Flashflooder’s Top 50 Albums of 2021

Wow, it’s this time of year again? How many months has it been? How many more will there be? What is a question. Why yes, that is correct (I suppose). But I guess I’m getting off track. Already?! Which tracks? Oh right, not tracks. Albums! Records, releases, call them what you may. May the whatever be without you. Wait, what are we doing here again? What are these words here for? Traditions, rituals, norms, mcdonalds, you know…

So what’s the theme for this year? Other than the my sha’rona of course. Well, it was delving deeper into the ethereal world of sound mainly. Primarily. Egalitarianly, but like with sounds yo. So spoiler alert: get ready for ambient music, jazz, and apparently ambient jazz (which I just call jazz, but apparently it’s all like mellowed out and in touch with itself on the astral plane or whatever). Don’t you worry though, there’s other stuff too. Like band stuff, and electronic stuff, and hip hop stuff. You know, genres. But maybe not as much as in years past.

So this is the part where I usually wax my board with the acronym “POETIC” (don’t ask me what it stands for) and talk about how I don’t “get” what the popular critics deem to be da best albums. But guess what, I’m not even sure what the unanimous picks were for this year. Somehow, for some reason I didn’t read most of the critic top albums lists this year as I usually do. You might think this is another becoming older stubborn tendency but honestly, I just didn’t make time for it. So I guess I didn’t really care. What even was Pitchfork’s top album? Pssh, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know yet (but writing this now, I am curious all of a sudden). Just please based god tell me that Kanye’s record was not on there, please. I literally couldn’t get past three songs and will only give two a chance (the rapper) the next time around. And so yay there it goes, the annual mentioning of a mainstream album I didn’t enjoy. Like really didn’t enjoy. But enough with the theory of negativity. Everyone already knows that’s how Einstein invented bagels.

Where was I again? Oh yeah, albums. So while I did listen to a fair number of them, there are like always a million and one I didn’t listen to. And based on my aforementioned not paying attention to the lists this year as I usually do (with one exception) and the fact I haven’t really kept up with any music blogs for years now, I do think it is fair to say my methods of music discovery may have left me out of touch. A bit. Let’s not get crazy here though. You didn’t come here for the top pop albums. Or for me to barf out the top Spotify new releases of the year (which i’m quite certain is spit out by some virus riddled computer in the dark dungeons of hell). And so you must somewhat know me to be reading this which means you know I have a slight case of popaphobia, except instead of the scaries it’s more of a strong aversion. Like magnets. Except that metal is also kinda not my thing. Sorry metal heads. Maybe your music would be sweeter if you shook that laffy taffy and battled it out with the airheads…ugh, even I cringed at that one. If only these erasers would work on screens.

So, what’s the big epiphany for this year. Hmm…well ambient music is still as soothing as ever in a year where anything that soothes is like gold (jerry, like gold)! Jazz also started to finally click with me. But why? No, not the alopecia dude …just talking to myself out loud again. It really comes back to finding the right niches and most importantly, the feels. Musical intellectual stimulation (for me) is the result of years of listening with the intent of discovering new sounds, finding patterns, excitement, newness, oldness which somehow is newness, but mainly a rush of emotions and feelings that sounds…refreshing. Just think to yourself, how would you describe the feeling you get when you hear a soon to be favorite song or album for the first time? Excitement, joy, buzzing, dancing, fulfillment, intensity, euphoria…maybe one of those? Well whatever it is for you, bottle it. Remember it. And try to find it again. Whether that be in sound for you or in another sense. Enjoy the feeling. Enjoy the process. Do it again. Keep feeling the feels. That’s how I tend to think of it. And that’s why I keep going back two it.

So yeah. Here’s fifty some albums I liked most this year. And yes, if you release multiple (similar) things in a year they get grouped together. It’s like musical extra credit. Someone’s always got to be the teacher’s pet sounds.