Hey I'm Brian Hyatt and this is Rolling Stone Music Now.

It is that time of the year. We had Rolling Stone have put up our list of the top albums of 2021 and we're going to go through some of that

list today. I've got a few of my colleagues joining me.

Jilisa Lopez and Monkapur-Kante will be on in a bit.

We're going to start with Rob Sheffield,

who's going to take us through the top of the list

and then we're going to go through some of the other parts.

Hey Rob, how are you? Hey, how you doing?

Holding up, let's talk not for the first time about our number one album,

which is Olivia Rodrigo's sour

one of the many things I love about it this album here at the top of the list is there are some things you might have predicted on this list.

You know, you might have said, okay, if Adele releases an album, it'll probably be close to the top unless she screws up but there's

one thing you could not have predicted in 2020 is that this artist who no one

knew except some Disney channel viewers new as a singer before this January

would make the number one album of the year. It just shows you never know what's coming.

Sometimes in a good way so Olivia Rodrigo

sour what when did you realize that this was the top album of the year because I know it's

your personal pick as well it's such a jam-packed album you know she really did make a greatest hits album with her first album.

She's got a more bangers on this album than most pop artists assemble in a career.

And what's great is that, especially thinking of it in terms of 2021,

is that it could not have been more perfectly timed as sort of a running live journal of the year, you know, because driver's license

arrives right at the beginning of January 2021 a week into the year. And all year long she's just kept dropping these bombs as

...