25 Favorite/Best Albums of 2021

Here's a list of my favorite (and therefor the best) albums of 2021.

I listened to 60 new releases this year. I revisited like 30 of them. I'm getting tired of this crap. Did I miss an album you like? Do I need to listen to your favorite album again to totally understand its greatness? Welp. Sorry. I've got 25 albums for you right here. You first. 

I'm gonna share 3 honorable mentions.

+  Japanese Breakfast  Jubilee

+  Silk Sonic  An Evening with Silk Sonic

+  Squid  Bright Green Field

Just thought I should share those because there's not really a big gap between how much I enjoy those versus the picks at the bottom section of this list. 

Here's the list!

25  Armand Hammer & The Alchemist  HARAM

The Alchemist has been busy working with rap's underground circle, and this his probably the most ethereal production we get from him.

24  JPEGMAFIA  LP! 

Another impressive (and challenging) palette of sideways hip-hop sounds from Peggy.

23  KA  A Martyr's Reward

For better or for worse, one of the best rappers of the last decade sounds like he's getting old.

22  Clairo  Sling 

This sounds like Elliott Smith on multiple levels. 

21  black midi  Cavalvade

A mature rock band testing their technical skills, while also kinda testing the listener.  

20  Feu! Chatterton  Palais d'argile

This sounds like something Radiohead would have released somewhere between Hail to the Theif and In Rainbows, mind you, this is freaking 70 minutes long and their singer is no Thom Yorke.

19  illuminati hotties  Let Me Do One More 

Everything about this album exudes the joy of summer.

18  Spellling  The Turning Wheel

Spellling tries turning Kate Bush's early work into something more flashy and grandiose, and I must admit, it's a lot to take in.  

17  Yola  Stand for Myself

I don't know much about the country soul genre, but this will fill that void in your life.

Some might say this was a bad year for new music, but I'm pretty optimistic about how fondly we will look back on this next section of albums. And by "we," I'm talking about me.

16  Iceage  Seek Shelter

Iceage showed hints of Rolling Stones influence on Beyondless, but they successfully immerse themselves in it for Seek Shelter.

15  The Weather Station  Ignorance 

Tamara Lindeman carefully balances her pop sensibilities and hefty lyrical content with a strings section that sounds amazing.

14  Jamine Sullivan  Heaux Tales 

I'm assuming a lot of critics have this ranked as high as their #1 spot, but to their credit, there really aren't any flaws on this tracklist.

13  Arooj Aftab  Vulture Prince

Some drop-dead gorgeous chamber folk music full of delicate arrangements and heavenly whispers. 

12  Navy Blue  Song of Sage: Post Panic!

Navy Blue raps a lot about death, which usually gives you a pretty high spot on a Scott list.

11  Wiki  Half God 

If Wiki's personality had a spirit animal, it would be a rat. 

10  Nick Cave & Warren Ellis  CARNAGE

This isn't the first time Nick Cave has shown us his soft side, but the lyrical imagery is more colorful than ever.

9  Tyler, the Creator  CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST

As long as we're ranking Tyler albums, I prefer this to Igor, and this might be as good as Flower Boy.

8  Black Country, New Road  For the first time

A math rock album that stays on the nonsensical side, there's a youthful energy to this I rather enjoy. 

7  Mach-Hommy  Pray For Haiti

I had never heard of this dude before, but he can rap like a mf, and I'd like to see him go into more ambitious territory in the future.

6  Boldy James & The Alchemist  Bo Jackson 

I'm aware that this looks too high, but much like how I mentioned with that Jazmine Sullivan album earlier, this duo does not make a lot of mistakes.

I'm not hesitant to call these top 5 albums really freaking good. Mind you, these are enjoyable for very "Scott" reasons, so take that for what you will. It was hard for me to pick between the top 2. But here we are!

5  Arca  KicK iii

Arca is both weird and experienced enough that technically nothing is "new ground" for her, but dang, this was probably the most futuristic production I heard all year.

4  Lingua Ignota  Sinner Get Ready

This is actually Lingua's 2nd time in my top 10, and she does so by trading in her walls of industrial noise for more elegant folk instrumentation.

3  Sloppy Jane  Madison

I kinda undersold this album to a buddy of mine by simply saying this was recorded in a cave, when I should have mentioned this is a really big cave and she's backed by a brass orchestra and it's probably the closest thing we're getting to a Bright Eyes collaboration project with The Fiery Furnaces.

2  Little Simz  Sometimes I Might Be Introvert

This is the best rap album I've heard in 3 years (maybe 4).

1  Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra  Promises 

Believe it or not, I didn't totally get this album at first because I thought the whole "London Symphony Orchestra" thing came off too sophisticated for its own good, but Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders are the real MVP's here and I can see myself still listening to this album years down the road.

33 Favorite/Best Albums of 2011

Here's a list of my favorite (and therefor the best) albums of 2011.

All of these albums have now turned 10 years old.

Take note: For the entirety of 2011, I was serving an LDS mission in the Western Canadian province of British Columbia. So not only is this the 1 full year of my life where I couldn't tell you about the music scene at the time, but I did not even know any of these albums existed. 

After listening to a shit-ton of music these last 10 years, I've conjured up a list of the 32 best albums of 2011 (plus 1 that shouldn't be here).

I will save both you and me a lot of time and write 1-sentence blurbs for each album.

33  Wilco  The Whole Love

This is a great album by my favorite band, and at this rate, it's probably the last great album we'll ever get from this band. 

32  The War On Dugs  Slave Ambient

This beats the crap out of the "90s Springsteen" stuff they're releasing these days.

31  Frank Ocean  nostalgia,ULTRA.

As groundbreaking as the alt-R&B movement was, some of these songs have aged worse than others.

30  Iceage  New Brigade

I like Iceage because they're a band that knows what they're doing.

29  Real Estate  Days

I guess you could call this a step down from their previous album, but the singles have stuck around.

28  Big K.R.I.T.  Return of 4Eva

Believe it or not, there was a point in music history where Big K.R.I.T. and Kendrick Lamar were on the same page.

27  M83  Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

I could write a book about this album without reaching a clear conclusion of my actual opinion on it. 

26  The Weeknd  House of Balloons

I personally find this album kinda mind-blowing, but by its 2nd half, you kinda know what the next song is gonna sound like.

25  Drake  Take Care

I honestly appreciate this album more and more each year; mind you, I used to hate it.

24  Macintosh Plus  Floral Shoppe 

You can say what you about vaporwave or  a e s t h e t i c  or whatever, this is just some damn impressive electronic music.

23  Bill Callahan  Apocalypse

Is this too low?

22  Kendrick Lamar  Section.80

Kendrick is the superior rapper because he is the superior songwriter.

21  La Dispute  Wildlife

I'm a sucker for stories about death.

20  Death Grips  Exmilitary

"Responsibility's cool, but there's more things in life."

19  Liturgy  Aesthethica 

The deeper I dig into metal, the more I realize I just prefer metal albums that mix metal with genres I actually enjoy.

18  A$AP Rocky  LIVE.LOVE.A$AP

Say what you want about A$AP's rap skills, this album will always sound dope.

17  Grouper  A I A: Alien Observer

We have now entered the "boring ethereal music" section of this list.

16  Nicolas Jaar  Space Is Only Noise

Nicolas Jaar kicked off his excellent discography with a dark and minimal take on house music.

15  Tim Hecker  Ravedeath, 1972

Despite his acclaimed early work, I've officially decided Tim Hecker's 2 best albums are the ones he recorded at a 100 year-old church in Iceland.

14  James Ferraro  FARSIDEVIRTUAL

Trying to sound like the future is hard, but trying to sound like the future from a past perspective might be harder.

13  Matana Roberts  Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres

I highly recommended the Matana Roberts Coin Coin series, which currently stands at 4 chapters; all of which are worthy of making year-end lists.

12  Tune-Yards  w h o k i l l

It kinda irks me just how much this album takes from Dirty Projectors, but Merrill Garbus delivers delightfully zany vocal performances, and these are some damn good indie pop songs.

11  the Caretaker  An Empty Bliss Beyond This World

Is this too high?

10  Colin Stetson  New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges

When you make albums like this, you get invited to soundtrack independent horror films.

9  Shabazz Palaces  Black Up 

As opposed to having the "influential" effect, it's actually just really really hard for me to compare this to any other rap album from the last 10 years.

8  Bon Iver  Bon Iver

This used to be one of my favorite albums of all time, but I've settled for dubbing it a "must-hear" album for American college kids going through a hipster phase.

7  PJ Harvey  Let England Shake

This is some top-notch songwriting and I think it's PJ's best album since the 90s.

6  St. Vincent  Strange Mercy

This album cemented Annie Clark's spot as one of indie pop's smartest songwriters, and a badass guitarist in general.

5  Danny Brown  XXX

I think I've already written this exact blurb before, but kids, don't do drugs.

4  James Blake  James Blake

I think James Blake was the perfect representation of the direction modern music was going in, circa 2011.

3  Fleet Foxes  Helplessness Blues

So many corny flaws on this album, but at the end of the day, this is the sound of pure yearning. 

2  Oneohtrix Point Never  Replica

It's a shame that 0pn has become the go-to name-drop for people who want to sound artsy-fartsy in front of their friends, because this guy's career of work is a Rubik's cube of creativity collecting dust on the shelf; waiting for curious listeners to crack the code.

1  Destroyer  Kaputt

While I was caught up trying to convert people to Mormonism in North Vancouver, Dan Bejar released the greatest album to ever come out of Vancouver.