Best Albums of 2021

Listed below are the best albums of 2021 as calculated from their overall rankings in over 59,000 greatest album charts. (Chart last updated: 2 hours ago).
Best albums by year or decade
Decade:
Year:
2021 year summaryThe best artists of 2021 were Little Simz, Black Country, New Road, Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra, Tyler, The Creator, Japanese Breakfast, Squid (2020s), Weezer, Black Midi, Low and Lana Del Rey.
View chart at point in time
 Show this chart as it was on the following date
Share this chart
Collector's summary (top 1,000) Help The maximum rank used by the Collector's Summary is configurable from your profile (top 1,000 is currently selected). Log in or register to discover the great albums that are missing from your music collection!
Sort Sort by
"Coldplay's business plan nowadays: releasing always even more duller and just radio-friendly pop albums that work for pleasing stadium crowds and every once in a while dropping an album without big promotion that shows enough musicial craftmanship to keep Oldplay from entirely writing the band of..."  [+]  Reply
- Davy | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +7 votes (7 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
2021
Appears in:
Rank Score:
134
Rank in 2021:
Rank in 2020s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Share your opinion and help others discover this album. The top-voted comments are showcased in our aggregate charts!
Year of Release:
2021
Appears in:
Rank Score:
133
Rank in 2021:
Rank in 2020s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"To me Barn is very much the equivalent of Colorado from a couple of years ago. They sound quite similar. Song of the Season is probably the standout track. Everything else is consistently decent. I do find They Might Be Lost a bit endearing just because of its simplicity. Its a solid album that i..."  [+]  Reply
- Villain | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
2021
Appears in:
Rank Score:
133
Rank in 2021:
Rank in 2020s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Share your opinion and help others discover this album. The top-voted comments are showcased in our aggregate charts!
Year of Release:
2021
Appears in:
Rank Score:
131
Rank in 2021:
Rank in 2020s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"They sound like ghosts here, floating memories of a past about to be forgotten forming transient structures of matter. This is enough to sound more alive than most (or maybe all) of the music in this decade of goodbyes. Shall we go singing country songs, you and I while we can..."  Reply
- O.T. | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
2021
Appears in:
Rank Score:
131
Rank in 2021:
Rank in 2020s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Share your opinion and help others discover this album. The top-voted comments are showcased in our aggregate charts!
Year of Release:
2021
Appears in:
Rank Score:
130
Rank in 2021:
Rank in 2020s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"It's the vocals that make or break this album, depending on your perception. They are so dominant, they barely leave any space for the other parts to develop, they demand your full attention. There was some Bono and some Thom Yorke influences among others, though I'm sure there was a much more st..."  [+]  Reply
- kokkinos | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
2021
Appears in:
Rank Score:
130
Rank in 2021:
Rank in 2020s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
158.
"(Really solid artsy indietronica/art pop or rock/etc album. This actually a fairly hard to describe sound, but its all good. Really, really good.) So, LUMP is a collaboration between Laura Marling (love her she is great) and Mike Lindsay (uhhh… never heard of him). And, well, these 2 they make mu..."  [+]  Reply
- Mercury | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
2021
Appears in:
Rank Score:
129
Rank in 2021:
Rank in 2020s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Year of Release:
2021
Appears in:
Rank Score:
126
Rank in 2021:
Rank in 2020s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"Hats off to Gary Numan again. He has that talent of producing albums that sound like nobody else, as if his music has been composed in a different galaxy. I really liked the futuristic leanings of Songs From a Savage World and this could almost be part 2 of that epic. The soundscapes he creates m..."  [+]  Reply
- Junomoogmello | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
2021
Appears in:
Rank Score:
125
Rank in 2021:
Rank in 2020s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 1,000. Page 16 of 100

Best Albums of 2021 composition

Recognised  Year Charts (2025)
1. Albums of the year 2025 by The Telegraph (2025)
2. Albums of the year 2025 by Pitchfork (2025)
3. Best Albums of 2025 by The New Yorker (2025)
4. Albums of the year 2025 by AllHipHop (2025)
5. Albums of the year 2025 by Uncut (2025)
6. BrooklynVegan's Top 58 Albums of 2025 by BrooklynVegan (2025)
7. Albums of the year 2025 by Piccadilly Records (2025)
8. Top 50 Albums of 2025 by The Needle Drop (2025)
9. Top 100 Albums of 2025 by Louder Than War (2025)
10. Albums of the year 2025 by Crack Magazine (2025)