The Tomo Awards 2021 — Singles Edition
My 15 Favorite Singles Of 2021
Well, now that we’ve got my favorite albums of the year out of the way, let me just go out and say that I think this year was a fantastic year for singles as well. There’s been quite a return to the significance of the single as the era of the album wanes ever so slightly, if not in favor of this trend of overly long 20+ song albums that I just can’t seem to shut up about hating. Anyways, there is only one rule for my favorite singles of 2021. The rules is that these are all singles that aren’t featured on a full-length album released in the year of 2021; this means singles from EPs are fair game, as are singles from albums that will release in 2022. If a single has an associate body of work with it, I’ll notate that in its title; if it’s either standalone or from a currently unannounced album I’ll just leave it on its own.
And fret not, The Tomo Awards 2021 — Gamer Edition is also coming soon. I just need to clock a few more hours into one specific game before the end of the year so I can really justify naming it as potentially my Game Of The Year.
But back to the music, let’s get right into it.
1. THE SPELLBOUND — ‘HAJIMARI’, from THE SPELLBOUND (album, releasing February 23rd, 2022)
THE SPELLBOUND are a supergroup comprised of ex-BOOM BOOM SATELLITES members Masayuki Nakano and Yoko Fukuda as well as THE NOVEMBERS frontman Yusuke Kobayashi, joined live by second drummer Kazuya Ooi from Yahyel and DATS. THE SPELLBOUND bring BOOM BOOM SATELLITES’ unmistakable electronic-rock sound back with a bang on their debut single ‘HAJIMARI’ (literally: “beginning”) after the long 5 years since BOOM BOOM SATELLITES frontman Michiyuki Kawashima tragically passed away. However, rather than just continuing to be the BOOM BOOM SATELLITES, Kobayashi brings his shoegazey stylings to the table to create something entirely unique and worth of succeeding such a highly achieving and legendary band. ‘HAJIMARI’ is without a doubt the best of the 5 singles they released earlier this year, and my overall favorite song from 2021. I eagerly anticipate their self-titled debut album releasing this coming February.
2. Noname — ‘Rainforest’, possibly from Factory Baby (album, releasing maybe never)
If Noname’s claim that she’s done with music for the foreseeable future is to be believed, then ‘Rainforest’ is a hell of a song to go out with. Initially released as the lead single for her highly anticipated and unfinished third album Factory Baby, ‘Rainforest’ is a poignant and politically-charged song which critiques the ways in which we’re forced to watch rich real-life supervillain CEOs and their evil corporations actively destroy the world we live on for profit, and those who defend their actions. It’s a song that — despite Noname’s believing that she’s uncreative as of late — continues to prove Noname as the singular greatest rapper to ever live, with her previous two albums Telefone and Room25 dominating any other rap album you could name for their razor-sharp lyrical precision and politically-charged yet digestible themes.
3. Perfume — ‘Polygon Wave’, from Polygon Wave (EP, released September 22nd, 2021)
After the mild stumble of Perfume’s 2018 album Future Pop and the fairly disappointing singles attached to their greatest hits album P-Cubed, Perfume returned to us in 2019 and 2020 with the singles ‘Saisei’ and ‘Time Warp’ respectively. ‘Saisei’ started to restore a little bit of hope that Perfume would be returning to form, while ‘Time Warp’ implied that they would be trying a more retro sound. While we still don’t know if these are going to be the rare standalone singles or appear on their next full-length album along with the Polygon Wave material, they were still excellent steps back to acclaim. Well, on the Polygon Wave EP, Perfume did both; a combination of analog-sounding synthpop magic and Perfume’s post-Shibuya-kei stylings found on albums like COMPLETE BEST and GAME. The single ‘Polygon Wave’ itself (and we’re talking about the “Original Mix” of ‘Polygon Wave’ here just to clarify, not the radio edit which was released months prior to the EP) is an undeniably catchy and smooth trip into the past and future of Perfume, with a kind of wonky self-sampling that feels like an entirely new thing for producer Yasutaka Nakata. The pumping kick and bass as well as Shibuya-kei drum break during the album’s first bridge is the definition of Perfume down to the capital “P”, and it’s been a long, long time since we’ve heard them sounding as peak condition as they are on ‘Polygon Wave’. With the rest of the EP and the two prior singles, it’s clear that Perfume’s upcoming eighth (counting their debut compilation album) album will be another classic for the books.
4. AiNA THE END —‘Kare to Watashi no Hondana’, from Naisyo (EP, released March 3rd, 2021)
Aina Iitani, better known by her stage name AiNA THE END, had the potential of having one of Japan’s strongest solo debuts ever after her tenure with punk-pop disaster group BiSH for the past 6 years, standing out high above the group’s other members for her unique and powerful voice, with a wide stable range and powerful vocal fry; even Ringo Sheena herself took a great interest in AiNA as a solo artist, forming the one-time supergroup Elopers with her and a few other prominent Japanese musician to perform an excellent cover of Ringo’s band Tokyo Jihen’s iconic single ‘Gunjou Biyori’ (also known as ‘Ideal Days For Ultramarine’) on MUSIC STATION’s four-hour TV broadcast special in October. However, her debut album THE END was instead a disaster of unfulfilled potential, showing brief moments of shine while otherwise falling flat on its face due to a massive inconsistency in song quality. Much of the album was comprised of underwhelming ballads that failed to show her vocal prowess, songwriting skills, or ability to effortlessly tame a well-produced beat. A month later however, she released the 4-song Naisyo EP (literally: “Secret”, more correctly sometimes spelled “Naisho”) with the city pop-inspired single ‘Kare to Watashi no Hondana’ (roughly: “Our Bookshelf”). This was the first time AiNA’s solo career showed just what she’s capable of, with hyper-charged vocal runs that demonstrate her shrill vocal fry as she approaches the top of her comfortable vocal range over a Tatsuro Yamashita-esque city pop beat. I simply cannot believe that WACK — her nightmare of a sad excuse for a talent agency as well as a catchall term for their in-house producers — thought her wet fart of a solo album was good enough when they had songs like this tucked away and left off of it.
[I have since been informed that this EP was compiled with her other EPs from 2021 onto an album called THE ZOMBIE. I do not care about AiNA THE END’s solo career enough to correct this]
5. Lim Kim — ‘Falling’
After disappearing for nearly 5 years and returning in 2019 with her experimental album GENERASIAN which I named my favorite album of that year, Lim Kim returns with a seemingly loosie single produced by DPR CREAM — one of Korea’s finest producers of the moment — called ‘Falling’. But rather than continuing with GENERASIAN’s wild blend of Death Grips-esque industrial hip-hop and traditional Korean instrumentation, ‘Falling’ sees Lim Kim briefly return to her pre-hiatus sound of melodic indie-pop, and it’s a nostalgic trip the immediately takes me back to her 2015 album Simple Mind, one of my favorite releases of the entire decade. DPR CREAM’s production is smooth and dreamy, and Kim’s voice is near-breathless and owns the track. While I wouldn’t mind her going further with the experimentation on her next full-length, I’d also have no problem seeing her head back in this direction too, as I never got quite enough of her early solo career, desperately waiting for a traditional comeback that never came after 2015. Well, ‘Falling’ at the very least scratches my itch for that sound.
6. SE SO NEON — ‘joke!’
SO SO NEON have the privilege of being one of South Korea’s only major rock bands, as the nation’s major music output is mostly restricted to various forms of pop music, idol groups, and indie-folk-pop. SE SO NEON on the other hand, a trio whose name means “new kids” and was named after a magazine called “Sae So Nyeon”, are the hardest rocking thing to come out of Korea in recent memory. Their 2020 album NONADAPTATION took a lot of hints from shoegaze, however on ‘joke!’ their first major single since then, the band find themselves in territory that more closely resembles a combination of Prince and St. Vincent, which culminates at the end with an explosive fuzzy, pitched guitar solo by frontwoman Hwang So-yoon. If this is where their third album is going, I’m all here for it. ‘joke!’ also wins for Music Video Of The Year.
7. The Weeknd — ‘Take My Breath’, from The Dawn (album, releasing TBA 2022)
While The Weeknd’s 2020 album After Hours saw him starting to leaving his signature dark and druggy R&B sound behind for a more synthpop direction, ‘Take My Breath’ seems to show Abel now heading into a pure synthwave and nu disco direction, and honestly, while it took me a while to get used to After Hours being so overall bright despite its singles and name’s opposition to that, this time I’m fully ready to accept this sound. ‘Take My Breath’ particularly reminds of the type of thing his mentors from the now-defunct Daft Punk were doing on Random Access Memories back in 2013, and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it came out some day that they were ghost-producers on this track; it’s very likely that The Dawn was recorded immediately after or even before After Hours’ release, and that Daft Punk’s involvement would only cause confusion after their 2021 breakup. This is just a conspiracy theory of mine, no facts to back it up. Regardless, ‘Take My Breath’ is an unbelievably catchy analog dance tune that leaves me melted into a little puddle waiting for this new album.
8. Saba — ‘Fearmonger (feat. Daoud)’, from Few Good Things (album, releasing February 4th, 2022)
Saba’s seminal 2018 album CARE FOR ME was one of my favorite albums of that year, and I’ve only grown to love it more since; its moody jazz-hop sounds and tortured lyrics got me through a lot of 2020’s roughest patches. ‘Fearmonger’, the lead single for his followup ‘Few Good Things’ on the other hand seems to take on a much more upbeat tone despite its still introspective lyrics, and hopefully ‘Few Good Things’ will follow this change in suit.
9. aespa — ‘Next Level’
aespa’s trajectory as SM Entertainment’s replacement for their flagship group Red Velvet is a bit of an interesting one. After Red Velvet’s Irene was involved in a controversy which saw her allegedly being rude to a hair stylist or something (which opens up a much more in-depth conversation about South Korean pop culture’s objectification and conditioning of women’s emotions as well as the unreasonable beauty standards associated with it all), SM quickly debut a new group aespa in November 2020 to cover up for the controversy with their debut single ‘Black Mamba’, an underwhelming and generic pop-trap song. Adding to this, aespa went completely silent until May 2021, likely because they were debuted prematurely and needed to train extra hard to become the perfectly robotic group that SM needed their new flagship group to be.
However, what they came back was the fantastically experimental single ‘Next Level’, featuring a woozy bass, steady hip-hop beat, and an interpolation of a song from one of the Fast & Furious soundtracks as part of its hook; however, ‘Next Level’ takes an interesting turn when it suddenly beat-switches into a totally different tempo and key, an acid jazz-esque interlude that jarred the core of listeners. It’s unfortunate that the average K-pop fan doesn’t have much exposure to different music; most K-pop uses fairly cookie cutter formulas, rarely ever doing something you wouldn’t hear on American radios or anything like a beat switch. Something as small and frankly un-experimental in the grand scheme of things was deemed too experimental for the average listener, leading to poor reception. But frankly, I can’t help but appreciate and gush over something like this happening in such a straight-laced scene, and it excited me to no bounds.
Unfortunately, this poor reception lead to a likely scrapped album concept, and saw aespa instead release their debut EP Savage. The irony here is that Savage’s sound was blatantly inspired by the late Scottish producer SOPHIE, whose innovative, bold, and experimental sounds from her 2013–2015 rise to prominence quickly became industry standard thanks to superstars like Madonna and B-listers with cult followings like Charli XCX collaborating with SOPHIE and bringing her signature sound to the mainstream. SOPHIE even collaborated officially with K-pop group ITZY (aespa but good) last year. Savage instead decided to completely rip SOPHIE’s once-experimental sound the same year that SOPHIE passed away. Frankly disrespectful. Just as embarrassing was their sloppy “performance” of ‘Savage’ at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this year. ‘Next Level’ better + ratio.
10. Petit Brabancon — ‘Koku’, from Koku/Kawaki (maxi single, released December 7th, 2021)
I’ll be honest, I heard this one for the first time today, but it just blew me away that hard that I had to just go with my gut and put it where I felt it deserves to be on such an early impression. Petit Brabancon are a brand new visual-kei band, a supergroup featuring Dir En Grey frontman Kyo, L’arc~En~Ciel drummer Yukihiro, MUCC guitarist Miya, Tokyo Shoegazer guitarist Antz, and THE NOVEMBERS bassist Hirofumi Takamatsu. Their debut maxi single Koku/Kawaki features three songs, and it’s leading track ‘Koku’ is a phenomenal blend of sounds, heavier and harder hitting than anything Dir En Grey has done since Arche. It’s an exceptional record that makes me not even mind the extended wait for Dir En Grey’s follow-up to The Insulated World, seeming like a possibly serious project for many of its members, as Tokyo Shoegazer has been broken up for many years, L’arc~En~Ciel has only really been doing random album anniversary concerts for the past decade, and THE NOVEMBER’s frontman Yusuke Kobayashi is busy treating THE SPELLBOUND as the project most important to him right now.
11. YESEO — ‘Youthful Kids’, from TRY FREE! (EP, released August 14th, 2021)
YESEO’s 2020 EP BE was one of top releases of the entire year, and on its follow-up TRY FREE!, YESEO once again brings her ethereal production skills and wispy vocals back for another dreamy electropop hit on its lead single ‘Youthful Kids’. There’s really not much else to say about YESEO that I haven’t already said; I loved BE and her album before that — DAMN RULES — was my favorite album of 2018. All I can say is that I’m just eagerly anticipating her next full body of work, as her sound constantly shifts from release to release, it’s always exciting to hear what she tries her hand at next.
12. CAPSULE — Hikari no Disco
Yasutaka Nakata’s personal solo band CAPSULE’s ‘Hikari no Disco’ has been a very, very long time coming when you look at their pattern of releases in Nakata’s discography. CAPSULE was often the foundational reference point for much of Yasutaka Nakata’s major artists like Perfume and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu; the futuristic electropop sounds of Perfume’s definitive 2008 album ⊿ (pronounced “triangle”) can be heard all over CAPSULE’s preceding FLASHBACK and the following MORE! MORE! MORE! which had doubled the sales FLASHBACK made after ⊿’s success. In 2015, CAPSULE released their most recent album WAVE RUNNER to a middling response from fans and critics alike. Certainly it was still Yasutaka Nakata and Toshiko Koshijima, but the majority of songs felt a tad generic rather than the usual innovative. This, of course being the blueprint of Nakata acts, was similar to the sound of Perfume’s equally middling 2016 Cosmic Explorer — which I frankly don’t get the hate for, I fucking love that album to bits even if it’s not the most future-forward thing in the world.
So what does all of this make CAPSULE’s grand return in 2021? Well, for starters, we still don’t really know if we’re going to be getting a new album quite yet, and ‘Hikari no Disco’ as well as CAPSULE’s following singles ‘Future Wave’ and ‘Virtual Freedom’ all share a similar aesthetic style, with each’s associated artwork displaying a differently colored cassette tape with the song’s title crudely written on them. What can be said about ‘Hikari no Disco’ is that it certainly feels like Yasutaka Nakata’s blueprint for returning to the hard-hitting technopop, disco club sounds that he’s so revered for with CAPSULE as well as Perfume’s Polygon Wave EP and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s Candy Racer album, all three of which released within mere months from each other. ‘Hikari no Disco’ is an otherwise dense mix of Nakata’s signature electric pianos, plucky synths, gritty bass, thumping kick drums, and vocoded, Autotune’d, Harmony Engine’d vocals, and I couldn’t be more happy with such a triumphant return to form.
13. Heather Hills — ‘Lolly’
I’ve made friends with a lot of independent musicians in my time in the New Jersey DIY music scene, but few have showed as much of a readiness for fame and success as Heather Hills. Her 2021 single ‘Lolly’ is pure musical insanity, with an effortlessly catchy hook, liquid flow on the verses, and the kind of wonky beat you’d have lost your shit over on an early 2010s Azealia Banks project. It’s a song that demands attention and respect, a track worthy of serious critical appraisal. If Heather’s next full-length project is going to sound like this, it would be truly, truly unfair for it to not propel her to stardom.
14. glaive — ‘i wanna slam my head against the wall’, from all dogs go to heaven (EP, released August 6th, 2021)
glaive’s rise to fame has been whiplash-quick, a 16 year old artist from North Carolina, who just two years after 100 Gecs’ own rise from SoundCloud to major label artist, is already pioneering a post-hyperpop movement that he refers to as “digicore”. The lead single from his second EP all dogs go to heaven, ‘i wanna slam my head against the wall’ is a song that’s all over the place in the best of ways, starting with a smooth acoustic guitar and boom-clap pop beat before morphing into filtered DnB drums for a few seconds on the pre-chorus and exploding into an eight-on-the-floor stomping cadence for its unhinged chorus. glaive is on track to become one of the biggest in the game, worthy of the attention 100 Gecs got in 2019 for their debut album and then some. If he drops an album in 2022 for his recently signed deal with Interscope records, it’s got serious album of the year potential based on his EPs, teased snippets, and SoundCloud output alone.
15. Lil Uzi Vert — ‘Demon High’
A huge left turn for Lil Uzi Vert that shouldn’t feel as surprising as it is given his eccentric personality and occasional steps outside of hip-hop on tracks as early as the synthwave closer to his 2015 mixtape Luv Is Rage, ‘Paradise’ (his best song, don’t you fucking forget that), ‘Demon High’ is a straight up indie-pop track that has a short obligatory trap beat on the second half of its final chorus. While it’s not confirmed yet whether this will be included on his upcoming project Pink Tape, which he’s described as his return to “SoundCloud mixtape vibes”, ‘Demon High’ is regardless a fantastic foray into melodic pop music for Uzi, and is so catchy and well-written that it’s frankly just proof that if he wanted to he could carry an entire album of this style. ‘Demon High’ seems to be telling a larger story however, based on his spoken monologues at the beginning and end of the song, and if that’s the case, I look forward to whatever larger project that this potentially could be a part of.
If you’re interested in my full list of songs I loved this year in relative best to least best order, here’s my playlist (album tracks also appear here, it’s almost 200 songs limited to 1 or 2 per main artist) that I make every year.
