Top ten albums of the year (and a few films), 2021
Albums
1. Bob Dylan – The Bootleg Series Vol. 16: Springtime in New York 1980-1985
2. Wolf Alice – Blue Weekend
3. Low – HEY WHAT
4. Nala Sinephro – Space 1.8
5. Emma-Jean Thackray – Yellow
6. Floating Points, London Symphony Orchestra, and Pharoah Sanders – Promises
7. Richard Dawson & Circle – Henki
8. The Weather Station – Ignorance
9. Grouper – Shade
10. St. Vincent – Daddy’s Home
Films
Uh, I’ve only been to the cinema once in two years – Dune, obvs – and haven’t seen much else, so there’s no top ten. Check out Sight & Sounds’ Top 50 for a comprehensive look at 2021. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
I enjoyed two low budget British horror films this year: Into the Earth was a partial return to form for Ben Wheatley after the terrible High-Rise and the risible Rebecca (never give a low budget filmmaker a ton of money) and Censor, a kind of parallel piece to the excellent Barbarian Film Studio, was a delirious delve into 1980s video nasties.
Netflix and Prime et al are chucking so much money into film and TV production that just by the law of averages there’s bound to be a few decent ones made (amongst all the absolute crap): Palm Springs, I Care A Lot and Todd Hayne’s Velvet Underground documentary were all pretty good.