, pleading way typical of No Wave, the vocals drowning in reverb, creating a sense of being slowly crushed by a chorus. (EARMILK)
35. Speed (Little Simz): Simz is in highbrow music art-making but here she slips in a clear banger just so you know she’s not slipping.
36. So I Lie (Miguel): experimenting over a lush, almost tropical production, Miguel gets the sadness construct just right.
37. Hurt (Arlo Parks): a motherless man finds cold comfort in the bottle and Twin Peaks, and the chorus “Just know it won’t hurt so/Won’t hurt so much forever” seems in these jaded times like an invitation to the abyss. But the British neo-soul wunderkind’s breezy delivery and production, along with a spoken-word third verse, instead beckons him (and us) away from it and toward a brighter vision of the future—subtle optimism for a subdued world. (TREBLE)
38. Forever (Sailing) (Snail Mail): the slinky “Forever (Sailing)” brings trip-hop atmospherics to a tale of betrayal, borrowing its chorus from a 1979 song by the Swedish pop singer Madleen Kane. “Doesn’t obsession just become me?” Jordan sings knowingly here, handing down her thesis statement. (PITCHFORK)
39. Persia (Cayan feat. Oddisee): old-school joint comes modern and correct.
40. Pyrotechnics (Jean Dawson): an apocalyptic ballad that somehow manages to drip with beauty. Dawson watches the world explode as if it were a dazzling fireworks show; his layers of vocals call and respond over airy, spacious synth swells. This is a richly layered showpiece, a spectacular performance that matches the pyrotechnics of the final days. (ARTSFUSE)
