The 40 Best Albums of 2021
Above is Metacritic's list of the 40 best-reviewed albums of 2021, ranked by Metascore. This list only includes new albums receiving at least 15 reviews from professional critics (though you'll find a quick list of the top albums with a smaller number of reviews at the end of the gallery.)
Otherwise, all full-length studio albums (or mixtapes) released between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021 are eligible, though reissues, live albums, box sets and other compilations are excluded. (Those excluded titles, too, are included in a separate list at the end of the gallery.) Albums are ranked by Metascore prior to rounding based on scores as of December 21, 2021.
(#7) Somehow six years passed between the 2015 release of 25 and this fall's arrival of its follow-up, 30. But the extra time that Adele put into her latest album appears to have paid off: 30 is her highest-scoring album to date—by a wide margin. Inspired in part by her recent divorce, the 12-song set finds Adele reuniting with past collaborators like Greg Kurstin and Max Martin while also enlisting first-timers like film composer Ludwig Göransson and Sault's Inflo.
“A surprisingly personal album that showcases how Adele has matured, both as an artist and as a person, since the middle of the last decade. She could have built on her blockbuster success in a cynical way, copy-and-pasting 'Rolling in the Deep' and 'Hello.' Instead, she lets her emotions guide her, with triumphant results.” —Entertainment Weekly
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