2021 Recap: Favorite Albums, Shows, etc

With all the hectic happenings at the end of the year, things can be missed. This is a catch up post to point out a few of our favorite things from 2021 that shouldn't go unnoticed.

What a year, of course the world is slowly trying to revive, and while RtBE didn't have as many posts as 2020, we still were very active in trying to review albums and (especially towards the end of the year), catch live shows. 

Also thanks to Shane and the whole Glide team for allowing me to continue to write for them, working  on a wide variety of reviews.

Now...in case you missed it here are our Best of 2021 series of posts:

Our picks for favorite album art of 2021, where we check out some creative album art from the last year.

Our picks for our favorite archival releases of 2021. 

Our picks for favorite live show of 2021, it was a mix of live streams and live outings. 

Finally our favorite albums of the year. The honorable mentions and top ten list are all lined up. 

If you are looking for more suggestions, we also have our list of the top fifty albums of the past decade which you can check out and yell at us about. 

Feel free to let us know your choices for all of the above in the comments and thanks as always for reading and exploring...as the patron saint of this site stated:

What are those of the known, but to ascend and enter the Unknown? 

Year In Review 2021 - Favorite Albums 2021

Here are our all of our favorite albums of 2021. This is the year end review, all in one place.

You can find our favorite album cover art, RtBE's favorite archive releases and picks for best live shows. 

Below are our picks for RtBE's favorite albums of the year. It starts with our honorable mentions then moves into our top ten albums of the year. There is a short blurb about the album and a song from it, click on the title to read our full review of the selected records. The focus here is on full albums, not singles, but long playing releases you can slap on and listen to all the way through.

Thanks for reading. Until next year....

Year In Review 2021 - Favorite Albums Part 3 (#5-1)

Another year is finishing up and @RockBodElec wouldn't be a proper music site if we didn't end the year with a "Best Of" list, so RtBE presents 2021's Favorite Albums Part 3 (Numbers 5-1):

In the instance that RtBE has reviewed the album, either on this site or elsewhere, we will link to that review and just give a quick summation; click on the name/title and you can read our full opinion. RtBE worked with the Glide Team to give input on their Top 20 so you can expect some overlap if you already have seen that list.

Again the focus here is on full albums, not singles, but long playing releases you can slap on and listen all the way through. We know these are a dying breed, but it still is the way we consume music, no shuffle, Spotify or singles for us.

This ends our top ten and we have a wrap up of the full list below. You can see the first part of this list and the Just Misses if you haven't yet. 

Like all of our lists or 'best of' roundups, these are meant to start conversations, not end them...

Year In Review 2021 - Favorite Albums Part 2 (#10-6)

Another year is finishing up and @RockBodElec wouldn't be a proper music site if we didn't end the year with a "Best Of" list, so RtBE presents 2021's Favorite Albums Part 2 (Numbers 10-6):

In the instance that RtBE has reviewed the album, either on this site or elsewhere, we will link to that review and just give a quick summation; click on the name/title and you can read our full opinion. RtBE worked with the Glide Team to give input on their Top 20 so you can expect some overlap if you already have seen that list.

Again the focus here is on full albums, not singles, but long playing releases you can slap on and listen all the way through. We know these are a dying breed, but it still is the way we consume music, no shuffle, Spotify or singles for us.

This begins our top ten and we will wrap it up tomorrow. You can find our list of 'just misses' and let downs here. 

Like all of our lists or 'best of' roundups, these are meant to start conversations not end them...

Year In Review 2021 - Favorite Live Show

The live show is a slippery thing. There are lots of variables at play, most having little to do with the performance itself. Does the venue have enough bathrooms? Is it going to rain? What day of the week is it on? Did I have a shitty day at work before hand? Did tickets cost waaay too much? All of this effects one's opinion of a live show before the band even tunes up and with reason, but when the stars align, there is no place RtBE would rather be than in the moment of magic occurring spontaneously from the stage.

Live Music Has No Equal!

Taken By The Fantastic Megan Donohue

While obviously we can't see every show that is out there, we try to get out often to catch live music. Sure there are a few left in the calendar year, but for now, here is a listing of the best concerts we were fortunate enough to have caught in 2021 (THANK GOD LIVE MUSIC IS BACK!).

There are links to show reviews in the titles, also because who doesn't love arbitrary rankings, one show at the bottom took the top prize as RtBE's 2021 Favorite Live Show. We also make mention of a few live streams we enjoyed as the beginning of 2021 was still locked down for live music, but we made up for it at the end of the year seeing quite a few great ones safely in person.

Year In Review 2021 - Favorite Albums Part 1 (Honorable Mentions and Let Downs)

Another year is finishing up and @RockBodElec wouldn't be a proper music site if we didn't end the year with a "Best Of" list, so RtBE presents 2021's Favorite Albums Part 1 (Honorable Mentions and Let Downs):

In the instance that RtBE has reviewed the album, either on this site or elsewhere, we will link to that review and just give a quick summation; click on the name/title and you can read our full opinion. RtBE worked with the Glide Team to give input on their Top 20 so you can expect some overlap if you already have seen that list.

Again the focus here is on full albums, not singles, but long playing releases you can slap on and listen all the way through. We know these are a dying breed, but it still is the way we consume music, no shuffle, Spotify or singles for us.

These are the albums that just missed out on being included in our top ten favorite for the year. After that we have s few albums from artists we dig that we were let down by. 

Like all of our lists or 'best of'' these are meant to start conversations more than end them...

Year In Review 2021 - Favorite Archival Releases

Each year the music industry dips into the past to deliver box sets, live albums, re-masters and outtake collections to sell to the music loving masses (present company included). This look back will round up some of RtBE's favorite archival releases from the past year. 

Usually these releases can fall into the money grab category, not really adding much outside of revenue for the label and (hopefully) the artist. Every now and then though some spectacular collections are unearthed and are worth any price. 

RtBE includes live albums in this year end review as well, since they were recorded in the recent or distant past and fall into archival release status. 

With the increase in vinyl interest and enhanced Record Store Days to help smaller sellers, there seem to be more and more archival/live releases each year, we are sure to miss a lot of them, but the quality and abundance is exciting. 

These were our favorite archival and live album releases of 2021, click the link in the title for full length reviews. 

Year In Review 2021 - Best Album Art

We kick off our Year in Review section of 2021 with the first feature in the Best of... area, Album Art. Like in years past we will be choosing our favorite albums of the year, a few that were underwhelming and our favorite live shows, all posted in the next few days. 

Today we are starting out by judging books (records) by their covers (vinyl sleeves, jackets, digital pics, etc) with the Best Album Art Work of 2021.

The biggest gripe RtBE has with digital music is not the quality (that has been massively improved) nor the disposal nature of it (still a problem, but whatever), it is the lack of amazing album covers and art work.

Sure there may be great album art out there but seeing it on a screen, in iTunes or elsewhere is nothing compared to holding an LP cover or even a CD booklet with pages of lyrics, pictures etc. Thankfully the rise of vinyl is helping this dilemma but it is still not enough. The hours we spent staring, actually holding, examining tons of covers while listening to music can't be adequately recorded, it added new dimensions to the sounds. You were connected to album in a more physical way; things were deeper, more evocative...Anyways...