You know 2020 was a bad year because not a single one of my music predictions from a year ago ended up coming true. Well, that and all the other terrible stuff that happened in the past 12 months.
Two years of doing this and I’ve delivered only one correct prophecy (once again, thank you 6ix9ine’s prosecutors), but that isn’t going to stop me from firing off my forecast of 2021.
Lorde will return and have the best album of 2021.
Nervous young adult hearts everywhere can finally rejoice in 2021. Since dropping the stunning Melodrama in 2017, Ella Yelich-O’Connor retreated back to New Zealand and went cold on social media. But that all changed last fall when she posted her first-ever Instagram story asking fans to vote in Kiwiland’s upcoming election- and promising a gift for us in 2021 if they did.
An astonishing sense of self-awareness earned the now 24-year-old’s first two albums a sacred spot in the minds of Millennials and Gen Zers everywhere. The expectations for number three are undoubtedly high, but Lorde is yet to disappoint us- especially since she’s reuniting with producer Jack Antonoff, the architect for many of Melodrama’s greatest scenes. And speaking of reuniting…
boygenius will reunite and release new music.
Shattering crescendos and angelic vocal performances powered the debut EP for boygenius, a supergroup composed of indie rock titans Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus. The trio’s 2018 release showcased the band’s only six songs in existence- a mark to be expanded upon this year. While my initial review was severely underscored (I hadn’t quite figured out my scoring system just yet), it remains one of the most magnificent EPs of the last decade. Bridgers has been able to drop a major release every year since 2017, a feat likely to be retained in 2021. This time it’ll be with Baker and Dacus by her side.
Van Weezer will be the worst album of 2021.
I predicted it would happen in the 2020 edition of this article, so forgive me if it sounds like I’m rehashing an old formula that’s known to not work. Then again, that’s actually the perfect way to describe Weezer in the 21st century. Most of Cuomo and Co.’s clumsy pop-rock records from the past two decades have been average at best, and their most recent studio LP failed to prove any signs of gas still in the tank.
2021 will be another year of Sky Ferreira not releasing music.
The disappearing act of Sky Ferreira’s music career began following her debut album Night Time, My Time’s release back in 2013. Since then she’s been fairly busy- but not in the recording studio. Between cameos in Baby Driver and the Twin Peaks revival alongside an active Instagram account, we’ve only heard a couple of singles from the “Everything is Embarrassing” singer lately. If the sophomore try couldn’t come out all these years when things were, dare I say, “normal,” a year consumed by quarantine is more than enough to stop it from getting closer to its drop date. Expect to cling to 2019’s “Downhill Lullaby” single for at least another 365 days.
