It’s been a common refrain for a while now but, man, what a weird year. A mixture of hopeful breakthroughs and disappointing setbacks, 2021 wasn’t quite the triumphant post-pandemic year many of us had hoped for, but instead a strange mix of pseudo-normal-life and still-lingering anxiety. Within all that, dumb news stories seemed to register as even more alien, and the pop culture landscape could feel sort of fragmented and siloed, until certain left field events became more universal.

At this year’s Shaky Knees festival in Atlanta, we sat down with several artists to have them review the year — the good, the bad, and the bizarre goings-on of 2021. Today, we hear from those artists — including Bartees Strange, Cloud Nothings, Noga Erez, Geese, White Reaper, Cults, Quinton Brock, Liza Anne, Wolfgang Van Halen, and Hives frontman Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist — as they attempt to explain what a NFT is. Watch below.