In “Best Albums of 2021,” Jon Pareles, Jon Caramanica and Lindsay Zoladz reviewed Tyler, the Creator’s album “Call Me if You Get Lost.”
A life of luxury can’t mollify Tyler, the Creator. He’s no longer the trolling provocateur he was a decade ago when he emerged with Odd Future, but he’s still intransigent and high-concept. After singing through most of his 2019 album, “Igor,” he’s back to rapping, now simulating a mixtape with DJ Drama as hypeman. In his deep voice, he raps about all he owns and all he can’t control — mostly romance — over his own dense, detailed productions, at once lush and abrasive. The album peaks with an eight-minute love-triangle saga, “Wilshire”: a raw confession, cannily orchestrated.
Margaret Lyons wrote about the best TV shows that ended in 2021, including “Kim’s Convenience”:
This comedy about a Korean Canadian family started out as a play and ended abruptly after its fifth season, when the creators, Ins Choi and Kevin White, left the show. Despite some unevenness over its 65 episodes, “Kim’s” was most often a low-key kind of show, gently paced and easy to like, a single-camera comedy that felt like a multicamera one in style and approach. But it was still packed with genuine and potent tensions, especially between Appa (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) and Jung (Simu Liu), the stern father and his mostly distant son.
In “The 10 Best Podcasts of 2021,” Reggie Ugwu writes about the podcast “La Brega”:
Loosely translated as “the hustle” or “the struggle,” the concept of “la brega” is a point of common heritage and a point of departure in this expansive story collection and love letter to Puerto Rico. Produced in English and Spanish by a collective of Puerto Rican journalists and hosted by Alana Casanova-Burgess, each episode of “La Brega” creates a transporting sense of place. Rich and under-examined American histories abound in its stories of pothole fillers, political activists and basketball heroes who navigate their own versions of the struggle, many of which trace back to the very idea of a self-governing territory in the United States.
Need more inspiration? The New York Times has published its critics’ lists of the best poetry, graphic novels, books, theater, classical music, movies, art exhibitions, songs, actors, dance, recipes, fashion and more.
Or look beyond The Times at honors like Time’s Person of the Year, The New Yorker’s Best Video Games of 2021, Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year or Physics World’s Top 10 Breakthroughs of 2021.
Students, scan some of the sources of inspiration we’ve included above. Then tell us:
Which articles did you choose to read? Do you agree with the reviewers’ selections? What else would you want to include on those lists? Is there anything you would eliminate? Why?
If you were making your own “Best of 2021” list, what would be on it? What art and culture did you enjoy this year? What world, national or local events fascinated or inspired you? What breakthroughs in science or technology excited you? What would be your headline for the year?
What would be on your “Worst of 2021” list? What happened in the news that would make the list? What annoyed you about pop culture or sports?
What happened in your own life this year that was wonderful? What aspects of your personal, family or school life will you be happy to leave behind in 2021?
Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
