Jazz Albums: Even the big-statement albums this year had a feeling of intense closeness.Pop Albums: Recordings with big feelings and room for catharsis made the most powerful connections.Best Songs: A posthumous political statement and a superstar’s 10-minute redo are among the 66 best tracks of 2021.And the genre-hopping, guest-filled concert was much the same, only without the charm.įrom Lil Nas X to Mozart to Esperanza Spalding here is what we loved listening to this year. The album is alternately charming and exasperating. The concert was billed as "Demon Days Live," after the group's hit 2005 album, "Demon Days" (Virgin), which has sold 1.8 million copies in the United States. Hewlett's animation was missing on Sunday night, at the first of five sold-out Gorillaz concerts at the Apollo Theater. Albarn makes Gorillaz tracks in collaboration with guests from the world of hip-hop and beyond the illustrator Jamie Hewlett has created cartoon characters to be the public face of this intentionally faceless group.īut Mr. Albarn, the longtime singer for the great British band Blur, is better known, these days, as the leader of Gorillaz, a musical project that resists the very notion of bandhood.
A big setback, especially for those unfathomable people who actually enjoy watching cartoon apes.
So the show would have to proceed without the benefit of cartoon apes. "It's always euphemistically called 'technical problems,' " Damon Albarn began, and he sounded truly glum.