![]() Slinky electric saz-driven microtonal Turkish-flavored psychedelia from the album LW King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Static Electricity The Academy Blues Project – All Will Be RevealedĪ deviously detailed account of what could be a stolen election, or some other massive fraud: Ben Easton’s gospel piano leads the band skyward to guitarist Mark Levy’s savage guitar outro. Over a jangly, bluesy Highway 61-era Dylanesque backdrop, Morrison wants to know “Why do you need secondhand friends?” Funniest track on his album Latest Record Project No. ![]() Arguably the best song on the album Latest Record Project No. …Trying to police everyone’s mind,” the Celtic icon warns. From the album Wax WorldĪ slow, slinky minor-key soul protest anthem: “It’s always the opposite of what they say Reduced to lowest terms, this cinematic, imagistic powerpop narrative is about acting on impulses that would be unthinkable to anyone outside, say, the Gates Foundation or the California governor’s office.Ī macabre, picturesque account of the early days of the lockdown in New York that rises out of an evil morass of feedback and horror-movie keys. One of the most spot-on, witheringly cynical lockdown songs written so far is this Louvin Brothers-style country waltz originally released under the pseudonym The Chessie System. Van Morrison’s response is more quietly seething. The longest song on this list, a bracingly immersive mosaic of savagely funny spoken word and haunting, Armenian-tinged sounds by the polymath singer/investigative journalist and host of the philosophical podcast Make Language Great Again:Īn endlessly shapeshifting, circling, metaphorically loaded art-rock seafaring anthem that makes a towering coda for their album Graveyard Star, one of the most vivid portraits of lockdown-era terror released to date.Īnybody who wants to subject Eric Clapton to any more crippling mandatory shots will be stopped dead in their tracks, the guitar icon wants everybody to know. Tessa Lena – The Physical World Is the Only World We Have It’s Eve of Destruction with a locked-in, lockdown-era focus: “Keep staring at your smartphone, get dumber every week,” One of the first protest songs banned from youtube, no surprise considering the lyrics. One of the great protest songs of the past year or so: “Citizen fools and brand new rules make everyone a hero now…Keep your distance, no resistance, only do what you’re allowed…See no evil, bow to the needle, didn’t we turn out great?”įive Times August – J esus What Happened to Us Whatever the case, there’s still an embarrassment of riches here.īeyond the next ten songs or so – the creme de la creme of 2021 – there’s absolutely no order or ranking to this list. One suspects that artists have written infinitely more material than they’ve been able to record in the past twenty-two months. ![]() What’s less optimistic is that there was less recorded music released in 2021 than in any other year since the 1940s. What’s optimistic about this list is that despite the current state of the world, there are more funny songs on it than ever before. And as sad as it is, at the end he implores us to “Take back your freedom and fight for your life, stand up before it’s all gone.” He hadn’t even recorded the song yet when he debuted it at a massive rally held by Texans for Vaccine Choice in Austin at the peak of the summer heat. This year, the #1 slot goes to Five Times August. And in a normal year, it could have topped this list. As a portrait of the dark side of human behavior (without touching on lockdowns or muzzlemania), it’s Elvis Costello-class, as vividly cynical as anything Black Box Recorder ever did. Over a catchy late 70s/early 80s powerpop tune, she paints a witheringly detailed picture of family dysfunction by the seaside. Then there’s Irene Pena‘s The Summer Place. They’ve covered your mouth and tied back your handsĪnd nobody knows all the damage it’s done ![]() The flip side of that, metaphorically speaking at least, is Silent War, by songwriter Five Times August. It’s catchy, it’s optimistic, and everybody can relate to it. The big outlaw country hit that everybody’s blasting at all the protests is Blind Joe‘s I Will Not Comply. Subjective as this list is bound to be, there are three main contenders. Given the choice of a fierce, plainspoken, feel-good singalong protest song, a totally disconsolate one, or a much more complex, artful powerpop gem, which would you pick for best song of the year? The point of this is not just to cull the best songs from the Best Albums of 2021 list, but also to include singles, and videos, and tracks from other records that for one reason or another aren’t on that one, There are hours worth of listening here: you might want to bookmark this page. Click on song titles for streaming audio click on artist names for their webpage.
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