
2021 in Review: Berklee Artists Who Made Best-of-the-Year Lists From indie to progressive pop, minimalist jazz to retro rock, listen to songs by Berklee artists that media outlets from around the world cited as the years best.
By
Bryan Parys
December 21, 2021
Well, 2021 didn't wind up being the full comeback the world had hoped for, but around here, students were able to return to campus, and they brought live music back, cautiously, to many stages. Berklee took an opportunity to take stock of our past, and we moved forward into new educational territory. We were immortalized on the big screen and made Emmy nomination history.
Meanwhile, Berklee artists continue to create music that brings comfort and pushes boundaries. While a complete list would be beyond the scope of one page on the internet, many artists in the Berklee community were namechecked as the best of 2021-some of them numerous times-on lists from major media outlets around the globe. In the following playlist, you can listen to a portion of these musicians. Read on below the playlist to find more information on the artists and the lists on which they appeared.
Credits Arooj Aftab B.M. 10
Pitchfork: Best Albums, no. 12, Vulture Prince
Pitchfork: Best Songs, no. 9, Mohabbat
Pitchfork: Best Jazz and Experimental Music, Vulture Prince
NPR: Best Albums, no. 7, Vulture Prince
The Guardian: Best Albums, no. 20, Vulture Prince
Adrianne Lenker B.M. 12, Buck Meek B.M. 10, James Krivchenia B.M. 14 (Big Thief)
Pitchfork: Best Songs, no. 15, Best Songs, Little Things
Sarah Tudzin B.M. 14 (Illuminati Hotties)
Consequence of Sound: Best Albums, no. 10, Let Me Do One More
Pitchfork: Best Albums, no. 35, Best Albums, Let Me Do One More
Pitchfork: Best Songs, no. 40, MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA
NPR: Best Albums, no. 19, Let Me Do One More
Rolling Stone: Best Albums, no. 42, Best Albums, Let Me Do One More
The New York Times: Best Albums (Lindsay Zoladz's list), no. 5, Let Me Do One More
Jess Wolfe B.M. 07, Holly Laessig B.M. 07 (Lucius)
Pitchfork: Best Songs, no. 50, I Don't Live Here Anymore, (The War on Drugs featuring Lucius)
Annie Clark 04 (St. Vincent)
USA Today: Best Albums, no. 2, Daddy's Home
Rolling Stone: Best Albums, no. 50, Daddy's Home
The Guardian: Best Albums, no. 27, Daddy's Home
Spin: Best Albums, no. 21, Daddy's Home
Consequence of Sound: Best Albums, no. 50, Daddy's Home
Xenia Rubinos B.M. 06
Pitchfork: Best Albums, no. 33, Una Rosa
Stereogum: Best Albums, no. 33, Una Rosa
NPR: Best Songs, no. 55, Sacude
Spin: Best Albums, no. 28, Una Rosa
Jilian Medford B.M. 15 (IAN SWEET)
Consequence of Sound: Highest-Rated Albums, no. 27, Show Me How You Disappear
Jeff Parker 90
The Quietus: Best Albums, no. 69, Forfolks
Linda May Han Oh, Bass Department
Pitchfork: Best Albums, no. 42, Best Albums, Uneasy (with Vijay Iyer and Tyshawn Sorey)
Pitchfork: Best Jazz and Experimental Music, Uneasy (with Vijay Iyer and Tyshawn Sorey)
Shubh Saran B.M. 14
Pitchfork: Best Jazz and Experimental Music, inglish
Julian Lage 09
Slate: Best Jazz Albums, no. 6, Squint
Esperanza Spalding B.M. 05
NPR: Best Songs, no. 36, Formwela 10
The New York Times: Best Jazz Albums, no. 10, Songwrights Apothecary Lab
The New York Times: Best Albums (John Pareles's list), no. 9, Songwrights Apothecary Lab
Jihye Lee '14 (Jihye Lee Orchestra)
The Guardian: Best Jazz Albums, no. 6, Best Jazz Albums, Daring Mind
JazzTimes: Best Albums, no. 35, Daring Mind
Miguel Zen n B.M. 98
Slate: Best Jazz Albums, no. 7, El Arte del Bolero (with Luis Perdomo)
Joe Lovano '72 '98H (Joe Lovano and Dave Douglas Soundprints)
Slate: Best Jazz Albums, no. 10, Other Worlds
JazzTimes: Best Albums, no. 39, Other Worlds
Related Categories
Playlists
Most Popular
2021 in Review: Berklee Artists Who Made Best-of-the-Year Lists From indie to progressive pop, minimalist jazz to retro rock, listen to songs by Berklee artists that media outlets from around the world cited as the years best.
Latest
Image by Getty Images
Berklee Celebrates Taylor Swift in Signature Series Concert Great American Songbook: Fearless-The Music of Taylor Swift will showcase the diverse talents of Berklee performers in an immersive journey through the career of a living legend.
Applications Open for Berklee in Puerto Rico 2022 Registration for the program launches on February 24 and runs through April 15.
Berklee Online and BreakFree Education Collaborate to Offer Music Courses to Incarcerated Youth The partnership began with an initiative called the Unsung Songwriting Contest.
Read All
Subscribe The latest sounds, stories, and ideas, sent to your inbox weekly.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
22/06/2026
Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...
22/06/2026
Cosm has announced the appointment of David Ho as Chief Legal Officer, a newly created executive role reporting to President and CEO Jeb Terry. Ho will oversee ...
22/06/2026
Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have announced the developm...
22/06/2026
Daktronics has completed an audio control system upgrade at Petco Park in San Di...
22/06/2026
Accelerate Media has named John Willi as President and announced the launch of the Accelerate Sports Network (ASN), a prep sports media and streaming platform c...
22/06/2026
All Women's Sports Network (AWSN) and 3XBA (3 3 Basketball Association) have announced live television coverage of the annual 3XBA tournament on Friday, Jun...
22/06/2026
OWL AI has announced the appointment of Jay Prasad as Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors. Prasad succeeds Josh Gwyther, who has served...
22/06/2026
CP Communications delivered RF video and audio support for TNT's Inside the NBA at the 2026 NBA Finals, providing main show coverage in San Antonio and ea...
22/06/2026
Polymarket has announced a partnership with GRID, an official esports data platf...
22/06/2026
As sports venues continue to evolve into more video-centric, fan-engagement-driv...
22/06/2026
As the regional sports production scene shifts toward streaming, this Texan helps lead the engineering behind Victory+'s growing live platform...
22/06/2026
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
the memories of your elders [are] a scaffolding for you to build your identity on - and t...
22/06/2026
New hyper-resolution analyser EQ revealed
CEDAR Audio's all-new Icons plug-in series has just gained its newest member, Blade. Described by the compan...
22/06/2026
Turn any live input into a cinematic soundscape
Designed for use in the studio and on stage, Sampleson's latest creation is capable of taking any audio ...
22/06/2026
Adds guitar strings to Eurorack rigs
ADDAC System are renowned for their weird and wonderful synth designs, and their line-up includes plenty of gear that...
22/06/2026
FIFA World Cup 2026 fever grows, as more than one third of Australians tune in ...
22/06/2026
In our latest blog, Tim Pearson explores NAGRA Venturi, the new streaming security solution for the AI era from NAGRAVISION. Designed to aggregate and analyze ...
22/06/2026
Expanded integrations give advertisers access to distinct contextual signals acr...
22/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/06/2026
Xilica today announced the release of Dynamic Voice Lift, a new feature in Xilica Designer v4.12 that brings adaptive speech reinforcement to large meeting spac...
22/06/2026
Monday 22 June 2026
Official trailer released for Katie Price: Nothing to Hide,...
22/06/2026
The next era of AI will not be defined by compute alone. Its growth will be dete...
22/06/2026
Mission, Vision and Veritas - new Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) supercom...
22/06/2026
At the ISC conference running in Hamburg this week, NVIDIA is introducing new so...
22/06/2026
For the past two years, the U.S. National Science Foundation's National Arti...
22/06/2026
JUPITER, Europe's first exascale supercomputer at Germany's Forschungszentrum J lich, runs on NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchips and NVIDIA Quantum-X800 Inf...
21/06/2026
To call the 2026 FIFA World Cup a big undertaking would be a big understatement....
21/06/2026
New series now live on Udemy
Regular SOS contributor and Cubase workshop columnist John Walden has just released a new Cubase video course that is now avail...
21/06/2026
Hot tubs sit at about 38 to 40 degrees Celsius, warm enough that most people can only soak for about 15 minutes. NVIDIA's newest AI servers can run their co...
21/06/2026
Sunday 21 June 2026
Sky announces immersive documentary series The Wargame
The Wargame first looks
ZIP (2MB)
Sky today confirms the commission of The Wargam...
20/06/2026
New add-on creates doubles & vocal stacks
IK Multimedia's latest ReSing add-on kits the innovative software out with the ability to automatically genera...
20/06/2026
What exactly is Apogee Control V3?
Control V3 is a new mixer application that controls Apogee interfaces. The new hit feature is that V3 finally allows for...
19/06/2026
Split compound eases operational challenges at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club...
19/06/2026
North Carolina, Oklahoma meet in the best-of-three Finals as ESPN leans into spe...
19/06/2026
Company launch comprehensive mix-comparison tool
The Him DSP are a plug-in company founded by The Him, an EDM DJ and producer who has amassed over half a bi...
19/06/2026
Major Sampler upgrades introduced
The latest version of Bitwig's DAW software has just entered public beta testing, and is available now for all users w...
19/06/2026
Four times the power of their predecessors
Akai Pro have just introduced upgraded versions of two of their popular standalone MPC systems, kitting them out ...
19/06/2026
Data from May shows seasonal outdoor trends triggers lower viewing
Warsaw, Pola...
19/06/2026
Buttons is best control system in the rAVe Best of Infocomm Awards 2026...
19/06/2026
Mavis Studio Makes iPad Production More Powerful
Brie Clayton June 19, 2026
0 Comments
InfoComm update brings new NDI Preview, PTZ control, USB audio ...
19/06/2026
Immersive Studio Metaverse Stage Tackles Post with Blackmagic Design
Brie Clayton June 19, 2026
0 Comments
New narrative projects rely on DaVinci Reso...
19/06/2026
How to Run the Original 1993 After Effects
Graham Quince June 19, 2026
0 Comments
How to the original After Effects v1 in an emulator, and you don'...
19/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/06/2026
SMPTE , the home of media professionals, technologists and engineers, has announced that its entire Standards catalog is now freely available to the global medi...