THE TOP 100 SONG OF 2022 (PART FOUR)...

 

Getting closer...

21. Angel Of Business (Grace Ives): 

takes a stunningly simple pop premise and runs with it. 

22. 2 Be Loved (Am I Ready) (Lizzo): 

a delirious future smash on which Lizzo capitalises on the post-‘Blinding Lights’ flair for ’80s pop sounds in the most Lizzo way imaginable: by sounding a bit like the Pointer Sisters. (NME) 

23. Cybah (Syd feat. Lucky Daye): 

pulling these glorious results out at will now. 

24. Photograph (Perfume Genius): 

maybe it’s a youthful crush or a now-deceased lover but the searing tenderness and burn that Hadreas utilizes here borders on obsession. 

25. Run Away (Koffee): 

we don’t get a personal check for the intended but when it rocks this smoothly, who cares? 

26. Diet Coke (Pusha T): 

at this point, just flexing for fun. 

27. Gasoline (The Weeknd): 

disturbing but giddy. 

28. Fired (Remi Wolf): 

“I’m a fine design, busy when you hit my line, I’m a working girl in a wicked world,” Wolf sings over breathy and chopped background vocals and long-drawn-out keyboard notes. “Get it wrong every day I’m trying to figure out my life, I’m a cry baby I’m so lazy… I ramble, I gamble with my future, that’s true sir,” she sings in the second verse, juxtaposing her confidence in the first. Wolf goes on questioning if she’ll ever be able to be herself, and if she’ll ever be able to get it right- a familiar feeling for people struggling to meet the needs of a capitalist society while also meeting their own needs. (THE ANTI MAGAZINE) 

29. D.M.B. (A$AP Rocky): 

yes, it’s a love letter to Rihanna but in the process, Rocky presents something even grander—a stunning rap opus. 

30. Blink Twice For Yes (Jam Baxter): 

pipes its levels just at the right cues. 

 

31. Livin’ In The After (Panda Bear & Sonic Boom):

 a rich, flourishing pop song replete with dancing strings and a massive vocal hook. It's the kind of song you could play in the dead of winter and end up instantly transported to the shimmering sands of a remote tropical paradise. (SPUTNIK MUSIC)

32. Midnight Sun (Nilufer Yanya): 

“don’t like whenever I’m not in pain/Peeling back, not noticing/The blood and bones beneath my skin,” she sings on “midnight sun,” one of several disquieting lyrics about doing herself harm or inviting whoever hurt her to go ahead and grind her heart underfoot while they’re at it. The sting proves that this thing was once alive, even if she has to dig her nails under the scab to still feel it. (PITCHFORK) 

33. Saviour (Kendrick Lamar feat. Baby Keem & Sam Dew): 

striking yet forceful. 

34. Come On, Let’s Go (Nigo & Tyler, the Creator): 

it’s a testament to Tyler’s greatness that a throwaway track dealing with trying to get your lady ready to go out, becomes such a groove addiction. 

35. Selfish Soul (Sudan Archives): 

black women and their hair—this is your new anthem. 

36. Confession (Katy J Pearson): 

comes inspired by a conversation about #MeToo: it’s an anxious rattle of a song, with the synthesizer mimicking a claustrophobic tightness in the chest. Anger bleeds through the lyrics as Person repeats: ‘I tried to tell you something / React, react, react, react, react / But you just wouldn’t listen’. (NME) 

37. Strung With Everything (Animal Collective): 

a carnivalesque Beach Boys reverie that peaks with the sort of call-and-response breakdown you’d hear in a romantic early rock’n’roll single—though, in this case, the view from Lookout Point has gotten a lot bleaker: “Let’s say tonight, you and me,” Portner excitedly sings, “we’ll watch the sky fall into pieces!” (PASTE) 

38. Simulation Swarm (Big Thief):

 the first thing that jumps out is the song’s dizzying crispness. Against a shimmering backdrop of open-string acoustic strumming, James Krivchenia lays down an uncharacteristically minimalist drum pattern, all knife’s-edge hi-hats and bone-dry snares; into the wide-open space suggested by those elements sails Max Oleartchik’s high-necked bass melody, which positively glows. All the usual components of a Big Thief song are here, but it’s as if they’ve shifted in position, relative both to each other and to you. The details are sharper, the shadows deeper. (PITCHFORK) 

39. Thorn (Pendant): 

blending ethereal shoegaze with hip-hop elements, he touches on pop's left-field while also embracing underground electronics.(CLASH MUSIC) 

40. Trip (Yung Lean):

 featuring producers Woesum and Art Dealer, who slap the song with a strong bass, “Trip” sees Yung Lean indulging in the braggadocious lyricism often associated with popular rap songs. As he raps about a girl that smells “like peppermint” and boasts about his swagger (“Let me change your life / Southside, motorcycles in the summer, leather jacket life”) Lean creates a sonic portal meant to allow listeners to entertain their own ideas about reveling in hedonism. (NYUNEWS) 

THE TOP 100 SONG OF 2022 (PART THREE)...

 

Part three is a go:

41. Mona Lisa (Lil Wayne feat. Kendrick Lamar): 

refers to a deceitful character in the story. She’s a beautiful type that a rich man might try to impress at a nightclub, but she’s secretly setting him up to be robbed or murdered. Of course, the Mona Lisa of the iconic da Vinci painting is similarly withholding of her intentions, with that ambiguous smile that is both warm and untrustworthy. Also, Wayne and Kendrick are “painting a picture” with their lurid dramatization, straight out of those urban romance novellas found in the black section of your local bookstore. (SPIN) 

42. Shotgun (Soccer Mommy): 

with punctuated guitars and a constant whirring, hazy keyboard line, “Shotgun” leans into Soccer Mommy’s harder, punk rock side and sets the tone for her album sometimes, forever. As Sophie Allison sings, “So whenever you want me I’ll be around,” there’s a painful relatability to the desire to make yourself constantly available. It’s a strong example of Soccer Mommy’s approach to songwriting—raw honesty and a cathartic release. Allison’s instrumentals blend seamlessly with her jaded lyrics, a way of knowing what the outcome will probably be, and choosing to sit in that feeling. (TREBLE) 

43. Once Twice Melody (Beach House): 

they have swapped clean-toned electric guitar for surging shoegaze fuzz, traded the thrift-store keyboards and rickety home-organ rhythm presets for hi-def synthesizers and powerhouse live drumming, while Legrand’s ambiguously imagistic lyrics have become more grandiose and diffuse. (PITCHFORK) 

44. Billions (Caroline Polachek): 

in the middle of winter's deep freeze, Caroline Polachek released "Billions"— an icy, glitch pop single that breathed fresh air into a room of stale circulation. Polachek proved once more that she is as ethereal as we all remembered; her vocals soaring to new heights in all their spatial brilliance. "Billions," co-produced by Danny L. Harle, is the artist's attempt to create something that "captured the afterglow of a reopening" — and what a reopening indeed. The lyrics, with stark phrasing like "Headless, angel / Body upgraded" and "Psycho, priceless / Good in a crisis," conjure visceral images devoid of intrinsic meaning that ultimately make room for individual interpretation — a choose-your-own-adventure of sorts. (EXCLAIM) 

45. Shirt (SZA): 

there is the jagged blow of “fuckin’ on my ex ’cause he validate me,” and later, the bitter truth of “my past can’t escape me/My pussy precedes me.” As the song comes to a close, she becomes effusive, her voice floating into a modulated whistle register. “It’s so embarrassing/All of the things I need/Living inside of me,” she sings. After all this time, there’s still no one who conveys modern love’s cruelties like SZA. (PITCHFORK) 

46. The Boat I Row (Tame Impala): 

track showcases the band’s distinctive synth sound, transporting us to outer space with its celestial richness. It flawlessly complements the drum rhythm, adding to the already firm foundation laid by the myriad of additional instruments that emerge as the track develops. Also, the bass leaps from the speakers with an infectious cadene; it will have even the most stern of listeners tapping along. (GSGMEDIA) 

47. Backwards (Lil Silva feat. Sampha): 

silky synths meander endlessly in this stunner of a track. 

48. Black Be The Source (Fly Anakin feat. Pink Siifu & Billz Egypt): 

a contemporary banger pro-blackness. 

49. Watersnake (Scott Hardware): 

crafts its appeal slowly with a tinge of hysteria. 

50. Puththi (M.I.A): 

Maya embraces the TikTok generation grandly.  

51.So Be It (Black Star): 

welcome consciousness trope. 

52. You Will Never Work In Television Again (The Smile): 

decades into their career and reinvention continues briskly for Yorke and company.  

53. Question…? (Taylor Swift): 

while everyone is trying to figure out which ex Swift may or not be referencing in the track, she constructs a new smart classic while adding new flourishes. 

54. Rapture In Blue (Cautious Clay): 

dazzles with its lyrical simplicity, as much as the heavenly soundscape sprouting from his core. “We always go too far / Then we turn it into art / I don’t write the script / I just take the trip,” he sings. The arrangement soon erupts with the intoxicatingly warm sound of sax, almost like wrapping the listener in purple smoke. (TO THE POINT MUSIC) 

55. Satellites (Ravyn Lenae): 

a kiss-off to a former lover, moves through melismatic harmonies like clockwork. “I hope she keeps you warm at night/This is our lullabye,” she croons, but you know she’s going to be OK just by her composure. (PITCHFORK) 

56. Watercolour Eyes (Lana Del Rey): 

the song is slight in stature, with Lana’s now characteristically fragile, breathy vocal sat over an instrumental as washed out and hazy as the titular watercolor eyes she sings of. Her gorgeous vocal swoops take centre stage as the track gently drifts in a state of anhedonia. Meanwhile, the lyric depicts a tortured relationship, a young love derailed to such depths that “Wild horses can’t keep us together”. It is a song haunted by the stasis of the destructive relationship it finds itself trapped in, left to question and despair. (EXEPOSE) 

57. B-side (Khruangbin & Leon Bridges): 

don’t be fooled by it’s easy groove, there is stunning subtle stuff lurking beneath. 

58. Unpeopled Space (Daniel Rossen): 

in short, there is a lavish literary feel to the track, as though it is soundtracking Franz Kafka on tour in some Ernest Hemingway style European retreat. While that might sound a little too much for some, when it catches you on the right whim it’s a muse that can add an explosion of wistful sonic escapism to your dismal daily life. Perhaps the only thing missing is some of their neck-snapping moments of prose. (FAR OUT) 

59. Jennifer B (Jockstrap): 

pieces all of its moving parts with great precision. 

60. One Way Or Every N***a With A Budget (Saba): 

the literal definition of more money, more problems.