Kitty Empire’s best pop and rock of 2021

Other people! We stepped – some hesitantly, others pell-mell – back outside last spring. Even if summer and autumn 2021 often felt like a cautious return to normalish (terms and conditions very much applied), amps were dusted down, guitar techs tuned up and Portaloos could not be hired for love nor money as audiences and artists once again met IRL to exchange CO2.

For every summer festival that went ahead, though, it felt like two were cancelled. The live music industry cried out for government-backed insurance schemes; these came very late in the day. Glastonbury went online, but glitched; Kano, Idles and Thom Yorke’s new project the Smile nonetheless made memories. Indoor venues reopened; the practice of being politely frisked for your Covid status became just another part of going out.

The future kept arriving at pace: popular under lockdown, live streams remained an evolving fixture, many of them reinventing the live spectacle as they went. K-pop superstars BTS probably monopolised the most eyeballs, but in a crowded field, three more stood out: Bob Dylan’s stunning, smoke-filled Shadow Kingdom; Bicep’s retina-melting graphic introduction to Isles from London’s Saatchi Gallery; and St Vincent’s glitzy, sepia Down and Out Downtown. Non-fungible tokens became a trending search term: somewhere between a digital work of art and betting on crypto, NFTs generated cash for some forward-facing artists (Grimes and Kings of Leon among them); for smaller names, not so much.

There was some encouraging news for the medium-sized artist, however. Hopes that the streaming model – under which artists are currently paid a pittance – might be reformed, at least in the UK, was sparked by an extensive cross-party Department for Digital, Culture Media and Sport inquiry calling for a “complete reset” of the economics of streaming remuneration. Almost as important as the streaming platforms themselves, as a shopfront for music, was TikTok, where memes, dance crazes and fan-generated creative reuses made reputations daily (such as the UK’s PinkPantheress) and gave old tracks (Little Simz’s Venom, say, or Salt-N-Pepa and En Vogue’s Whatta Man) new leases of life.

Hand in hand with the new came blasts from the past. Get Back was a groundbreaking deep-dive documentary that threw back the veil on the Beatles’ final weeks in 1969, laying bare their creative process and inter-relationships. Summer of Soul, Questlove’s equally unmissable documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural festival, also made use of extraordinary vault footage and featured electrifying performances from everyone from Nina Simone to Sly and the Family Stone.

While pop continued to throw out fresh sensations – welcome Olivia Rodrigo, pop-punk adjacent chanteuse of teen heartbreak, who bossed charts either side of the Atlantic – the old-school album could still shift dials. Abba returned in fantastic voice after nearly 40 years. Force majeure Adele, meanwhile, came back with 30, a full-throated, grownup record about female unhappiness and its remedies. Her desire to not settle for a life of quiet desperation was echoed in the indie sphere by Rebecca Lucy Taylor’s equally powerful second album as Self Esteem. And behind the scenes, one camera-shy talent came into his own: Adele’s was one of a number of records this year in which shadowy but tireless London producer Dean Josiah Cover, AKA Inflo, had a hand (Sault’s Nine and Little Simz’s Sometimes I Might Be Introvert were the other two headline-grabbers, not forgetting Cleo Sol’s Mother).

A couple of very 21st-century US artists proved they weren’t mere flashes in the pan. Emotive and thought-provoking albums came from made-over Gen-Z siren Billie Eilish and genre-slaying, LGBTQ+ mischief-maker Lil Nas X. Dave’s second album, the pandemic-referencing, self-examining We’re All Alone in This Together, maintained the high bar of his first.

Whether going deaf in public with friends once again, or the communities self-generating on TikTok, togetherness proved a mighty weapon this year. A case in point: Britney Spears’s conservatorship ended, with empowered fan activism widely credited as the irresistible force that pushed over the immovable legal object.

The top 10 albums of 2021

1 . Ignorance
The Weather Station
Tamara Lindeman’s oblique, elliptical breakup album between humanity and the planet was as beautiful as it was desperate.

2. Prioritise Pleasure
Self Esteem
Recovering people-pleaser Rebecca Lucy Taylor channelled her considerable wit and frustration into this liberatory dance-pop opus.

3. Promises
Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders and the LSO
One electronic producer, one jazz great and an orchestra ebbed and flowed in stunning fashion.

4. Space 1.8
Nala Sinephro
Spiritual jazz for right now, the medicinal debut album by Belgian-born, London-based harpist Sinephro was the panacea a wounded world demanded.

5. Nine
Sault
Sault’s albums of 2020 tackled the brutality of US law enforcement; this year’s Nine doubled down on the collective’s London roots, their pain and their joy.

6. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
Little Simz
Incipient fame caused rapper Little Simz to tussle with her own demons, celebrate Black sisterhood and exude compassion and rage.

7. Isles
Bicep
Frequently tagged as 90s rave revivalists, the Northern Irish duo’s second album transcended their sources with a slew of emotive digital bangers.

8. For the First Time
Black Country, New Road
Guitar music for the 21st century: klezmer hooks, lashings of sax and riveting lyrics about sertraline. Unmissable.

9. Spare Ribs
Sleaford Mods
Great guests and peeks into Jason Williamson’s childhood elevated the Mods’ bilious sixth record alongside Andrew Fearne’s sublime beats.

10. Pohorylle
Margo Cilker
The contemporary country debut by this ninja-level Oregon troubadour had everything: dangerous rivers, broken hearts and a longing for “all of the wine in the world”.

Turkey

Donda
Kanye West
Overhyped and confused, West’s 10th album was no fitting tribute to the late Dr Donda West.