#156: Gifted

Ranking The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far (2025)

Koffee, 2022

This is a reggae-ish pop album from the pandemic, featuring a track called “Lockdown” and includes lyrics about resilience and strength. Koffee won a Best Reggae Album Grammy for her 2019 EP Rapture, creating high expectations for her debut full-length a few years later. Somehow, it lands ahead of nearly 100 other great albums of the 21^st century.

I was not impressed by this one. It was fairly bland, with “Shine” standing out as excellent and the rest of the album sounding similar but not quite as good. It actually made me think of albums that were meant to play in the background in hip restaurants and hotel lounges, pleasant overall but never grabbing your attention away from conversation. It’s a 21^st century Ambient album (I’m currently reading Dusty Henry’s excellent 33⅓ Genre series title 20^th Century Ambient and all the descriptors fit).

That being said: I don’t think it belongs in the top 200. It’s better than some of the other pop albums on the list, and would fit at #237 instead of Ashlee Simpson, but I just don’t see how this is better than the likes of The National, Jamie xx, boygenius or St.Vincent. Perhaps she’s a bigger name than I realize on TikTok or something. It just sounded like studio pop music to me.