Thanks for sticking with us this far, as we’ve now reached part five of our ambitious ranking of the year’s best albums! If you’ve missed a section or two, you can check out parts one, two, three and four to see what albums we’ve been most impressed with this year.

Part five of our ranking includes a much-anticipated re-release by Taylor Swift, the second of two Lana Del Rey albums, a posthumous release by DMX and more terrific hip-hop. Keep reading to hear our takes.

60. DMX

Exodus – Def Jam – Tim Hoffman

Exodus is a bold and bittersweet closing chapter for, DMX, one of the greatest rappers of all time. Though he died before it was finished, a star-studded lineup of hip-hop legends came together, contributing high quality verses and production, which was headed by Swizz Beatz. “Bath Salts” feels like a track straight out of the early 2000s, with air horns percolating over a fuzzy synth bass. “Dog’s Out” has X rapping with Lil Wayne over shiny synths. Both Wayne and DMX deliver some of the most aggressive verses on the album, with dog metaphors galore and plenty of barking ad-libs to match.

The album veers heavily into the spiritual. “Hold Me Down” is a soulful track with a simple arrangement headed by piano and synths. Alicia Keys provides gorgeous vocals. X raps about how his troubled life has always felt like a push and pull between temptation and salvation, as he quite literally bares his soul throughout. “Letter To My Son (Call Your Father)” seems to be directed to DMX’s oldest child. The song sees the rapper reaching out to connect and mend a broken relationship, it’s both poignant and tragic.

59. Los Lobos

Native Sons – New West Records – Ben Schultz

Los Lobos’ L.A. isn’t about catching waves but about walking along street medians and selling oranges. Or lying in bed at night and hearing an LAPD chopper flying overhead. Or being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-5. Or cracking open a beer and chilling out on your porch after a long work week. The L.A. that David Hidalgo and his bandmates celebrate is the one occupied by the multiethnic lower-middle-class. And that L.A. comes through as warmly and vividly as ever on the band’s latest album, Native Sons.

Composed of 12 covers and one original song, the LP pays tribute both to Los Lobos’ musical influences and to the city they call home. It’s more than enough that this baker’s dozen lets Hidalgo and company flex their well-honed chops and have some fun with their gritty, yet romantic vision.

58. Jungle

Loving in Stereo – AWAL – Skott Bennett

Dry your eyes. Keep movin.’ All of the time—those commands aren’t just the album’s mission statement. They’re the actual titles of the first three songs, in order. Jungle’s co-masterminds Josh Lloyd and Tom McFarland extend that theme across the entire album, but especially on “Keep Movin’.” The disco string stabs punctuating the monster funk groove might be formulaic for Jungle, but the refrain—“Ah, you’re breaking my heart/ Thanks for making me stronger/ I can live with all”—takes on an urgency that elevates the track from a party anthem to declaration. The album is a steely, cool and resolute exploration of dance culture across the decades.

57. The Mountain Goats

Dark In Here – Merge Records – Ben Schultz

With Dark in Here, The Mountain Goats deliver an album uniquely suited to these troubling times. It’s prescient that John Darnielle and his bandmates bashed out these 12 tracks over six days in early March 2020, before everything that followed. “Parisian Enclave” is a terse, jaunty vignette about rats scurrying and surviving in the City of Lights. Darnielle’s manic guitar strumming and rapid-fire vocals sound supple and assured. As for the lyrics, anyone whose health and savings have taken hits recently may identify with those rodents who “collect the brine from the rain gutters” and have “spoors and plague deep down in our lungs.”

On and on the album goes, warning of steps to take in a disaster, accepting your end and so on. The menacing title track, warns of a looming, unspecified battle. It’s hard not to picture the Capitol police fending off insurrectionists as Darnielle sings, “Pick a place to hide/ Check for signs of ambush/ Hunker down inside.”

56. Isaiah Rashad

The House is Burning – Top Dawg Entertainment – Tim Hoffman

Much like its 2016 predecessor, the album maintains a strong focus on Isaiah Rashad’s mental health at its core. He copes with substance abuse, isolation, trauma and dissatisfaction. The production carries a dreamlike quality. There are meditative tones and synths atop thick bass riffs and a heavy helping of jazz—serving as a medium in which listeners can really get a sense of the perpetual despondency wracking Isaiah Rashad.

“THIB” sees Rashad reflect on how his internal demons persistently torment him. The titular burning house is a metaphor for his state of mind. “HB2U” feels almost like a grounding exercise, as he takes the time to be mindful of his world and the people and things in it. It ties it all together, as a step back to remind, not only himself but listeners, to take things one day at a time.

55. Taylor Swift

Red (Taylor’s Version) – Republic Records – Domenic Strazzabosco

Within a few years after the release of Taylor Swift’s original version of RED in 2012, she told fans that the emotional centerpiece of the album, “All Too Well,” was originally 10 minutes long, nearly twice the length of the version on the album. We’ve been held in a state of suspense since. Fast forward almost a decade and Taylor Swift is now re-recording and re-releasing her first six albums due to a much-publicized feud over her masters and who actually retains ownership over them.

But in typical Taylor Swift fashion, the new version of Red came jam-packed with 30 tracks pushing its length over two hours. There are eight previously unreleased tracks, including “Better Man” and “Babe,” that had been picked up over the years by country groups Little Big Town and Babe. Taylor Swift featured artists that broke through since the original release of RED, featuring Phoebe Bridgers on the introspective “Nothing New,” and Chris Stapleton on outlaw country jam “I Bet You Think About Me.” And situated right at track 30, the full 10-minute-and-15-second version of “All Too Well,” which, undeniably, lived up to all expectations.

54. BROCKHAMPTON

Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine – RCA Records – Tim Hoffman

BROCKHAMPTON announced that Roadrunner was the beginning of the end for the group. And it touches on everything from the sociopolitical to incredibly intimate. Also, it’s exemplary of BROCKHAMPTON’s versatile appeal of bucking norms while maintaining the core strengths of hip-hop as a genre. The album is both wild and woeful, yet it never feels like a jarring clash of tones.

On the politically charged “DON’T SHOOT UP THE PARTY,” Kevin Abstract primarily focuses his criticism at American culture’s Eurocentric and heteronormative tendencies that have led to a culture of alienation for people of color and the LGBTQ communities—compounded with the tendency of white America to then appropriate Black culture when it’s profitable. That’s just one example of what this group can do, though.

53. Injury Reserve

By the Time I Get to Phoenix – self-released – Tim Hoffman

The second album from Injury Reserve emphasizes the impact 2020 had on the hip-hop group. But it wasn’t just the pandemic or societal unrest. Injury Reserve’s Steppa J Groggs died unexpectedly in June 2020. The remaining members, MC Ritchie With a T and producer Parker Corey, struggled with the loss. At the same time, they already had the majority of an album done, with Groggs’ contributions.

It’s truly a fantastic album, even if the reference you think you hear might be about something else. While the album is not a direct tribute in the traditional sense, it’ also not not that. The album is birthed entirely by turmoil and tragedy, and owns it. Injury Reserve are licking their wounds but not slowing down.

52. Lana Del Rey

Blue Banisters – Polydor – Domenic Strazzabosco

Pulling from a sprawling catalog of music and poetry, Lana Del Rey dug herself deep into her songwriting archives, pulling out several tracks written years ago and fine-tuning the entire collection to focus on her concept of the color blue. It’s not necessarily that every song follows the same storyline, but more so that Lana Del Rey tells stories interpreting the color with various visceral meanings. And if we’re getting really interpretive, “banisters” represent the breadth and distance between the creation of the tracks, some written recently, others nearly a decade old.

Despite the nostalgia emitted through a large portion of the album, some of Blue Banisters’ highlights are songs actually written for it. “Black Bathing Suit” features a stellar opening verse with lyrics about “grenadine quarantine.” “Sweet Carolina” concludes the album with heavy-sounding piano and a lover scared of having the “baby blues.” “Just know this is your song and we love you,” Lana Del Rey reassures him soundly, as the piano trills elegantly. It was the much better of two albums Lana Del Rey released in 2021.

51. Genesis Owusu

Smile With No Teeth – Ourness/House Anxiety – Red Dziri

Few debut albums this year are as daring as Genesis Owusu’s. The Australian rapper’s first full-length project slips in and out of genres like it’s trying them on, seeing how much more it can do outside of their respective constraints before turning them on their head. Smiling With No Teeth synthesizes Owusu’s inspirations through adroit combinations of his own interpretations of a vast panel of classics by pioneers, spanning the likes of Stevie Wonder up to The Neptunes, Kanye West and Odd Future. The end product is also heavily indebted to Tyler, The Creator, whose most recent endeavors inhabit similar grooves. When all is said and done, Smiling With No Teeth is an album best heard with an expectation to see it play out live, considering cuts like “The Other Black Dog” that are udibly tailored for the joyful chaos of a (safe!) moshpit. Take our word for it and buy a ticket.

60. DMX. 59. Los Lobos. 58. Jungle. 57. The Mountain Goats. 56. Isaiah Rashad. 55. Taylor Swift. 54. BROCKHAMPTON. 53. Injury Reserve. 52. Lana Del Rey. 51. Genesis Owusu.

The 108 best albums of 2021: 50-41 >>