Wrapping Up 2021: The Top 20 and Thanks to Snoopy

After I posted my “best of” lists for 2021, I intended to make a “making of” post like I did in 2021.  Holiday festivities and travel, however, kept me away from a formal recording session during that “sweet spot” week when I was really excited about the results.  I am now, unfortunately, way more focused on the new music of 2022 than I am about retreading 2021. 

But now that the results are public, I wanted to make the finalized listing easier to access (with links to relevant posts) for reference sake.  So for posterity, 2021’s Top 20 looked like this:

1. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and the London Symphony Orchestra - Promises
2. Timmy Sean - A Tale From the Other Side
3. Bo Burnham - Inside
4. Steven Wilson - The Future Bites
5. Once and Future Band - Deleted Scenes
6. Brendan Eder Ensemble - To Mix With Time
7. Mammoth WVH - Mammoth WVH
8. Tally Hall - Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum
9. black midi - Cavalcade
10. Arlo Park - Collapsed in Sunbeams
11. Cynic - Traced in Air
12. Gunship - Gunship
13. clipping. - CLPPNG
14. Chouk Bwa & the Angstromers - Vodou Ale
15. Squid - Bright Green Field
16. Aimee Mann - The Forgotten Arm
17. Sault - Unitiled (Rise)
18. Weezer - OK Human
19. Caroline Eyck & Eversines - Waves LP
20. MonoNeon - Supermane

Also, like last year, my good friend and vlog consultant Brent Jones (AKA Snoopy) went through the arduous task of mirroring my weekly eliminations to come up with his own top 20 using the same pool of albums.  This small listing doesn’t begin to capture the amount of investment that he had in the project, and I’d like to publicly thank him for indulging my need for musical discussion on a near-daily basis.

1. Steven Wilson - The Future Bites
2. Mammoth WVH - Mammoth WVH
3. Rafael Anton Irisarri- Solistalgia
4. Bo Burnham - Inside
5. Mogwai - As The Love Continues
6. Timmy Sean - A Tale From The Other Side
7. Gunship - Gunship
8. Sault - Unitiled (Rise)
9. Cynic - Traced in Air
10. The Knife - Tracing the Habitual
11. clipping. - CLPPING 12. Chouk Bwa & the Angstromers - Vodou Ale
13. Yes - The Quest
14. black midi - Cavalcade
15. Frank Zappa - You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore v. 5
16. Art Blakey - Just Coolin'
17. Tally Hall - Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum
18. Lyle Workman - Uncommon Measures
19. Ghost of Vroom - Ghost of Vroom v. 1
20. Once and Future Band - Deleted Scenes

One last note - for those interested, there will be a mid-year elimination run for a mid-year top 10.  Interested in following that run?  Let me know in the comments.

Also, thanks to the other folks who have contributed, however passively, to the channel. My logo was designed by my Aiki Brother John Thompson and my green-screen backgrounds were painted by my incredible wife Kate Wurtzel. Incidentally, the graphic for this post was created by inputting the names and titles of the top 10 into an AI that creates artwork based on text prompts.

Thanks for all your dedication and support in following my rantings.  I hope that I have been able to bring some new music your way and that it came to have some meaning for you in 2021.

Catch you on the flip side!