Shit year, great music.

SONG OF THE YEAR

1 Taylor Swift All Too Well (the 10-minute version, as performed on SNL). You go girl!

2 Japanese Breakfast Paprika

3 The Felice Brothers We Shall Live Again

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ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

THE TOP FIVE

1  Arlo Parks Collapsed in Sunbeams

2  Floating Points/Pharoah Sanders/London Symphony Orchestra Promises

3  Japanese Breakfast Jubilee

4  The Felice Brothers From Dreams to Dust

5  Vijay Iyer/Linda May Han Oh/Tyshawn Sorey Uneasy

THE NEXT FIVE (in no particular order)

Steve Earle J.T.

Valerie June The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers

Jaimie Branch Fly or Die live

Mdou Moctar Afrique Victime

Jack Ingram/Miranda Lambert/Jon Randall The Marfa Tapes

OLDER RECORDINGS FIRST RELEASED IN 2021

Mike Cooley/Patterson Hood/Jason Isbell Live at the Shoals Theater

Drive-By Truckers Plan 9 Records July 13, 2006

John Coltrane A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle (1965, featuring a much younger Pharoah Sanders)

Masabumi Kikuchi Hanamichi: The Final Studio Recordings (recorded in 2013)

HONORABLE MENTION

Dry Cleaning New Long Leg

Sons of Kemet Black to the Future

Alfa Mist Bring Backs

John Hiatt Leftover Feelings

Tony Higgins and Mike Peden (compilers) J JazzVolume 3: Deep Modern Jazz from Japan

Theon Cross Intra-1