When the pandemic hit, I was already drafting a detailed list of dozens of artists that I would get to in the next couple of months. Somehow I stuck to it, finishing Neil Young's 60 album catalog without breaking a sweat or losing faith. All that discipline went out the window in 2021. I began listening to Charley Patton the day I first read his wikipedia page in early January, which took me on a years-long exploration of the blues which hasn't been completed yet; while delivering pizzas in the summer, I became sick of setting up music on my phone so I began listening to Buddy Holly and several other 50s artists my dad had on CD; despite defining a few more artists I wanted to finish before starting punk rock, I caved in all about twenty minutes on a September night and began the Stooges; and while working on a puzzle of a Van Gogh painting in early December, I had a sudden and unexplainable urge to listen to Hank Williams (someone whom I had almost no prior acquaintance with), whose 40 Greatest Hits quickly became one of my favorite albums of all time.
All of this is to say that 2021 turned out completely differently to what I expected. I wasn't even sure how to approach my annual list of most anticipated albums for the new year--am I really going to get to Lou Reed or Todd Rundgren this year or am I just going to keep pushing them back? Maybe I'm just focusing on the wrong era though. Sure, I hardly have a plan for what 60s/70s artists I'm going to get to in 2022 but I do plan on listening to early country/folk musicians like Woody Guthrie, Jimmie Rodgers, and the Carter Family; electric blues musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and John Lee Hooker; 50s artists like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Elvis Presley; and I wouldn't be that surprised if I started a jazz musician at some point too. Hell, now that I say all this, we could see the compilation list grow to over thirty in 2022 and one that bests the studio album list. That is not to say I don't have a few great 70s albums on my agenda--I fully expect to enjoy the hell out of punk rock, which I will officially start with the Ramones in less than a week.
But back to 2021: following last year’s template, I had originally envisioned a single list to sum up the year. But after grading compilations for most of the year, I've come to realize just how differently I think about them compared to studio albums. A good compilation must pass the same important criteria--song order, album length, quality of each cut, listenability--that a studio album does but each of the criterium functions in a slightly different way. Additionally, because many compilations will be longer than an hour long, they may not be re-listened to with the same frequency of a concise forty minute studio album even when all the music compiled is top-shelf. One example is the 71 minute The Best of Charlie Patton. Despite it being the second highest placed compilation, even I rarely listen to it all the way through. For studio albums, in contrast, I mostly grade by asking the simple question: how likely am I likely to pick this up again and listen to it entirety uninterrupted? All of this makes comparisons between the two quite murky and ill-defined.
Because two lists also allowed for greater artist representation in both categories, I immediately jumped on the idea. But it didn't solve all my problems. There were some blues albums that fell into the studio album category and I wasn't sure if I wanted blues albums on both lists. I ended up deciding on a case by case basis which list to include them on. For Parchman Farm, for instance, I decided to include it on the compilation list because it includes two earlier recordings and functions as Bukka White's de facto greatest hits.
A quick scan of my lists suggest a weaker year than last--replacing Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and Joni Mitchell is Randy Newman, Leonard Cohen, the Byrds, and Bonnie Raitt. And to some extent it, this is true. Spending nearly three years on 60s and 70s artists, you're going to start scraping the bottom of the barrel, which I will admit I've started to do--no wonder I turned to the blues so early in the year. That said, I've gotten better at quitting discographies as soon as I get a chance and I'm moving faster through artists and getting to new ones. Additionally, the compilations of early American music has helped this year's list up to par with last year's. Despite the fact I only listened to 223 albums in 2021 compared the 385 of last year, I had only one fewer A+, two fewer A's, and three fewer A-'s. Even I'll admit I didn't see that coming.
After ranking all the albums from last year, I felt pretty secure in my ranking (although the way I'd list them today differs completely). I don't this year. Getting my top ten took a great deal of mulling over--everything from 7th to 15th were in the top ten at some point. On the 28th, for instance, I fully expected my re-listen of Big Bill Broonzy Sings Folk Songs to go so superbly that it would as high as fifth place. Instead, it dropped from its draft position at 9th down to 15th. I also didn't expected Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, New York Dolls, Ten New Songs, and especially not Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) to make the top ten. Maybe in as little as a week, I'll hit myself for being so brash as to put Bowie's Scary Monsters into the top ten after two really great lists in the last week of the year instead of sticking with my guns and at least placing it below Station to Station, which I believed to be Bowie's best album for most of this year.
The top six were pretty secure in the placements since the beginning of December, particularly the year's winner by a mile: The Flying Burrito Brothers' The Gilded Palace of Sin. Ever since about two weeks after I first listened to it, it's been very easily my favorite record of the year without any competition. One reason I declined to add the points to the top ten albums of the Half-Year Ranking was simply because I didn't want to give away how likely it would finish first when the end of the year did come around. It's an easy top five album of all time. 12 Songs and Paul Simon have very secure spots in my top twenty.
And that should do it. Once again, I expect this new year to top all the others and I'm hopeful that just what I wrote as my anticipated albums will be enough to get me there. Happy New Year!
