Halle-frickin’-lujah…2020 is now officially in our rearview and the new year has begun. Which means that there’s a ton of new music that will bless our eager ears in the days, weeks and months to come.
Below, we’ve identified the 30 albums we’re most excited to lay our ears upon in 2021, based on the information available to date, which is admittedly scarce for select titles. As the respective album details and as-yet-to-be-announced release dates emerge, we’ll provide additional coverage, streams and reviews.
In the meantime, explore the list and be sure to let us know which forthcoming albums are on your wishlist for the year ahead!
NATALIE IMBRUGLIA | Title TBD
Release Date: TBD
Photo: Pierre Toussaint
What We Know So Far: Although Ms. Imbruglia released her covers album Male five years ago in 2015, more than twice as many years have flown by since her last collection of original material surfaced in the form of Come To Life (2009). Recently signed to a new contract with BMG, Imbruglia’s long-awaited sixth studio LP will intriguingly feature the songstress collaborating with the production duo MyRiot (Bloc Party, London Grammar, Rae Morris) and The Strokes’ Albert Hammond, Jr.
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JANET JACKSON | Black Diamond
Release Date: TBD
What We Know So Far: Ms. Jackson’s forthcoming twelfth studio album has now been featured in our annual “Albums We Can’t Wait to Hear” feature in three consecutive years, and the album has yet to arrive. Blame the pandemic for the latest delay, as Jackson formally announced Black Diamond and her accompanying summer tour back in early February, about a month before all of our lives were permanently altered by the COVID outbreak in the states. With the prospect of more widespread vaccinations on the horizon in the new year, hopefully we’ll creep back closer to some semblance of normality, and we will finally be able to indulge in new music from one of music’s most vital performers.
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LADY BLACKBIRD | Black Acid Soul
Release Date: TBD
Photo: Christine Solomon
What We Know So Far: One listen to Lady Blackbird’s powerful, evocative voice and you’re sure to be hooked and eager to hear much more from the Los Angeles-based singer otherwise known as Marley Munroe. The comparisons to such luminaries as Billie Holiday, Chaka Khan and Nina Simone have been plentiful and understandable, but these analogues also risk obscuring just how fresh and distinctive of a vocal force she is. Destined to offer both grace and gravitas in equal measure, Black Acid Soul can’t arrive soon enough. (And a special debt of gratitude to Gilles Peterson for introducing us to her music.)
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KENDRICK LAMAR | Title TBD
Release Date: TBD
What We Know So Far: The follow-up to 2017’s DAMN. arriving in 2021 is largely speculative at this point, but you’ve gotta believe that these pressure-cooker times we’re living in have provided Lamar with even more inspiration for his cup of creativity that already runneth over. If there’s anyone who can give eloquent, incisive voice to the myriad anxieties so many of us are wrestling with in our changed world, it’s Kung Fu Kenny. “I spend the whole year just thinking about how I’m gonna execute a new sound, I can’t do the same thing over and over,” Lamar explained during an October i-D interview. “I need something to get me excited.” A formal announcement (or more likely, surprise release) of a new album by the 21st century’s greatest emcee would make for exciting news, indeed.
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SG LEWIS | times
Release Date: February 19th
What We Know So Far: If you’ve been following our series of recurring monthly new music playlists over the past few years, you’ll have noticed a consistent presence within the track listings: SG Lewis. With an abundance of warm, melodic electro-soul singles and EPs already under his belt, the multi-dimensionally gifted soundsmith is aiming to make an even bigger splash with his debut full-length album, which features collaborations with Robyn, Rhye and Lucky Daye, among others. “The album is an ode to the present moment, and the finite chances we have to celebrate it,” Lewis declared via Twitter. “It’s an exploration of escapism and euphoria, and the memories attached to those experiences.”
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LONDON GRAMMAR | Californian Soil
Release Date: April 16th
Photo: Crowns & Owls
What We Know So Far: The follow-up to 2017’s Truth Is A Beautiful Thing, the acclaimed UK trio’s third studio album is an introspective affair, propelled by frontwoman Hannah Reid’s reflections on being a woman in a misogyny-plagued music industry. “Misogyny is primitive which is why it is so hard to change,” she said in an official statement about the album. “But it is also fearful. It’s about rejecting the thing in yourself which is vulnerable or feminine. Yet everybody has that thing. This record is about gaining possession of my own life.”
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LORDE | Title TBD
Release Date: TBD
Photo: Brendan Walter
What We Know So Far: “I can tell you, this new thing, it’s got its own colours now,” Lorde explained via an email to her fanbase back in May. “The work is so f**king good, my friend. I am truly jazzed for you to hear it.” Songwriter-producer extraordinaire Jack Antonoff (Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, St. Vincent) is on board for album number three after orchestrating 2017’s Melodrama, so their match made in musical heaven should continue paying plenty of dividends for her legion of loyal fans.
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MADLIB | Sound Ancestors
Release Date: January 29th
Photo: Egon via Four Tet (Instagram)
What We Know So Far: Two musical visionaries have joined creative forces, as Madlib’s forthcoming solo album is the product of years of idea-sharing between the prolific producer and Kieran Hebden a.k.a. Four Tet. “He is always making loads of music in all sorts of styles and I was listening to some of his new beats and studio sessions when I had the idea that it would be great to hear some of these ideas made into a Madlib solo album,” Hebden shared via his Instagram feed a few weeks ago. “Not made into beats for vocalists to use but instead arranged into tracks that could all flow together in an album designed to be listened to start to finish.” And listen we will.
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KACEY MUSGRAVES | Title TBD
Release Date: TBD
Photo: Jamie Nelson
What We Know So Far: Nearly three years have passed since Musgraves’ global profile skyrocketed with the arrival of her watershed moment to date, 2018’s Golden Hour, which deservedly captured Album of the Year honors at the 2019 GRAMMY Awards. In the time since, Musgraves has remained busy with various projects, including last year’s Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show holiday special, notable guest appearances on songs by The Flaming Lips (three tracks on their latest album American Head, including “God and the Policeman”), Troye Sivan (the reworked version of “Easy”), and providing backing vocals for ex-husband Ruston Kelly’s latest album Shape & Destroy (2020).
And while no tangible evidence of recording her fifth studio album has been offered thus far, Musgraves has alluded to new music on the horizon via her Twitter feed over the past few months, remarking that “you children are just gonna have to be patient. It’ll be worth the wait.” and declaring “girl 2020 doesn’t deserve a new album.” Hopefully for all of us, she deems 2021 worthy of what we’ve been waiting for.
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LIZ PHAIR | Soberish
Release Date: TBD
Photo: Elizabeth Weinberg
What We Know So Far: Phair’s musical legacy is well solidified by now on the strength of her six studio albums to date and the all-time classic status of her landmark debut LP Exile in Guyville (1993), but we’re confident that the next chapter of the acclaimed singer-songwriter’s recording career will introduce her many musical and lyrical gifts to a whole new generation of listeners. Newly signed to the rebooted Chrysalis Records, Phair’s seventh studio album Soberish appears to be imminent and the buzz surrounding its arrival is building. “The new record is so much more than a return to form,” Robin Millar, Chairman of Blue Raincoat Chrysalis Group said. “It’s a truly great album. This record will not only blow Liz Phair fans away but has the potential to entrance a whole army of new fans.” In the meantime, as we await the album’s release, be sure to add Phair’s excellent memoir Horror Stories to your reading list, if you haven’t already.
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RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS | Title TBD
Release Date: TBD
What We Know So Far: It goes without saying that John Frusciante is integral to the Chili Peppers’ story dating back to his inaugural appearance on 1989’s Mother’s Milk LP. But the guitar genius hasn’t featured on an RHCP record in nearly fifteen years (2006’s Stadium Arcadium). Thankfully, Frusciante has reunited with Anthony Kiedis, Flea and Chad Smith for the band’s forthcoming twelfth studio album, telling Australia’s Double J radio, “It’s returning to family. I’m extremely comfortable with them. It’s as if no time had gone by at all. Basically, we’re all just as comfortable with each other as we ever were.”
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SADE | Title TBD
Release Date: TBD
What We Know So Far: Embodying the virtues of quality over quantity has always been the modus operandi for this band that operates at its own pace, having released just six studio albums across their 36-year recording career. Now nearly eleven years on from their most recent album (2010’s Solider of Love), Ms. Adu and her bandmates Paul Denman, Andrew Hale and Stuart Matthewman have returned to the studio to craft their seventh LP. “It’s strange, because most bands are forgotten about when there is a long hiatus between albums, but with us it seems the opposite, particularly in the last few years,” Hale recently explained to GQ, in conjunction with the release of the group’s career-spanning This Far box set. “I think a whole new generation have responded not only to the music but also Sade’s reserve and the wish to only say something when the time is right. In the silence, the influence has only grown.”
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ST. VINCENT | Title TBD
Release Date: TBD
What We Know So Far: “The rumors are true. New record ‘locked and loaded’ for 2021. Can’t wait for you to hear it.” St. Vincent’s comments via her Twitter feed a few weeks ago have sent her fans’ heads spinning and hearts a-flutter at the prospect of MASSEDUCTION’s successor making landfall sometime in the new year. In a new MOJO interview, the singer-songwriter-producer born Annie Clark describes her sixth studio album as “a tectonic shift,” adding, “I felt I had gone as far as I could possibly go with angularity. I was interested in going back to the music I’ve listened to more than any other—Stevie Wonder records from the early ’70s, Sly And The Family Stone. I studied at the feet of those masters.”
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TAYLOR SWIFT | Title TBD
Release Date: TBD
Photo: Beth Garrabrant
What We Know So Far: Though we believe the most notable musical “event” in 2020 was the under-the-radar releases of the enigmatic collective SAULT’s two brilliant albums, Taylor Swift’s savvy decision to unveil not one, but two sublime sets of songs was a very close second. Released just a few months apart, folklore and evermore showcase one of this generation’s most adept songwriters evolving her craft while seemingly still not achieving the peak of her powers.
And while her eighth and ninth albums have been considered by many as companion or “sister” albums, rumors have begun to swirl that a third sibling may be gestating as we speak. Or, considering Swift’s workhorse tenacity, perhaps the album is already finished and she’s simply contemplating the right time to unveil it. Whether there is indeed a third and final chapter of this presumed trilogy in the offing, and whether it’s called woodvale or not as some fans have speculated, remains to be seen, with Swift herself refusing to explicitly deny or affirm the rumors.
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WYLES & SIMPSON | Title TBD
Release Date: TBD
What We Know So Far: Abigail Wyles and Holly Simpson’s eponymous debut album as Wyles & Simpson was an unexpected revelation when it dropped back in early 2015. Hence our sheer delight when the duo began peppering their social feeds with snippets of new music last year, suggesting that their sophomore long player is in the works. Even these abbreviated excerpts suggest plenty of sublime sounds to come when the full project materializes—hopefully sooner than later—and we’re all ears.
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