The Year In Music - Reflections on 2021

A look at myself and how I got into the cycle of ranking 40 songs each year.

Since I was 16 years old, I have ranked the “best” songs of the year. The Mike of 1990, when that first list was created is a far, far different Mike of 2021. Or so I think. But maybe not. Lyrics still hold tremendous value to me, but so does a really catchy hook. Melody is important and musicianship, as much as can be defined, is everything.

I was told that I taught myself to read at 2 1/2 years of age by reading lyric sheets in my Mom and Dad’s record albums. I would line up the words I was hearing to the words on the page and voila!, a music fan is made. The sounds of Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Tanya Tucker, and Hank Williams were all around me, both in the house and out. My father was in a country music cover band for more than 30 years, and some of my first memories are watching him sing and play rhythm guitar on stage. Record albums and 45s were plentiful. My love of music was cultivated.

Cut to 1988 or early 1989. Me and two entrepreneurial-type best friends launched a mobile DJ business. We constantly would debate which songs were good, fine, amazing, and awful and terrible. We threw a list together of what songs were best and the seeds were planted. The next year, I ranked 40 songs again. And then again the following year. And suddenly, it became an annual thing.

And now, it’s year 32 of doing this. I’ve ranked 1,280 songs in my life. I don’t know what that means, but I will say that I am keenly aware that someday, when I am gone, these lists probably will define me somehow. Memories will be tied to songs. People will wonder what I was thinking. Songs will not age well. The rankings will not matter. But, this is year 32. And it’s ingrained into me that over several weeks in November and December, I listen to over 1,000 songs that made an impact on social media, music press, and the Billboard charts.

And word-of-mouth. And curiosity. And a still-unquenched desire to click play and listen to something new. No matter the artist. No matter the genre. No matter the moment.

After completing the listening of 1,464 singles this year from every major genre in music, the time to unveil the annual “40 List” is here. Beginning tomorrow (December 29, 2021), we will begin the annual countdown from 40 to 1, culminating in the song I think best defines the year in music. At least as I heard it.

Along the way, I’ll share music videos and facts and thoughts and quotes from the artists themselves as we walk through the songs of the year (as I heard it…). Some of the songs will be massive hit songs, others lesser known. Again, this list skews quite mainstream. What can I say, I love a hook. Hopefully all of them leave some kind of impression. While collectively, the music industry is struggling to figure out what sounds are the most dominant right now, these 40 songs all meant something to me (and hopefully they will to you as well!)

As evidenced by everyone’s sharing of those Wrapped summaries on Spotify, we possess our music in ways like never before. We pay subscription fees to unlock every track on a platform, essentially giving everyone access to all the music, all the time. What we do with it, and what we elevate to the zeitgeist is an increasingly fascinating thing.

TikTok Influences Everything

TikTok became perhaps the most influential way for a song to become a hit. TikTok challenges, memes, and duets elevated countless songs to the top of the charts, or at least in the collective conscience of music fans ages 12-34 (or really 12-24 I imagine). Songs from previous years became hits through massive exposure through TikTok. Italian rock band Måneskin took their cover of a Four Seasons song, “Beggin,” to the top of the alternative charts and the Top 15 of the Hot 100. It was originally released in 2017. THE ANXIETY, a band featuring WILLOW (child of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith) and producer/partner Tyler Cole, saw their 2020 track “Meet Me At Our Spot” become a Top 25 hit on the Hot 100, thanks to a TikTok-inspired dance that went viral. Other hits by Olivia Rodrigo, The Kid LAROI & Justin Bieber, Cardi B, and country breakout star Walker Hayes all benefited greatly from going viral on the platform.

Vinyl Is Back on Top

Vinyl albums continued a surge in popularity, with some artists releasing vinyl to coincide with streaming and CD releases, while others delayed their vinyl release to whet people’s appetites and renew life in their project. Artists like Taylor Swift, Bo Burnham, and Rodrigo saw massive sales increases and massive leaps up the Billboard 200 album chart when vinyl of their recent albums were made available. Vinyl’s popularity continues to cross all genres and demographics. As the CD is essentially on life support, the 12-inch vinyl record thrives and record stores are hanging on a little longer because of the renewed collectability of the product.

Superstars Become Icons and Icons Make Their Return

BTS became global household names with their massive summer anthem, “Butter.” Billie Eilish faced controversy for the first time in her career with a sudden image change (abandoned by the end of the year) and allegations of queer-baiting with her music video for “Lost Cause.” As 2021 wrapped up, she had still earned one of the biggest albums of 2021 (“Happier Than Ever”) and landed several Grammy nominations for a third consecutive year. Adele’s “30” may have polarized critics, but it ruled the album chart, with lead single, “Easy On Me” spending seven weeks at #1 and being the only non-holiday single to rank in the Top 5 on the Hot 100 throughout the month of December.

Taylor Swift dominated the conversation with “evermore,” a continuation of her alt-rock/cottage core reinvention and, in a decision fueled by a protracted legal and contract battle, she began to fulfill the promise of re-recording her previous works. Dubbed “Taylor’s Version,” these albums were significant successes and her inclusion of tracks she labeled “From the Vault” gave fans extra material that they had never heard before, including the long sought-after 10-minute version of “All Too Well,” which became the longest song to ever hit #1 on the Hot 100 at 10:13.

Women dominated music in nearly every major genre, but Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak took us back to the 1970s with the throwback vibe of Silk Sonic. 

Cancel Culture or Consequences Culture?

Cancel culture continued to be something we all debated on social media, though I would argue it’s not real and it doesn’t really exist. Case in point: Morgan Wallen. The country star saw country radio stations suspend his airplay for much of 2021, after a video surfaced of him using a racial slur while drunk with white friends. Claims of Wallen being “canceled” framed his narrative for months. For Wallen, a cancellation simply means that his album, “Dangerous: The Double Album” remained in the Top 10 for nearly the entire year and finished as the biggest selling/streamed/consumed album of 2021. The single “Sand in the Boots” peaked at #9 on the final country chart of the year. He also kicked off 2022 with a massive single debut on the Hot 100 as the featured artist on a new track by hip-hop artist Lil Durk. His “canceled” concert tour from 2021 is going back on the road in 2022 and is largely sold out.  

Other Musings…

Hip-hop was everywhere again, but seemed to be searching for the next big thing. 

Justin Bieber got his “Peaches” down in Georgia. Masked Wolf felt like an “Astronaut in the Ocean.” Bad Bunny scored a victory at WrestleMania. Latin music and global music consistently hit the pop charts more than ever before. Kanye, now known as “Ye,” returned with a massive project named after his late mother, which had next to nothing to do with honoring her memory. 

Artists shed the closet and left secrets behind. Bands like MUNA, girl in red, Arlo Parks, Lucy Dacus, Troye Sivan, and Lil Nas X sang songs authentic to who they are and unafraid of identifying who they love. Confessional songwriting and the baring of difficult truths became more normalized than ever before. This is a good thing.

The four biggest hits of 2021 (“Levitating” by Dua Lipa, “Save Your Tears” by The Weeknd & Ariana Grande, “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd, and “mood” by 24K Goldn Featuring iann dior) were hits in 2020 that carried over into a second year of success.

The “Let’s Go Brandon” meme, mocking President Biden, spawned not one, but TWO different Top 40 hits. 

Music documentaries were significant - with Eilish, The Velvet Underground and the Sparks Brothers all receiving massive acclaim for projects spotlighting their lives and careers. Questlove, drummer for hip-hop collective The Roots, directed the documentary “Summer of Soul (or…When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” an incredible compilation film featuring discovered footage from a series of soul music concerts in New York City in 1969, overshadowed and ignored because they happened in the shadow of another big NYC event from that summer - “Woodstock.”

Kacey Musgraves, Halsey, and Rodrigo made short films highlighting their new release projects. Bo Burnham’s honest and disquieting “INSIDE” captured, through a mix of comedic songs, monologues, and powerfully precise observations, the mindset many found themselves in, isolated during a global pandemic. The pop-punk movement from the early 2000s returned to the airwaves and music charts, as artists like Machine Gun Kelly, WILLOW, Dirty Heads, and KennyHoopla all used Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker to beef up their melodies. Rodrigo’s album, “SOUR,” drew comparisons to Alanis Morissette’s “Jagged Little Pill” and already spawned imitators and sound-alikes by year’s end, on the heels of a year full of Billie Eilish sound-alikes and imitators.

No matter where you turned or looked, music was trying to find itself in an increasingly chaotic and uncertain time. Beginning tomorrow, we look back at my take on the 40 most consequential songs of the year. Thanks for coming along on the journey. Let’s see where we end up.