Ten of the best songs of the year, as selected by Associated Press entertainment journalists.
“PEACHES,” JUSTIN BIEBER, featuring DANIEL CAESAR AND GIVEON
Justin Bieber was not happy with the Recording Academy last year when his “Changes” album was categorized as pop rather than R&B.
Ten of the best albums of the year, as selected by Associated Press entertainment journalists.
OLIVIA RODRIGO, “SOUR”
Olivia Rodrigo kicks off her debut album “SOUR” with the words “I want it to be, like, messy” and she goes on to deliver just that.
NEW YORK (AP) — Books and authors mattered in 2021, sometimes more than the industry wanted.
A 22-year-old poet became a literary star. The enthusiasms of young people on TikTok helped revive Colleen Hoover's “It Ends With Us,” and other novels released years earlier.
The Associated Press' film writers picks for best movies of 2021:
LINDSEY BAHR:
1. “The Lost Daughter”: There’s an element of danger, real and theoretical, permeating every moment of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s electric adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novel.
If a year can be accused of bait-and-switch, 2021 is fair game.
It was reasonable to believe, or hope, that the pandemic would steadily recede in the rear-view mirror, that a White House transition might mean less political rancor, that America could honorably end its “forever war” in Afghanistan.
NEW YORK (AP) — The pandemic, politics, pervasive anxiety over the climate and the economy. Did 2021 leave us any time to ponder anything else? As we limp our way into a new year, there are a few more things we'd like to leave behind, from pop culture's obsession with all things apocalyptic to the well meaning but exhausting lay dancers on TikTok.