The best albums of 2021 include Jackson Browne, J Balvin, Cheekface, Jame Blake, Tori Amos, Billy Gibbons, IDLES, Paul Weller, Jon Batiste, Rostam, The Killers and Between the Buried and Me. Welcome back to RIFF’s top album countdown! If you’re here just to complain about the order or lack…

Over the past four decades, few—if any—rock bands have evoked Los Angeles and Southern California as warmly or vividly as Los Lobos have. Of course, their SoCal is not the SoCal of, say, The Beach Boys or ’80s hair metal. It’s not catching waves, having fun-fun-fun in the T-Bird…

The new album by Jackson Browne is heartening for several reasons, not the least of which is that almost 50 years after touchstone works like For Everyman and Late for the Sky helped a generation of young romantics cope with life’s disappointments, Browne is still the master of crafting…