The Young Folks' 50 Best Albums of 2021

To call Serpent’s sophomore LP Deacon his most accessible work yet is hardly a slight. It also may well be his funniest, queerest, and most accomplished work thus far.

Remi Wolf’s debut album is an explosion of color, and I don’t just mean the music videos. Listening to Juno is like being in an arcade room, jumping excitedly from one machine to another, simply having to try them all.

While Schlagenheim was a great initial representation of Black Midi’s potential, Cavalcade goes further thematically and sonically, exploring each and every piece of the band’s sound while creating an otherworldly space.

30 is not only her best album to date, it’s the first to live up to the potential that her powerhouse vocals have always portended.

For the first time is a freewheeling, experimental opus that sees Black Country, New Road firmly planting their flag down in the music scene.

CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST is a masterful record.

Sling—while ultimately releasing mid-summer—presents a more melancholic side of Clairo that will undoubtedly gain momentum as we approach the autumn months.

Yes, isn’t necessarily a radical reinvention for neither Carlile nor her collaborators, but song for song, it’s the most compassionate and unflinching collection of the artist’s career thanks to the fresh clarity her memoir’s reflection and self-examination provided her.

Get lost in Eilish’s album instead, for there’s really no need to return to Solar Power.

Red (Taylor’s Version) displays the snarky maturity and calm that comes from being a formerly precocious 22-year-old woman capable of juggling genres with ease.

A towering achievement, Little Oblivions is devastatingly beautiful, a painful at times but still engrossing listen that doesn’t let the singer or her listeners off easily, instead pulling us along with her in her wake.

Williams’ sophomore attempt is a disappointing, hollow representation of more established and more recently successful solo artists.

It’s lyrically worth all the attention you can put into it ... But musically, there’s a little disappointment for those of us who love being thrown curveballs by her songs. 

Valentine is a near-perfect evolution for Snail Mail. Though not completely daring in terms of its lyrics or new sounds, it shows the band is willing to go beyond its indie rock comfort zone to paint a wider picture with their music.

Blue Weekend takes what makes Wolf Alice great and sharpens it into a tighter, more focused piece that explores these relationships, evoking the immediacy of emotion and the wisdom of distance depending on the track.