Ah-- December!   Snow dancing in the air, holiday lights refracting through pine boughs, and music-streaming-services releasing user metrics as cute, lil, share-able packages.

During this most wonderful time of the year, I begin to feel a bit left out of the game-- I don't stream music, but I still feel the desire to share what I've been listening to.  So: every December I spend honestly way-too-much time cataloging the best songs I've heard within the past 365 days into a lil notes-app post and accompanying playlist.  I toss it out onto Instagram and, like, four people chime in and say " oh, nice!"  It's a high-quality system I've built.

And I'm basically doing that here, but with a lil twist: these are THE BEST SONGS I HEARD (ON BANDCAMP) IN 2021.

This year, 85% of the stuff I got into was on Bandcamp.  This means that the artists I'm supporting are not signed to a major label: these are by-and-large, true-blue indie musicians who hope to make a living through their art.

This also means that I'm not giving my money to FAANG-adjacent companies that suck up dollars and pay out crumbs: Bandcamp is an independently-owned platform that incentivizes music purchasing while still offering modest streaming capabilities.  Likewise, through their monthly Bandcamp Friday initiative, they offer big payouts to indie artists by waiving their share of the profits.  It, too, is a high quality system.

The downside, of course, is that I'm unable to include artists who aren't on Bandcamp.  There are some songs I've loved this year that are not on the list (Tyler! Sharon Van & Angel! Nas X!), but so it goes.

Anyway, check out these songs.  They're all good.  it's Bandcamp Friday (12/3) when I'm writing this, so if you hear something you like, don't hesitate to throw the artist a couple bucks.