From Jazmine Sullivans years-in-the-making comeback to electrifying rock anthems to Doja Cats NSFW tongue twister and more.
Best of 2021
The best entertainment of 2021, as chosen by Vultures critics.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Things felt a little more alive in 2021.
10.Easier Than Lying, Halsey
10.
Just listen to them scream and snarl the chorus, overpowering shredded guitars and pounded drums.
Later on the album, Halsey declares that theyre not a woman, but a god.
On Easier Than Lying, their domain is endless.
9.The Other Side, Jazmine Sullivan
9.
Jazmine Sullivan has a climactic voice.
It earns the descriptor of explosive, building toward moments of full-bodied catharsis.
I deserve that life!
she declares a few lines later, her voice stretching.
By that point, you believe it too.
8.CORSO, Tyler, the Creator
8.
7.White Dress, Lana Del Rey
7.
6.Amazing Grace (West Texas), Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert, and Jon Randall
6.
Naming a song after another so well-known and sacred is a bold move.
5.Chaeri, Magdalena Bay
5.
Theres the song at its base, a glowing four-on-the-floor beat, with synthesizers stacking meticulously atop one another.
Theres Mica Tenenbaums one-of-a-kind soprano, breaking with emotion as the song builds.
Theres the lyrics about reaching out to a struggling friend, told straightforwardly and affectingly.
Chaeri is their best attempt yet to enter that pantheon while staying true to themselves.
4.BLACKOUT, Turnstile
4.
Often, as on BLACKOUT, theyre also about finding that sense of euphoria through music and performance.
And if it makes you feel alive!
/ Well then Im happy to provide!
Brendan Yates shouts in the chorus, distilling the Turnstile ethos into just two lines.
3.4 Da Gang, 42 Dugg and Roddy Ricch
3.
4 Da Gang, off his own mixtapeFree Dem Boyz, changed that.
Its Duggs best star-making performance yet, right when he didnt even need another.
2.Little Things, Big Thief
2.
Sometimes, they play tight, each musician finely attuned to the others motions.
On Little Things, in a feat of magic,Big Thiefdoes both.
At first, it contrasts with Lenkers intimate lyrics, contemplating the little things she likes about a lover.
she cries out later.
Little Things leaves room for these emotions to expand, while never swallowing them up.
1.Need to Know, Doja Cat
1.
Those lyrics couldnt land, though, without Dojas vocal contortionism.
But Lukes production barely rises above requisite, a beat that exists simply because a song needs one.
Like Doja also says on the song, though, shes flexible.
Doja Cat dominates the song, much as she has the whole year.
Many of those selections appear above in Curtos top 10 picks.
Its as high stakes as Half Waif has ever sounded, over a crescendo of glistening synthesizers.
(Even the album and single art capture her mid-scream.)
Swimmer is the spectacular result of Rose trying everything to be heard.J.C.
THE LIGHT, Brockhampton
Joba feels things at a fever pitch.
Thats precisely the case on THE LIGHT, the centerpiece ofnew albumROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE.
As Jobas introduction frames it, the song is an essential parting of the clouds.J.C.
(Dont you be too good to believe, she teases a lover in an effortless flip.
I want a place where golden moments last forever, Ware opens the song.
Over the following minutes, she argues that you dont find that place; you create it.J.C.
Gold makes that feel like the place she was meant to be all along.J.C.
For SZA, life doesnt seem to be all about fight or flight anymore.
(Okay, and that drum breakdown is pretty great too.)
Jazmines just that good.D.L.
The song finds him fixating on everything from corporate ad copy to the reverberations of American Colonial history.
Welp, Sabrina Carpenter is doing her damndest to make people know her name.
Maybe you didnt mean it.
The stakes in these songs are low, but the stories of Britney, Demi, Selena, etc.
should tell us that the pain will always be heightened.D.L.
I can make something good, goes the following line of Robinsons chorus.
Look at the Sky doesnt just speak that into existence; its proof of concept.J.C.
Its a visceral descent into madness thats impossible to turn away from.J.C.
In taking her time with her sophomore record, though, Cardi has turned more Teflon.
I wouldnt attempt to stand in Cardi Bs way this year, or any other.D.L.
she wonders in the hook.
Lyrically, it marks a shift for Zauner.
After writing two albums and a book about grief, I feel very ready to embracefeeling, shetold Pitchfork.
.Paak tries on a million hats as well, but his references are often just less obvious.
Neither is going about musical curiosity the wrong way.
Together, theyre next to impossible to creatively beat.
(Enjoytheir 2021 Grammys performancefor further evidence.)D.L.
Control, Mannequin Pussy
Control is Mannequin Pussy at its most whiplash inducing.
It grapples with some of the same ideas asPatience,too, namely asserting agency and independence.
Shelter Song, Iceage
Every Iceage album feels like the biggest yet from the Danish art punks.
So what to do after the messy orchestral masterpiecethat was 2018sBeyondless?
As terribly cheesy as it sounds on paper, its that undeniable in practice.
The guitars suddenly sound straighter, Rnnenfelts vocals clearer.
The lines just beg to be echoed by a crowd in some baptism of sweat and cheap beer.J.C.
Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism.
