The Top 30 ALBUMS of 2022: Part One (#21--30)...

 

A great year for music culminates with my selections of the very, very best 2022 had to offer: 

21. Animal Collective TIME SKIFFS: 

with its inviting ambiance, unhurried vibe, and ebullient group harmonies, Time Skiffs readily conjures warm memories of AnCo’s late-2000s halcyon days. But the album possesses a personality and methodology all its own. Over the years, Animal Collective’s free-flowing aesthetic, lovey-dovey sentiments, and fondness for tie-dye have garnered any number of Grateful Dead comparisons, but this is the first record where they sound like an actual jam band. While Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear) has traditionally used his drum kit to heighten the clamor of the group’s most chaotic moments, here, he plays the steady timekeeper governed by a dubby discipline. (PITCHFORK) 

 

22. Nilufer Yanya PAINLESS: 

once again traverses a variety of genres, mixing soulful smoky vocals with art rock, trip-hop, and pop. On occasion, Yanya effortlessly inhabits that indie, soul-jazz hinterland once occupied by Everything But the Girl, at other times, there are moments that would give Radiohead a run for their money. PAINLESS is a body of work that sees Yanya opening up about her feelings in a much more direct way than on her debut. There is no obfuscation, no cloaking of emotion behind concepts, this time she confronts her feelings head-on. (UNDER THE RADAR) 

 

23. Big Thief DRAGON NEW WARM MOUNTAIN I BELIEVE IN YOU: 

there is a jubilance to these performances, even a joyousness. A wailing fiddle, played by guest member Mat Davidson (aka Twain), loosens up the country stomp of “Red Moon” and the gorgeous, blue-eyed harmonies of “Dried Roses.” “Spud Infinity” is the most striking departure, an unabashedly goofy singalong, with lyrics about elbows and potato knishes that Lenker nearly rejected for their uncharacteristic irreverence, and the most conspicuous use of a Jew’s harp since Leonard Cohen jauntily deployed one in the middle of a song about 9/11. It is the kind of song that defies the band’s downbeat reputation, that stares at you with a wild glint, daring you to resist its giddy revelry. (PASTE) 

 

 

24. Alvvays BLUE REV: 

flooded basements and stolen hard drives prolonged the album's genesis but gave them time to tinker and refine nearly every aspect of their sound. The result is sharper hooks, noisier guitars and more plaintive stories about love and heartbreak. Nostalgia has always been a key arrow in the Alvvays quiver. Yet, even as they shout out Tom Verlaine and Belinda Carlisle, there's nothing backward-looking about Blue Rev. Instead, they boil down elements of power pop, shoegaze, dream pop, jangle rock and any other indie rock subfield you can think of into an alcopop-charged rush of guitar rock joy. (EXCLAIM) 

 

 

25. Amber Mark THREE DIMENSIONS DEEP: 

the album is structured in three acts mapping Mark’s journey at different stages: identifying her own insecurities, working through the messy parts of self-discovery, and finally reaching a solid sense of self-worth. Three Dimensions Deep’s secondary, figurative throughline is inspired by Mark’s love of sci-fi and interest in heady astrophysics theories, a theme that pops up through celestial metaphors in her lyrics that amplify human concerns to galactic size. In Mark’s world, romance hurtles her to another planet, kisses are astronomical, and searching for her place in the world is posed as an all-consuming, cosmic question. (PITCHFORK) 

 

26. Benjamin Clementine AND I HAVE BEEN: 

despite Clementine’s insistence that this is his “light” album, on And I Have Been he grapples with nothing less than life’s cyclical nature. On “Delighted,” he lobs a ball upward and then watches gravity snatch it back down. “We lean, we learn, we earn, we turn, we burn/Then start again” he observes. Violin and a multi-tracked soprano surge in the background. The strings nearly clot the song with their filigree, but they are tempered by Clementine’s earthy, rust-worn voice. (PITCHFORK) 

 

27. Weyes Blood AND IN THE DARKNESS, HEARTS AGLOW: 

Natalie Mering further cements her status as a sort of millennial Karen Carpenter, her rich alto a warming bonfire, and her ear for timeless, shag-carpet piano melody still unmatched among her peers. Here, she applies the reedy 70s singer-songwriter aesthetic she has acquired over her last couple of records to matters like contemporary alienation. (CRACK MAGAZINE) 

 

28. Perfume Genius UGLY SEASON: 

conceived as the soundtrack to 2019’s The Sun Still Burns Here, a dance project with choreographer Kate Wallich, and will soon receive an accompanying music film by visual artist Jacolby Satterwhite. But while it’s structurally somewhat of an outlier in his catalog, it also taps into Hadreas’s enduring lyrical themes of queerness, embodiment, and movement and is another dazzling display of his experimental ingenuity. (SLANT) 

 

29. Jean Dawson CHAOS NOW: 

is simply redefining what a ‘guitar album’ can be. Fuzzy riffs over trap-tinted beats, 80s chicken scratch guitar, blistering power-chord choruses, picked acoustic… it’s all here. Never once is Jean Dawson restricted by any instruments or styles. Instead he crafts a nostalgic, and sometimes aggressive, world, matched beautifully by the well-thought-out visuals. It took everything that made ‘Pixel Bath’ so incredible and just elevates it. (CLASH) 

 

30. Scott Hardware BALLAD OF A TRYHARD: 

fraught with inner turmoil but contrasted by soaring, uplifting music and rare moments of contentedness, Scott Hardware spends Ballad of a Tryhard trying to relish in tranquility while bracing himself as the world crumbles around him. When it comes to developing as a songwriter, though, Ballad is one more stepping stone to achieving an artistry that's as indefinable as it is unpredictable. (EXCLAIM.CA) 

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)