Best Record of 2021

Or at least the one I keep listening to

This morning, Kevin Alexander started the end of the year Best Album ball rolling with this excellent story/choice:

He hopes we’ll play along, and frankly, I have nothing else to do right now since my wife just awakened and will need an hour or so before she’s ready to accompany me, our dog Max, and our “grandson” Palmer on the morning’s walk:

PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate making doggies wait, but when the music begins, turn on the lights and hold on, I’m/we’re coming.

So, what, according to my random samples, was the best new album released in 2021?

I so wanted Black Pumas Deluxe to be a 2021 release, because I craved listening to it as much as I listened to it. Alas, it was 2020, and so, retroactively, that was my pick had I written such a story, and had Kevin motivated me to do so, last year.

I suppose I could justify selecting Red (Taylor’s Version), and I almost did so, but that also seems either to be cheating or kind of unfair, so let’s just give it a lingering nod and keep playing it over these holidays as a reminder of things to come.

Also considered Kacey Musgraves’ Star-Crossed, and ok, let’s say it’s my #2, if for no other reason than “Camera Roll” makes me want to believe in music, to keep thinking about all the people I’ve lost but remember whether I have their pictures or not.

Plus, I simply love, or complexly love, her voice. It paints me, makes me want to paint and I can’t. I hope and trust her writing and recording have only just begun.

[I also really liked The Steely Dan live record, Northeast Corridor, but while newly released, it isn’t new in the sense I want to use for my choice, my #1 of the year.]

Which happens to be…

He’s still waiting…Max ran out back.

Ok…#1

I have played this as the soundtrack to various writing pieces, and have listened to the sounds and words and the way she puts over these songs. “Your Power” is the one that really got to me — a beautiful torch song until you really hear the words — another example of powerful abuse and claims of not knowing how “you” might have abused her trust and innocence.

“You said you thought she was your age…how dare you?”

Indeed. I was reading a critical dialogue between Jessica Hopper and Jim DeRogatis today about R. Kelly’s abuse.

These aren’t coincidences. We see and know what we want to.

But I’ll end with “Happier Than Ever,” because Billie understands,

“I could talk about every time you showed up on time but I’d have an empty line ‘cause you never did…”

All he did was make her “fucking sad…” and many of us have been there.

The song explodes at the end, as it should, and then she demands to be left alone.

And…the song remains the same.

How long…has this been…?

So, what have you? Here at The Riff, we love to engage, so please do so: David Perlmutter, If Ever You’re Listening, L Burton, Kathy Copeland Padden, Kathy Gerstorff, Jessica Lee McMillan, Chris Zappa, Steven Hale, Critical Country, Paul Combs, Taylor Moran, Alexander Briseño, Keith R. Higgons, David Acaster, Alex Markham, Pierce McIntyre, Rui Alves, TheWellSeasonedLibrarian, Karla Clifton, Nicole Brown, Zsófia Vera, Danielle Loewen, Michael Hall, and Reuben Salsa.