Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order):
Brandi Carlile – In These Silent Days
iluminati hotties – Let Me Do One More
Jetty Bones – Push Back
The Killers – Pressure Machine
Lucy Dacus – Home Video
The Might Mighty Bosstones – When God Was Great
Nervous Dater – Call in the Mess
Son Volt – Electro Melodier
Strand of Oaks – In Heaven
Best tracks: "Be Sweet," "Slide Tackle," "Posing for Cars" / "Valentine," "Ben Franklin," "Glory"
It's perhaps a bit unfair to lump these two albums together, but they're quite similar sonically and I had an incredibly similar experience with both. Music-wise, both Japanese Breakfast and Snail Mail are in same vein as acts like Hop Along and Soccer Mommy—incredible female singer-songwriters who effortlessly flit between the abstract and the intimate and fit under the wide indie-rock umbrella. Here, both Michelle Zauner and Lindsey Jordan unleash a collection of songs that can feel as expansive as the galaxy and as intimate as the bedroom. I had heard of both of these artists prior to these albums, but I was drawn into both releases by their absolute bangers of lead singles—"Be Sweet" and "Valentine," respectively. Both are among my favorite songs of the year. But, and this will come as absolutely no surprise, I found that the albums themselves didn't quite live up to the promise of the lead singles. (This will be a bit of a theme in this list.) Both tend to lose me a bit in the middle with some samey-sounding stretches that always tended to drift by in a blur with nothing to draw me out of my grading haze. That's absolutely a flaw in the attention I gave to these albums rather than a knock on the music itself, but I'm just being honest. But these are both accomplished, expertly crafted albums that I wish I was just a *little* more drawn into.
9) Chvrches – Screen Violence
Best tracks: "Final Girl," "Good Girls," "Lullabies"
I've always liked Chvrches (which I always say in my head—and often out loud—as "Chiv-urches"), but for some reason they've never graduated out of the periphery of my musical interests. Which is strange, as Metric is one of my favorite bands ever and they have a very similar sound. Their debut got an honorable mention in a category in 2013, back when I sometimes did a Grammys-style blog post. I don't think I listened to their second album much, but their third album had "Deliverance," which landed at #14 in my top 20 songs of 2018 list (linked above). Their latest seems like it's getting a similar treatment, landing here at #9—even though it might be my favorite of their releases. A big part of that is that I'm still getting to know it as an album. It came out at the end of August and I didn't start regularly listening to it until the last month or so when "Final Girl" nearly knocked me out of my chair while I was working one afternoon. Like all of their previous singles I've liked, it's got an absolute MONSTER chorus, and it doesn't hurt that Lauren Mayberry has one of the best voices around. That one, "Good Girls," and "Lullabies"—aka the three "best tracks" listed above—all appear right in a row near the end of the album, but much of the rest of the album is a bit of a (very pleasant) haze. I hope to get to know it better with more listens—who knows, this placement might look comically low in another couple years. Or it might be like the rest of their discography and remain firmly in the "like, don't love" category for whatever reason. We shall have to see.
8) Dave Hause – Blood Harmony
Best tracks: "Sandy Sheets," "Hanalei," "Gary," "Carry the Lantern"
One of my rituals in this Age of Spotify that we're all in is to go through the New Releases page on Spotify every Friday, as well as the (even better) "Release Radar" playlist it creates for you. I then add all new albums that pique my interest to one playlist, and all the singles to a different playlist. So one random Friday, I was happy to see a new single from Dave Hause, the once lead singer of the defunct Philadelphia punk band The Loved Ones. I added that song to my singles playlist. That song was "Sandy Sheets." I haven't yet decided on my song of the year yet, but "Sandy Sheets" is a major contender—likely the top contender. I probably listened to it five times in a row, and a few dozen more times before the album it appears on even came out. It's just a perfectly earnest little jangle-pop ditty about looking back on the summers of your youth. Like a lot of what Hause/The Loved Ones have done, it couldn't be any more in my wheelhouse—it even name drops the Gin Blossoms (only one of my all-time favorite bands) in the refrain: "You had 'Hey Jealousy' on repeat." Later references are changed to The Cure and The Bouncing Souls(!). But like the albums tied at #10, the album itself wasn't *quite* as good as I was hoping it would be. (I told you this would be a theme.) It just seems a bit too keen to remain in the same tempo and emotional register. It reminds me a bit of late-period Gaslight Anthem or any of Brian Fallon's indistinguishable solo stuff. You're just left wanting a bit more. That said, I do prefer Hause's solo stuff to Fallon's, and this is an album I like a lot. I just can't help but imagine an album of gems like "Sandy Sheets" instead of one with this much felt lining.
7) The Wallflowers – Exit Wounds
Best tracks: "Maybe Your Heart's Not In It No More," "Roots and Wings," "Move the River," "Who's That Man Walking 'Round My Garden"
We're now firmly in the "dad rock" portion of this list (a stark contrast to last year's female-centric list). You can argue about whether the Dave Hause record is truly dad rock—I say not quite but wouldn't argue too vociferously against you—but there's no questioning the dad rock bona fides of The Wallflowers. Hell, they're legacy dad rockers given Jakob Dylan's parentage. But there ain't nothing wrong with that. Even though I don't have any kids, I'm 38 years old, prime dad rock age. And my all-time favorite band is Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, so if liking dad rock is wrong, I don't wanna be right. I think a big part of why I like this record so much—having not really gotten into much The Wallflowers have done since Bringing Down the Horse—is that it sounds a lot like a Heartbreakers record. There's a little Mike Campbell jangle in the guitars, there's a cool steadiness to the keys that's reminiscent of Benmont Tench, and Dylan has always shared a similar cadence with Petty (as did his dad). This record just sounds like a group of consummate musicians just letting loose in the studio, like a lot of the late-period Heartbreakers records. Try to tell me that "Roots and Wings" doesn't sound like it could've been on the She's the One soundtrack, or that "Move the River" isn't a lost B-side from the Hypnotic Eye sessions. Petty comparisons aside, this record makes me want to dive deeper into The Wallflowers' discography. I LOVE Bringing Down the Horse (it's a top-10 '90s album for me), and there are a few songs I dig on Breach. Time to check out the rest in earnest in 2022?
Best tracks – "Hardlytown," "If It Comes in the Morning," "Glory Strums (The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner)," "Sanctuary"
Hiss Golden Messenger was (wass?) largely a new artist to me this year. I think I was vaguely familiar with the name but had never really paid the band much mind (I may have thought it was a Christian group or something). This year, they vaulted into the top-5 artists I listened to in 2021 (if not quite the top-5 of this list). A lot of that is on the strength of "Sanctuary," one of the songs I listened to the very most this last year and a contender for song of the year. It's a mid-tempo number with a '70s A.M. radio vibe—strumming acoustic guitar, tinkling keys, meandering bass line. It expertly threads the needle between optimism ("Steady with your hope now / That little light's gotta last a while") and cynicism ("Get used to thе bad news / It's all part of the show, child"), which really hit home for me in a 2021 that's been tough for everyone. Like the rest of the album, it gives off a vibe of a bunch of flanneled dudes jamming out on a porch somewhere. Elsewhere on the album, the occasional horns ("Way Back") or harmonica ("Hardlytown," "Glory") pop up—there are some definite Neil Young/America/Laurel Canyon vibes. (Talk about dad rock.) It also reminds me a bit of one of my favorite Decemberists records, The King Is Dead, another '70s throwback affair. Maybe the best solution to trying times is to get out of the decade entirely, just like the next band on this list.
Best tracks – "Harmonia's Dream," "Change," "I Don't Wanna Wait," "I Don't Live Here Anymore," "Wasted"
We've got more Heartbreakers comparisons incoming here—there's more than a little of their influence on the latest from The War on Drugs. I'm thinking specifically of the Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) album, the most quintessentially '80s-sounding Heartbreakers record largely due to Mike Campbell's co-production. (He also co-produced the Don Henley classic "Boys of Summer" in this period, which feels like an influence here as well.) There are so many 1980s influences on this record that the title might as well be referring to the current decade—Adam Granduciel and Co. may as well have departed from the 2020s and gone back to the 1980s with all the influences on display here—Heartbreakers, Springsteen, Dire Straits, even Phil Collins/Genesis. But I Don't Live Here Anymore is far more than a pastiche of 1980s radio rock—it's a triumphant, arena-ready pop-rock masterpiece, more actual songs than soundscapes like some of their other recent stuff (which I still very much dig). This album couldn't have come at a better time, now that live music is starting to come back into our lives. I'm incredibly bitter that the closest they'll come to Arizona is L.A. (I am dubious about the "Request a Show" button at the bottom of the tour page on their website.) I saw them once before at the Van Buren and it was a transcendent experience. I can't imagine how amazing some of these tracks would be live—the gang vocals on "Dream," the elegant outro on "Change," the absolutely massive guitars on "Wait," the shimmering keys on "Anymore," the manic energy of "Wasted." Maybe I need to get me out to L.A. in February...
Best tracks: "Spices," "Lanyards," "Family Farm," "Heavy Covenant," "Hanover Camera"
Are The Hold Steady dad rock? These are the kinds of questions I find myself asking in 2021. I don't think so, but they're definitely dad rock–adjacent. They're more like cool uncle rock, the kind of music a younger uncle would tell you about. Yeah, that sounds about right. Dad rock or not, I'm very glad to have a Hold Steady album ranked this highly. It's only their second album since 2014, and I was lukewarm on their previous effort, 2019's Thrashing Thru the Passion (which only merited an honorable mention that year for me, only somewhat due to the terrible title). I think maybe they just needed an album to work out the kinks with both guitarist Steve Selvidge and keys man Franz Nicolay in the fold at the same time. This is the biggest (maybe "fullest" would be more accurate) the band has ever sounded, with two lead guitarists, Nicolay's slinky keys, plentiful horns, and Craig Finn's whiskeyed musings holding forth over it all. This feels like a classic Hold Steady album for the first time since probably Stay Positive. (I like Heaven Is Whenever a whole lot, but there's a certain something lacking, and Teeth Dreams is a superior album to this for sure but is in a bit of a different vein than the classic THS sound.) This is another aces set of story-songs about old flames and vices ("Spices," the album highlight to me), Catholic school and rehab ("Farm"), dissatisfaction with modern life ("Covenant"), all the hits. Some of the references don't exactly land (Shark Week and Diet Dr. Pepper are mentioned), but that's just Craig Finn for you. I generally like his solo stuff, but I'm glad the best bar band in the world are up to their old tricks.
3) Tigers Jaw – I Won't Care How You Remember Me
Best tracks: "I Won't Care How You Remember Me," "Cat's Cradle," "Hesitation," "New Detroit," "Lemon Mouth"
Okay, we're definitely out of dad rock territory here. I think I have the right top ten (well, eleven) on this list, but I really struggled with the order of the top three. Any one of them is worthy of the top spot, and I actually had this one as #1 for a lot of the year, probably because it came out the earliest. Tigers Jaw has been on my radar for a long time, and I really love their cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Gypsy." Then I saw them open for fellow Scrantonites The Menzingers in late 2019, one of the last (if not the last) shows I saw before COVID hit, and several of the singles for this record were released in the next few months. So I was more than ready for this when it came out. And boy did it deliver on the promise of those fantastic lead singles. I'm not intimately familiar with their earlier albums (and I know the group has gone through some personnel turmoil), but this is easily their most polished, most honed album of emo-punk anthems. I was always struck by the song "June" from 2017's spin, and I was excited to see that part-time singer and keyboardist Breanna Collins is now taking on almost a co-lead singer role. The pseudo-ebullient "Cradle," Paramore-esque "Commit," and, especially, forlorn "Lemon Mouth" (which also has a great guitar solo by the band's bassist!) are all among the highlights of the album. But lead guitarist/vocalist Ben Walsh is no slouch either—he brings both a pop-punk and emo sensibility to his songs and his guitar provides a sturdy backbone for the album. This is *exactly* the kind of music I was into in college, and I'm glad it's still being made—and made so well—today.
Best tracks: "Have You Lost Your Way?," "Outrun the Moon," "Coffin Nails," "Good as Gone," "Back in Ohio"
Like The Hold Steady, Lucero is one of my all-time favorite bands. They're both probably in my top-10—and Lucero might be in my top-5. But I have a bit of a funky relationship to their oeuvre. Most fans adore their very early stuff, the dusty and country-tinged The Attic Tapes, Lucero, and Tennessee, which I have a hard time connecting with. Partially because of the low production value, but also because I only really got into the band with That Much Further West, when the band really figured out their sound and came into their own as songwriters and musicians. I adore that record, and the next two are fantastic as well (Nobody's Darlings and Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers)—these three albums form kind of a second phase in the band's evolution and have a much more straightforward rock 'n' roll sound. But my favorite phase by far is the one that comprises 1372 Overton Park (their best and my favorite album), Women & Work, and All A Man Should Do (plus the sensational Texas & Tennessee EP), which all have an even bigger sound (horns!) and pristine production with also probably the best sad bastard ballads they've ever done. Anyway (this is making me want to write a whole post on Lucero—maybe some day), they're pretty clearly on their fourth phase now with this and 2018's Among the Ghosts: a kind of dark, Southern Gothic phase that sees the band at the height of their powers as musicians (albeit with a more stripped-down sound) and has some of Ben Nichols's most personal songwriting yet. There might not be a more underappreciated guitarist than Brian Venable, whose sensational, beautifully composed work sluices through the record like an fiery river (especially on the opening two tracks). Then there's keyboardist Rick Steff, whose keys and synths add a layer of cool ice ("Pull Me Close Don't Let Go," "Gone"). Finally, Nichols proves himself yet again as a masterful storyteller who explores both his family history ("Nails," ) and his personal life ("When You Found Me") with equal aplomb. My only quibble is with the production—Nichols constantly sounds like he's in a different room on a different floor than the rest of the band. (It was that way on Ghosts, too.) But this is still a great album by a great band that's still evolving after 20+ years. Oh, and it kills live, too—you're damned right the first real show I saw after COVID was Lucero!
1) Sincere Engineer – Bless My Psyche
Best tracks: "Trust Me," "Out of Reach," "Recluse in the Making," "Come Out for a Spell," "Coming in Last"
I considered each of the top three records here for #1, but ultimately went with the one I listened to most (perhaps because it's the shortest?). Here we have Sincere Engineer, a radical and raw punk act out of Chicago with one of the best band names I've heard in a while. They're also one of the best *bands* I've heard in a while—and one I had absolutely zero knowledge of before this year. I don't even know how they came up on my radar, actually—some stroke of Spotify algorithm luck. (Spotify isn't all bad.) If I had to guess, I'd say they probably came on autoplay after the Tigers Jaw—another Midwest punk-tinged act—album ended. However I first heard them, the first song I heard was almost definitely the raucous opening track "Trust Me" with its full-throated "I need I need I need I need heeeeelp!" chorus. It's a fucking major statement song—I mean, it starts with "This is my grand introduction," and I would be shocked if the drum kit was still standing after the beating it takes. But it immediately gives way to the lilting, downcast "Tourniquet" with gentle acoustic guitars in the verses, barely-there key accents, and Deanna Belos's gravelly, bittersweet vocals giving the somewhat-softer tune a decided edge. Then things kick into high gear with another one of my favorite tracks of the year, the sublime "Out of Reach." It's a more midtempo number, but the drumming still punishes, the keys are cranked up, there's a sick riff, and it's got one of my favorite choruses of the year. The album as a whole is a crisp, crackling 30-minute pop-folk-punk-emo jaunt that I've listened to as a whole far more than any other album this year, the very definition of all killer, no filler. I could keep going, describing the rest of the tracks like the first three—which is how I know this is the right album to put in the #1 spot. I'm not sure if this is one of those truly pantheonic albums I know I'll revisit countless times in the coming years—maybe this year is like 2019 where there isn't an album like that. But it feels right to give this scrappy album, the one I truly know best, front to back, where I'm already humming the beginning to the next track when one ends, the top spot in this year of the Spotify blues.
Bonus: My Top 10 Songs of 2021 (roughly in order):
"Sandy Sheets" – Dave Hause (the winner!)
"Final Girl" – Chvrches
"Sanctuary" – Hiss Golden Messenger
"Out of Reach" – Sincere Engineer
"Spices" – The Hold Steady
"Lemon Mouth" – Tigers Jaw
"I Don' Live Here Anymore" – The War on Drugs
"Be Sweet" – Japanese Breakfast
"Roots and Wings" – The Wallflowers
"Have You Lost Your Way?" – Lucero
Here's a link if you have the Spotify blues as well and want to check out a playlist of my favorite songs of the year. (As always, under 80 minutes like back in the mix CD days!)
Thanks, as always to anyone who reads this (although I mostly write these for myself). Here's hoping for another year of great music in 2022!
