Welcome! To the 5th Anniversary of the Baltimore Music Festival! 2021 wasn't a whole lot better than 2020, featuring a bunch of dumbasses who thought overthrowing the government was the best way to not overthrow the government, a bunch of dumbasses who think science and medicine formed an evil cabal to change their DNA, and a virus that just won't quit. That said, the music, partly spurred on by the idea that maybe we'll get to see some of it live this year, was great, and as such is compiled in the list below. Let's get started!
Shout Outs
Once again, there are way too many good things to listen to to include in a single Top 50 list, so here are a whole crap-load that are definitely worth your time and consideration:
Sufjan Stevens Convocations, Shame Drunk Tank Pink, Goat Girl On All Fours, Django Django Glowing in the Dark, The Horrors Lout EP, The Armed ULTRAPOP, Arooj Aftab Vulture Prince, Vince Staples Vince Staples, Adele 30, Taylor Swift Red (Taylor's Version), Ad Nauseum Imperative Imperceptible Impulse, Arca Kick iii, Deerhoof Actually You Can, illuminati hotties Let Me Do One More, Nas King's Disease, Panopticon ...And Again Into the Light, Silk Sonic An Evening with Silk Sonic, Viagra Boys Welfare Jazz, Weezer OK Human, Westside Gunn Hitler Wears Hermes 8: Side B, serpentwithfeet Deacon, Hanna Peel Fir Wave, The Bug Fire, Skee Mask Pool, Lil Ugly Mane Volcanic Bird Enemy and the Voiced Concern, death's dynamic shroud.wmv Faith in Persona, Ill Considered Liminal Space, Squid Bright Green Field, Sweet Trip A Tiny House in Secret Speeches Polar Equals, Olivia Rodrigo Sour, Wolf Alice Blue Weekend, Lil Naz X Montero, Dave We're All Alone in This Together, Pink Pantheress To Hell with It, Doja Cat Planet Her, Allison Russell Outside Child, Julien Baker Little Obilivions, Gojira Fortitude.
Alright, deep breath, and...
Honorable Mentions
Menneskekollektivet
Electronic Art Pop (Listen)
Is 4 Lovers
Dance Punk (Listen)
Bloodmoon: I
Atmospheric Sludge Metal (Listen)
Infinite Granite
Shoegaze (Listen)
If I Can't Have Love I Want Power
Art Pop (Listen)
Hologram EP
Post-Punk Noise Rock (Listen)
Harmonizer
Psychedelic Garage Rock (Listen)
L.W.
Psychedelic Rock (Listen)
Home Video
Indie Rock (Listen)
Bo Jackson
Drumless Gangsta Rap (Listen)
I Know I'm Funny Haha
Alt-Country (Listen)
Fatigue
Neo-Soul (Listen)
Prioritise Pleasure
Electropop (Listen)
Happier Than Ever
Contemporary R&B Art-Pop (Listen)
Afrique Victime
Tishoumaren (Listen)
Valentine
Indie Pop Rock (Listen)
I Don't Live Here Anymore
Hearland Rock (Listen)
Collapsed in Sunbeams
Bedroom Pop (Listen)
Ignorance
Sophisti-Pop (Listen)
Jubilee
Indie Chamber Pop (Listen)
New Long Leg
Post-Punk (Listen)
Stand for Myself
Country Pop Soul (Listen)
By the Time I Get to Phoenix
Experimental Glitch Hop (Listen)
Tyron
UK Hip Hop (Listen)
Cavalcade
Avant-Prog (Listen)
Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine
West Coast Hip Hop (Listen)
Carnage
Chamber Pop (Listen)
I Lie Here Buried with My Rings and My Dresses
Industrial Hip Hop (Listen)
Palais d'Argile
Art Rock (Listen)
Twin Shadow
Psychdelic Pop (Listen)
You have no idea how good it feels to see this here
Texis
Noise Pop (Listen)
Same here
Haram
Abstract Hip Hop (Listen)
Friends That Break Your Heart
Alternative R&B (Listen)
LP!
Experimental Hip Hop (Listen)
A Beginner's Mind
Indie Folk (Listen)
The Turning Wheel
Art Pop (Listen)
For the First Time
Post-Rock (Listen)
Hey What
Post-Industrial Pop (Listen)
Heaux Tales
Contemporary R&B (Listen)
Call Me If You Get Lost
West Coast Hip Hop (Listen)
Runners Up
Daddy's Home
Psychedelic Soul (Listen)
For the sixth time in as many albums, St. Vincent lands in the top 10 of a year-end list. But this is no continuation of the ever-more electronic path Annie Clark seemed destined to continue in the wake of both St. Vincent's synthpop influences and Masseduction's nearly elctroclash noisy romps. Was she becoming the next Peaches? The new Eurythmics? No. Instead doing a full 540 (that's a 360+180), Annie goes full Bowie-interpretation-of-Philadelphia-soul and utterly crushes it. The rambling, staggering keyboards and delightful backing vocal jabs of hit single "Pay Your Way in Pain"; the chilly groove of "Down and Out Downtown"; the paradoxical coolness of "The Melting of the Sun"; the clash of dancehall beats and 70s-sitar-infused blues rock on "Down"; the Sheena Easton inspired "My Baby Wants a Baby"; it's all so fantastically well written and executed and wrapped in a timeless aesthetic that could only be done by Annie Clark and St. Vincent.
Smiling with No Teeth
Experimental Neo-Soul Hip Hop (Listen)
Have you ever heard something so bizarre and different that it became...delightful? That is the only way to describe what happens listening to the debut album from Australian singer/rapper Genesis Owusu. Opener "On the Move!" blitzes you with industrial sounds, followed by "The Other Black Dog"s breakneck pace and Thundercat-influenced massive basslines. The soul-funk of "Centrefold" recalls some of Outkast's best slow jams, while the Kirin J. Calanan-featuring "Drown" is one of the best bops of the year, slammed with speaker-destroying bass and a catchy chorus you'll be humming for days. But apart from hit after goddamn hit, Owusu knows how to get weird, like the spoken word title track, complete with mouth sounds instead of instruments; or the strange vocal play of "I Don't See Color" that is equal parts off-putting and intriguing. But all of this is infused with a sense of play that one doesn't often see in conscious hip hop, or really music in general--the sense that music is fun, and that it can do that while still saying something important and taking big swings is why I, personally, cannot wait to see where this talented artist goes in the future.
Promises
Minimalist Third Stream Jazz (Listen)
To quote Beck and Bat for Lashes, let's get lost. In one of the more surprising turns of the year, two forms of music I generally...don't get into--jazz and minimalist electronica--combined to make a gooorrrgeeeooouuusss menagerie of sound that can only be described (pretentiously) as a sonic feeling. The serene journey painted for you by accomplished saxophonist Pharoah Sanders is unlike anything I've heard: a stark combination of of a Bowie/Eno Heroes instrumental and the anti-muscularity of Lester Young. These brilliant passages are deftly complimented by the spare minimalism of Floating Points' electronics, which evoke Vangelis' Blade Runner, and the London Symphony Orchestra's subtle arrangements that, while incredibly muted, are used to maximum effect, heightening every high and submerging the lows to the Challenger Deep. What a truly splendid odyssey.
Henki
Progressive Art Rock (Listen)
With Henki, Richard Dawson continues his impressive run of complex, challenging, and thought-provoking avant-folk tales, now with increased sonic depth and texture provided by Finnish prog rock band Circle. It's a match made in some sort of bizarro twee heaven, where all the instruments are acoustic guitars, tom toms, and pre-digital synths, but is decorated with black drapes, burning candle wax, and skulls from the traveling grotesquerie. At any moment you can't know what you'll be getting: is it a beautiful Zeppelin's "Going to California" folk piece? An 80s vampire movie score? A soring arena rock anthem? You'll have to listen to each six-plus-minute epic to find out. Each song is built to maximize the effect of Dawson's darkly sardonic--and occasionally Lovecraftian--lyrics about Greek gods, biblical floods, stone age love stories, and...paleobotanists? This album is as close as we'll get to a Neil Gaiman musical.
Mercurial World
Synthpop (Listen)
Goddamn if a great synthpop album isn't the palette cleanser everyone needs at the end of 2021. Magdalena Bay deliver the York Peppermint Pattie after a year of Necco wafers and candy corn, because Mercurial World is icy sweet. Sparse, neon-soaked synths stab in and out of four-on-the-floor beats and keyboard basslines that kick harder than a taekwondo champion. The title track's not-so-subtle nod to Madonna's "Material World" leads into one of the best pop anthems of the year, the Dragonette-meets-New Young Pony Club banger "Dawning of the Season." Stunner "You Lose!" combines hardcore EBM drum machines with Atari game sound effects in a glorious marriage of glitch pop and chill wave so totally cool that Alan Palomo thought about bringing Neon Indian out of retriement. Album closer "The Beginning" is a party anthem, loud and brash and just waiting for people to dance like they, finally, don't have to care. I guarantee if you sing this in your car, you will be the coolest person anyone has ever seen.
Glow On
Post-Hardcore Alternative Rock (Listen)
It's so incredibly awesome to finally be able to point to a band that comes from my hometown that isn't dream pop (Beach House, Future Islands, etc.) and also is absolutely, utterly fantastic. Baltimore's Turnstile is a talent that I have, sadly, not been paying that much attention to, as I usually don't really engage with hardcore (or "post-hardcore") in a way that my standard hard rock, grunge, and post-punk proclivities take me. But Cave In's 2019 album, Final Transmission, really opened my eyes to the possibilities of the genre, and I began to follow more artists practicing it. Needless to say, Glow On is a mesmerizing, head-banging masterwork that showcases both the style's and Turnstile's flexibility and creative expansiveness. The music--pounding Grohl-esque drumming, violently explosive guitars, angry vocals that are expertly delivered without an over-reliance on screaming--is so kick-ass and hardcore that you'll break every piece of furniture in your house moshing alone. Glow On is an all-out assault on the ears that you never want to end.
Nine
UK Neo-Soul (Listen...?)
Last year, in the midst of some of the most heinous, noxious, vitriol that we as a society have had to deal with in a long time, Sault released a double-album, Untitled (Black Is / Rise) that was so poignant and beautiful that it made me cry. In this year, in the midst of dread and fear that never seems to go away, they've managed to do it again. Nine is significantly shorter than Untitled, but packs just as much emotional gut-punch into its 35 minutes. "Haha" opens the album with an amazing sample defying the very idea of living in sadness. "London Gangs" has a synth-bass loop to die for, backed by jazz drumming and some fun "doo doo doos" that almost distract you from its serious message. The actual bass line flowing along "Bitter Streets" is so swoon-inducing that I recently bought a fainting couch just for listening to this album. "You from London" picks up where "You Know It Ain't" left off with biting sarcasm and juvenalian lyrics over a Casio keyboard beat and jazz horns, plus it features Little Simz, which is just a treat. Much fuss has been made over Nine's gimmicky release, only appearing on streaming platforms for 99 days before being removed, essentially without a trace (hence the iffy YouTube link up there). And yes, admittedly, it is a little gimmicky, but songwriting this good, and production (my GOD, the production) this perfect, can't last forever...can it?
The Best of the Year
Forever In Your Heart
Electro-Industrial (Listen)
It has been many a year since an industrial album was so good it actually made me contemplate including it on a year-end list, much less placing it in the top three. Black Dresses have, however, revived my faith in, and restored my love of the genre. It's harsh, loud, angry, and focused purely on sonic maximalism. God, I love it. And Forever in Your Heart delivers on every level: massive, crunching guitars; vocals that mix between ethereal crooning and abject, bloody-throat screams; the beats created using machine parts and literal metal strikes. Opener "PEACESIGN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (I hope I got the right number of exclamation points) is the perfect test of whether this is for everyone (it's not) but is also an amazing overture for the rest of the album.
In 2020, along with every other horrible thing going on, Black Dresses announced their breakup due to the overwhelming amount of transphobic bullshit that founding member Devi McCallion was targeted with online after the release of their fourth album, Peaceful As Hell. To think that there is human behavior so disgusting and repulsive that it causes a person to give up their dreams and ambitions in order to hide from the world makes me seethe. Given that Forever in Your Heart was released after their dissolution was announced puts the future of Black Dresses in a state of flux, but we can only hope it's a sign of rebirth for the band.
The album title makes an appearance in one of the best songs of the year, "Heaven." After a dark, jack-hammering club beat makes the song seem like a standard EBM track, we get the exclamation, "I love feeling pain / Makes me feel like I'm going to heaven," followed by the harsh existential truth disguised as sentiment, "The night explodes in light from a shooting star / It's easy to be disillusioned when you don't know who you are / And that can live forever in your heart." This journey is going to be...dark.
"Tiny Ball" is an exploration of Nine Inch Nails-"Hurt"-style minimalism mixed with the post-modernist depression of EMA, and the production of Deftones' "Teenager," that eventually explodes into a disturbing sluice of grunge noises and off-kilter lyrics. "Silver Bells" is probably the album's most traditional industrial-rock song, taking inspiration from KMFDM and Front Line Assembly until it slowly devolves into a din of noises and confused studio adlibs.
Perhaps the best song on the album is "We'll Figure It Out," with its underground pounding drums and gloomy, distant guitar and synth lines. The chorus is a celebration of total nihilism: "I'm breaking it / It's broken / I open it / It opens / I'm drowning and I'm floating / I'm dreaming and I'm hopeless / I don't give a shit if it doesn't work / I've done a lot of things and none of them worked;" delivered with ever-increasing frustration and anger directed towards the void.
The intensity and harsh sounds increase and increase through the rest of the album until the finale, "(Can't) Keep It Together," which keeps the distortion, but refigures much of Black Dresses' music into an almost cute, upbeat series of Weezer-esque guitar ditties and genuinely heartwarming singing. It's a great disguise for the often sad subject matter, that no matter how hard we try, especially those of us in targeted minorities who disproportionately suffer from mental health issues, try our best to "be everything to everybody" and "keep it together," but sometimes we just...can't, and that's okay. "I couldn't keep it together / I couldn't make it last / I couldn't keep it together / But it's not that bad."
Sinner Get Ready
Neoclassical Avant-Folk Darkwave (Listen)
Warning: the following review includes discussions of abuse and suicide.
After the crushing noise of the death industrial Caligula, Lingua Ignota's 2019 album that impacted her life so much it's permanently tattooed on her skin, the neoclassical style of Sinner Get Ready might almost seem calmer, but I assure you, it is anything but. Immediately out of the gate, "The Order of Spiritual Virgins" greets you like a Fiona Apple song from Hell. The loud slams of piano keys seem violent and random, an apt mood for the dark, personal subjects of the album. Kristin Hayter's voice is strong and clear, evoking the chanters of olde Christendom.
Much of Sinner Get Ready focuses, thematically, on the psychological injuries sustained by those forced into religious conformity before their minds have even matured enough to know about the adult world. "I Who Bend the Tall Grasses" finds Hayter nearly screaming directly into the face of some over-puritanical sadist, bent on forcefully converting her or to kill her trying. You can feel every vein popping in her neck and forehead as her guttural cries demand vengeance, if salvation is no longer an option. It is no coincidence then that the entire song is backed by the sounds of a massive church organ.
"Many Hands" leans heavily on the other theme of Sinner Get Ready, that of the emotional torture suffered by victims of sexual assault and abuse. Here, the "hands" double as those performing an unwilling baptism and those that abused Hayter, having only recently escaped a violently manipulative, abusive relationship with Daughters frontman Alexis Marshall. The music here is an over-plucked, under-tensed guitar that recalls the eeriest passages from Richard Dawson's Peasant, foreboding at best.
The gorgeously melancholy "Pennsylvania Furnace," about loneliness, absence, and the inevitability of God’s judgment, has some of the most tear-jerking moments of this or any other year in music. "Do you want to be in Hell with me," Hayter asks plaintively, appealing for the target of her question to join her, even if it means the very worst could happen. "I wish things could be any other way," she warns us, the listener, as to what will happen if we follow the road with her. "All that I've learned is everything burns."
"Repent Now Confess Now" is a direct message to Alexis Marshall, as well as other abusers, including the graphic images of Hayter's actual injuries, "you took my legs and my will to live," when Marshall allegedly injured Hayter's spine during a particularly violent outburst that left her nearly paralyzed, and the trauma caused her to attempt suicide. Similarly, "The Sacred Linament of Judgement" describes the mental and emotional toll enacted by those in positions of religious power: "Oh sinner have you ever had / The love of Christ so ruthlessly applied / The sacred linament of Judgment / With cruel fingers bind."
The quietest and most desolate song on the album is the aptly titled "Perpetual Flame of Centralia." Full of dread, Hayter's dry vocal recording accentuates the desperation and emptiness of that town, and the message that, while life can be blissful, the fires, perhaps those of Hell itself, burn just underneath the surface. And if you want proof, just look at the once peaceful, god-fearing town of Centralia.
The fear of judgement continues in the penultimate track, "Man Is Like a Spring Flower," listing in an effectively repetitive fashion how the heart of mankind is inherently a dangerous weapon. It can be used to inspire, certainly, but inspire what exactly? If the history of religion on Earth has taught us anything, it's not great. The song eventually switches into a baroque chamber composition of patted percussion and layered backing vocals and harpsichords that is immensely beautiful, increasing until the sounds eventually blow out the red on their mics and your headphones.
The closing track, "The Solitary Brethren of Ephrata," is a sumptuous chorale of pianos, strings, and woodwinds behind about a thousand different layers of Hayter's pronounced voice singing "Paradise will be mine," the culmination of both the religious themes of the album, and those of Hayter's personal journey, through the darkest moments a person can endure, to the glorious lightness of freedom.
Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
Conscious UK Hip Hop (Listen)
2019's excellent Grey Area was a short, bold collection of boastful rhymes by Little Simz that floated atop a new, raw sound. It changed how Simz had previously wrote, usually preferring lush, ornamental arrangements. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is Simz combing the best of both of those styles: the production is still incredibly raw, almost coarse in many places; but the music and lyrics she creates using it are full of nods to soul, R&B, and orchestral theatricality. The masterful mixing of both raises the ceiling for what is possible in this sonic space, and Little Simz smashes through that ceiling with the power of Mjölnir.
The hard aggressiveness of Grey Area is interchanged with massive string sections, bright horn arrangements, and an adorable children's choir. The content of Little Simz' lyrics is even more rewarding as she dives into family issues, her emotional struggles with the spotlight, and her past, while at the same time celebrating womanhood, blackness, and art, framing her career in music as a Tchaikovsky-esque fantasy (see: the multiple interludes where Simz is addressed by a Glinda the Good Witch-type host guiding her through various expressions of her internal struggles).
The opening track, "Introvert," sees Simz pursuing her passions while fighting her tendency towards, well, introversion, with immense orchestral instrumentation and lyrics that allude to religious ceremony, the pomposity of ancient kingdoms, and the "glory" of war, clearly a mirror of Simz own nagging doubts regarding her opposing personality traits.
"Woman," featuring the dynamic Cleo Sol, is a charismatic, classy, and flawless, jazzy tribute to women of color. The drum work and backing vocal loop is pure perfection, complimented by an occasional glockenspiel flourish. When the Sol-led chorus enters, the song is lifted to entirely new heights, and the instrumentation adds more and more as a string section slowly builds underneath.
On one of the best produced songs of the year, "Two Worlds Apart" enters with a jump-scare of an R&B sample that runs through Simz discussion of how her psychology makes it difficult to truly connect with others, until it hits true euphoria. The song slowly tunnels its way out, creating a dizzying, disoriented feeling.
"I Love You, I Hate You" includes the textbook example of how to properly use a sample. Simz uses the shouts of "I love you, I hate you" as a sort of call-and-response: "As always I love you / But sometimes I hate you." Again, the orchestra shows up about midway through (a reoccurring event) to deliver the emotional weight to back the message of Simz lyrics. Then, the track "Little Q, Pt. 2" marks the first appearance of the children's choir, as Simz uses their presence to discuss her own troubled childhood and the pain of growing up.
The biggest banger of the year has to be "Speed," Simz' brash return to the production and beats of Grey Area. Her lyrics return to boasting and put-downs, all rightfully earned, while a massive synth-bass pounds away over jazz drums. "Still running with ease / Marathon not sprint," she declares at the close, revealing her statement of work. The surprise of a string quartet to wrap up the song provides a perfect transition to the grand layering of "Standing Ovation," complete with back-up singers and a full horn section.
"Rollin Stone" may be the biggest departure yet. Simz spits fire as fast as possible over the desolate low throb of an italo-disco beat. At the halfway point, the song devolves into a trap-meets-808 smooth track while Simz continues to put you in your place, a subtle vocoder effect providing an otherworldly air.
Then we come to the single of the year, the incredible pop departure of "Protect My Energy." A massive drum machine provides a Janet Jackson Control sound that is just to die for. Simz, in a rare turn, forgoes rapping to sing "that's why I / Love being alone / Protectin' my energy," the rallying cry of introverts everywhere.
"Fear No Man" introduces us to African rhythms, kept expertly just on the brim of fully exploding. Simz embraces the power of women while a faded vocal loop expresses her love of being the very best in an industry dominated by male toxicity. A funky bassline drives the song ever-forward to the finale.
After one final visit from British Glinda, the final duo of songs finds Simz in a significantly calmer mood, finally accepting her introversion and her past as part of what makes her, her. Empowered to be herself entirely, Simz guides us through "Miss Understood," a delicious double-entendre that embraces being unknown by others while fully knowing herself. The grandiose strings are replaced by a simple piano, symbolizing how, having worked through her personal dilemmas, Simz can finally, at last, come to be at peace with who she really is: she may be the best in the game, but, sometimes, she might be introvert, and that's just fine.
