Rolling Stone's 50 Best Albums of 2021

For his part, Drake is rapping at a new level throughout CLB, and it’s worth noting that, as bland as it is by now, these are some of his best tough-guy raps which, perhaps depending on your level of toxic masculinity, is a good thing. 

The Foos’ 10th album is upbeat even by their uniquely well-adjusted standards, returning to their core Nineties alt-rock sound minus any gimmicks, detours, or shenanigans.

Platinum-voiced Brit reunites with Dan Auerbach in the producer's chair for a dazzling showcase of luxurious Seventies-inspired soul and mellow, Laurel Canyon-style folk rock.

At 10 compact, differently beautiful songs, Driver is the work of an artist entering the springtime of their brilliance, as good as singer-songwriter indie-rock can get.

With its amped-up pop choruses, refined sense of melody, and hints of everything from Blood Orange-inspired R&B to vintage mid-century torch balladry, Valentine, indeed, opens up entire new worlds of possibilities for her.

The wildly inventive rapper-producer teams up with electronic musician Four Tet to create an album that lives in the space between the past and the future.

Mustafa’s choice to sing of hood tragedy in folk music is effective, not only because it is beautiful and stirring, but because it feels unexpected.

A revelatory collection of glassy-piano dance grooves and noir folk, based in Tamara Lindeman's piercing songwriting.

There’s no real sense of worry or anxiety in the love songs, and Moctar’s calls for unity are set to a loose soundtrack of unpredictable guitar. This is how free rock & roll should sound.

All together, If Orange Was a Place broadens Tems’ budding discography across moods and tempos, uniting all her strengths in a multi-faceted display of self-actualization.

The songs on Hey What, the duo’s 13th full-length, sound both heartbreaking and uplifting, often at the same time.

Playboi Carti—Gen Z’s answer to Nosferatu—performs emotions, toggles between them, and disguises them with a disquieting ease. He has never been more enigmatic.

Japanese Breakfast’s latest LP Jubilee is the project’s most ecstatic-sounding album to date, although one glance at the lyrics will tell you that Zauner isn’t done excavating the thornier aspects of dependency, devotion, and longing.

Though brief, with a runtime of just over 30-minutes, the EP shows Sullivan crafting a complete constellation of love and loss.

Despite a big-ass budget and assists from co-writers and producers like Ryan Tedder, Take a Daytrip, and Kanye West, Montero doesn’t contain any “Old Town Road”-scale musical coups. This has always been the paradox at the heart of the Lil Nas X project.

Home Video is her greatest work yet — a cohesive and poignant collection of tales from her teenage years in Richmond, Virginia.

The rapper’s signature self-awareness has matured into some of the more compelling rap music being made today, and as such Call Me If You Get Lost proves to be Tyler’s best effort to date.

She’s never sounded more ferocious than she does on 30—more alive to her own feelings, more virtuosic at shaping them into songs in the key of her own damn life.

Whereas most artists build to their breakup album, carefully laying down the foundations of their future devastation, Rodrigo has already skipped ahead to her Tunnel of Love.