100 Songs I Liked In 2021

On December 29th, I'll be starting off my end of the year lists with my 20 favorite albums of 2021.  But there's so much great music out there that my album post will only cover a very tiny portion of the stuff that's worth listening to.  So this list is an additional rundown, one that highlights songs from albums that won't be appearing on the top 20 in a few days.  I'm including songs from my five honorable mention albums, so if you see something on here from an album you love, who knows, maybe that album is ranked somewhere between 21 and 25 for me!  Last year I expanded this list from the usual 50 song count to 75 songs, but because working from home allowed me to listen to more music than ever this year and also because I love to torture myself, I've made it a clean 100 songs.  There's sure to be something you'll enjoy on here.

My 20 Favorite Albums of 2019

These music lists are always the hardest to write an intro for, because there are so many genres and narratives, it's hard to sum it all up into one cohesive statement.  2019, at least for me, was a continuation of trends already known to be true, particularly in the rise of poptimism and the diminishing of traditional indie rock.  This year, rap and pop music take up a whole 50% of my top 20 list, which is higher than it's been since I've started making lists.  Unfortunately, that still doesn't mean there is any Billie Eilish on here.  I apologize to the zero teens reading this.

The rules: Everything is the same as usual.  The window of eligibility for this list is anything released between January 1, 2019 and now.  This list can include albums, mixtapes, EPs, and anything in between.  I'm praying that nothing substantial comes out in the twilight hours of the year.  You never know with surprise releases these days...

50 Songs I Liked in 2018

On December 29th, I'll be starting off my end of the year lists with my 20 favorite albums of 2018.  But there's so much great music out there that my album post will only cover a very tiny portion of the stuff that's worth listening to.  So this list is an additional rundown, one that highlights songs from albums that won't be appearing on the top 20 list in a few days.  I made a minor change this year and am now allowing songs from my five honorable mention albums to appear on this list as well.  So if you see something on here from an album you love, who knows, maybe that album is ranked somewhere between 21 and 25 for me!  Even this doesn't fully cover the quality that the year had to offer, but it's a good representation of what I generally liked this year.

My 20 Favorite Albums of 2017

Peak TV has been a frequent term thrown around for the past few years to explain the overwhelming amount of content there is out there for consumers.  Maybe we should start talking about Peak Music as well.  The sheer amount of music available has been stressful for longer than it has been for TV, but this year in particular felt even more like there was just too much music from favorite acts and acclaimed newcomers to keep up with.  There are albums that I would have certainly gotten to in previous years, but I just couldn't this year.  Such are the concessions we must make as culture lovers in the year 2017.

If there was one narrative that dominated music -- or at least one that music critics tried to push the hardest -- it was the return of mid-2000s indie rock.  Bands like Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, Dirty Projectors, Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear, The National, and Wolf Parade all made albums in 2017, some after a long absence, and all with varying levels of success.  It seemed like many of these bands were even trying to reckon with their place in the current conversation.  The zeitgeist may have partially moved past this brand of indie rock, but as somebody who grew up on the stuff, it was a mostly pleasant return.

And in the mainstream, rap had another major year.  To the dismay of many purists, rap is the new pop, with the branch of "mumble rap" experiencing unprecedented radio play and streaming numbers.  Songs like Post Malone's "Rockstar" and Lil Uzi Vert's "XO Tour Llif3" hit #1 on the Billboard charts, and it seemed like every month there was a new rap sensation of a similar vein that was capturing the ears of the wider public.  Regardless of how you feel about those songs (I'm not particularly crazy about either of the aforementioned tracks), it's nice to have rap of any classification get this kind of recognition.

So no matter which corner of the music world you chose to focus on, there was alot to chew on this year.  Let's celebrate all it had to offer.

The rules: Things are a little interesting this year.  Going by my usual criteria, the window of eligibility would be anything released between January 1, 2017 and now.  However, one of the biggest albums of this year was actually digitally released early at the very end of 2016.  So in order to still be able to recognize this record, I'm making the distinction of including things physically released in 2017.  Otherwise, everything is the same as usual.  This list can include albums, mixtapes, EPs, and anything in between.

My 20 Favorite Albums of 2016

There were two prevailing narratives in 2016.  The first one, obviously, was the amount of deaths we had from legendary musicians.  David Bowie, Prince, Phife Dawg, Leonard Cohen -- the list goes on.  2016 was a rough year all around, and these deaths didn't help matters, but at least there was comfort in knowing that many of these artists left behind terrific final albums.

The second trend from 2016 is how much consensus there seems to be when it comes to top 10 lists.  Year-end lists can sometimes be a useful tool for finding interesting albums that you may have overlooked in the last 12 months, but take a look at the best-of lists from every major publication and you'll see the same 10-12 albums on almost every single list.  Once you scroll down on this post you'll see that even I fell victim to that, which is a little disappointing, but hey, you can't help what you like.  Still, it's a shame that there were so few surprises in 2016.  From January 1st, it could've been predicted that people like Beyonce, Chance the Rapper, Kanye West, and Radiohead would take the top spots on critics' lists at the end of the year if you were told that they were releasing albums. The only album from a big name artist that seems to be considered a disappointment is Drake's underrated Views.  Poor Drake.

But let's not breeze by the most important bit of news from this year: despite dominating the political sphere, white people are losing when it comes to music.  The last few years have been marked by the larger music community declaring the death of indie rock, and while that hand-wringing feels a little too paranoid, it's hard not to notice that rap and R&B artists are beginning to occupy the critical conversation more and more.  After all, six of the seven artists at the top of Pitchfork's Best of Albums of 2016 list are black, something that would've been unheard of 10 years ago. Eight of the albums on my list are by black artists as well (11 if you count honorable mentions).  So shout out to black people for now.  You've got to imagine the dudes in The National are sitting around plotting their revenge though.

The rules: Due to the constant changing of the way music gets released, anything can be an album for the sake of this list.  You especially have to play fast and loose given the fact that many rap mixtapes function as albums anyway.  So LPs, mixtapes, 40-minute songs, EPs if they're good enough -- they're all albums to me!  If something got released in another country in a previous year, but got an American release this year, it works on a case-by-case basis (although there are no examples of that this year).  Otherwise, the eligibility window is that the album has to have been released between January 1, 2016 and today.  So now with that bit of business out of the way, on to the actual list...

My 20 Favorite Albums of 2015

2015 felt like a more enjoyable year for music than 2014.  There's always good stuff to find in any year, but there was more of it this year and it was better.  I could stretch my list out to 40 albums and it would still only consist of records I liked quite a bit.

This year also had more albums that seemed to grab the entire internet at large.  Of course, the one that towered above the rest was Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly, which is currently running laps around everyone else on end of the year lists.  But there was also stuff like Sufjan Stevens, Jamie xx, Tame Impala, Deafheaven, and Father John Misty.  There was even a jazz album that the big blogs loved! (I haven't had the time to sit down with Kamasi Washington's triple album The Epic in full, but the bits I've heard of it certainly make the praise seem warranted.)

My top 20 only represents a fraction of the diversity of greatness we saw in 2015, but I'm still satisfied with how it turned out.  There's rap, punk, R&B, pop, old favorites, exciting newcomers, and an out-of-left field choice or two.

The rules: Due to the constant changing of the way music gets released, anything can be an album for the sake of this list.  You especially have to play fast and loose given the fact that many rap mixtapes function as albums anyway.  So LPs, mixtapes, 40-minute songs, EPs if they're good enough -- they're all albums to me!  If something got released in another country in a previous year, but got an American release this year, it works on a case-by-case basis (although there are no examples of that this year).  Otherwise, the eligibility window is that the album has to have been released between January 1, 2015 and today.  That means that D'Angelo's Black Messiah, which came out at the very end of 2014 but has appeared on many publications' lists this year, will not show up here.  (Plus it was my number 5 last year, since I actually wait until the end of the year to finalize my lists.)  So now with that bit of business out of the way, on to the actual list...