The start of every new decade in music is always notable as we tend to see new artists rise to the fore and it's a guessing game to see which ones will influence the times. I suspect this decade is no different as here I unveil the best albums of the year:
21. Clarence Clarity VANISHING ACT I: NO NOUNS: Clarity is back at his loudest, most chaotic mode but there is lovely texture and symmetry here that would have sunk lesser musical minds.
22. Mick Jenkins ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: Jenkins still sounds most content when he simply raps about girls and stuff: Produced by lophiile, “Gucci Tried to Tell Me”—presumably a reference to Gucci Mane’s Noisy Raps interview—is jazz rap in the lineage of Slum Village, and Jenkins fills the lyrics with sweet nothings: “I’m no Randy Moss, but I'll catch your feels one day.” And with its clicky percussion and double-bass bumps, “Truffles” is in the lineage of older cuts such as “Pressed for Time (Crossed My Mind),” offering further evidence of Jenkins’ penchant for beats sparse on elements but unusual in their sense of rhythm. (PITCHFORK)
23. Twin Shadow TWIN SHADOW: dedicated to taking all of these stylistic swings, no matter how many times he misses. That kind of bravery shows how dedicated he is to the art of reinvention. Rounding out Twin Shadow with “I Wanna Be Here (Shotgun)” reiterates the new sonic direction that Lewis Jr. insists on embarking on. It’s not as accessible as his previous projects, but is still exciting to listen to since it breaks free from the industry pressures and inhibitions to which artists are routinely subjected. This particular collection of songs is an anomaly in the brooding Twin Shadow catalogue. But after 10 years in the game, he still knows how to use whimsicality—and risk-taking—to inspire a sense of endless adventure. (PASTE)
24. Jane Weaver FLOCK: English singer Jane Weaver, exponent of cosmic folk, psych-rock, and all things avant-garde, has gone all-out pop on her 11th album, Flock. It’s pop that’s inspired, so she claims, by Lebanese torch songs and 1980s Russian aerobics records rather than Steps, or the Spice Girls, but still, you know, pop. Make way, then, for uplifting melodies, great hooks, catchy riffs, and DJ-pleasing beats, covering a heck of a lot of ground from European pop to disco to glam to R&B. (POPMATTERS)
25. Wolf Alice BLUE WEEKEND: arrived just in time to soundtrack a post-pandemic summer of freedom. The love letter to Los Angeles hedonism “Delicious Things”, the wide-mouthed delirium of “Smile”, this is a record with some of their most ebullient songs, smooth-edged but energized. The Smashing Pumpkins-inspired guitar fuzz of preceding releases is subjugated by creamy string arrangements and arena-filling vocal harmonies, catapulting the band to legendary status in the UK and raising their presence overseas with a sold-out North American tour in November 2021. It’s the sound of the London quartet exuding confidence as they hit their stride. (POPMATTERS)
26. Ty Segall HARMONIZER: a great coming together of two disparate sounds. “New shapes exist in me” Segall sings on album closer Changing Contours. He’s finding his way through his new world, exploring the crash of sonics that comes with laying down your preferred tool to push against your own boundaries. Time will tell if it’s a shift that will stay with him and, with his work ethic, we’re unlikely to have to wait long to find out. (LOUDER THAN WAR)
27. JPEGMAFIA LP!: that sense of chaos has always come with the JPEGMAFIA brand. He isn’t just a collage of his influences and experiences—they all flow through him simultaneously. It’s the laughter, anger, and passion of a rap fanatic unafraid to declare his love for Terror Squad, AEW wrestling, and twinkling synths that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Hatsune Miku song. None of these things are foreign to rap, but none of them play out quite like they do on a JPEGMAFIA song. Though just as charged and confrontational as any of his other albums, LP! is uninhibited and proud of it, shit-talk from the eye of an ever-evolving storm. (PITCHFORK)
28. Cautious Clay DEADPAN LOVE: split into two, the album’s halves are noticeably different, with the first being more upbeat, and somewhat more lively than the second. Standout track “Strange Love”, featuring rapper SABA, displays intelligent and thought-out songwriting – boasting jazz-inspired progressions, dreamy backing vocals, and trumpet riffs to match. It’s this kind of song that removes any risk of the album ever sounding too similar, which is especially high when there’s a weighty fourteen tracks. Also taking on a different sound are the likes of “Karma & Friends”, with a much darker and dramatic side to it, and the gospel influence on “Box of Bones” taking things to church as it slowly but surely speeds up its BPM. (THE LINE OF BEST FIT)
29. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss RAISE THE ROOF: a quintessential element of Plant and Krauss’s sound in Raise the Roof is the ominous and eerie qualities they infuse into their vocals, guitar and percussion. In their opening cover of alt band Calexico’s “Quattro (World Drifts In),” the duo transforms the original up-tempo guitar into a dark strumming that gives listeners chills. They also complicate Calexico’s vocals, singing in complex harmonies that produce mysterious chords. Plant and Krauss experiment with darker changes on different covers, too — in their cover of the Everly Brothers’ “The Price of Love,” they take the fast-paced, nasal harmonies of the brothers and reframe the song with Krauss’s slow, floaty vocals backed by guitar reverberation and eerie percussion. In doing so, the message of the song — “The price of love, the price of love, costs you more when you’re to blame” — changes from one of lighthearted reflection to deeply resentful contemplation. (MICHIGAN DAILY)
30. Parquet Courts SYMPATHY FOR LIFE: watching the evolution of a band with the kind of creative ambition as Parquet Courts can be both thrilling and frustrating, depending on how married you are to what they've done before. Sympathy For Life doesn't connect as immediately as their past work. Its songs are more intriguing than exhilarating on first listen. But get lost in the bleeps and bloops of 'Marathon Of Anger', the gentle jam of 'Plant Life', or the jazzy title track and it's clear that, in pushing themselves into new musical spaces, they're becoming a more fascinating and well-rounded entity. (DOUBLE J)
