As the year comes to a close, we reflect on the music we loved best in 2021. In November, we asked our patrons and staff to share their favorite musical discoveries of the past year.
We met online on Tuesday, Nov. 23, at noon to share and discuss these songs in our monthly music discussion group, Music Talk. The full Music Talk: Best of 2021 playlist is now up on Spotify and you can follow Alachua County Library District's account for more playlists to come. Find many of the music CDs with these songs in our catalog.
Don't forget to mark your calendar for the next Music Talk! We'll meet on Tuesday, Dec. 28 at 12 p.m. on Zoom for Music Talk: From Me to You. December is the gift-giving season. What music would you give as a gift to everyone? Send an email to librarian Cameron with the song title and artist along with a sentence or two about why you chose it. He'll add it to the Spotify playlist and have it queued up to play during the live program. If you don't have a particular song in mind, come to the program anyway to hear some great music and join the conversation!
Our favorite songs of 2021:
"Great Mass of Color" by Deafheaven
"This song hits all the right pleasure points in a perfect balance. It goes hard, but it’s also pretty. The lyrics are vague, but also evocative. A perfect dreampop/shoegaze song." - Nicholas O.
“We Got The Moves” by Eskimo Callboy
"The first thing this song will do is astound. They’ve taken two genres, techno and metal, and combined them in a way that shouldn’t work but absolutely does. The second thing this song will do is make you dance." - Sally F.
"MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA" by illuminati hotties
"I saw illuminati hotties at a show in September 2019, where they played “a new song we’ve been working on.” The goofy vocals, irreverent lyrics, and pure yell-ability of the song had me thrilled to see it finally pop up on my Release Radar this past April, and I’ve been blasting it on repeat ever since." - Hailey D.
"Morning Star" by King Woman
"I love this song because it makes me happy that metal bands still write songs about Satan - as they are meant to." - Nicholas O.
"Camera Roll" by Kacey Musgraves
"It used to be that you could take your old photos and stash them in a shoe box at the back of your closet, where you could choose when and if you’d ever revisit them. But now our photos can catch us off guard. Sometime within the last few years, my phone started showing me “new memories” on my notification screen. But, even with that feature turned off, we are inundated with images of our pasts, when they pop up in our social media news feeds or when we idly scroll through our camera roll, as Kacey Musgraves does in this song. Reckoning with our happiest moments can be tough when you’re mourning; a bittersweet feeling that she nails in this song." - Cameron B.
“Drivers License” by Olivia Rodrigo
"We’ve all been through breakups and still had feelings for the person, even if they weren’t the best for us. She captured those feelings so well, especially for someone her age." - Nicole W.
“Good 4 U” by Olivia Rodrigo
"No one does great break up angst like a teenage girl." - Assh A.
"It’s hard to imagine a song that could better capture the crushing feeling of despair caused by longing. It has my favorite lyric of the year: 'They say don’t live in the past/And I don’t/I live deep within myself'" - Nicholas O.
"Valentine" by Snail Mail
"This one reminds me of what it sounded and felt like to try and navigate being in love while I was in my twenties." - Nicholas O.
"All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" by Taylor Swift,
“’All Too Well’ was already Taylor Swift’s sneaky masterpiece before she revisited it ten years later for this widescreen version. Listening to it, one wonders how lines as good as ‘And there we are again when nobody had to know/You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath’ were originally scrapped and never repurposed into another song.
Taylor is in the process of re-recording and releasing her old albums with period-specific bonus tracks. When artists (or labels) do this, it often feels like a way to extract more money from fans, but this, to me, feels more like an artist asserting control over her music and legacy. I’m here for it, especially when the results are as good as this.” – Cameron B.
Other songs we loved in 2021:
"To Be Loved" by Adele, "Family Ties" by Baby Keem & Kendrick Lamar, "Kiss Me More" by Doja Cat & SZA, "Shelter Song" by Iceage, "Montero (Call Me by Your Name)" by Lil Nas X, "Best Friend" by Saweetie & Doja Cat, "Once More for the Ocean" by Slothrust, "The Melting of the Sun" by St. Vincent, "The Robber" by The Weather Station, "I Know I'm Funny haha" by Faye Webster, "Diamond Studded Shoes" by Yola, "Patria y Vida" by Yotuel, Gente de Zona, and Descemer Bueno