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Year in Tiers 2021 - The Coffin Flops

I love listening to music. Even stuff that I don't gel with, I love exploring new material and dissecting what I do or don't like about it. There's no desire to gatekeep or taste-make, just share my bare naked opinions and open a discussion on where the current zeitgeist of musical evolution is headed. So I always like to preface The "Worst of the Year" recap section with the sentiment that obviously, there are probably much worse albums out there than these. But I don't necessarily seek out terrible music intentionally, so these are really just the worst albums I actually took the time to finish and at least had enough interest in to seek out in the first place. But that doesn't quite roll off the tongue like WORST OF THE YEAR, does it? Anyways, this year's bottom tier is a collection of records on par with falling out of the bottom of your own casket. And as such, this tier is called "The Coffin Flops".

#114. A Sympathy for Life by Parquet Courts

With the way that Parquet Court's 2018 album "Wide Awake!" rips out of the gate with "Total Football", the group's frenzied tempo and manic energy sounds like a band that needs to be restrained. In a good way. Their 2021 follow up sounds like they literally have been. In a bad way. Sedated and forced to perform at gun point. The entire thing moves at such a droll pace that the album's second track "Black Widow Spider" will absolutely put you to sleep and "Marathon of Anger" will damn near put you in a coma. But if you manage to retain consciousness through those first three tracks, you're in for an infuriatingly repetitive and simple collection of dry indie lounge tracks the whole way through. "Homo Sapien" is really the only instance where this band is somewhat recognizable as their former impassioned selves.


#113. STILL SUCKS by Limp Bizkit

As someone who proudly wore bleached hair and a red Yankees baseball cap to picture day in 5th grade, I loved seeing Limp Bizkit have a mini-resurgence this summer thanks to HBO's Woodstock 99 documentary and old man Fred Durst's appearance at 2021 Lollapalooza. But also, having lived through 2011's "Gold Cobra", I knew that new Limp Bizkit material wasn't anything to really get my hopes up for. And as predictably bland as the first half of this record is, the latter half divulges into utter embarrassment. "Barnacle" is laugh out loud awful and the production on "Goodbye" has the band sounding like the early millennium boy bands they used to clash with on TRL. Fred still has absolutely nothing of substance to say so if you're feeling nostalgic, I'd recommend revisiting what made you love the band in the first place instead of hoping for any kind of musical maturation or added perspective from this awful attempt at a comeback. And why'd they have to butcher my favorite INXS song like that?


#112. Blue Bannisters by Lana Del Rey

With the way that Lana's year has gone, fighting internet trolls and becoming somewhat of the poster child for white privilege, I was really hoping she could rebound and let her work speak for itself. Unfortunately, with such little turn around time from "Chemtrails Over the Country Club", the feeling of an incomplete and rushed production on "Blue Bannisters" is inescapable. It's like a notes app apology sung in meandering, free verse poetic tempos that never quite line up with the thin instrumental production. It's her worst album to date (by far) and not much more than a desperate cry for relevance from a reluctant pop star trying to stretch her time in the limelight, despite complaining about being center stage in her previous two records.


#111. Medicine at Midnight by Foo Fighters

For all the shit that gets thrown at their 90's contemporaries (Weezer, The Offspring, Green Day just to name a few) Foo Fighters have somehow escaped any similar mainstream criticism. Which is odd, because they don't really have the laurels of an iconic album to rest on like those others do. Just a handful of phenomenal singles. There's no front to back classic album to be found in their 25 year run. And while you have to hand it to the alt rock legends for trying something different on their tenth outing, this feels like a desperate flailing attempt to connect with a younger audience rather than the heartfelt reinvention it's being touted as. This isn't Bowie's "Let's Dance"; this is the equivalent of Green Day's "Father of All.." or simply put, a career low for a band trying to re-brand themselves for the Imagine Dragons crowd.


#110. Really From by Really From

I'm trying not to spend as much time trashing albums I don't gel with going forward but I feel like it's a little disingenuous to just act like I never heard any bad records this year. And Really From's debut was REALLY bad. It's the kind of long winded, pretentious indie/emo that inspires an entire venue to go outside for a smoke break while they wait for the next act to set up (whether they smoke or not). You'll come back inside 2 or 3 times before they've finally finished, running the entire crowd completely out of cigarettes and patience with their jazz-emo fusion.


#109. When You Found Me by Lucero

I haven't really enjoyed a Lucero record since 2006 but morbid curiosity brought me to this, their 10th full length, and I could have never in a million years guessed this was the same band that burned "Bikeriders" into my brain 15 years ago. The most unexpected group to jump onto the synthwave bandwagon, Lucero's gritty alt country approach has strangely been replaced with bad 80's synth, classic guitar hooks and unbearably flat, uncharismatic vocals. Ben Nichols' signature rasp has been stripped completely clean, along with it - the heart and soul of the group altogether. A couple years ago Murder by Death released a space western that turned out to be their best record in quite some time. But if you take the phrase "space western" and imagine all of the worst places an album carrying that title could go; that's exactly where Lucero ends up with "When You Found Me".


#108. Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish

Even though I wasn't a huge fan of Billie Eilish's debut record, somehow this still felt like a letdown for me. I guess I was hoping she'd come through and prove she's worth the hype and acclaim she received? Avoid a sophomore slump? But instead we get an introspective examination of a teenager wrestling with her newfound fame. And while there's some impressive lyricism sprinkled throughout, musically it's incredibly drab. There's no stylistic intrigue whatsoever until the title track "Happier Than Ever" finally hits, 15 songs into this mother fucker. Billie comes off incredibly self-involved and weirdly burdened with becoming a musician, most painfully so on the spoken word diatribe "Not My Responsibility".


#107. Slitherman Activated by Rxk Nephew

The production can be sporadically intriguing but for the most part, this feels overwhelming to take in. It's like trying to take an aptitude test at a GWAR concert. Or play Words With Friends while driving a jet ski. There's just too much going on and Nephew's hyperactive yelling over the music doesn't add anything whatsoever. I honestly can't imagine how he'd even recreate this live. You'd need a fucking oxygen tank. An intriguing premise, horrendously executed.


View the Rest of the 2021 Year in Tiers Here:






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