2021 Playlist Part 2
It has been another four months of 2021 and a whole lot more music has come out in that time. As promised, I have another playlist of the songs that touched me the most. Though it doesn’t really seem like COVID is getting better per say, it does seem like the big name artists are clearing out the music they’ve been holding onto and not waiting for COVID to end to do their stadium tours. (Kendrick is back! Lorde is back! Kanye’s back! Kacey’s back!) Some beloved indie acts are also inching towards more viable tour scheduling and protocols so they’re back too (Foxing! TWIABP! Low! Half Waif! illuminati hotties!). And of course some unexpected surprises have cropped up too. Run for Cover records is just on fire this year with all these brand new bands, sheesh.
Admittedly not all of the popular artists have struck me so far. I’m trying to let the discourse pass so I can give Solar Power more of a fair shot because Lorde did make one of my favorite albums of the past five to ten years so I feel like I owe it to her, but the forecast is a little bleak. Whether or not I come around on the “satire” of it all, I think what really gets me is it feels too much of the internet, which maybe sounds ironic considering that she disappeared from the limelight to make it. Influencers, wellness, discourse, California, Supreme, Woodstock, Cicadas; it just glares a little too directly at the shit “writers” and “comedians” in New York City make jokes about on twitter all the time. Oh yeah, and the production is fucking awful. Whatever, the new Kendrick verse is properly wild and Kacey has returned to break our hearts after her divorce.
I’m really excited to see Normani’s career come to fruition. She’s an obvious talent and one who effortlessly draws lines between R&B runs and hooky pop songwriting. Add in the dancing chops and you might start asking if she’s the next Janet. Video, song, Cardi B feature: “Wild Side” is a perfect storm.
Palberta’s Lily Konisberg is another mammoth talent in a completely different way. She’s just so indie, man. Working in an electro-pop world, or a pure lo-fi, guitar-centric context, everything she does feels intimately crafted. On two separate projects announced in the past couple months, she proves to be particularly charmed at getting something lodged in the listener’s brain and making them laugh at it. I can’t tell if my favorite part of “Stay Away Still” is when she says “Depressions a conspiracy theory” or when she says “I don’t care a lot about what people say about me” and then in the background says “FLEX.” Brilliant song. Can’t wait for the solo album.
Oh and that guy Nate Amos who’s in Lily’s new band? HIS band is back too with an astounding document. Supposedly they almost broke up over it. It splices together long folktronic jams with spoken word interludes in fascinating ways. They even find time to do a quasi-remix with samples from one of the songs off their first album. Maybe it’s a little bit too critic forward but it does legitimately seem to ask the questions “what is an album” and “what is a band.” You can also dance to it though, don’t worry.
Speaking of self-aware music that pokes fun at itself and the listener, look no further than Teenage Sequence.
“The punchline’s me, but the joke’s on you”
Without further ado here’s my playlist:
Annnnnd please feel free to support those artists who are available on bandcamp!! Tomorrow’s bandcamp Friday!
https://www.buymusic.club/list/donovanburtan-2021-part-2
-Donovan Burtan