2021 Rewind: Music

So I don’t use Spotify, and thus don’t have any handy Wrapped images to post. (Dear Apple Music: the annual Replay playlists are fine, but you really need to work on a social-sharing component for them.) With that said, I can basically tell you what I listened to this year.

  • I didn’t listen to much new music, or rather, I didn’t listen to new music much. I fought the good fight for many years, but eventually you get old and grow tired of chasing the Hot New Sound and want to sink into the familiarity of pop culture’s vast backlog.
  • Olivia Rodrigo entered and quickly exited my consciousness. I was optimistic about her at first, until I began to notice that every song seems to be leaning pretty heavily on old riffs from classic hits, and she started to look more like a mildly talented content farmer than anything else.
  • Lorde’s “Solar Power” was fun, and I listened to it quite a bit… but I’m beginning to suspect she’s gonna follow an Adele-like arc in my mind. Meaning, I was a huge fan at first, I found her middle period pleasant, and as she settles into a career groove, it’s all gonna start sounding the same to me.
  • I hope that doesn’t happen with Billie Eilish, but it probably will. It’s the rare artist who can continually renew herself and grow into new things.
  • Over the last week, I’ve listened to The Beatles and Paul McCartney more than I have in the last decade. (Perhaps more than any other body of work, Paul’s greatest hits instantly transport me to my childhood in the ‘70s. The opening notes of every song fill my head with memories.)
  • Another rediscovery in 2021: having finally finished watching —and then watching again, again— Twin Peaks, I’ve been listening to Angelo Badalementi’s soundtrack rather obsessively, almost as much as I did back in 1990.
  • Speaking of Lynch-inspired music, how is it that in eight years on Tumblr, none of you little fucks ever turned me on to Chromatics? I’ve listened to Closer To Grey over and over, and have yet to get sick of it.
  • 2021 was also the year I remembered Silversun Pickups existed… Panic Switch continues to be one of my favorite songs of the 21st century.
  • I was still listening to Hamilton a lot, and In The Heights a little, so Lin-Manuel Miranda and Anthony Ramos held my attention pretty reliably.
  • All those TikTok memes resulted in me voluntarily listening to Rihanna’s Desperado for the first time in my life.
  • I’ve got St. Vincent and Lana Del Rey albums I should be playing… but I’m not. Maybe I’ll be in the mood in 2022.
  • Someone sent me Taylor’s I Almost Do to explain how she feels about me, which makes it the sweetest/saddest song in my playlist this year.