2021 was a year, and like most years, some music came out. Most of it was good! Just not Clairo. I did a little top 50 countdown on Instagram, so this year I’m just gonna pull those blurbs for my personal Chorus blog. Most of it was written off the cuff, so there’s a loose feel — don’t expect Hemingway, y’know? Had to keep things short. Catch me around the forums to tell me how bad my taste is, I will laugh for a few minutes before blocking you. Just kidding. Maybe. I dunno, fuck around and find out I guess.

Well, we’re two years into a pandemic and art remains more important than ever in helping us cope with our daily lives. Earlier this year I got to attend Furnace Fest and it reminded me more than ever how much live music means to me and how much I used to love heavier music. In fact, as you can see by the top end of my list below, it drove me to really rekindle the fire. And with Underoath’s new album kicking off 2022 and my ticket for Furnace Fest 22 pre-ordered already, I don’t see that dying any time soon.

My big personal news this year is that I ran my first marathon after two major postponements, a minor leg injury, and over 1100 miles run. Through this training, I was able to read well over 100 audiobooks. I can’t recommend getting lost in a book while working out more to escape your brain and the world around you for a bit. I’ve already signed up for a 5K in January and a half-marathon in March, but after C19 and Delta postponed the first attempts, I’m eyeing Omicron with a bit of hesitation.

I didn’t do as much writing for Chorus this year as I wanted to. I had the chance to write a fifteen-year retrospective for Underoath’s Define The Great Line and about my Furnace Fest experience. I meant to also tackle a retrospective on Copeland’s massively important Eat, Sleep, Repeat and mewithoutYou’s Brother, Sister as well for the same year landmark, but time and my brain got away from me. I also wrote a review for Kali Masi’s new release, [laughs].

To no one’s surprise, the only other writing that I did this year for the site were our retrospective/reviews of Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version) alongside Craig and Anna and Happier Than Ever with Adam, Aaron, and Mary. In the interest of full disclosure, these are far and away the most listened to albums of mine this year, but I docked the two Taylor albums ranking points from being 1 and 2 on my list for the simple nature of the project. Only a few albums since 2012 have impacted me like Red has, and none of them were released in 2021.

So, without much more preamble, here are my favorite albums of the year. If an album has one of my favorite tracks of the year, I’ve included in below instead of creating a separate list.

Farewell 2021. While the year was yet another weird/scary one, we had the return of concerts and were given plenty of great music to power us all through the highs and lows of 2021. Turnstile dropped GLOW ON, which proved heavy guitar driven music is far from dead, Olivia Rodrigo burst onto the scene with SOUR, Weezer released two good albums in the same year with OK Human and Van Weezer, and we had the return of both Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, who both put out excellent new records.

2021 was a year where we continued to navigate our way through the pandemic, but it was also a year where I became a homeowner for the first time, got a new job and my wife and I became proud puppy parents. Throughout the many moments of joys and challenges, I was fortunate to have many great albums to guide me through. With so many great releases, it was tough to narrow the best-of list down to 30 but I did my best. As we turn the page onto what I hope is a better 2022 for everyone, here are my top 30 albums of 2021: 

or the past five years, if I’ve mustered up the energy to write anything accompanying my EOTY list, it was usually some kind of negative reflection on how tough the year was, how tough every year has been, and how things don’t seem to be getting much better. While this is generally the case for 2021 (I will not be rehashing why), I am also happy to report that this past year, moving into 2022, was the year I finally started to really try to take care of myself, mentally, emotionally, and physically. I mean, what else can you do during a time like this? My anxiety about the future is not going anywhere, so I learned to live with it, to ground myself, to care for myself, and to be confident in the face of conflict.

And as silly as it is, I owe a lot of that to pop culture. If you’re on this site, you probably do too. From quarantine watches of the Sopranos to consciously discovering more hip-hop artists and broadening my media intake in general, I was sometimes able to get to a place that made me forget about all of the things I can’t control, if only for a moment. Of course, it helped that I started recording a really, really special record with my friends in Crooner as well.

I suppose this blog should probably talk more about my end of the year list, but by now, if you’re reading this, you probably know me and the kinds of things I like. So instead, I’d just like to take this opportunity to tell you that even if things don’t get better, they can get easier. Take care of yourselves and I hope we all have a much easier 2022.