2021 Playlist: These are the ten songs that will become classics | Israel today

Okay, this is not a list of the most successful songs of the year nor of its most played.

In a world where every day an unimaginable amount of new music is released to the network, there is really no point in crowning, ranking and trying to absolutely determine the pinnacle of the artistic crop of the past year.

And so, this annual summary mostly reflects the opinion of its author.

It does not contain too many pop parades (which as usual tends to be forgotten or played mostly at parties or annual themed radio shows), as it focuses on songs that can definitely become classics of the kind to be played at home, in headphones, in your head and heart long after 2021 is a distant memory.

Therefore, here is a list of the ten best and most beautiful songs in the opinion of the writer of these lines, or simply ten excellent songs from the past year, which will hopefully continue with us much longer after.

There's no point in arguing with her, at most giving her a chance.

Worthy mentions of songs that did not make the list, but could totally find themselves in: The Bleachers' "Stop Making These Hurt" - because of the encounter between sad lyrics and an eighties synthesizer;

Noel Gallagher's "Flying on the Ground" - because it's sweet and no one notices it at all;

And Doa Lipa's "Levitating," simply because it's really fun.

Yes, this is also allowed sometimes, what happened?

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Yes, this would not be a year-end summary list without Adele's comeback single, which marked her return to life and her first album since "25" from 2015.

Six years is a lot of time to miss, and the British singer definitely knew what she was doing when she (and her people, presumably) decided to release from all the songs on the album precisely this single, the oh-so-noble in essence.

Even if it's not a song that completely represents the entire album (in "30" the musician experiences a variety of new styles and forms of presentation), it is clear that after such a long time, fans deserved to receive a big life ballad of the "Hello" type.

"Be gentle with me, I was still a girl," Adele sang in her divorce after their breakup, but also to her large audience - who waited a long time, while contracting her to change physical and mental form and get her a little different this time, but no less vulnerable.

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Another Lena Del Rey song that sounds like a Lena Del Rey song? Well, yeah, but another good talk can not be that bad. After a slew of delays, in October the American singer released her latest album "Blue Banisters" no more than seven months after "Chemtrails over the Country Club", the previous and great album. But a month and a half before that he was preceded by his first single no less than fine. Like quite a few songs by the singer, here too California is a central figure, and Del Rey compares her body to a map of Los Angeles, from a metaphor to how the city and everything it symbolizes are imprinted in it.

It's a sad piano ballad that carries Del Rey's clear voice, in what can be considered one of her most beautiful and mature songs.

The 36-year-old singer sounds sober here after a long road and years in the American music industry.

The term "Arcadia," used in poetry to describe a harmonious and beautiful place, is an ambiguous description of the City of Angels for Del Rey: on the one hand it is part of its being and work, both musical and aesthetic;

On the other hand, the singer who was born as Elizabeth Grant maintains a complex relationship with the city, as someone who has experienced its bad sides and been burned by it more than once, throughout her long journey to the pinnacle of the music industry.

In a world of good (and to be precise - exits) pop creations that are good and timely, Lena's "Arcadia" has something super-temporal.

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Say what you will about the past year of Kenya West, and there was certainly something to say (from the absurd confrontation with the US presidency, through the hallucinatory campaign of promotion of his new album to the well-publicized farewell of Kim Kardashian), but one thing cannot be argued - the man knows how to write songs. "Jail", his excellent collaboration with Jay-Z, a friend and colleague, who once again proved how Kenya is a huge creator, one that brings to his songs a rare element in today's music, and is called "Hurry".

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Because "Prison" from its first seconds feels like an epic, big, monumental song.

As if every moment something huge is going to happen here, and the feeling of alertness that arises in us already at its opening does not later turn out to be a false panic.

It's hard to ignore that Kenya combines hip-hop and rock reef here, even metal some would say, and creates a hybrid that while not everyone liked (quite a few critics really disliked "Jail" when it came out), but there are quite a few who see it as the strongest track in - "Donda", the rapper's latest double album.

If the sequel to "Watch the Throne," West and Jay-Z's 2011 joint album sounds like it (assuming, of course, that its very existence is not just a collection of rumors), then there is definitely a lot to look forward to.

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In a crazy reality like the one we've been summoned for the past two years, it was nice to suddenly get a pleasant surprise out of nowhere, in the form of a single that feels like it belongs in other times.

Silk Sonic, the mega-successful collaboration between Bruno Mars and Anderson Puck, introduced us to a vibe and a vintage seventies sound (but in a modern production), which was a great promo for an entire album that was all a tribute to the great giants of solo, R&B and funk.

"Leave the Door Open" is exactly the romantic, charming and slick song we did not know we deserved this year.

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Right at the beginning of the summer, a collaboration was born that is not clear how it has not been woven so far. The Killers, one of the most prominent names in the rock wave of the beginning of the millennium, no longer produce anthems as if the year is 2004 (this is how it is when much of your sound is based on guitars and pathos - almost despicable concepts in today's popular music), but those who continue to follow The more energetic and exciting compositions in the environment. 

Their connection with Bruce Springsteen, a musician who has been an influence for them throughout their careers, seems natural, almost self-evident, in the face of everything mentioned here now.

Then the boss heard "A Dustland Fairytale", a band song from 2009 that tells the story of the marriage of lead singer Brandon Flauerz's parents, and decided he wanted to sing it along with the old band from Las Vegas.

The result is a great and upgraded version of an existing song, with the addition of erupting springtime energy.

The encounter between these two forces produced a song that may not have made as much noise as you would expect, but wow, what a mess it made in the heart of the one who surrendered to it.

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Is she again

Yes, without a doubt.

This is how it is when you release two excellent albums in one year.

Some of the songs that mix in the head, and some of them are not even remembered as songs that came out in the current calendar year, although they are entirely a product of 2021. This is the story of "White Dress", the no less than Lena Del Rey's wizard, who announced the arrival of "Chemtrails over the Country Club ", the now-penultimate album of this prolific artist, and which somehow managed to make us appreciate her even more.

This is the song that opens the album and marks the entire content line - not that we needed help guessing what Dr.'s album would do, and yet. Del Rey reveals here hard memories of innocence cracking at her on her way to superstars. At the age of 19, even when the Waits trips were boiling, only for the purpose of gaining recognition and rebuilding a wounded ego.Wizard, have we already said?

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It's a little funny to think that the best Taylor Swift song of the year was not released by Taylor Swift herself. With all due respect to the ten-minute version that Swift released for "All Too Well" (and there is respect), the ultimate heartbreaking ballad of the year was released back in January - Olivia Rodrigo, a relatively anonymous 18-year-old singer. Without much more than a piano accompaniment, Rodrigo describes the situation of obtaining a fresh driver's license, and using the new skill for the purpose of a seemingly random turn in the vehicle, in order to pass the house of a loved one who has left.

"Driver's License" is not an overly complex or original song, but it does what quite a few pop creators have forgotten how to do - and that is to elaborate on the strings of emotion and make everyone who listens to them identify, if not now then at least once in their lives.

It is evident that it was not only the writer of these lines who touched this sweet and sad song, because already with its release it broke Spotify's record for the highest number of listens in one day (for a song that is not a holiday single), and another, most listened to a week.

The song wound up at number one on the Billboard charts, making Rodrigo the youngest artist to release a first song that went straight to number one on the chart.

In short, if you do not know him, it's time to listen.

And maybe make a handkerchief or two.

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Shortly before the corona entered our lives and destroyed every part of sanity as we knew it, Ed Sheeran announced that he was retiring from music. Type of. At that point the British star had already left his mark on the music world, and it seemed that after several consecutive years of launching hits on to radio stations and a meteoric rise to the top of the world pop world, he no longer really had to prove it. At least musically, because on a personal level it is obvious that the singer, who was not yet 30 at the time, was missing a few more pieces to put together his personality puzzle, which is somewhat complex some would say.

Two years later he wound up with "Bad Haits", the first swallow from "=", another album with an annoying name he recorded, and it is clear that even after spending the last few years nurturing his marriage and fresh parenting, the songwriting magic is still there.

"Bad Habits" actually deals with a period in the life of the star that preceded his family settlement.

It describes a variety of routines that nightlife people would know well: from too long parties in dark clubs, through the attraction to narcotics to eating things that with a little clear judgment could have been avoided.

Sheeran looks at this song about his old life, probably from a happier and more peaceful place, and out of an understanding that it is a destructive lifestyle.

And he does so in an eighty-year-old sound reminiscent of a meeting between Michael Jackson and De Weekend.

Somehow, even after a long hiatus, Sheeran still writes catchy and contagious pop hits better than most of his colleagues.

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Some people see in "Fallen Fruit", Lord's fourth single from her latest album "Solar Power", a song in which she addresses her famous friends and criticizes their glamorous life.

And that could be a logical interpretation of this really great song, second only to the more requested one.

Because it seems that the New Zealand singer, who spent most of last year's closure days in a variety of tropical and isolated islands, is actually turning here on behalf of her contemporaries to previous generations, who neglected the planet and left them a ninth-hand planet in a catastrophic situation.

The single, which came out last November right next to the World Climate Conference, is perhaps the most beautiful of the young creator's new album songs, not least because of its production that combines acoustic and electronic, and combines vocal harmonies that give the whole business a Sixty California song feel.

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"Rock'n'Roll in its modern form", "A Voice of a Generation" - Billy Aylish has already won quite a few titles at the age of 20, and her second album, "Happier than Ever", which was released in the middle of the summer, managed not to get all the crowns.

After the huge success of her debut album, there are those who have been waiting for Ilish in the corner to say "Look, we told you. She's not the thing you made of her."

But Aylish and her brother and co-creator Phineas, have managed to prove that they have more than material for a moment of success.

In 2021, Aylish released a long, successful and more mature album, according to the cliché article.

He was led by his theme song - which begins small (like most of the songs in this mega-intimate collection), and escalates into a crescendo of rage and despair, led by a scream from Aylish asking that "Fakin 'just let me go", all full of anger, passion, distortion and beauty.

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