Pop music is a province of instability. It lives in the ages, and its most influential purveyors can adapt to the times or strangely predict them.
The same is true of the production and consumption of music. The main story of the 2010s was all about streaming. Spotify and Apple Music have completely rewound how we define popular music and the boundaries of taste. Singles and playlists are the most important factors for anyone connected. Album becomes a matter of consideration later. The ultimate goal of music streamers, who are nothing more than the tech tycoons of the drag sector, is to make new connections — to create their habits, preferences, and desires. self as a curated listening experience. In the decade after us, that means reiterating how we listen. That means albums will have less money in the utopia ahead.
But genres can be stubborn things. They push back. Special R&B. That feels unusually true this year. For me, 2021 is the period where R&B makes albums important again. I find a special, almost refreshing comfort in the holistic pursuit of art, in the creative freedom of artists like Tirzah and Jazmine Sullivan. Perhaps because R&B has its roots in the tradition of Black music, it is very limited in how sound moves, develops, and regenerates itself. The genre is both analog and post-internet, seemingly unconcerned with how social platforms like TikTok have influenced modern sound, and perceives it still only as influential as the platform itself. it built. The core of what made R&B was here before the internet. It will be here later. The genre, as we’ve witnessed this year, is at its best when it’s unchangeable, unchangeable—until it isn’t.
You’re probably thinking: But that goes against everything I know about Black music and Black culture in general — the way it’s innovative and creative and improvised in so many ingenious ways, and sometimes threatening? Yes, yes (like black Twitter constantly reminding us). But the opposite is also true.
R&B is a counter-future genre. It acknowledges what is to come while firmly positioning in what has come before. It’s inward. That’s what I like to think of as background music. That way it behaves like a matrix. The music moves forward, back, and through — but never in a hurry. R&B is a reminder that maybe we don’t have to rush into the future. Dystopia dim. For everyone else, it’s already here. R&B asks us to stop, take a breath, and look at ourselves with a frank and profound introspection, perhaps to re-examine the way forward.
Of course, no genre can completely withstand inspiring innovation — the projects of Dawn Richard and L’Rain are edgy studies of texture and tender futurism — but the point is Commonly the best albums of the year (with two exceptions) are R&B themes like their DNA, their backbone, their pounding hearts.
8 Best Albums of 2021
8. 30, Adele
Six years removed from 25 and Adele returns in rare and rare form. A repository of mood ballads, swings of love and suffering, 30 triumph over a straightforward and honest approach to pain, suffering, and vulnerability. Adele flew up.
Recommended songs: “My little love”; “Keep”
7. Colourgrade, Tirzah
More than anything, Tirzah projects are always ready and exciting. They are spatial reflections on intimacy and relationships, on how we negotiate the distance between our bodies, emotions, and experiences. Thoroughness, her debut, is one of the best of 2018 (putting “Fine Again” in the loop now) and Colourgrade is no different. The singer was never interested in formalism, which gives Colourgrade a unique geometry: It’s about absence and in between. It provides definition for undefined.
Recommended songs: “Beat”; “Sink in”
6. Vince Staples, Vince Staples
Vince Staples is from North Long Beach. It gives him a different worldview. He’s been seen a lot and survived a lot more. Project of the same name — his most enjoyable run since 2015 Summer ’06—A trip through memory: When we look back, what do we take with us? How much is the weight of nostalgia? Narrative and focused, the 10-song recording deals with mortality, violence, and bonds that are both connected and broken.
Recommended songs: “You have with that”; “Sundown Town”; “Take me Home”
5. Still through it, Summer Walker
The third release from R&B classics Summer Walker is a smooth and voluptuous farewell ballad that tells about her failed relationship with the London on da Track producer. What the album does best – to say nothing of its superb production – is precisely pinpointing the difficulty of lost romance in the age of Insta’s thirst traps. In Walker’s translation, it’s a whirlwind of emotion and emotion.
Recommended songs: “circus”; The “disloyalty” feat. Ari Lennox; “Toxic” feat. Lil Durk
4. Conversation memory, BADBADONOGOOD
It is difficult to convey the contours of Conversation memory in common musical terms because albums are, abstractly speaking, not music. Although it is purely instrumental, its scale is much larger. I imagine this is what dreams are like. What the Toronto BADBADNOTGOOD experimentalists have come up with is a holy thing. Together with their collaborators Terrace Martin, Laraaji and the famous Brazilian composer Arthur Verocai, they have reached unimaginable heights of beauty. Above this view better.
Recommended songs: All of them
3. If Orange Was a Place, Tems
Tems provided smooth lungs for 2021’s unofficial song: she’s unmistakable and unmistakable in Wizkid’s “Essence.” As a solo act, the Nigerian singer is something of a forerunner, already on her way to global Afrobeats stardom. This five-song EP not only cemented Tems’ growing mastery, but also caught everyone’s attention. She didn’t give up.
Recommended songs: “Vibe Out”; “Found” with Brent Faiyaz
2. Tired, L’Rain
Tired is the element in the range. It bled, swayed, chirped and buzzed. It’s meditative and stomping and evocative. Burst. It awakens. For the Brooklyn fusionist, Tired is a spiritual segment — blending folk, gospel, soul, and experimental pop into a tonal and textural masterpiece. L’Rain has created one of the most beautiful albums of the year.
Recommended songs: “Find it”; “Sucking Teeth”; “Two-sided”
first. Tales of Heaux, Jazmine Sullivan
When Jasmine Sullivan released Tales of Heaux 11 months ago, we didn’t know where that year would take us — through moments of deep hurt and intense passion, through bouts of regret and earned joy. Like 2021, the album unfolds in a series of twisted chapters, a fluid mix of songs and testimonials, each of which builds on the previous track. What Tales of Heaux ingenious is the sex organ map. It gives power and voice to the desires of Black women. First of all, this is an album about reclaiming — it urges listeners to ask for what they owe and more. Take it as a lesson for all of us.
Recommended songs: “Receive your feelings”; The miracle “Price Tags”. Anderson Paak; “Lose one”
Honor Mention: Second line, Dawn Richard; Call me if you get lost, Tyler the Creator; Her Planet, Cat Doja; Navy’s Reprise, Navy blue; Far in, Helado Negro; I can be introverted sometimes, little Simz
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