2021 End of Year Wrap-Up: Books, Music, and Other Things That Made Last Year

As much as I enjoy reading End of Year Wrap-Ups, I hate writing them. How do I even pick my favorites? They’re all my favorite almost? Do I even remember which one is my favorite??? But seriously, how do I even choose? (Yeah, that’s exactly why I never wrote them in the first place. But I’m going to try this year. I really am.)

I was never the decisive one. It’s handy, sometimes, but it can be annoying for everyone involved (even me, the decision maker). Why can’t decisions just decision?

I guess that’s why this post took as long as it did to go live; most of my time making this post was actually deciding for each section more than writing the section. Or abandoning the post for weeks on end – I think this one is the most accurate. I don’t think I’ve touched this since early January when it basically said, “Do I write this? Maybe it’ll write itself. What if I just stare at it?”

And what do I even say for these outside of “WATCH/READ/LISTEN TO THIS NOW!!!” because I generally like to have a little blurb when it comes to lists. I think I gave up here and there and basically everywhere. Can you tell? I can definitely tell. Please send help.

K-Pop Debuts

2021 was an exciting year for K-Pop for both rookie groups and non-rookie groups alike. I stayed caught up enough that I actually have a list? (I even did a K-Pop Edition of the Mid-Year Freakout Tag.) This section might be the easiest of this entire post because everything else just gets harder as the favorites list gets longer and I become more indecisive from the number of choices.

I mean… maybe it’s because there’s only been a handful out of the debuts I did keep up with that actually stuck out/haven’t really stuck out but a definite keep my eye on. Or it might be from the YouTube and Spotify algorithm.

Excalibur by KINGDOM

I might not be the biggest fan of Karma or Black Crown (though they’re growing on me very slowly), but their debut song Excalibur has been living rent-free in my head all of 2021, and so has one of their b-sides. I have a feeling Night Air is going to live rent-free longer than Excalibur because acoustic versions of songs just hit different and I’m absolutely in love with the acoustic version.

Also, this group has no business being this funny while touting a medieval concept and screaming in cinematic music videos. Seriously, I can’t think of another group with such a niche concept (yet) – it’s ambitious and bold, but I feel like it’s in a good way. That being said, considering it’s only been a little over a year since their debut, it might be too early and the entire concept could just fall apart in a few years. But we’ll see.

Either way, I can’t wait for History of Kingdom: Part IV. Dann coming out in a few weeks. (Since I’m already very late with this wrap-up, the timing of this post going up may or may not have been intentional so I can talk about their comeback just a little.)

Wings by PIXY

Wings might not be my favorite PIXY song, but I’m a sucker for any lore that involves fairies and magic. (Mostly magic.)

Also, I’m in love with a lot of their discography (the b-sides from their debut and most of their Fairy Forest: Bravery album), which is extremely rare because I’m pickier with music than the food I eat. Yet I have a whole Spotify playlist dedicated to K-Pop that’s going on 1.2K songs.

Yeah, I don’t know how that happened either. My music playlist organization skills are sad. That being said, PIXY is a definite group to keep your eye out for if you like following groups who aren’t from bigger companies like SM, YG, JYP and Hybe, and you like listening to groups like Dreamcatcher or Pink Fantasy.

Ponzona by Purple Kiss

Purple Kiss has a lot to live up to considering MAMAMOO is from the same company and everyone (naturally) is going to compare them to their sister group. That being said though, I think Purple Kiss stands on their own and I highly enjoyed their debut mini-album.

I was not, however, a huge initial fan of their second mini-album Hide & Seek, but this comes down to me being picky with my music choices and some of the songs eventually grew on me over time.

Eleven by IVE

Honestly, I wasn’t a fan of Eleven, IVE’s debut single. This just comes down to personal music tastes – by no means does it mean it was terrible and you shouldn’t listen to them. But they’ve definitely made a splash into the K-Pop world, breaking records with a quick music show win. I don’t generally write off newer groups without giving more than a few whirls on their discography, and I actually did like the b-side to their debut single album.

In other words, IVE is definitely a group I’m going to keep an eye on.

Honorable Mentions

There’s not much that I can say about a lot of the groups that I’ve listed below. None of them really stuck out to me as much that I have anything to say beyond, “I listened to a few songs from them, maybe if they had an entire album or EP I probably took it for a whirl or two, but it’s not like they’re living rent-free in my head.” But they’re also not groups to completely ignore in 2022 as well.

Luminous, Billlie, Blitzers, Hot Issue, Majors, Just B

Songs Very Much Not K-Pop (AKA Other Songs)

Scratch K-Pop Debuts being the easiest section. This is the easiest section because I can only think of a handful of songs that have been in my head all year long that aren’t K-Pop. This might be because I can’t be arsed to change my Pandora radio or Spotify playlist. Anything that ended up on this list is probably thanks to YouTube shoving them at me.

Also much of my music when I wanted a change have been consisting of catching up with artists I haven’t listened to in a hot minute, like One Republic, Fall Out Boy, Hey Violet and Demi Lovato. Cue surprised Pikachu face when I find out months later they have new albums or songs that I wasn’t aware of.

Rescue Me by One Republic

So maybe I listened to this song too many times when it came out. Maybe I still listen to it now in 2022, and maybe I listened to the rest of their recent album too many times as well. Enough that, well, after a million years (~3 years more accurately), maybe my Spotify wrap-up will stop being dominated so much by EXO and Taemin*. But it’s early in the year, so we’ll see.

*Technically, the first two spots got dominated by GOT7 (mostly Last Piece) and Kingdom (mostly Night Air), and this isn’t even counting my Pandora listens.

Met Him Last Night by Demi Lovato ft. Ariana Grande

I’m not the biggest Ariana Grande fan, but she wrote this song specifically for Demi Lovato on her album, and honestly that kind of makes me want to cry a little, my opinions about Grande aside. (Look, I do like some of Grande’s songs and I’ll admit there are quite a few good ones. I’m just not the biggest fan, which is valid.)

Burn It All Down by PVYIS and Enemy by Imagine Dragons

I’ve always been a fan of the League of Legends theme songs for Worlds and Burn It All Down is no exception. It probably got me into the rest of PVYIS’s discography as well, which is pretty much the whole point of LoL selecting artists in the first place (and promoting the year’s Worlds).

Although technically Enemy was one of the songs on the soundtrack for the Netflix series Arcane, but it was still performed during Worlds 2021 sooo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

good 4 u by Olivia Rodrigo

Olivia Rodrigo kind of slipped into my life (YouTube recommendations, more like) very stealthily, maybe because everyone around me was also listening to her as well. It just so happens that I caved in way later when I’m going down on nostalgia road and YouTube is like, “Oh, yeah, we forgot you have more taste than just K-Pop. Our bad.”

Movies and TV Shows

This section is only somewhat easy because there’s not much that stuck out to me that I would categorize as a favorite of 2021. There certainly wasn’t enough to have two separate sections for both movies and TV shows (there’s only one TV show), even if I did watch a lot of them (mostly movies) near the end of the year when I had to quarantine and couldn’t work from home yet due to the lack of internet access.

Squid Game

I was late to the game (not as late I could’ve been though!) but I have zero regrets because as gory and bloody as this is, I couldn’t stop watching. The storytelling, the foreshadowing, the acting – just chef’s kiss, especially for the number of episodes that are available. And like everyone else, I would absolutely want to watch a second season because I have so many questions.

(I really should go back to watching Asian dramas. The last one was the C-drama Meteor Garden and I just forgot Netflix existed since. Except until the better part of January by the force of the universe.)

Parasite

There’s a lot to unpack from Parasite and I honestly have trouble deciding if I liked Squid Game more, or this one more. So we’ll just stick with both were equally good in their own ways, and I refuse to choose a favorite. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Train to Busan

The US has no business doing a reboot of Train to Busan. Leave this movie alone, America.

Random fact, but because I’m terrible at faces and names, it took me the longest time to recognize one of the actors appears in Squid Game.

Also I thought I would be scared (Horror + Me = Disaster) but it turns out almost crying is more accurate.

Over the Moon

Over the Moon was cute and adorable, based on the tale of Chang’e and featuring catchy musical numbers. Maybe this ended up on here because of the cuteness, maybe not. 🤫

White Snake

If the Chinese folklore was made by Disney in an animated form, White Snake would be that animated Disney form. Only if Disney actually did it, it would probably be a terrible mess. (Or it might actually be good, who knows.)

I also didn’t realize Green Snake was the sequel so I walked in watching that without realizing until the end when I felt like I missed something even though I know this tale like the back of my hand. Unfortunately, the sequel wasn’t terrible, but I wouldn’t consider it a fave either.

K-Pop Comebacks

Decisions truly went out the window beginning in this section. Looking back over all my favorites for each month, it was hard to choose even ten of my favorite songs this year because there were so many? 2021 was the year of comebacks for 2nd Generation artists that made up my middle school years plus a few new favorites from artists I don’t usually listen to.

That being said, since it was extremely difficult for me to choose comebacks, I decided to do a small blurb for maybe one or two and then put the rest on a list. Maybe for 2022, I’ll actually start the list ahead of time so I’m not so… disorganized.

(I attempted to do an albums section and then a songs section consisting of title tracks and b-sides. It didn’t go well.)

Don’t Call Me – SHINee

To be honest, I kinda forgot most of SHINee were in military service and Taemin was holding up the entire fandom. At the same time, though, I wasn’t following K-Pop or even listening to songs after Jessica left SNSD and three members left EXO, so I really can’t blame anyone but myself.

I’m also admittedly not the biggest Shawol either*, but I really liked a lot of the songs from this album! Don’t Call Me was quite different in sound and concept but yet at the same time familiar.

*I follow a lot of groups I can’t keep track of them all so I just listen casually because I’m just a mess.

Only Lovers Left – WOODZ

2021 was the first year I discovered Woodz after stumbling across one of his older songs somewhere, somehow. I have no clue how, but since he’s a member of UNIQ and I’ve been sort of following Yibo’s music here and there, I’m not surprised YouTube and Spotify slid this into my recommendations. Like any song that I come across where I like the song, I usually dig into some of the most popular releases they’ve had just to see if I might come across a new favorite.

I also feel like out of the UNIQ members him and Yibo tend to stick out the most to me, Yibo mostly because of The Untamed even though I haven’t watched it yet and Woodz has very distinct vocals. (This isn’t to say the other members aren’t good enough. I just haven’t gotten around to digging into their work. Also, I kind of feel uncomfortable personally just intentionally digging into public information about them or any idol really?)

Savage – aespa

I’ve long been an SM fan considering most of the groups I’m fans of are from SM, and it’s no exception for aespa. Savage is much like a lot of aespa’s other songs and a little different from other songs released in other SM groups (in my opinion), mostly because I feel like they’ve been experimenting a lot (which isn’t surprising considering it’s SM Entertainment). Then again, when the group members all have an avatar counterpart, you really can’t call it not experimenting.

Personally, I felt like Savage was similar to NCT 127’s Sticker, but better? (Hey, personal opinion and taste though. I did like one of their b-sides.)

Other Songs and Albums I Liked

But I can’t choose, so here’s a relatively long list from an even longer list.

• Yellow – Kang Daniel (EP)
• Wish You Were Here by CL
• Unnatural by WJSN
• Stereotype – STAYC (EP)
• The Blowing – Highlight (Mini Album)
• Advice by Taemin
• Planet Nine: Alter Ego – ONEWE (EP)
• Rock with You by Seventeen
• Where Are We Now by MAMAMOO
• Moonshot by N.Flying
• Paint the Town by LOONA
• Hate That by Key ft. Taeyeon
• Beautiful by NCT 2021
• Universe by NCT U
• Dark Dream by E’Last

I’m 95% sure I’ve missed a few albums and songs that absolutely deserve to be on here, but I feel like if I have a full list, it’ll be way longer than needed (this post is already long enough). Plus, I definitely didn’t organize my K-Pop Playlist by year on Spotify…

(Usually I also have a yearly list posted there but I kind of just opted out this year because waves hands sick. I’m trying to do better at self-promo, too, leave me be.)

Books

I honestly thought this section would be a lot more difficult, which was exactly why I put this nearly dead last on the post rather somewhere earlier. As much as this is almost the last section, it certainly wasn’t the last section I completed.

I think it’s more difficult because I haven’t really been reviewing as much in 2021, certainly not on the blog and certainly not on The Arts STL. Usually, I’d go through the 5 Stars and 4.5 Stars categories just to get a glimpse, but without actually reviewing much, well… I don’t have much to go off aside from whatever I tracked on Goodreads.

Except well… a lot of them are rereads. In other words, I’m in quite a pickle here. But here’s a small handful of favorites that I read throughout 2021, most (if not all) of them surprisingly published in 2021 as well.

• The Last Fallen Star by Graci Kim
• Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee
• Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
• Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim
• The Tea Dragon Tapestry by Kay O’Neill

From the Archives

Ah, self-promo at its finest. I honestly should do better at promoting, so this was a very last-minute decision to include this section and dig into which posts I enjoyed writing the most! I also had a fourth one as well, but 4 is considered unlucky in Chinese culture, and I prefer not having bad luck. I just didn’t write that many posts outside of reviews, which I’ve been trying to do less of because I do miss some of the fun posts I did back in the day.

The Year That Just Kept on Giving: 2020 Highlights + 2021 Goals

Like I mentioned in 2021 highlights and 2022 goals post, I had a lot of joy writing that post, which was why I brought it back looking into this year. So of course, this would be a definite, automatic favorite post that I wrote from 2021.

Language Tag | Where I Reveal I Have Commitment Issues Even with Languages

I’m generally not a fan of doing tags as much as I truly appreciate being tagged (I also hoard them), but honestly, the moment I saw this I just had to? Plus, I was short on ideas and didn’t want to dig into the brainstorm vault, so a tag is a perfect way to spice things up sometimes.

Now that I think about it, it’s kinda ironic how I thought I would finish up a basic course on Korean in 2021 and very much did not by abandoning all sense of learning languages.

Well, at least the commitment issues got proven true. (My reasoning is that 2021 was kinda rough and self-care is way more important so I’ll take no arguments at all.)

2021 Mid-Year Freakout Tag: K-Pop Edition

I might have said I don’t feel like doing the Mid-Year Freakout Book Tag, but I also don’t usually read enough to warrant doing it. (Except for last year, when I read 200+ books, but that was a rare unicorn year, and I don’t think it’ll happen again.)

I also might have said I’m generally not a fan of doing tags as much as I appreciate being tagged, but I guess I’m kind of becoming a liar? I don’t know, I loved changing the questions so it was more K-Pop and Music-themed. Also, I think I’ll do this again for 2022.

Let’s talk: what were your favorite books from 2021? Music? Movies and TV shows? Blog posts?*

*Can be yours, doesn’t have to be. Promo your pals!

(Fun fact, but I feel like this is going to be the longest post of 2022 I’ve ever written. We’re sitting at 3.2K words, what the hell.)