Audioxide

This is the end, beautiful friend. Of the year that is. Which means it’s time for us to rank our favourite albums.

A lot of things about 2021 somehow managed to be worse than in 2020. Not the music, though. The music has been terrific. These were our favourite singles.

Annie Clark wrangles a myriad of vintage sounds and gives them a stunning contemporary sheen, but it is in service of a world unquestionably her own. David Bowie and Mia Wallace had a sweet baby girl and abandoned her in South Queens.

The album is so delicate that it feels too fragile for its own good. It’s like a frozen wildflower - beautiful, but could shatter at any moment.

With Harvey it feels like you’ve stumbled across the ad hoc performance of a travelling mystic. It’s black magic with a smile.

The decade had some doozies. Here were our favourites.

For all its instances of greatness and undeniable beauty, MAGDALENE gets tangled in its own pop epic aspirations.

Lover isn’t as expansive as Kate Bush or as daring as St. Vincent, but it is accessible and intelligent, which are the hallmarks of Swift at her best.

That Bush could create something so deliriously weird and wild yet also break through to the mainstream world is great proof of her powers.

An ambitious, splintered record. Glammy schizoid pop rubs shoulders with tightly wound, rather despairing cud chewing, but the two styles never truly mesh.

An album of inoffensive and enjoyable pop music. With strong instrumentals that step above the norm, the shiny production is actually surplus to requirements.

Capturing the middle ground between passion and precision, Annie Clark’s sound here can only be described as some sort of melodic computer malfunction.