Let’s go over this again: The reason this column is called RIFF Rewind is because back in 2018 I listed my top five (or so) songs of every year from 1967 to 2018. I don’t know how I actually finished the project, but I did it. Then our illustrious editor Roman Gokhman kept expecting columns so I started just picking themes at random… except the last column of the year, when I update that original project.

Technically, this is the first column of 2022 since it’s New Year’s Day. But the last column of 2021 was on Christmas and that would just be awkward.

In 2019 and 2020 I pulled new stuff from all over the place. In 2019, for example, I included Gary Clark Jr., Lizzo and Babymetal. In 2020, I included Daði Freyr, Poppy and Taylor Swift. Not a lot of common threads. But this year… well, I’ve been so very tired.

Some people retreated into nostalgia in 2020, but I went the opposite direction and, according to Spotify’s end-of-year report, listened to more new artists than I ever had before. But in 2021, yeah, I retreated entirely into nostalgia. It’s old bands and musicians I like, or young bands covering old songs I like, or in one case, an old band covering their own old song. I liked things familiar and comfortable, because while 2020 had a possible light at the end of the tunnel with a vaccine on the horizon, 2021 just had more stupidity ahead of us. And we’re not even nearly at risk of running out of stupidity.

Look, if you wanted cheerfulness, you shouldn’t be reading a recap of 2021. You were there. It wasn’t cheerful.

Anyway, here are my favorite songs released in 2021. Or versions released in 2021. You know what I mean.

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The Offspring — “Gone Away”

I unashamedly love The Offspring, and I especially love their (relatively) recent habit of covering their own songs. On 2012’s Days Go By, they did a version of “Dirty Magic” that I enjoy far more than the original. In 2021 they remade “Gone Away” as a mournful piano ballad.

It’s not the first time it has been re-envisioned to be the sad song it always wanted to be—Five Finger Death Punch took a similar path in 2017—but this new Offspring version really boils it down to its rawest form. If the 1997 original was pop-punk rage at an unfair loss, the 2021 version is the feeling of loss after it’s had decades to sink in, when only memories and sadness remain.

In November the band released an alternate version that is even more stripped down; almost entirely to Dexter Holland’s voice and a piano with some strings in the chorus, and it’s possibly even sadder. It’s incredible how much the Offspring has matured, even if it occasionally veers into Dad Rock territory.

Andrew W.K. — “Babalon”

Friend of the site Andrew W.K. made his name with the legendary 2001 hard rock anthem “Party Hard” on his nearly perfect debut album, I Get Wet. Since then, he’s made some other pretty good albums, had a fight with his label, released a solo piano album, spent time as a kids’ show host and motivational speaker, then came back to music with 2018’s You’re Not Alone.

You’re Not Alone touched on the themes of his motivational talks while clearly getting a lot of pent-up music out of his system. He touched on basically every genre over the course of that album, and it always worked.

For 2021’s God Is Partying, he moved to Napalm Records and went back to hard rock. But rather than the frenetic party pace of I Get Wet, he slowed it down until it was basically a halfway point between his old stuff and melodic death metal. And it was really great, if in a totally different way.

And don’t worry about him. Despite the… themes of this video, he’s doing great. He got engaged to actress Kat Dennings, after all.

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Ha*Ash — “The Unforgiven”

Yes, that’s a second cover, but read the intro: I don’t care, it’s been a long year.

Anyway, I’d be dishonest if I didn’t include something from Metallica’s tribute album, The Metallica Blacklist. It’s easily been one of my most-listened albums of the year despite coming out in September. The hard part was choosing a song. Jason Isbell’s outlaw country “Sad But True” is the stuff of legends, as are The HU’s “Through the Never” and Mon Laferte’s “Nothing Else Matters.” In fact, you should listen to all those, too.

That said, Ha*Ash’s take on “The Unforgiven” has to win because it never fails to give me chills. The band took a genuinely beautiful song and made it achingly beautiful without resorting to making it saccharine or playing up the sadness with minor keys and a string section. It’s the rare cover where the person singing it really seems to feel the song in the way the original artists did, and I commend them for that. I just said their version is more beautiful than Metallica’s. That says a lot coming from me.

Lil Nas X — “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”

It’s not all old stuff, but Lil Nas X is an exception. To everything.

I unironically loved “Old Town Road” and put it in my top five of 2019, but 2021 is when he really blossomed into an incredibly creative, deep artist who reveled in needling traditions and the establishment. He doesn’t sing punk rock, but Lil Nas X is incredibly punk rock in a way even punk bands aren’t anymore. He’s Marilyn Manson in the ’90s without the self-importance, Alice Cooper in the ’70s with more of an edge. And that should be praised loudly and repeatedly.

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Tom Morello with grandson — “Hold the Line”

Not gonna lie, I wanted to put Morello’s cover of “Highway to Hell” with Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder on here, but three covers out of five songs would be a little much, even for me. And I have very little shame left. But you should listen to it anyway because it’s great.

Instead, I included “Hold the Line,” which is the protest song we needed in 2021. Most protest songs are calls to action, imploring people to stand up and join a movement. But this year everyone who’s likely to join the movement already has and it’s still not helping. The entrenched forces of the wealthy and powerful aren’t budging despite the increasingly loud calls from the people, because it’s become the norm for politicians to choose their voters so they don’t have to pander or even listen to anyone.

No, what we need is an inspirational song motivating us to keep going, and that’s what this is. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, we haven’t made progress. But that’s no reason to quit. Stay in the fight and hold the line, because one side or the other is going to break first and it better not be ours.

Follow editor Daniel J. Willis and tweet column ideas to him at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.