Despite striving myself on my punctuality, I’m often late to the party. Japanese Breakfast, a band of indefinite size and location fronted by Korean-born, Oregon-raised renaissance woman Michelle Zauner, is a prime example. Their album, Jubilee, that I have so valiantly placed at #3 on my Top 31 for the entirety of 2021, did not enter my audio purview until December 28, 2021. If I’d posted my Top 31 in December, as I used to do until a few years ago, this album would have not been included at all.

Instead, I learned about it thanks to the fantastic KEXP community, who voted this phenomenal third album from the band as their #1 album of the year. I didn’t even hear the live broadcast of that announcement. I read about it a few days later, decided to listen to the album that had struck everyone’s fancy, and was subsequently left trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces of my exploded brain that had scattered around the living room.

This is pop music in its purest, most exciting form. Zauner’s wit, song structure, and bubbly voice – equal parts Grimes and Jenny Lewis – weave a tapestry of pure joy for ten solid songs. The peak of the joy comes at song #2, “Be Sweet,” featured in the video shown above. That chorus – “Be sweet to me baby. I want to believe in you, I want to belieeeeeeve” – is so sickly sweet, I die.

The last song on the album, “Posing for Cars,” is the least pop-like song on the album, but the extended, Doug Martsch-esque guitar solo showcases Zauner’s skills on the instrument. And skilled she is. In addition to having penned three albums with Japanese Breakfast, Zauner is also the director for nearly all of their music videos. And these aren’t some cheap band-performance videos. They’re full-on stories, sometimes strung together into epics. The other two videos from Jubilee are “Posing in Bondage” and “Savage Good Boy,” featuring Micheal Imperioli (best known as Christopher Moltisanti from the Sopranos), and is meant to be a prequel to the story shown in “Bondage.” Zauner has also directed videos for Better Oblivion Community Center, Charly Bliss, and Jay Som.

As if that weren’t enough, she released her first book in 2021. Crying in H Mart: A Memoir debuted at #2 on the NYTimes Best Seller List in April. And it’s now being adapted into a film by Orion Pictures, of which the soundtrack will be supplied by Japanese Breakfast.

Jubilee has been nominated for Best Alternative Music Album, and the band for Best New Artist Grammys (not sure how that works, given that this album is their third as a band). Pitchfork, in their 7.8/10 review of Jubilee, declared 2021 as “Jbrekkie Season,” and I have to agree. This doesn’t feel like the top – this feels like we’re only at the beginning of something huge, like, the birth of a new Michelangelo. I absolutely cannot wait to see what comes next.

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4. A Way Forward by Nation of Language
5. Things Take Time, Take Time by Courtney Barnett
6. Little Oblivions by Julien Baker
7. Valentine by Snail Mail
8. sketchy. by tUnE-yArDs
9. A Very Lonely Solstice by Fleet Foxes
10. Hey What by Low
11. Local Valley by José González
12. Head of Roses by Flock of Dimes
13. The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows by Damon Albarn
14. Collapsed in Sunbeams by Arlo Parks
15. Loving In Stereo by Jungle
16. Flying Dream 1 by Elbow
17. Screen Violence by Chvrches
18. Blue Weekend by Wolf Alice
19. Mainly Gestalt Pornography by Pearly Gate Music
20. Peace Or Love by Kings of Convenience
21. These 13 by Jimbo Mathus & Andrew Bird
22. Mr. Corman: Season 1 by Nathan Johnson
23. Home Video by Lucy Dacus
24. I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute to The Velvet Underground & Nico by Various Artists
25. Siamese Dream by Fruit Bats
26. NINE by Sault
27. Observatory by Aeon Station
28. The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania by Damien Jurado
29. A Beginner’s Mind by Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine
30. Where the End Begins by Knathan Ryan
31. Private Space by Durand Jones & The Indications

There are many ways to listen to the 2021 Bacon Top 31. Subscribe now and enjoy the new albums / songs as the countdown is completed!

Full Album
All albums in their entirety.

Radio Station
A single song selection pulled from each album.

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