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.
Metacritic's Official #1 Album of 2021
(#1) Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have been collaborating for decades, with Ellis a longtime member of Cave's bands The Bad Seeds and Grinderman and the two performers combining to score films such as The Proposition and The Road. But February release Carnage is their first album of songs as a duo. Recorded last year during lockdown, it's Cave's third consecutive studio album to score above 90. More importantly, Cave is now Metacritic's only three-time Album of the Year winner, following wins in 2016 for Skeleton Tree and in 2019 for Ghosteen.
“Carnage is infused with profound and almost inescapable grief. But as this particularly audacious singer-songwriter grapples with isolation, loneliness, loss and the hard emotional graft of endurance, all set against a backdrop of apocalyptic threat, the personal becomes universal. Carnage may just be the greatest lockdown album yet.” —The Telegraph
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