The Top 21 Songs of 2021

The songs that defined my year, featuring Japanese Breakfast, COIN, and Lorde. Spotify playlist here.

In 2021, new pop stars entered the scene and others fled from it; old albums were reimagined and indie bands finally gained overdue mainstream appreciation. Amidst this momentous year were 21 stellar tracks. Here’s a ranking and review of my favorite songs of 2021.

Note: This list is by no means exhaustive—in fact, it’s quite the opposite. As you’ll soon see, my music taste tends to skew a certain direction (frankly, sometimes embarrassing). I just wanted to share music I particularly enjoyed over the past year, and feel free to send me some tracks I missed out on! There will also be a lot of Lorde comparisons in the reviews, beware.

Follow along with this Spotify playlist.

21. Hazel English: “Nine Stories”

Self-inflicted or not, it’s an expectation that an artist reinvents themselves with each new release. Hazel English’s “Nine Stories” does the complete opposite — it sticks to the formulaic female-singer-songwriter-indie-bedroom-dream-pop tropes. As a Youtube comment put it plainly, the song sounds like “50 other mumblecore randombeat songs by some girl with a cheap microphone and some marihuana gummies in a sad California apartment with some dude who says he’s a producer.”

But is that such a bad thing? Take a listen and you’ll be captivated into a hazy world of reverb, light shoegaze, and electronic drum loops. Predictable or not, it’s a formula that works.

20. Gracie Abrams: “Rockland”

The pop girlies passed around Jack Antonoff like a joint until he started flopping. The National’s Aaron Dessner is a potential replacement, having worked with Taylor Swift and, more recently, pop singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams on “Rockland”.

On the quaint “Rockland”, Abram’s voice trembles over distorted strings, finger-picked guitars, and distant drums. The real standout moment is the bridge—the indie folk production intensifies as Abrams rues, “I see you every night in my sleep, anticipatin’ every bad dream.”

19. COIN: “Sagittarius Superstar (ft. Faye Webster)”

COIN’s quarantine project Rainbow Mixtape found the pop rock band tread new ground beyond “Talk Too Much”-esque anthems, including folk-pop with none other than the genre’s prodigy Faye Webster.

The result is “Sagittarius Superstar”, which sits squarely at the midpoint of COIN and Faye Webster’s musical styles. It’s an airy, guitar-driven pop tune, laced with piano runs, Chase Lawrence’s and Faye Webster’s voices in harmony, and the sound of nostalgia.

18. Lana Del Rey: “Tulsa Jesus Freak”

On paper, everything about Lana Del Rey’s “Tulsa Jesus Freak” reads as comical and ironic— first, its laughable, almost stupid title. But also in the way she mispronounces Arkansas, the sarcastic religious imagery, meaningless lyrics like “we’ll be white-hot forever and ever and ever, amen”, the Charli XCX-esque autoned vocals in the outro.

But like Lana Del Rey has cautioned, we can’t take her out of context. And taken as a whole, “Tulsa Jesus Freak” is a highlight off Chemtrails Over The Country Club— a sprawling, psychedelic love song that’s so objectionable it’s a masterpiece.

17. Charli XCX: “New Shapes (feat. Christine and the Queens, Caroline Polachek)”

Charli XCX’s 2020 how i’m feeling now was Charli at her finest—no guest vocalists; just Charli and her maximalist collection of distorted synths, autotuned vocals, and EDM and bubblegum bass production. But hyperpop Charli can’t come to the phone right now, because she’s dead—with “New Shapes” as Charli’s main pop girl resurrection.

On “New Shapes”, Charli trades PC music for 80’s synths, hyperpop for The Weeknd-era synthpop. But it’s in the simple things on this track— the delayed beat drops, the electrifying quartner note synths, Caroline’s adlibs that double as instrumentation— that illustrate that pop music doesn’t need to be maximal to be excellent.

16. Lorde: “California”

After her acclaimed Melodrama, Lorde disappeared into the sun and emerged happier, hotter, but a little less relatable with her divisive Solar Power, a collection of languid folk-pop. While most of the record is less remarkable than her previous work, Solar Power’s “California” is stellar.

Apart from its slightly trite and patronizing lyrics, “California” is quintessential Lorde: a catchy hook, her hallmark vocal harmonies, and an enveloping, atmospheric outro. Staccato piano notes, layered background vocals, and a collision of horns and guitars take us to the sort of perfect place we’ve been searching for since 2017.

15. Caroline Polachek: “Bunny is a Rider”

Further proof that simple pop music can still be tasteful (and perhaps that hyperpop is dying) is Caroline Polachek’s “Bunny is a Rider”. It’s a groovy pop tune that, like “New Shapes”, is most impressive for the little details: the unassumingly intricate percussion, the horn in the last chorus, Polachek’s nonchalant vocals, the gazillion samples scattered subtly in the track. Its lyrics about being emotionally unavailable are just as self-effacing—I mean, does anyone actually know what “bunny is a rider” means? Perhaps that’s the point.

14. Clairo: “Amoeba”

As a comment Clairo pinned on her Instagram said, we “love a self hate anthem!” — the standout “Amoeba” off of her sophomore album Sling. Clairo and Jack Antonoff dump a kitchen sink of instruments on the folk-pop “Amoeba”, and it works surprisingly well. Woozy guitars blend with lethargic background vocals, piano riffs, and intricate basslines as Clairo reprimands herself, “could you say you even tried? You haven’t called your family twice.”

13. Baby Queen: “Dover Beach”

While Lorde led us to the ocean with her breezy, acoustic Solar Power, Baby Queen graciously returns us to the maximalist synthpop of Melodrama with a beach of her own: “Dover Beach”. Everything that made Melodrama so captivating — anthemic choruses, industrial pop, and heartbreak — is here, but made even more Gen-Z. Lyrics about “self-made isolation”, “incompatible star signs” with your crush, and idealizing someone in your head are all too relatable. We’re not sure whether to dance or dissociate to “Dover Beach.”

12. ELIO: “CHARGER (ft. Charli XCX)”

Electropop protege ELIO teams up with the unexpected Charli XCX on a truly humorous take on breakups— leaving your charger in your ex’s room as an extended metaphor for leaving any residual feelings for your partner. ELIO’s plain-spoken vocals complement the powerful autotune of Charli over a hopscotch rhythm and swirling synths. Like a charger, the song is uncomplicated— it doesn’t have to try very hard to be good.

11. Babygirl: “You Were In My Dream Last Night”

Babygirl describes themselves as the “best pop rock band in the world” and tracks like “You Were In My Dream Last Night” prove their point. The track starts off with a rather boilerplate bedroom pop sound—a simple drum beat, electric guitar, and Babygirl’s wistful musings about a past relationship. Then, the stripped production gives way to a chorus that sounds like a literal dream. Over atmospheric synths, jangly guitars, and lo-fi beats, Babygirl lets themself daydream about what could’ve happened between two lovers— “we took our time, we got it right. We workеd it out by candlelight”. Until, like the dream, everything comes to a halt.

10. Lucy Dacus: “First Time”

“First Time” sounds like a movie. Like opening credits, droning synths and white noise set the scene. It’s tense and uncertain, until distorted drums and guitars enter the mix. And before we know it, we’re cruising down memory lane, Lucy Dacus in the driver’s seat. Over garage-rock and fuzzy pop production, Lucy vividly recounts her first teenage romance. Memories fly by (“crawling through the dog door” and “sneaking out of the house”); so do dreamy synth swells and muddy guitars. Like the experience of first love, “First Time” is electrifying, shaky, and all-consuming — until it fizzes out.

9. Holly Humberstone: “Scarlett”

On “Scarlett”, rising UK popstar Holly Humberstone combines in the indietronica of The Japanese House, fuzzy guitars of Phoebe Bridgers, and tattoo-worthy lyrics of Lorde into a dreamy soundscape of her own — a soaring synthpop track about leaving a toxic relationship behind. Lyrics like ‘and you said, “Scarlett, I don’t need to be responsible for everything you’re feeling. Your emotional grim reaper, I feel bad for you”’ are straight out of a tear-stained diary entry.

8. Snail Mail: “Headlock”

Snail Mail’s sophomore album Valentine marked a shift for the indie rock prestige. On Valentine, she favors 3-minute pop songs over the longer indie rock sprawlers of her debut Lush; the jangly garage-rock sound of her debut is complicated with piano, synths, strings, and strange R&B rhythms on Valentine. Most of Valentine suffers from overproduction, but “Headlock” is the exception.

“Headlock” feels like a mature continuation of her debut, with her hallmark indie rock sound accompanied by unique production elements in the periphery of the song. Haunting background vocals, electric guitar arpeggios, pulsating synths, and expertly scattered piano notes create a woozy dreamscape that sounds exactly like being caught in, well, headlock. The song cascades into a slow-burning outro that perfectly encapsulates ever-present Snail Mail themes of lost love and being lost in it.

7. Soccer Mommy: “rom com 2004”

Every day Soccer Mommy strays further away from the aging bedroom pop sound and closer to hyperpop — the one-off single “rom com 2004” is a remarkable example. The track is somehow adjacent to both her 2020 “color theory” and Charli XCX’s “how i’m feeling now”, fusing both the lush indie rock of Soccer Mommy’s previous albums with hypnotic, distorted production kudos to hyperpop producer BJ Burton. The verses sound like a sputtering, dying car that, once fueled, leads us to a dreamy, early-2000’s guitar chorus — and hopefully to an even more hyperpop direction in Soccer Mommy’s future music.

6. Taylor Swift: “Nothing New (ft. Phoebe Bridgers)”

“I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try try,” Taylor Swift laments on folklore standout “mirrorball”. And it’s true—the perception of Taylor Swift has never been the most positive. After all, consider her lead singles like “Look What You Made Me Do”, a cheeky attempt to appear edgy, or “You Need To Calm Down”, a half-baked allyship anthem no one really bought. There’s a reason why she has an album called reputation. That all changed in 2020 with her moody, indie-leaning folklore and evermore, earning her edgy Gen-Z associations with artists like Phoebe Bridgers and cementing her status as one of the most influential singer-songwriters of our generation.

Taylor Swift’s “Nothing New”, a deep cut from Red (Taylor’s Version), is the intersection of Taylor’s past anxieties as a young woman in music and her new indie-adjacent sound. It features none other than indie darling Phoebe Bridgers on a haunting duet produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner, sonically akin to evermore or Bridgers’ Stranger In The Alps. Swift and Bridgers trade lines and sing in harmony over glistening keys and acoustic guitar, making “Nothing New” a dream come true for pop and indie music fans alike. And while Red-era Swift wonders if “will you still want me when I’m nothing new?”, the continued success and chart-topping performance of Taylor Swift ten years later is its silent, triumphant answer.

5. Alix Page: “25”

Phoebe Bridgers’ “I Know The End” represents an increasingly more mainstream pop song structure — a soft, acoustic ballad erupting into an apocalyptic, chaotic rock song. This motif isn’t at all new, but has primed more casual listeners for its cinematic, rock-leaning sound — Billie Eilish’s “Happier than Ever”, which follows this formula, is heralded as Billie’s best song.

Singer-songwriter Alix Page captures the tumultuous magic of “I Know The End” into the compact, captivating “25”. The track begins with atmospheric synths and a lo-fi drum machine, an enjoyable but hardly inoffensive bedroom pop sound, until overdriven guitars materialize. From there, all hell breaks loose — live drums and metallic synths join the mix, and soon enough, we’re head-banging to the chaos and emotions of it all. All the while, Alix Page recounts the end of a relationship, deadpanning that “if I said I was falling, then I didn’t mean it” with apathy.

4. MUNA: “Silk Chiffon (ft. Phoebe Bridgers)”

Before Sad Girl Autumn and “Nothing New”, there was Christian Girl Autumn, ushered in by queer anthem “Silk Chiffon” from MUNA and Phoebe Bridgers. MUNA’s Katie Gavin and Phoebe Bridgers trade verses over acoustic guitar strums and punky guitar stabs, until giddy, exhilarating shrills of “Silk! Chiffon!” erupt in the chorus. The song captures the innocence of young love down to the details—“her silk dress dancing in the wind” and “feeling anxious inside of the CVS”—and the shimmery chemistry of it all. And when even Phoebe Bridgers out of all people says “life’s so fun”, you better believe it.

3. Olivia Rodrigo: “deja vu”

“drivers license” walked so “deja vu” could run—the former a predictable yet solid breakup ballad, the latter a psychedelic indie-indebted pop song. “deja vu” dispels the notion of Olivia Rodrigo as a one-hit-wonder and instead showcases the rising pop star’s ability to expand the boundaries of pop music. It subtly borrows from a variety of Rodrigo’s stated influences—from the industrial drum breakdown of Lorde’s “Hard Feelings/Loveless” and saccharine bridge of Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer”—and nods to some bedroom pop and indie rock trends. The result? A genre-defying, woozy masterpiece with the most addictive distorted guitar riff and a personality of its own.

2. Samia: “Show Up”

One of the most promising voices in indie rock is Samia. The quiet melancholy of her 2020 debut The Baby exhibited her ability to be the next beloved indie sad girl. But it is the empowering “Show Up” that demonstrates Samia’s musical potential beyond the sad girl starter pack playlist.

The track begins with dueting piano and guitar voices, clever references to “listening to Muna at dawn”, and generally existential sentiments until its chorus—a fiery, shoegaze-tinged eruption of guitars and drums. The mood instantly switches, too, with Samia declaring her unwavering devotion to people she loves. The bridge, an anxious rush of emotions, feels like a brief relapse of sorts; Samia even admits herself that “I was freaked when all the lights went off”. But the anxiety is momentary, and the sparkling, reverb-heavy outro reaffirms that nothing could stop Samia from “showing up to sing another song for the people I love.”

1. Japanese Breakfast: “Posing in Bondage”

It’s brooding, almost metallic sounding, as Japanese Breakfast murmurs “closeness, proximity, I needed, bondage” on Jubilee standout “Posing in Bondage”. Here, synths swell and dissipate out of nowhere amidst a dark electropop dreamscape. The tense, unsettling verses closely mirror the lyrics about longing and waiting for someone’s affection.

The slow-burning track reaches its zenith at its outro, a thematic and sonic turning point. Glistening keys taunt and jeer, distorted synths scrape the walls, the bass-heavy percussion throbs. And amidst it all, Japanese Breakfast’s pitched vocals soar. It feels like despite all the darkness, all the posing, and all the bondage, the spark between people is finally lit.

Whether its being stuck in quarantine or unrequited love, Japanese Breakfast’s magnum opus and the song of the year “Posing in Bondage” reassures us that someday, all our posing will not be in vain.