The Best of 2021 So Far

I went ahead and made my Best of 2021 playlist a little early this year. It's a work in progress, as you can imagine, but here's what I got so far:

School of X (whom I will be writing about soon!)
Lana (duh)
Lil Nas X
Lorde
Normani and Cardi B.
We Were Promised Jetpacks
Will Stratton
Twin Shadow
Inhaler
Keaton Henson
Anna Akana
Surfer Blood
Bartees Strange

And many more! Here's the full playlist, which can also be found on Apple Music.

Because I didn't feel up to writing a lot tonight, I did a mini-podcast as an experiment to describe the playlist and my thoughts on Lil Nas X, Jack Antonoff, the slow decline of one of my once favorite bands, and more! I learned from this experiment I need to not lean on "that being said" and "um" so much, so I apologize in advance.

Britt Kemp · Useless Critic #1

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"Anchors" - AM Higgins

Here's a nice breezy, almost sensual song from AM Higgins (the solo project of musician Annie Toth) to start your Tuesday off right. Her debut album "Hymning" will be out November 5th on Victorialand Records. The album was mixed by Casey Foubert, a frequent collaborator of Sufjan Stevens. The album "captures the first years of moving from an American city to rural France." Sounds like "Hymning" will be a welcome escape from the world we live in right now, especially considering that Annie Toth counts poets Mary Oliver and Thomas Merton as influences.

"Happy New Year"- Let's Eat Grandma

There's no way to start the New Year like some extremely upbeat music about the New Year! That's where this new synthpop-heavy single from the British duo Let's Eat Grandma comes into play. It's a delightful song, and it helps increase any excitement about their third album, "Two Ribbons," which will be out this April. I personally am looking forward to hearing more from Let's Eat Grandma, who deserve way more attention than they currently get. Hopefully, 2022 will be a big year for them. Here's one of their older tracks I quite like:

3 New Lana Songs Come Out From Upcoming Album "Blue Banisters"

Not even that far off from "Chemtrails Over The Country Club" being released this past March, Lana Del Rey dropped three new singles off her upcoming project, "Blue Banisters." They include the title track, "Text Book," and "Wildflower Wildfire." All three songs seem to merge the worlds of "COCC" with "Norman Fucking Rockwell," specifically Lana's mouthful of a track "Hope is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me To Have But I Have It." They also seem uncharacteristically more confessional than most of Lana's catalog to date, specifically "Wildflower Wildfire," which alludes to a conflict with her mother. She even starts the track with "Here's the deal," readying to show more of her backstory than she ever has in her decade-plus-long career. The three songs are gorgeous - especially "Text Book," which has a haunting quality to it (she mentions "Black Lives Matter" i

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