NPR Music - Our No. 1 songs: 2021

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

We’ve got a funny feeling about the times, stay indoors (together alone), and dream about life on the other side.Note: This is a recurring series in celebration of All Songs Considered’s 25th anniversary. A shorter version of this episode ran earlier in the year.Enjoy the show? Share it with a friend and leave us a review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Questions, comments, suggestions or feedback of any kind always welcome: [e-mail] pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

A quick note before the show, this episode contains explicit language. All right, it's All Songs Considered. I'm Robin Hilton. Here is Stephen Thompson. Hey, Stephen. It's good to be here, Robin. So we're in the home stretch here all the way up to 2021. We're only going to 2024, doing the first 25 years of all songs considered, starting with 2000 and then going up to 2024 through 20204.

2025 TBD. But let's look at 2021. What do you think of with music in the year 2021? Should be a lot easier now. Well, do I pick my favorite song of 2021? I bet I know what that is. Or do I pick the song that most embodies 2021? Because, you know, 2021 still deep pandemic.

Yeah. Still, you know. Well, we're starting to get all the stuff that everyone made during 2020. Right. Yeah, you're starting to get pandemic culture. You're starting to get like culture that is not only, something that we enjoyed and processed during the pandemic, but works that are about the pandemic.

So what do you want? Do you want my favorite song or the song that most embodies 2021? Let's go with your favorite song because I bet I know what it's going to be. Oh, I'm not sure you do. Yeah, I got dream. Okay, it's not what I thought it was going to be. I'm not going to get this. This is Jasmine Sullivan.

from her album Hotels. The song is called The Other Side. And it's just a fantasy about making it big, but through another person. And it's a really hauntingly beautiful song. Her phrasing is just brilliant. It's one of the best R&B records of the 21st century. And a song that I just kept coming back to again and again.

Well, so were you, isn't that the year Hard Drive, like Cassandra Jenkins, came out in 2020, 2021? It absolutely is. And maybe that's my favorite song of 2021. Well, I thought maybe that's the song that you think maybe spoke to the Times more than the others. And then my other option for you would have been

Amy Sharks, Amy Sharks. That's a great song. That is a terrific song. We also didn't mention Silk Chafon by Moona. I could have gone in so, so many directions. So what's the song that you think spoke to the times the most? Well, that would be this. Stunning 8K Resolution

Meditation Is this Bo Burnham? Yes In honor of the revolution It's half off at the gap Deadpool's self-awareness Loving parents Harmless fun

The backlash to the backlash To the thing that's just begun I don't know the song though There it is again, that funny feeling. That funny feeling. There again, that funny feeling. Is it called That Funny Feeling? Yeah, that's That Funny Feeling by Bo Burnham from his Netflix comedy special inside,

which was a comedy special he recorded entirely inside his house. as he's sort of coming unglued by the isolation and the anxiety around the pandemic. And it's really, to me, the towering example of kind of the best of pandemic isolation entertainment, like works that were created of and for that moment in history. And that song in particular is really kind of summing up that sense of overwhelm. Well, I have one that speaks to all of those things and themes that you just mentioned. Is it Butter by BT? It's not Butter by BTS.

I love that song. This is a song that I remember when I heard it. I just bawled my eyes out because it was so beautiful. And I remember thinking, Song of the Year. I'll be very curious to see if you get this. When did it happen? I still can't recall it. Life wasn't enough until after I typed it.

Tell me a secret. I still won't believe it Till after you shot it Till you make it public Is this Elizabeth in the Catapult? Yeah, I mean, she just said her name. She said, well, she said her name is Elizabeth. And I'm like, she does, this does sound like Elizabeth in the Catapult.

I am just far texting without feeling The song without meaning A dog without. Together. Together. I don't know if I was still following everything they were putting out in 2020. Well, that's the thing. Like, at this point, she'd been putting out music for 20 years, you know. Some really great stuff.

Great stuff. And then she drops this album called Sincerely E. And it has this song called Together Alone. My brain is connected to my hand is connected to my phone. What am a photo of a wedding or a picture perfect tone? Evening you're sleeping. My brain is connected to my hand is connected to my phone. So much of it is just her and her piano.

But like the lyrics in this song are just all about, my brain is connected to my hand, is connected to my phone. One more photo of a wedding or a picture perfect tone. It's just so, it's heartbreaking. It is just so crushing, so beautiful. I just think she so perfectly captures just that whole era of being alone, doom scrolling on your phone, wanting some sort of connection with the outside world and unable to reach it.

She called this whole album, Sincerely E. She called it a love letter to everyone who's been stuck at home and who was stuck at home and struggling during that time. And, yeah, probably my favorite song of the year. Of a true heartbeat. Do you ever think that you're too young to be complaining about? Okay, we do need to take a quick break here, but when we come back, we'll talk about some of the other stuff that stands out to us from 2021. Yeah, we haven't even gotten into, like, Olivia Rodriguez broke through in 2021, you know, with a pop record that, you know, was full of these big paramour vibes that, you know, was fun and kind of poignant at the same time.

Driver's license was the first, but then there were a bunch of kind of spikier, punkier pop songs. Big Thief put out one of my favorite songs of that year with little things. We could keep rattling off songs from 2021. Maddie Diaz put out a phenomenal record in 2021 called History of a Feeling. And I've faced accounts that you're not in a time when you want every second. Doesn't account for something? Really, I could keep going far longer than anyone would want to listen. That ship has already sailed.

But I would go with Girl in Red. Serotonin came out that year. I'm running low on serotonin. Chemical imbalance got me twisting things. Stabilized with medicine. There's no depth to these feelings. Can't hide from the corners of my mind I'm terrified of what's inside.

Intrus of thoughts like cutting my hands off, like jumping in front of a bus, like when it feels like my therapist hates me, Please don't let me go crazy, Put me in a feel with daisies me Doty's hate myself. Could it be different? Did I ruin the day?

Or do you like I agree? Oh, what did I say? Filling in the gaps, I'm still the problem that neither of us needs something wrong with me. I'm getting desperate, losing my mind. Oh, how do we get here every time? One more fold the arms, one more do the dance really is no need something wrong with me. I can't help.

Well, I'm not magical, I can't meet your mind, but how can you know hear the whole conversation and I'm still with a brain on fire? I know it's amazing. Eyes closed isn't helping, but you go quite a hate myself. You're a big dody guy. I'm a very big dody fan.

Love that one. I mentioned Amy Sharks' song Amy Sharks' Which you turned me on to. Beautiful. I grew up in a small house near a cemetery. You could hear them howlers. They lower the ones they love in the ground. On baby tea, bother me.

I made friends with the kids down the street. I better go. It's getting laid. I've been outside all day. On the walk home workout What I'll say Who's it every now and then I can be halfway through a show

It all comes creeping in And I've sacrificed all my friends Birthday's weddings Everything And it's heartbreaking But this is my dream And I did it all Without a phone call

Or a Christmas card You have no heart This is my way of saying Don't start So heartbreaking So beautiful Uncle Chris's car by Joel Ortiz. He dropped that that year was another incredible song.

24 hours later, we in my Uncle Chris car. Made a leffin to the projects in the life of being pissed poor. Onsy sliding up and down the hallway on the sixth floor. Note in my hand, borrowing cooking oil for Miss Moore, kicking on the witch door, jumping down a flight of stairs, clearing the syringers. Luckily, I was dope enough to miss them shes by inches. Mom's in front of the building, getting splinters on the benches.

while the hustlers made a killing doing dealings near the entrance Survival in the trenches Detectives in them trenches Showing pictures of the people I would grow up to be friends with By the time I turn one six I respected a gun kick Emptied out this one clip in Bushwick on some dumb shit Saw that crack money immediately started selling Bore some grams on Kosciosco in 9-7

What a great year What a great year 2021 was Oh man But we'll go out on this And until next time, thanks as always, Stephen. Thank you, Robin. And for NPR music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's all songs considered.