(The featured image comes from the best live performance of 2021: Final Fantasy XIV composer Masayoshi Soken’s rendition of the “La Hee” meme. You might need to hear the real song for context.)

For the second year in a row, I find myself feeling disconnected from the annual top 10 process. I can think of a few possibilities for that, and, first and foremost of them is the fact that I’m in my thirties now and therefore much less cool and getting lamer by the day. But also there’s still this whole thing going on and that prevailing despair definitely effects my mood. Plus, that situation means a lot of media is still getting delayed, cancelled, or changed as we learn to adapt – which ultimately makes the idea of confining years feel less essential than ever before. But now I feel like I’m getting all Neil deGrasse Tyson on you, so I’ll stop and say: check out some awesome music below!

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Unlike the past few years, 2021 didn’t particularly feel like a stand-out year for music. The easiest thing to blame this on would be the (still) ongoing pandemic, which continued to disrupt the ecosystem of the music industry in various ways, from artists having to cancel already-rescheduled live dates to indie labels having trouble getting their vinyl releases pressed. It was a year that had a lot of good albums, but only a handful of great ones. Also, it was a year where music felt less essential as we got further into it and we humans felt a little more free to go out and do things with other humans instead of hiding in our homes and hoping a good collection of songs could give us some comfort. Yet here we are, tucked back inside our homes with the cold weather and another wave of the virus raging, while these albums still feel like a suitable respite from it all. Continue reading →