Hi! Me again! Did you know it's already been a year since the end of 2021? And two years since the end of 2020? I think these posts are my main way of telling the passage of time. Well, that and the growing of my child(ren).
What was this year all about though? Any themes I can extract from it? Was it just another year? It was a year with wonderful music, I can say that much. It was a year I went to some shows for the first time in a while, did you see that post? It's here on this same blog.
Listen, I'm just trying to get this posted. I procrastinated and have about 4 hours left this year and I worry people won't care as much to read this once that clock does its thing it's inevitably going toward.
So here. Favorite albums of 2022. Please let me know if there's anything you think I might like, and if you want to talk for hours about any of these albums.
Honorable mentions:
- Elvis Costello - The Boy Named If - He seemed to flex his Watching the Detectives style muscles on this one, which made for some great tracks.
- Rolo Tomassi - Where Myth Becomes Memory - I hadn't heard of them and checked this out and it's a great combo of post rock and metal, kind of what I love about Deafheaven but different.
- Bruce Lee Band - One Step Forward. Two Steps Back - Kind of love that there are songs written by Dan P on this one. And just dig the whole thing.
- Jer - Bothered/Unbothered - Ska for the ska folks. Great lyrics, I don't have time to express the awesomeness of this but it's great.
- Beyonce - RENAISSANCE - I have always appreciated Beyonce more than I actually enjoyed her. I did like some Destiny's Child jams though. Anyway, I liked this one though I realized it pretty much had the same beat throughout while I listened to it one time while walking my dog. But I also realized that if Janelle Monae had put out this same album I probably would've put it on my list so you know. Still a bit bothered by the "it should cost a billion to look this good" line though.
- Destroyer - LABYRINTHITIS - What's with all these all caps album titles? I've always preferred the Bejar tracks on New Pornographers albums but never could quite get myself into Destroyer for some reason. But this is the closest I've come.
- Carly Rae Jepsen - The Loneliest Time - Even though it's not one of her best I always have to honorably mention her because she's still fun.
- Spoon - Lucifer On The Sofa - Spoon is always worthy of including on lists. This one was a good rock n roll style good time.
- Ivy Sole - Candid - So much feeling, so much power.
- Big Joanie - Back Home - Super into the singer's voice.
- Plains - I Walked With You A Ways - I was super into Waxahatchee's last album which went all in on the country, and now she's formed a duo with Jess Williamson and they are still all in on the country. "Abeline" was on repeat for me a lot this year.
- Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You - I never checked them out before even though they got a lot of acclaim for their last album (I think). The only reason this isn't on the main list is that it's very long and I think I would've liked it better as a single album. I love a lot of the songs, but not quite as high of a ratio as I'd hope. I'm most into their folky/bluegrassy stuff.
Let's just start with #1 now
The Singer/Songwriters
The other basically #1 album that I couldn't get enough of for entirely different reasons was Riderless Horse by Nina Nastasia. I'd been waiting for years for her to put out some more music and once she came back it was unlike anything I could have expected. A memorial, a memoir, a devastating account. Very frank. While making no excuses, it may shed some light on why people may stay in abusive relationships. Absolutely heartbreaking.
I always wanted to like Angel Olsen but for whatever reason none of her music ever stuck with me. Until Big Time. Like Waxahatchee, she just had to go all in on country I guess. Favorite memory of this album is probably when I was making breakfast and the title track was playing. My 4-year-old who had never heard it before started singing along "I love you, I love you" and it was quite adorable. Other favorite memories are pretty much hearing every track on this live. Such great songs.
And I have to also shout out her fellow Wild Heart, Sharon Van Etten. We've Been Going About This All Wrong was an interesting album for me. She wrote so beautifully about parenthood during the pandemic in her newsletter during the lead-up to the album and it felt like exactly my experience. Then the album came out and I listened to it a bunch of times but was not making that same connection as much as I wanted to. But then for some reason, at that Wile Hearts show, it came together so beautifully to me. Like I finally got it.
Father John Misty went full-on Nilsson with Chloe and the Next 20th Century. So that's pretty much it. It sounds just like a lost great Nilsson album. I've always found parallels with their senses of humor, but this one also nails the sound of Nilsson. That's enough to land on this list.
I was pretty surprised by how much I dug Hurray for the Riff Raff's Life on Earth. Basically it reminds me of all my favorite ballads by St Vincent, which in turn remind me of Lou Reed. But there are also some first-degree reminders of the Lou Reed cool on this album. The cool with some amount of vulnerability is super addictive to me.
Is this pop?
Another album that's way up there for me this year is Natural Brown Prom Queen by Sudan Archives. There's such an energy here. It's so much fun and all over the map in a very good way. I don't know how to write about it but I loved it so very much.
Is this the category I should put NNAMDÏ in? I guess this sort of kitchen sink thing is pop at its heart, so sure. Please Have a Seat hits so many right notes for me, maybe the most diverse of all the very diverse albums on this list. Rap, emo, punk, and straight up pop. All super catchy.
I'm not sure what to say about Steve Lacy but Gemini Rights reminded me of Stevie Wonder and made me very happy. I need to speed things up here and try to be quick. Sorry, Steve and everyone else below!
I really did not expect Tears for Fears to make my list when they announced The Tipping Point, even though I dug the first advance single. It was still destined to be a legacy act putting out a pretty good album I'd listen to a couple times and then forget about, as I returned to Songs from the Big Chair as my go-to album. But like, it is really really good. Better than it had any right to be. I think I remember commenting that their later period (as in late 80s) albums were surprisingly good and they had surprising longevity but this is ridiculous.
You know what else was really great pop? Grace Ives. It's like bedroom pop but Janky Star is also like real pop while still being incredibly intimate and confessional and personal (yes, those all basically mean the same thing. I'm hurrying!).
Since they don't really fit anywhere else here, Panda Bear and Sonic Boom blew my mind with Reset. It's pop at heart even though it's pretty experimental. It's the beginnings of the catchiest moments in some of the catchiest songs of the catchiest era (the 60s). It makes me feel good, just like The Kinks, or The Beach Boys, or whatever.
And some rock stuff and rock adjacent stuff
I liked the first Black Country, New Road album quite a bit there but Ants from Up There felt like such a level up on the side of songwriting, lyricism, etc. The singer sounds like my friend Benjamin from Sour Boy Bitter Girl. Which is awesome but a bit unsettling. And it just has this enormous intensity. And like a triple coda of increasingly big moments. So good.
For some reason, The Smile was more interesting to me than the last few Radiohead albums. A Light for Attracting Attention is more than just a Radiohead side project. The two main creative forces of that band combining forces with a great jazz drummer makes for something super interesting. It's the increased focus on the rock side of things that makes it appeal to me so much. Odd time signatures, Johnny Greenwood going wild on many different instruments, it's rad.
I'm skipping a few to put in a punk section but I'll put Party Dozen in this section. The Real Work is almost entirely instrumental save for a great Nick Cave cameo, but it feels so big. Some beats that could be hip hop, but mostly it's big sound that doesn't have a need/room for vocals.
Here's that punk section I mentioned
PUP finally caught me with The Unraveling of Puptheband. All the energy of the best Jeff Rosenstock albums, it just felt like I felt in high school when I listened to punk rock songs. It's what gives me LIFE, man.
How did Hot Water Music manage to make arguably their best album all these decades later? Feel the Void might compete with their best albums. It has everything I've always loved about this band that I hadn't really thought about much in around 20 years. It's got that passionate cry that more than fills the void left by Arcade Fire, who mysteriously disappeared this year and actually have never existed.
If you want some good old fashioned DC punk, Hammered Hulls put out a somehow overlooked album in Careening. But it's got all that stuff I love about Dischord bands, with high intensity and high dynamics and the kind of energy that can only be described as...DC?
Are Special Interest still punk? Endure is basically punk disco. But don't forget The Clash did that sort of stuff too and they were still punk. They have a real Clash energy.
If you didn't know, Perennial is a new band that sounds a lot like my favorite bands of the early 2000s (think Les Savy Fav, DFA 1979, Hot Hot Heat, etc). In The Midnight Hour has all the short dancy yell-along jams you could want and would've killed at Lipgloss.
I don't think Titus Andronicus is particularly punk anymore, as they increasingly embrace more "classic rock" styles and guitar solos and all that. But I still put them here anyway. The Will to Live is such a back-to-basics rock and roll album that is the best album for Patrick Stickles dancing to. Which, if you're unfamiliar, watch one of their videos from this album. But it's basically dad jamming.
I just wanna dance though
A random discovery I made was Holodrum, whose self-titled album came out and I guess they're kind of who's who of British post punk folks (at least one member of Yard Act). But this is pure dance music, full of soul and awesomeness that I can't really describe but it reminds me of both Out Hud and !!! which are more different than you may think but aspects of both can be found on this great album.
Hot Chip is always amazing and Freakout/Release seems like one of their better albums. Another potential song of the year is "Eleanor" but this album just has a lot of that catchiness, soulfulness, Hotchipiness that I love.
Jazz category?
I gotta make a category to put The Comet Is Coming into, which features King Shabaka of Sons of Kemet. Not that this is really jazz. But Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam is a rad space ride on a comet that could probably be considered post rock and I could've just stuck this next to Party Dozen but you know, this was special and deserves to have its own category.
Ok let's also put Ockham's Blazer into this category as well. Even though they are just sort of jazz, sort of hip hop. That British jazz scene is really something. But this album is great for its jazz aspects (it would be great as an instrumental) and also its rapping (it would be great with more generic beats), so it's much fun.
And the rapping category
Gotta put Kendrick Lamar in here because he's Kendrick Lamar. I love how much Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers subverted expectations, even if it made for something uneven.
But what about Backxwash? I thought her last album was her peak, but His Happiness Shall Come First Even Though We Are Suffering is something even more intense. I didn't give myself enough spins of this but every time I listened I realized it took what I loved about I Lie Buried... and expanded on it and made it...more.
I did not think Marlowe would be on my list when I gave it a spin but Marlowe 3 is so much fun. Kind of reminds me of A Tribe Called Quest with its creative poppy hip hop. I barely listened to the first two albums but I probably should!
I was also surprised with how much I loved Few Good Things by Saba. It's like things I like about Andre 3000, Kendrick Lamar, and some others in one neat package. Lots of catchy thoughtful songs on this one.
And FINALLY, last but not least, Danger Mouse and Black Thought put out quite the collection in Cheat Codes. I listened to it a bunch of times, and pretty much every song became another favorite. Just a great collection of great raps over great beats. Great guests too. But of course the best rapper on the album is arguably the best rapper, Black Thought himself.
Ok that's it. Here's a playlist of most of the stuff. Buy it on bandcamp. On Bandcamp Friday if they're still doing that.
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