The best albums of 2021 (so far)

Let's hear it for the undersung heroes of the post-pandemic music industry: the vinyl manufacturers. While the world went into lockdown for much of 2020, oh-so-many artists decided to record quarantine projects. Some of them were quite successful, and others took the form of Van Morrison angrily singing about Facebook. Manufacturers were overwhelmed with requests for new physical media, and as such, some 2021 album releases came out digital-first, with the physical copies hitting months after the fact. No matter what format you hear these records on, the first half of 2021 has yielded some incredible, groundbreaking, and flat-out energizing music: some pandemic-inspired, and many not. So let's take a moment and celebrate the 25 albums that have given us joy and make us excited to hear music in live venues again, surrounded by people.