This year has been a crazy one in many ways, but some things never change: our community has a terrific local music scene, and our great local musicians and bands have put out a ton of great music in 2021. We’ve seen amazing work from emerging new artists and longtime icons alike – and the year’s still only half over.
What have been the best local songs of the year so far?
This week, I’m counting down the top 20 local songs from the first six months of 2021.
Here are the ground rules:
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What makes a “local” song? Just like last year when we counted down the top 100 local songs of all time, I’m looking at artists who are primarily based in WCHL’s listening area – namely Orange, Durham, or Chatham Counties. No Raleigh-based artists on this list. (But don’t sleep on the Raleigh scene! Check out Bowerbirds’ fantastic album “BeCalmYoungLovers,” one of the Triangle’s best this year.)
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Since I’m playing the songs from this list during Live & Local on 97.9 The Hill, I’m only considering songs that are radio-friendly. (But if your ears can take it, consider this salty track by the Muslims that was good enough to help land them a record deal.)
And with that, let’s begin!
20. Watchhouse, Better Way
“Oh, why would you try to be so unkind?”
We kick off our countdown with the Artists Formerly Known As Mandolin Orange, who made headlines all over the music world with their shock name-change announcement back in April. Emily Frantz and Andrew Marlin coupled that announcement with the release of this single, with a more complex melody than usual and a lyric promoting kindness in a post-Trump/post-Covid world. (And, you know, just in general.) “Better Way” is a nice reminder that the name “Mandolin Orange” may be gone, but the two great music makers behind it aren’t going anywhere.
19. Faith Jones & VJDAMUSICMAN, Dead Plants
“Life can be a gift when you’re not carrying rock, but here I go with the boulders…”
Faith Jones’ debut EP is still on its way, but the UNC grad has already made a big splash on the local music scene. Last year her cover of “For What It’s Worth” was a highlight of Cat’s Cradle’s “Cover Charge” benefit album – a mighty feat, considering all the powerhouse artists who showed up on that LP – and she followed that up in 2021 with this breezy track about the futility of trying to save a dead relationship.
“Dead Plants” is international as well as local: Jones and VJDAMUSICMAN (Vybhav Jagannath) are both Triangle residents, but they also reached across the pond and collaborated with iamkyami, an artist now based in the UK.
18. Rosa Lee, Starlight
“Wish I could feel like I did back at home…”
In the midst of the pandemic, Michael Montgomery set himself a challenge: write and record one song every week. Not a bad way to spend your time. “Starlight,” the highlight of his output so far, is a new-wavey bop with a driving beat and dreamy lyrics – the perfect track to play while cruising down the highway with the top down.
17. Al Riggs, Emo Revival
“It’s dark under the bed…”
Still one of the most prolific and consistent local musicians out there today, Al Riggs dropped this song in April along with the succinctly-titled LP “I Got A Big Electric Fan To Keep Me Cool While I Sleep.” It’s their twelfth album (!) in just the last five years, but amidst all that output “Emo Revival” stands out as one of the best. (And one of the most emblematic too, with a thoroughly tongue-in-cheek sadness that’s vintage Riggs all the way.)
16. Anne-Claire, Jean Jacket
“I remember when the lights went out…”
Anne-Claire Niver is already an accomplished veteran in the local-music scene, but she shot to new heights this year with this nostalgic, bassy, synth-driven hit. “I remember” is the repeated refrain – fitting, because with “Jean Jacket” Anne-Claire delivers a track that instantly takes you back in your own memories to an earlier, simpler time. Exactly what we want from a song these days.
15. The Connells, Really Great
“You’re my blue sky, and that is everything I need…”
Arguably the best news of the year so far came when the Connells announced they were releasing new music for the first time in twenty years. It’s been a long time coming, but the boys haven’t missed a step: with “Really Great” they go right back to their roots and deliver a straight-down-the-line jolt of nothing but catchy, jangly fun. Exactly what we want from a song these days. (Boy, we’re asking a lot from songs these days, aren’t we?)
14. Speed Stick, Knots
One of the coolest projects of the year: genius drummers Laura King and Thomas Simpson got together, laid down a bunch of beats, and sent them out to some of their favorite musicians to make of them what they will. The resulting album is eclectic, fun, and catchy as hell, with some of the best rock drumming you’ll hear this year. “Knots” is far and away the highlight: R. Ring put some great finishing touches on the song, but this is a track that primarily showcases King and Simpson at their best, with a pulsing beat you can’t help but bop your head to.
13. Katharine Whalen’s Jazz Squad, I’m Painting The Town Red
“Pretending is all I do…”
I try to stay away from covers on these lists, but occasionally a cover is so good I have to make an exception. Exhibit A: Katharine Whalen, already a local legend, sidling up to the mic and channeling Billie Holiday to deliver one of the best songs of her long, highly accomplished career. It’s the centerpiece of a fascinating album, Whalen’s best of the century, zeroing in on a set of songs Holiday recorded in the 1930s with pianist Teddy Wilson; with Whalen bringing her A game, you’ll swear you’re listening to Lady Day herself.
The album’s title finishes this song’s great, clever refrain: she’s painting the town red “To Hide A Heart That’s Blue.”
12. Nnenna Freelon, Just You
“Not the music or the tune, or the candle in this room…”
Another great local artist making a triumphant return after a long hiatus: Nnenna Freelon’s album “Time Traveler,” her first in a decade, is a towering achievement, a meditation on the loss of her husband Phil that’s nostalgic and sad and relentlessly joyful all at once. Many of the songs are covers, but “Just You” is an original – and what a fantastic original it is, channeling all of Freelon’s mixture of feelings into a five-minute tour de force of a love song that fits right in with all the greatest, most timeless American standards.
11. Joshua Starmer, I Don’t Know Where I’m Going
“Please walk with me…”
Best known as the mastermind behind the popular YouTube channel StatQuest, Joshua Starmer is also an accomplished musician, and eight years ago he set himself an ambitious project: write and record one song every month, indefinitely. He passed the 100-month milestone this year, and recently he produced his best piece yet, this quiet, catchy, all-too-relatable track about the weird, discombobulating mixture of anxiety and liberation (but mostly anxiety) he felt after leaving his longtime position at UNC.
“I loved that job,” he said on WCHL. “But StatQuest was really taking off and I had to make a choice between those two things. It was very scary, it was very sad – I mean, I cried when I left my job. It was not what I had in mind, I thought I’d be there forever… I left UNC and wrote that song the next day.” Hopefully it works out – but at the very least, it gave us one of the best songs of the year.
Up next in the top 10: Blue Cactus, Southern Culture on the Skids, Hiss Golden Messenger, and more.
