Escape continues to be the name of the game, and pop music is always happy to deliver. In particular, as Bandcamp Friday continued to honor artists with well-deserved and actually useful recognition, it was easy to fall into the synthwave spiral again, where labels like New Retro Wave and Timeslave continued to feature the best in throwback nostalgia. There are a number of new artists here, too, like Sergey Lazarev, who continues to be the king of Eurovision-pop, and Nick Jonas, who continues to elude chart success despite my repeated streams of his most ridiculed work. I can’t say great taste is the engine of this particular list, but for a year that continues to be as unsettling as ever, you could do a lot worse. Here are my ten favorite of the year, in no particular order:
Red Soda: Metatron Chronicles // Roosevelt: Polydans
Doja Cat: Planet Her // WILLOW: lately, I feel EVERYTHING
New Arcades: In the Deepest of Dreams // Nick Jonas: Spaceman
Fury Weekend: Signals // Earmake: Comsic Hero 3
Sergey Lazarev: 8 // Khalid: Scenic Drive (The Tape)
Honorable Mentions
Zara Larsson: Poster Girl
Mariah the Scientist: RY RY WORLD
Summer Walker: Still Over It
Selena Gomez: Revelación
Droid Bishop: Into the Abstract
appears 
One thought on “Top ten pop/electronic albums of 2021”