As years blur into one another during these turbulent times, a sense of longing persists — for the world that was, and for the world that could be. While last year I found myself returning to familiar sounds for solace, this year, I itched to create a sonic demarcation between 2020 and 2021. In a world where our discovery of new music is orchestrated by algorithms and confined to a 3–4 minute preview of an artist (welcome to the playlist era), I yearned to indulge in full albums (old school, I know). I liken it to seeing only a section of a painting; instead of analyzing the full picture — you invariably shut yourself out from understanding how the colours of the sound blend together and the broader context within with the small pieces of the painting are intentionally placed.
I found that my sporadic listening habits were interfering with my ability to savour full albums. So in an attempt to game the algorithm while working within its confines, I set out to listen to (almost exclusively) new albums this year. I listened to >3300 songs, >350 albums, totalling approximately 198 hours of music (nowhere near Questlove’s attempt to listen to 100 songs a day — I can only aspire to that in the ‘sliding doors’ version of my life as a DJ).
My unsophisticated process of finding new music entailed the following:
Sifting through the List of New Albums on Wikipedia and Album of the Year website on a weekly basis.
Recognizing that it would be impossible to listen to every single album (unless this were to be my full-time job), I followed arbitrary criteria to narrow down the list of albums to which I would commit. Some of the elements of the criteria were the following:
- Have I listened to the artist before? If yes, listen to the new album. If not, research the new artist to learn about their story and their intention behind the album.
- Am I interested in the genre/sub-genre of music? (While I attempted to keep an open mind, preference was given to pop, alt-rock, rap and hip-hop — sorry, death metal and country).
- Do I find the theme of the album intriguing?
- Have friends recommended the album/songs from the artist?
There was a lot of great music this year which made narrowing down the list of favourite albums quite challenging. But, these are some albums that engulfed me repeatedly throughout the year (in no particular order):
- Three Little Words — Dominique Fils-Aimé
- For the First Time — Black Country New Road
- THE FUN IS HERE? — Cosima
- Smiling with No Teeth — Genesis Owusu
- Promises — Floating Points, Pharaoh Sanders and London Symphony Orchestra
- Sound Ancestors — Madlib
- Jubilee — Japanese Breakfast
- Xardinal Coffee — EXUM
- The Turning Wheel — Spellling
- Vince Staples — Vince Staples
- Sometimes I Might Be Introvert — Little Simz
- Seventeen Going Under — Sam Fender
- Ookii Gekkou — Vanishing Twin
- Local Valley — José González
- Black To The Future — Sons of Kemet
- Una Rosa — Xenia Rubinos
- Memory Device — Baba Ali
- Valentine — Snail Mail
- 30 — Adele
- Half God — Wiki
- Talk Memory — BADBADNOTGOOD
- Prioritise Pleasure — Self-Esteem
- Home Video — Lucy Dacus
- Blue Weekend — Wolf Alice
- CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST — Tyler the Creator
- Nafs at Peace — Jaubi
- Vulture Prince — Arooj Aftab
- L.W. — King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
- King’s Disease II — Nas
- Let Me Do One More — illuminati hotties
- Donda — Kanye West
- Deacon — serpentwithfeet
- By The Time I Get To Phoenix — Injury Reserve
- Women in Music Part III — HAIM
- Second Line — Dawn Richard
- And Then Life Was Beautiful — Nao
- A Southern Gothic — Adia Victoria
- MONTERO — Lil Nas X
- The Melodic Blue — Baby Keem
- Cavalcade — black midi
- Planet Her — Doja Cat
- Pray for Haiti — Mach-Hommy
- Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep — Mykki Blanco
- Ciudad de las dos lunas — Cabiria
- Lazy Eyes and Dune — La Luz
Listening to full albums required commitment to active listening and a strange form of focus. I had to resist the urge to press the skip button, which seemed to evaporate for those albums to which I kept returning. Often, it’s the shimmering melodies that pull me in — words tend to be secondary. Sometimes a song would bounce around in my head for days, or specific chord progressions would vibrate in my memory.
In addition to the albums above, I really enjoyed these music-related podcasts and articles from this past year:
- Dissect’s analysis of Kanye West’s Yeezus (arguably, ye’s best album)
- Object of Sound with Hanif Abdurraqib — as musical discovery becomes an increasingly individualistic endeavour, Abdurraqib attempts to foster a communal sentiment behind sonic exploration, diving deep into conversation around the artistic process and the themes and emotions evoked by sounds.
- Why people love Spotify’s annual wrap-ups by Haley Weiss
- How music created Silicon Valley by Ted Gioia
If you were to curate a museum of sounds, which songs from this past year would you place in that museum and why? Here is mine.
