#trackoftheyear

Alright, I've had a bit of a break over the Christmas period, so it's time to count down my top tracks to go with my top albums of 2021. I'll post the first 10 today, but depending on how many imperial stouts I drink tonight, I might have to wait a couple of days to get through #20-1. Anyway, here's #30 through #21.

#30. JK-47 & Bronte Eve - Changes - triple j Like A Version (Australian hiphop)

Absolutely my favourite of triple j's Live A Version tracks this year, indigenous artist JK-47 takes a new turn on Tupac Shakur's seminal 90s hit Changes and makes it truly his own. JK-47 is a superb rapper, and he has good support here in the chorus, but its his lyrical reworkings that make this track so damn memorable. He moves the context from racism in LA in the mid 1990s to racism in Australia in 2021—it's telling to see the differences, but even more telling to see the things which are exactly the same.

#29. Gang of Youths - the man himself (indie rock)

Interestingly, this track and the previous one were my top two tracks in the very last week of the year, forming part of the projects to listen to all of the Like A Versions and the bookmakers' top predictions for what will be on the H100 that we'd not yet heard. I've liked Gang of Youths in the past, but this is honestly I think their best track to date, merging an almost orchestral indie rock chorus with a DnB-style percussion line. It's a great piece of music.

#28. Kishi Bashi - For Every Voice That Never Sang (baroque pop)

For Every Voice That Never Sang by Kishi Bashi

Kishi Bashi is a core part of our music project now, and he released a bunch of new material in 2021, including an EP and a seemingly endless (and unconnected) series of singles. This is the best of them, and follows up my #3 track of 2020 (Never Ending Dream) with this excellent number which is wonderfully poignant and a little more melancholy than the pure pop of last year. It shows him flexing his muscles in some ways, but on its own terms it's a remarkably beautiful song.

#27. Ego Ella May - for the both of us (chamber pop)

for the both of us by Ego Ella May

A truly gorgeous piece of music, with the vocal style of sultry jazz, and the instrumentation of a diaphanous ballad from Hollywood's Golden Age. We get soft string swells, augmented by flute and horns, all with May's expressive and sardonic lyrics. It's a really wonderful bit of music, and I recommend pausing to just take it in for a while.

#26. Andréanne A. Malette - Alaska (dreamfolk)

There's a style of music that seems to hit around the mid-20s of the year for me, which is an atmospheric chamber folk number with suggestive but perhaps unknowable lyrics, like this one from Québecois artist Andréanne A. Malette, sung in French. It's an evocative more than rousing track, although it has a lovely gentle build that moves from ephemeral to powerful.

#25. Clockwise On Fire - Dig (psychedelic electrorock)

Alright, if you've had your fill of gauzy ephemera, then this provides quite a different mood. It's a kicking rhythmically driven rock track, with wubbing bass and wailing guitars over the top. It takes a lot of inspiration from pure electronica, as it lays down a beat and lets that run, but it manages to get me racing from the moment it starts. Top notch.

#24. Crawford Mack - The Last Perfect Day on Earth (alternative folk)

A track of contrasts. In fact, this is a nice one to follow up Clockwise On Fire and Andréanne A. Mallette, because it's almost an amalgam of the two. It starts out like a dreamy folk tune, then smashes into a a big rock drive about half-way though. Somehow it keeps the parts in balance as well, while it lays down its message about climate change.

#23. Pilar Victoria - Flustered Snowflakes (bedroom pop)

This is a standout track in an otherwise fairly nondescript EP of bedroom pop. It starts out with a nice singer-songwriter tune, which then blossoms into a beautifully melodic chorus that melds dreampop with close breathy harmony. It's a bewitching tune in many ways, and one which I get stuck in my head on repeat a lot.

#22. Danny Elfman & Squarepusher - We Belong - Squarepusher Remix (IDM)

Hey, so Danny Elfman didn't just write the theme to The Simpsons, he had a career as a new-wave singer with Oingo Boingo in the early 80s, and released a surprising album of semi-industrial tracks this year, where this originally comes from. This version is given an IDM makeover by one of my favourites in the genre, who takes the underlying, rather introspective, track, and adds blurred basslines, acid synths and a complex breakbeat. Squarepusher also did an excellent remix of nu-jazz group GoGo Penguin, so it might be fair to say that it's the time for a Tom Jenkinson renaissance.

#21. Only Sun - Switch Off, Fall Off (funk rock)