The 50 Best Songs of 2021

Nine-piece girl group Twice specialize in energy, bright colors, and fun choreography — even by K-pop’s high standards. Disco-pop track “The Feels” was the group’s first original English-language single and it deservedly caught the attention of the Western market. “The Feels” is a radiant burst of disco energy, with a masterfully slick bass line, an ingenious vocal arrangement, and one of the year’s most effervescent choruses: “Boy, I, Boy, I, Boy, I know, I know you got the feels,” will be replaying in your head all day. —K.K.

As a duet with North Carolina’s Morray, “In My Blood” suggests the heights Mo3 could have achieved if not for his tragic murder in November 2020. The two-and-half-minute track boils over as the melodic Dallas rapper harmonizes, “This is why I still be in my feelings,” and unfurls what seems like a lifetime of frustrations large and small. “I ain’t forgot the pain, I’m just working on my forgiveness,” he says. It’s a song full of anguish and passion from a voice that was silenced too soon. —M.R.

There have been issues with Miley Cyrus’ hip-hop appropriations over the years, to say the least. So no passes. That said, this mammoth the Kid Laroi-assisted song strikes a happy and infectious medium. “So there I go, oh/Can’t make a wife out of a ho, oh/I’ll never find the words to say I’m sorry,” belts Miley in a bright twang that invokes her country roots. The Australian hitmaker gives the single a bit of his festival-packing emo-rap sheen. It’s an odd-couple mash-up that turns out surprisingly great. —W.D.

“Walking at a Downtown Pace” offers a great onomatopoeic groove: The bass struts, the drums step with some flare, and the live-wire lead riff hits with the neon energy of a night about to begin. Though written pre-pandemic, the song arrived at the start of hot vax summer, accompanied by a video that reveled in the revival of NYC’s bustling weekend streets. “Walking at a Downtown Pace” is ultimately a celebration of the crowd and its inherent possibilities, no matter how personal or global. “I found a reason to exist,” Parquet Courts roar together on the first hook, “Written on the tile/Of the platform wall/Begging not to go extinct/To all those who saw.” —J.B.

Mitski couldn’t let 2021 end without dropping by to say hello, igniting an Eighties firecracker to signal the arrival of an album next year that (if her previous track record is any indication) will most likely emotionally destroy us. “The Only Heartbreaker” was written with Dan Wilson — the first-ever co-write in her catalogue — and it shows the indie rocker flipping the narrative of a love song on its head. This time, she’s the Bad Guy. “I wanted to depict something sadder beneath the surface, that maybe the reason you’re always the one making mistakes is because you’re the only one trying,” she said. Mission accomplished. A.M.

Pop Smoke’s second posthumous album may not dazzle like its acclaimed predecessor, Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, but Faith had an unexpectedly intriguing moment in the lush glamour of “Demeanor.” The Brooklyn rapper was a professed fan of Dua Lipa, and the singer brings frisson to producer Mantra’s arrangement of disco-pop beats and Nile Rodgers-like rhythm guitar. “My demeanor is meaner than yours,” Dua Lipa riffs saucily while Pop Smoke harmonizes about being “off the perky geekin’.” It’s a fun track that evokes the kind of mainstream superstardom he should have lived to enjoy. —M.R.

This gem tucked toward the end of Tennessee singer Valerie June’s latest opus, The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers, is the album’s shimmering highlight. June’s gentle prayer is a burst of hard-earned sunshine, featuring a subtle pop arrangement from the pop-leaning Jack Splash. June gathers warmth as the song progresses, dancing in the sun as she sings about “a love that’s so right.” It’s a bursting statement worthy of one of June’s many inspirations: Mavis Staples, who appeared on a touching acoustic rerecording of the track months later. —J.A.B.

Magdalena Bay deliver the perfect combination for 2021: dysfunctional gadgets, zany artistic concepts, retro video games, shameless paranoia. The L.A. electro-pop duo made a splash this year with a stream of TikToks and videos, culminating in this jam from their album Mercurial World. Mica Tenenbaum whispers like a robot suffering from unrequited lust for Pac-Man, while Matt Lewin cranks the distorted synths. This year, “You Lose!” felt like good news for people who love bad news. —R.S.

Jadakiss’ throaty, serrated delivery has always been one of hip-hop’s most potent weapons. But it’s not surprising that he sounds invigorated when paired with the throwback production favored by Westside Gunn: a rusty, creaking synth loop, swelling bass line, and shaggy drum beat. Jadakiss has fun eviscerating his competitors’ credentials: “Buncha lies in your résumé/Do something, don’t hesitate,” he growls. “I don’t wanna tussle, I put this hawk in your muscles/You inherited money, you never learned how to hustle.” Westside Gunn recently said he hopes to help produce Jadakiss’ next album, and the veteran may want to accept his offer. —E.L.

“My feelings always make a fucking fool of me,” Pom Pom Squad‘s Mia Berrin sings. It’s a relatable line, but it’s also dead wrong: As she shows all over her band’s debut LP, and especially on this thrill ride of a single, her outrageously outsize feelings are what make her a star. Singing with breathless intensity about her desire for the cheerleader in the title — “I’m squirming out of my skin/Is this really happening to me?” — she’s speaking for countless present and former young people with big, unruly emotions. She’s also sinking her teeth into a killer hook that’s as catchy as any chart smash this year. Bow down to pop-punk’s new homecoming queen. —S.V.L.

Leave it to a trio of K-pop vets to show just where the genre is headed. On “Rosario,” a track from Epik High’s landmark 10th studio album, the hip-hop group teams up with singer CL and rapper Zico and shuns the heavy-handed production and boisterous refrains of most K-pop songs in favor of something with a little more musical depth. Over a light trap beat and flamenco-style guitar, the three artists trade verses about setting the standard for K-pop acts to follow. CL takes it home on the defiant chorus: “Out of my way, I am a legend and I’m here to stay,” she belts. New artists, take notice. —T.C.

A collaboration between Isaiah Rashad and Lil Uzi Vert was an unexpected but impeccable tone setter for the Chattanooga, Tennessee, rapper’s latest era. His staccato flow, his fiery flexes, and fun-house beat make unique use of his deep sense of wordplay and rhythm. Flawlessly sequenced as the second track on Rashad’s much-awaited album The House Is Burning, “From the Garden” made sure that he didn’t just come back to the masses with the swirly stories and mellow beats they fell in love with, but that he came out bussin’. —M.C.

If Carly Simon ever made her own Basement Tapes, it would sound like Clairo’s Sling. For her follow-up to her 2019 debut, Immunity, Claire Cottrill headed to upstate New York and recorded with producer Jack Antonoff. On the opening track, “Bambi,” she lays out the foundations for the album, which contains themes of parenthood and sexualization in the music industry. Her oohs melt over a piano, before the song builds to a blissful catharsis: “Rushing so I can beat the line/But what if all I want is conversation and time?” she sings. It’s a conversation you’ll want to keep going. —A.M.

When Nicki Minaj heard “Whole Lotta Money,” a standout on BIA’s 2020 EP For Certain, she liked it so much that she reached out to the rapper on Instagram. As soon as she did, she saw BIA had actually been writing to her for years, eager to get her attention. Those messages, coupled with the interplay between the two rappers, makes their collaboration feel like it was always meant to happen: On the remix, BIA flexes coolly while Nicki stunts, sneers, and sprints her way through her verses, each of them self-assured and relentlessly audacious over the song’s domineering, bass-blown beat. —J.L.

Leela James applies her gale-force voice in precise, leveling blasts in “Complicated,” a bouncy, lavish love song. It’s a song obliterating the red tape that’s been standing in the way of a romance that comes packed with many forms of sustenance for R&B fans: James offers a brief spoken intro in the manner of grand Seventies ballads, lyrical nods to early Mary J. Blige, and a programmed shuffle that evokes Zapp’s “Computer Love.” Before the last stirring chorus, there are a couple of rounds of high ooh-oohs that hint at the ecstatic vocal twirls in Prince’s “Do Me Baby” — like “Complicated,” that’s another track that urges lovers to forget their hang-ups in a hurry. —E.L.

The Dominican bachata band Aventura has split up and reassembled a few times over the years, but their reunion on “Volví” features a surprise addition that made the internet’s jaw drop: Bad Bunny joins the group, his swaggering baritone loose and carefree over a stinging bachatón beat. Hearing him sidle up next to Romeo Santo’s recklessly high vocals is a complete thrill, but the peak of the song happens when the collaborators erupt into a few addictive seconds of ultra-quick perico ripia at the end — something that leaves the door open for what many hope is part two of the collaboration. —J.L.

U.K. singer Jesse Ware made a splash last year with the dance-music classicism of her album What’s Your Pleasure. “Please,” a single that came out of this year’s “Platinum Pleasure Edition” of the LP, arrived this spring, just as it was starting to look like it might feel safe to go out again. “I want a place/Where golden moments last forever,” she sang over shimmering hi-hats, Cylon-ping-pong synths, and a perfectly deployed army of backup voices. Along with the song’s engulfing euphoria, there’s a knowing sense of longing and hunger in Ware’s singing that gives the song extra depth — as if the club is a place where you go to lose yourself, and find yourself, too. —J.D.

Maluma’s popularity has sometimes outweighed the hookiness of his songs. A gleaming gem like “Rumba (Puro Oro Anthem)” helps even the scales: This single is an ode to the last “rumba loca” — a wild, champagne-soaked shindig that unfolded beach-side and kept going till sunrise — that conveniently doubles as an invitation to the next one. Maluma shows his keen grasp of pop-reggaeton’s tools, gliding over snaking guitar and boom-chick-boom-chick drums, and his delivery is easy, oozing charm. But this surplus of suave serves as camouflage for an urgent plea. “What happened were the consequences of a crazy party,” Maluma sings in Spanish. “It was so crazy that we deserve another.” —E.L.

Sofia Kourtesis first earned notice for buzzing tracks like “Sarita Colonia,” which the electronic producer said “were about happiness and losing it and three-day raves with my best friends.” She dialed down the ferocity on her follow-up EP, Fresia Magdalena, so it’s fitting that the highlight “By Your Side” initially pulses with soothing energy — dulcet notes on what sounds like a keyboard, a snippet of an announcer referring to the coziest of standards, “I Only Have Eyes for You.” This surplus of cool makes it all the more exciting when a battery of horns blurt through the calm, 122-beats-per-minute groove with all the grace of a hardcore band tuning up in a quiet cafe. —E.L.

Meek Mill’s signature all-caps tenor perfectly complements the trapped-out ice-cream-truck jingle of “Sharing Locations.” His hurried bluster contrasts with the melody, making him sound like he’s giving you an agitated yet motivational pep talk. He shouts, “My diamonds be hittin’ like we in a Versuz/We stickin’ together, this shit in a cursive.” His wordplay is as nimble as ever. Lil Durk’s chorus makes this humid banger, which was released during the dog days of August, and shimmers with a restless long-hot-summer urgency, an anthem for all seasons. —W.D.

“Patria y Vida,” the stewing rallying cry that Cubans shouted during demonstrations on the island over the summer, wasn’t easy to make. The Havana-based rappers Maykel Osorbo and El Funky recorded their verses in secret and sent them to collaborators Yotuel Romero, Gente de Zona, and Descemer Bueno to mix in the U.S. — taking a risk that, to many, highlighted the danger of making dissident art in Cuba, especially after Osorbo was thrown in jail, where he’s been held since May. He remained there when “Patria y Vida” won Song of the Year at the Latin Grammys, grave recognition that’s only reinforced the emotional weight and power of the protest anthem. —J.L.

Jack Antonoff has amassed an enormous track record as our era’s go-to superproducer, collaborating with Taylor Swift, Pink, Troye Sivan, St. Vincent, and Carly Rae Jepsen, among many others. It’s amazing he has anything left in the tank for his own project, Bleachers. But boy does he. “Stop Making This Hurt” is an Eighties pop gusher of the first order, with echoes of Howard Jones, New Order, Bruce Springsteen, and Simple Minds, among others, all mustered in service of Antonoff’s adorably over-the-top underdog romanticism. It works so well because he’s not just a guy who makes hits songs that own Top 40, he’s a fan of them too. —J.D.

A throwback to the video-countdown era of the early aughts (when bands like Blink-182 dominated), “Transparent Soul” gave us a blast of delectable angst with a big blunt hook. The song’s structure is as straightforward as its “performance visual”—a black-clad Willow Smith raging into a gritty fisheye lens. Over Travis Barker’s breakneck drumming, Smith sings, “I can see right through, just so you know.” And it was tough to resist their scrappy skate-punk anthem. —W.D.

The Nashville singer-songwriter delves deep into heartache and salvages what’s left on this gem from the severely underrated History of a Feeling. “I used to go shopping for pain,” she admits over a cozy guitar immersed in a string arrangement. (And when she sings “Can’t be a new person in an old place,” it’s like an eloquent seconding of Billie Eilish’s line “You make me hate this city!” from “Happier Than Ever.”) The runners-up: “Resentment,” which was recorded by Kesha, and “Crying in Public,” recently remixed by Muna. As Diaz told us in her Artist You Need to Know profile last August, “My job is to have feelings.” —A.M.

Eric Church reclaimed his country mojo on the sprawling three-disc Heart & Soul, but he was at his most thrilling when he took a hard left into rock opera on this Heart track. “Russian Roulette” is a grandiose, glorious composition with a deep debt to the late Jim Steinman. In the verses, Church is speeding through the night in his Chevy, constantly tuning his radio in the hope that he won’t hear the one thing that will grind his escape to a halt: a song that reminds him of his ex. When Church reaches into his falsetto to sing “I need a melody without a memory/Take me where I’ve never been,” he delivers all the power and drama of a lost Bat Out of Hell track. —J.H.

Protoje is a crucial new voice leading a recent resurgence in Jamaica of classic, conscious reggae. On “Still Royal,” he delivers a sleek anthem of upliftment for the sexy brunch set. Coincidentally, the Jamaican crooner’s mother scored a hit in the early 1970s with the single “Breakfast in Bed.” So lineage and a gracious carpe diem mentality are his forte. “If I ever make it in life/You gonna be living like royalty,” he insists over mellow synths. These are optimistic day-party vibes, if the celebration from the night before never stopped. —W.D.

Twenty-two-year-old Norwegian singer-songwriter Marie Ulven tapped into the distressed soul of Medication Nation on this indie hit from her sharp debut, If I Could Make It Go Quiet, exploring her “intrusive thoughts” with as much humor as desperation: “When it feels like my therapist hates me/Please don’t let me go crazy/Put me in a field with daisies/Might not work but I’ll take a maybe.” The song sounds a little like Billie Eilish if she’d grown up listening to Built to Spill, and Ulven’s tough yet playful lyrics and delivery show that, in the battle against depression and angst, sometimes some sweet guitar static and a sticky melody are as good a defense as anything your therapist can give you. —J.D. 

Kacey Musgraves chronicled the disintegration of a relationship on her album Star-Crossed, saving some of her most pointed words for the standout “Breadwinner.” A thumping, disco-flavored tune that has shades of Blood Orange’s retro pop, “Breadwinner” ditches Musgraves’ characteristic humor and draws blood with its portrayal of a successful woman and the man she once loved. “He wants your shimmer/To make him feel bigger/Until he starts feeling insecure,” she sings. She chides herself for having missed the warning signs, but ultimately washes her hands of it and moves on with head held high — just like any decent disco diva should. —J.F.

When Julieta Venegas’ voice peers out from a lonely piano melody on “Lo Siento BB :/,” it feels like a ghostly remnant of the 2000s Latin alt-pop scene floating into the present day. The song’s mastermind, Tainy, warps her lithe vocals with haunting production effects just before they skitter and blink out, overtaken by a chugging reggaeton beat and Bad Bunny’s delightfully irreverent, love-scorned verses (“Cupido e’ un huelebicho, ese cabrón siempre me miente”). In less skilled hands, the song would have been a disjointed jumble relying on nostalgia; Tainy makes it an artfully unexpected collaboration that’s bold and forward-looking without losing its tender, achy-breaky center. —J.L.

“Solar Power” is a pristine summer tune — warm instrumentals and cheeky, charming lyrics with just a dash of clever, self-conscious commentary from one of pop’s most pored-over figures (“Come one, come all, I’ll tell you my secrets/I’m kinda like a prettier Jesus”). If there’s any knock against “Solar Power,” it’s that, for a song so indebted to Primal Scream’s “Loaded” and George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90,” the blissed-out groove that closes it is just too dang short. But really, that’s nit-picking. “Solar Power” is a tune worth basking in all seasons. —J.B.

This banger arrives on Valentine right after the title track, marking it the second song in a row on the LP in which Lindsey Jordan uses the word “honey” with an expert execution that oozes coolness and heartbreak all at once. The award for the best lyric is shared between two: “Got money, I don’t care about sex” and “Since rehab I’ve been feeling so small/I miss your attention, I wish I could call.” And after you watch the video — where the indie-rock singer-songwriter casually sings on a couch with a snake around her neck and a bowl of cereal in her hand — you’ll never think of the Founding Father the same way again. —A.M.

Country music loves to crow about how honest and true-to-life its songs are. Spoiler alert: A lot of that is bullshit. “Younger Me,” however, couldn’t be more real. Released a few months after Brothers Osborne singer TJ Osborne came out as a gay man, it’s his openhearted dissertation on giving yourself grace and room to grow. “Younger me/Made it harder than it had to be/Trying hard to dodge my destiny,” he sings in a vulnerable baritone. Written by TJ with his brother John Osborne (whose guitar solo is as liberating as TJ’s vocals) and songwriter Kendell Marvel, “Younger Me” was released as a one-off track right in the middle of the promotional push for “official” radio single “I’m Not for Everyone.” That’s how important this song is. —J.H.

“Get your fuckin’ hands up,” Bo Burnham sings repeatedly on “All Eyes on Me,” the emotional climax of Inside, his harrowing and hilarious one-man Netflix meditation on pandemic-era isolation turned surprisingly effective pop album. But the ominous synth line creeping underneath clues you in to the fact that this is no care-free party starter. Midsong, Burnham breaks into a startlingly frank monologue on the panic attacks that stalled his career, and from there everything from the canned laughter in the background to Burnham’s goofy slo-mo vocal effect starts to scan more as psychological horror than musical comedy. “You say the whole world’s ending, honey, it already did,” Burnham sings, shortly before he snaps and starts berating his invisible audience. “You’re not gonna slow it/Heaven knows you tried/Got it? Good, now get inside.” —H.S.

“Thot Shit” is another winner from Megan that blends sexual pleasure with personal politics. Beneath the surface, it’s a chance for the Houston rapper to fight back against criticisms she’s faced since her Tina Snow breakthrough in 2019. “Hoes taking shots but they ain’t in my caliber,” she raps in double-time over a beat from LilJuMadeDaBeat. By aiming at media commentators who railed against her and Cardi B’s lascivious “WAP” performances and dismissing rap fans who underrate her skills, Megan makes the point that she’s going to continue to do “thot shit,” “pussy-ass” haters be damned. —M.R.

BTS celebrate the power of silky beats, sunburst harmonies, party raps, and jump-up choruses with such unguarded joy it makes everyone else on the pop charts seem drab by comparison. “Butter” rides a Chic-loving disco groove similar to their megahit “Dynamite,” yet where that song was about their triumph as a group, this one gives everyone a chance to shine — and the addition of a killer Megan Thee Stallion remix only added to the good time. —J.D.

Michelle Zauner specializes in translating the languages of grief, from her book Crying in H-Mart to her third (and finest) Japanese Breakfast album, Jubilee. For “Be Sweet,” she teams up with Wild Nothing’s Jack Tatum to write a surprisingly glitzy Eighties synth-pop trip in the mode of the Cure or Duran Duran. She articulates her rage to a lover who’s let her down, taunting, “Come and get your woman/Pacify her rage.” But even at her stormiest, her voice sounds utterly confident that forgiveness will be sweet. —R.S.