These are my personal Top 10 Worst Albums of 2021.  The rankings of these records only reflect my personal lack of enjoyment of each album.

10. Tones and I - Welcome to the MadHouse

The singing makes me giggle a lot. It does not appeal to me personally, but the structure of the album is cogent enough to pass as a Rocky Horror Picture Show for kids. Trashing on it would feel like taking candy from a baby. God bless her success tho, considering the album is appealing to somebody.

9. McFly & Carlito - Notre Meilleur Album

This album is the perfect album to listen to if you want to understand and speak French. They think that I can speak for them on their behalf as a dumb American, and they’re totally right. It’s the best sounding album that the French have ever created, they totally swear. They totally did not pull my leg when they recommended this album to dumb Americans like me. I thoroughly enjoyed the way they pronounced their words like a braindead hog, and I especially loved the way that they incorporated kids’ choruses into their tracks. They mixed like oil and water. They thought that I would really enjoy that as a dumb American, and they were absolutely right to have assumed that. They got me hooked, line and sinker. Yup, bamboozled to the nth degree. Touché, McFly & Carlito, Touché.

8. Maroon 5 - JORDI

Genre: Incredibly Commercial Pop

Listen

Oof. This one is a rough listen. The production’s Bazingafied. The songwriting is corporate and phoned in. Maroon 5 are really some of the longest and worst to ever do it, which is really admirable in their own way. They sit on a throne of their own, and I’m going blind seeing it because of just how shiny and overcompressed it sounds.

7. Tom MacDonald - Us Against The World

It’s not you against the world, Tom. It’s you against yourself. Monetizing off of your Hog audience’s inability to think for themselves is a hustle I can respect. But with great power comes great responsibility, Peter. Tell them to go to therapy, and stop moving like the Bin Laden of Hip Hop. It’s not a peaceful vibe.

6. AJR - OK Orchestra

If this album is played around children, blame the parents for how they turn out. This album would appeal to parents that underestimate the intelligence of their children. Naturally, it’s the parents’ fault for thinking that this album will actually appeal to children. AJR makes music in a way that suggests that your child is not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. Their musical performances appear to pander to their lack of attention span by overwhelming them with so many loud and obnoxious sounds and song ideas. When each song ends, do they expect your child to just bark at their musical performances like otters at SeaWorld that were fed that perfect piece of fish? The jury’s out.

5. Nelly - Heartland

It is bad bro-country rap. The country elements have that gross Nashville sheen that phoned in country music gets put through. The pop rap moments at best sound like a bad Drake ripoff. Nelly’s too old to be rapping about this kind of stuff. Even compared to Nelly’s previous country rap hits, this album is a yuck for me.

4. Van Morrison - Latest Record Project Vol 1

This album is ageist. It throws me right into the Psychoanalysts’ Ball that he writes about on this album. I refuse to believe that your brain turns into goop the way that Van Morrison’s has by the time you get to that age. Nobody actually ages this hard if they properly take care of themselves. Bernie Sanders is 80 years old and he can still cross me over in a basketball game like Allen Iverson. There’s no excuse for this. It’s giving senior citizens a bad name. It’s actively alienating grandchildren from their grandparents. I’m just listening to an old man yell at a cloud right now, and I’m only left concerned for Van Morrison’s wellbeing.

3. French Montana - They Got Amnesia

Yeah, I did. I just finished listening to it, and I already forgot about it.

2. Tory Lanez - Alone at Prom

80s Pop is pop music from the 80s. The reason people love 80s pop is because the pop artists of that time put their OWN unique spins on the pop music that they grew up listening to. It is NOT reverb, an old school drum pattern with reverb, and a bunch of reverb laced synth lines looped on top of an old Weeknd leftover. Tory Lanez can sound like any other artist except himself. Still to this day, I cannot tell you a Tory Lanez flow or vocal style or even ad-lib that’s entirely unique to him. This approach to making music, while monetarily sustainable, is not good for the long game. People will forget and move on if you cannot put your own spin on a style or sound.

1. Goldlink - HARAM!

I needed to make wudhu and wash my ears with the words of the Qur’an after listening to this album. Not a single musical performance through that crusty fast food drive thru speaker microphone is listenable on this record. Goldlink should say “Astaghfirullah” for putting this project out.

Top 10 Worst Albums of 2021