2022: Music in Review

Perhaps the great reset of the pandemic has opened up the floodgates, but it felt like 2022 was a banner year, week after week of excellent releases from artists coming to terms with what had transpired over the past couple of years. It has made listening and keeping up fairly difficult, as huge artists jostled for attention with highly lauded new ones in a symphony of noise, most all of them struggling to make sense of a world that is going from loss to loss. In compiling this list, I again started with close to 100 albums I felt strongly about, spent a while gorging on Listmas for anything that I'd missed, and restarted again. I had a rock-solid 40 albums picked, then could not pass up adding 10 further excellent ones - a problem I hadn't had in quite a few years. Most any of the top 15 or 20 albums would be a great AOTY pick, although there was a clear winner I am happy to line up behind.

The biggest surprise for me perhaps was the dominance of the guitar in my selections. I have always leaned more towards electronic music but for whatever reason, guitar music has been a more pronounced presence this year, as a variety of pop-rock, metal, and "whatever" type of bands continue to wring all sorts of aural pleasure from the six-stringed instrument which has dominated the previous seven decades of popular music to varying degrees.

As is now standard, please see the below Spotify playlist of selections from the top 50 albums, presented in descending order. My feelings about streaming and using this platform could probably fill another page, but for convenience, there is hardly anything better. Please enjoy skimming and I hope you find something you like!

Albums of the Year

50. Yard Act, The Overload

The Leeds band stormed out of the gates with their wry, witty observations around politics, human nature and life in modern Britain over sharp guitars, post-punk grooves and anthemic indie sounds. Lyrical verbosity that never got old, and makes them a promising act to follow.

49. VOICE ACTOR, Sent From My Telephone

A random Gorilla v Bear discovery, this epic collection (109 tracks at nearly 4 hours) traverses some of my favorite musical trends from the past couple of decades. I haven't come close to hearing it all, and the alphabetical ordering invites random shuffling, but there is so much to enjoy I know this will be the type of thing that will be playing for years to come.

48. Weyes Blood, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow

Natalie Mering's 21st century upgrade to the Laurel Canyon sound pays dividends again, as she effortlessly sounds tuneful and totally calm in the face of "overwhelming changes" - her fifth album is like a warm blanket to pull over your face as the world descends into chaos.

47. Boldy James & Real Bad Man, Killing Nothing

How does a mere man keep up with the prolific Detroit rapper? He has now released ten albums in the 20's, usually with a single producer behind the decks, and nearly all of them are top-shelf classics. This pairing with the clothing company/production collective of Real Bad Man is a typically golden effort, as Boldy's effortless crime flows hypnotize you, while the musically omnivorous soundscape envelops you. Shout-out to his other excellent works from 2022 with Nicholas Craven, Futurewave and Cuns - an insanely prolific streak that doesn't appear to be slowing down.

46. The 1975, Being Funny in a Foreign Language

Notes on a Conditional Form presented a perfectly bloated endpoint for Matty Healy and his mates, so there was nowhere to go but downsize into a more digestible package. He is still one of the new century's most poignant and on-line lyricists, and these pop tracks have a sense of enjoyment we haven't heard from them in a while - the Music for Cars era is over, but the future is brighter than ever.

45. Elder, Innate Passage

Elder has been traveling from stoner doom and psych into more proggy territory, and have also learned key lessons of minimalism from certain strains of kosmische/space rock and post-rock. There are certainly passages of frantic riffing, but the majority of the time the music floats and pulses with simple beauty, blissfully changing shape rather than taking linear paths.

44. Spiritualized, Everything Was Beautiful

J Spaceman, living treasure, continues to bless us with poignant gospel and space-rock, completing the Vonnegut quote he began in reverse in 2018 and still sounding in awe at being alive. There is still the underlying thought that it could fall apart any time; let us hope it never does.

43. Huerco S, Plonk

Brian Leeds has been away from the Huerco S moniker for some time, and Plonk is a disorienting ambient album, using the automobile as the project's aesthetic grounding - metal on metal that you may expect to recall a krautrock tempo but providing no such thing, and throwing in some experimental rap to really throw you off the scent. A slippery and beguiling work from a trickster.

42. Alvvays, Blue Rev

Having come through a pandemic, a flood and a thief, Alvvays made a gloriously life-affirming album of shoegaze pop, overwhelming in its lyrical prowess and effervescence, at its heart melancholy but always willing to embrace the ups and downs of life.

41. Kelly Lee Owens, LP.8

Skipping ahead from her second album to her imagined eighth, Owens dropped a startling future-shock work on disembodied electronic music, something that I still haven't wrapped the beginning of my mind around and which might very well be in vogue in the 2040s, if we ever make it there.

40. Big Thief, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

The ridiculous title should clue you in to what is happening in Big Thief's world - their inhibitions are their only limitations, and they clearly have none. Adrienne Lenker further cements her position as one of her generation's great songwriters with this sprawling work that you are tempted to cut down, but what would you cut? It may not work well as a single 80-minute album, but all of the songs are essential and unassumingly important. Even the damn potato song.

39. Dubstar, Two

I have burned a candle for the British poppers since 1995's flawless Disgraceful; how blessed are we in 2022 to receive new material of the same high quality. These tracks pop out of the speakers with giant hooks and sticky melodies, as timeless as all those years ago.

38. Nilüfer Yanya, PAINLESS

Misnomer of a title, as Yanya spends the majority of her sophomore album exploring the pains of being young in an uncaring and painful world, with skittering drum machines and swirling guitar chords providing a solid bedrock for her melodic vocals delivering nihilism and frustration. As good as Miss Universe was, this is a major leap forward and holds great promise.

37. Let's Eat Grandma, Two Ribbons

"These places, they stay but we’re changing / Like two ribbons, still woven although we are fraying" - so say the transgressive duo of Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth on the title track of their third album. Travelling from the exuberant pop of the first side to the haunting balladry of the end, the duo have already had a lifetime's worth of experiences and this next step in their journey is a rewarding one.

36. Wet Leg, Wet Leg

One of the most eagerly anticipated debuts in quite some time, Wet Leg followed through on the promise of "Chaise Longue" with this tongue-in-cheek collection of cheeky youth living large, with giant hooks and loads of fun. Let them butter your muffin.

35. SAULT, Air

The mysterious UK collective went supernova in 2022, releasing 7 different projects through the year, ranging from a 10 minute single to a heaping platter in their seemingly on-going Untitled series. The gimmick of releasing five albums at once on a passcode-protected site was a bit frustrating, but the results were worth it. Trust that all the projects are worth your time and any could be slotted here, but my favorite was the spring's Air, the uplifting and entirely choral/orchestral work that made you think you'd pressed play on the wrong album.

34. Jairus Sharif, Water & Tools

Aside from the usual huge names, the Canadian jazz scene is probably quite low-key; leave it to the Calgary-based saxophonist/producer Sharif to submerge the scene with this one-man-ensemble attack, often familiar but mostly content to explore the astral plane in search of enlightenment. Best Canadian jazz album ever? Discuss.

33. Sorry, Anywhere But Here

Pulling from trip-hop, grunge, post-punk, and straightforward acoustic balladry to explore the messiness and non-linearity of feelings, the London duo followed up their 2020 debut with a refinement of their already-fragmented sound. One of our keenest observers of the human condition.

32. Pusha T, It's Almost Dry

Once again Push gifts us with a lean and ferocious platter of his inimitable cocaine raps, highlighted by some career-high production from longtime cohort Pharrell. You would think the album title refers to his subject matter, but there's no stopping this machine.

31. Porridge Radio, Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky

There are flashes of stadium-rock bombast in Porridge Radio's third album, as hooky choruses loom out of the murk of Dana Margolin's narration, but ultimately this is one for insular listening as the occasional lyrical turn of phrase knocks you sideways. An excellent piece of post-punk indie.

30. Charli XCX, Crash

It is Charli's world of funhouse mirrors and we are merely bystanders caught in the reflection. In a career full of vivid pop smashes and boundary-pushing exploits, her most straightforward effort yet – inspired by an interest in the concept of selling out – turns out to be one of her best, sleek and immediate like a rocket exploding in your face. This is her last album on the contract that hasn't seemed to work out to both parties' benefits, so a free-agent Charli should be pushing pop music into some strange places.

29. Gilla Band, Most Normal

A name change and bouts of depression can't stop the Irish band from pushing the boundaries of noise rock and surveying modern life with an unflinching eye. Everything from Ryan Air to shitty clothes are dissected by Dara Kiely's caustic voice, while the band dips the music into a vat of acid and lets it air-dry into barely discernible shapes.

28. Chat Pile, God's Country

The Oklahoma band is named after poisonous waste deposits in the Tri-State area, and deals in a skin-crawling mix of noise rock and sludge metal. Why do people have to live outside when there are all these buildings? A man is driven to suicide by a 9 foot tall pot-smoking Grimace. The guitars roar and gnash all around you. It is strangely optimistic and cleansing.

27. Just Mustard, Heart Under

Forget the silly name for a second; Ireland's Just Mustard explores a strain of post-punk that places vivid guitar textures over riffs, unsettling and bleak soundscapes out of the Joy Division playbook with the ethereal vocals of Katie Bell spinning emotional gold over top. An excellent sophomore album that promises great things.

26. DJ Lag, Meeting With The King

The iconic producer dealing with the South African gqom movement (read: removing the 4/4 kick from a house beat and replacing it with syncopated rhythms) saw the more melodic amapiano genre gaining ground, and attempted to fuse the two on his debut. This record is absolutely huge and a rhythmic tour-de-force, DJ Lag bringing in a stable of collaborators on the mic and behind the decks, and crafted what is arguably the first essential gqom album, the Timeless of its genre.

25. Beach House, Once Twice Melody

Baltimore's finest have been doing this for nearly two decades – they are now elder statesmen and they have richly earned the right to a self-produced, sprawling 84-minute four-episode album that might be their best effort yet. The formula is not broken and they do not tamper with it, blessing us with their standard hypnotic atmosphere and rich melodies.

24. Mindforce, New Lords

I cannot claim any allegiance to the hardcore scene, but there will be the random album that gets written up in music blogs I follow and I check it out and am pummeled into wonderment. The New York hardcore band cram 10 tracks and about 10 times as many riffs into 17:25 of pure glorious heaviness, trimmed free of any excess and only the most essential ass-kicking remaining, all done up with the perfectly balanced production of a prime Opeth album.

23. Denzel Curry, Melt My Eyez See Your Future

What it lacks of Zuu's swagger and intensity, it more than makes up for with an omnivorous approach, the Floridian rapper Curry recruiting legends like Thundercat, Robert Glasper, Kenny Beats and T-Pain into a kaleidoscopic journey through an artist's psyche - the success, past traumas and sociopolitical conflict - as he discovers that there are no boundaries to creativity. An intriguing next step to assured greatness.

22. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Endless Rooms

Melbourne's finest janglers hit the gold button yet again on their third album, reversing the slight slide into torpor on Sideways to New Italy and crafting another batch of summer anthems with their triple-guitar attack. The songs are allowed to breathe for upwards of five minutes as the mood dictates, and the result is an unhurried lounge on a sunny beach.

21. They Hate Change, Finally, New!

The Florida rap duo pair experimental Southern lyrical inflections and themes over honest-to-goodness mid-90s UK jungle breaks and drum'n'bass assaults on the iconic Jagjaguwar label, one of the great genre mash-ups of recent times. A head scratcher and a neck snapper.

20. Bjork, Fossora

An absolute legend who gives nothing up easily, Bjork makes albums for years down the road, for the time after you've sat with her works and marinated in them like the forest mushrooms of her 10th album. Inspired by the death of her mother and the pandemic, eager to seek life through shared experiences and with the help of her children, Fossora hasn't revealed itself yet but is shaping up to be yet another classic.

19. billy woods, Aethiopes | Church

A double header from woods was an ideal delivery system for 2022: Aethiopes was produced entirely by Preservation and is an insular exploration of the African diaspora and stasis underpinned by Ethiopean-origin samples, while Church was the more traditionally boom-bap type of album produced by Messiah Music. Whatever the differences in the sound, on both works woods raps literal circles in stunning displays of craft honed over decades.

18. Levon Vincent, Silent Cities

Grand, stately, mournful dub techno from the master of the form. You may see the titles named for animals and rivers and expect lush warmth, but this is sheer urban decay suggested by the cover, a 78-minute stroll through a gentle snowfall in an abandoned city.

17. Vince Staples, Ramona Park Broke My Heart

Yet another in Staples' increasingly long list of great albums, this highly personal and introspective look at the damage wrought by his surroundings might be his best yet - deeply immersive and novelistic, but at heart ultimately a banging hip-hop record from a peerless curator and supremely gifted MC.

16. Soul Glo, Diaspora Problems

Can I live? Can I live? Can I live? Channeling systemic racism and governmental failure and generational trauma, gargling with gasoline and spitting it back out as a relentless hardcore diatribe, it appears to be vocalist Pierce Jordan who runs amok on this album while his band scrambles to keep up. Thrilling and cathartic.

15. D. Tiffany & Roza Terenzi, Edge of Innocence

This debut album from the producers achieves the fine balance of pushing electronic music towards the future while paying tribute to its glittering past; high tempo tributes to jungle and d'n'b are keenly contrasted with the duo's psychedelic lean, eight perfect tracks that duck and weave into a wonderful tapestry.

14. caroline, caroline

Another year, another sprawling UK collective exploding the boundaries of guitar-led rock music. A core of three players improvise the bones of the tracks, and then the full 8-piece band flesh it out in whatever shape the songs demand - there are flashes of post-punk and Appalachian folk and choral singing on this debut, moments of wide-eyed beauty contrasted against baffling experimentation, and yet it hangs together in prismatic brilliance. This act will be one to watch.

13. Special Interest, Endure

One part radical agit-pop sloganeering, one part hardcore punk/industrial house party, all absolutely killer material. The Philadelphia project made the leap to the majors after a couple of highly touted albums and made one of the most vital and joyous blasts of noise this year.

12. Dry Cleaning, Stumpwork

Wasting no time after their excellent debut from last year, Florence Shaw and her band continued in a similar vein on this excellent album, Shaw monologuing the frustrations and vulnerabilities of life in the modern age while a tightly wound post-punk maelstrom lurches around her.

11. Cate Le Bon, Pompeii

In the year Kate Bush was running up the pop chart hill, her spiritual protégé Cate and her haunting alto stood up tall for modern off-kilter and melodic art-pop, weaving a flawless tapestry of adult contemporary, chamber folk and goth-pop. The type of unassuming album that creeps up on you until you find yourself humming the songs weeks later.

10. Black Country, New Road, Ants From Up There

Not willing to be kneecapped by an early release date (not to mention coming a mere 364 days after their debut), the sophomore effort from the Cambridgeshire sextet was destined for immediate infamy due to singer Isaac Wood's departure days before its release. However, the proof was already on wax: this is one of the greatest musical feats in modern times, a razor-sharp and evocative collection of wild stylistic swings and lyrical deftness. Legends in their time already, whatever the future may hold.

9. The Smile, A Light for Attracting Attention

Open your ears and heart, close your eyes, and receive this as a "Radiohead" offering. Thom and Jonny take a break from their assault on Hollywood to hook up with jazz drummer Tom Skinner for a skittering and alive offering of jazz-adjacent art-rock tunes, with a fierce live show to boot. Whether this is a long-term thing or just a one-off (or leads at some point to a new Radiohead offering in this vein), we should be so lucky to get this project.

8. black midi, Hellfire

There appears to be no end in sight to black midi's brilliance, as they have now dropped three consecutive stunners in four years with nary a sweat broken. What started as mere post-punk thrashing has turned into an almost maddeningly complex brew of math rock, jazz, prog-flamenco and inscrutable storytelling. Naysayers could dismiss it as Primus worship; believers are standing in the shadows of giants.

7. Junior Boys, Waiting Game

The Boys played a long waiting game indeed; six years since Big Black Coat, and then they had the nerve to drop the beats out of their sound! It will be interesting to see how these tunes transform in a live setting. It is to their credit that even at their most untethered and ambient, they cannot be mistaken for any other act.

6. Jockstrap, I Love You Jennifer B

Unassuming and maybe even underwhelming at first, Jockstrap's debut album zigged where you expected a line, went quiet instead of crescendoing, and generally acted like the least cooperative musical idea of the year. Full of surprises and more importantly tunes, the pop savants have made a huge splash which will be fascinating to follow.

5. Soccer Mommy, Sometimes, Forever

Difficult third album? Not a chance. Sophie Allison hooked up with suddenly-everywhere superproducer Daniel Lopatin (of Oneohtrix Point Never/The Weeknd halftime show fame) for an instant classic of shoegaze flavored scuzzy 90s style indie rock and difficult feelings, a considerable leap forward from an already promising sophomore leap.

4. Sudan Archives, Natural Brown Prom Queen

The type of go-for-broke massive artistic statement that only youth full of fire are capable of, Sudan (guest curator of this year's Sled Island, for reference) throws it all at the wall, and almost everything sticks. Styles come and go, there is a loose humor throughout, and her musical chops are on full display in the performances and production; a masterclass from a hugely exciting artist.

3. Charlotte Adigery & Bolis Pupul, Topical Dancer

"Go back to the country where you belong/Siri, where do I belong?" Incredibly weighty topics like immigration, misogyny and racism are leavened with incredibly joyous and ecstatic music on Adigery's debut, produced under the guidance of the Soulwax brothers and topped by Adigery's deadpan and flirty French-accented vocals. One of the year's great treats.

2. Rosalía, MOTOMAMI

Perhaps pop will only go where Rosalía dreams it. The Barcelona artist is rapidly escalating into a global superstar with the musical chops and wild ideas that germinate into a startling free-for-all, bending guests like the Weeknd, James Blake and Q-Tip into shapes to fit her vision of a pop utopia. The classically trained flamenco artist had already proved her bona fides on 2018's El mal querer and takes the world by the hand here, guiding it forward into a post-English world where Bad Bunny is already the highest-streaming artist - the future is hers.

1. Beyoncé, RENAISSANCE

She's one of one, she's the only one. At this point it is cliché and lazy to proclaim Beyoncé as the most important star of her generation, much as she has been for the past quarter of a century, but she often makes it too hard to argue otherwise. Her best album in a career full of decent-to-good ones, this effervescent and opulent journey into the Black soul via the dancefloor was a gigantic glitter bomb for an era in sore need of lifting up, and as much as people talk up the first half, it is really in the second half that the album reaches perfection - "Pure/Honey" and "Summer Renaissance" are the finest 1-2 closers since Automatic for the People. It should cost a billion to sound so good, and if this is only "act 1", there will be no way to prepare for the rest.

Honorable Mentions

Spoon, Lucifer on the Sofa
Copy and paste from any of their albums in the past two decades: Spoon are one of the most consistent and dedicated practitioners of the rock sound, always coming correct with rock-solid work and an undisputed live show, even if this one screams "dad rock" a bit louder than they have before.

Burial, ANTIDAWN
The UK's finest quietly returned to the LP format (I don't care: the unique album cover does not follow his previous EP iconography, and 43 minutes is way too long for an EP – it's an album, whatever Hyperdub packages it as!!) early in the year, with a collection of vaporous ambient tracks that filled the yearning hole in our souls. Wouldn't say no if he started doing some drum programming again, though...

Hot Chip, Freakout/Release
The UK band is yet another "so good you take them for granted" act; they only ever release solid albums.

Destroyer, LABYRINTHITIS
Dan Bejar's 13th album is one of his finest, keeping in step with his disco-beat jazz poetics of late.

Arctic Monkeys, The Car
Alex Turner continues his stay on the moon, with more lounge-y magic.

Mount Kimbie, MK 3.5: City Planning | Die Cuts
Campos and Maker go Speakerboxxx on our asses, with two separate albums packages as a band effort; fascinating and heady stuff.

Theo Parrish, DJ-Kicks: Detroit Forward
Comprised entirely of recent Detroit productions, the double-disc compilation is a love letter to the ongoing growth of Detroit techno.

The Beths, Expert in a Dying Field
The New Zealand band's gloriously hooky songs and guitar fuzz mask the wry, bitter observations of being young in a cruel world. Cuts especially hard if you're an expert in the humanities field.

Suede, Autofiction
Holy, what got in their bonnet? The long-running Britpop act has had a hell of a second run, and their roaring post-punk attack harkens back to the halcyon days of 1996.

Animal Collective, Time Skiffs
There isn't much that Animal Collective hasn't done in their far-ranging decades of work, so it is a simple joy to hear them embrace their Legend status and craft an effortlessly Animalesque album of jammy tracks and accessible anthems, their best since Merriweather (unfair though that might be).

I Heard You Was Conflicted

Kendrick Lamar, Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers
Yeah, so...at least we can't say that Kendrick half-assed this one. Although he still (literally) tap-dances to the beat expected of him, his fifth album finds him being wilfully messy and contradictory and human, refusing to play Rap Saviour for the legion of white liberal fans who hold him up as the Pulitzer-winning paragon of black masculinity and artistry, and instead unpacks generations of trauma and personal shortcomings in the unpleasant manner topics like those deserve. After all, his last words are "I choose me, I'm sorry".
Not everything works: nobody ever needs to hear "We Cry Together" a second time, and too many of the tracks are underwhelming musically, suffocated under the weight of Kendrick's subject matter. He is still one of the the Greats of his (and all) time, and his performances are still astounding - the sheer hurt he transmits through the muttering of "Mother I Sober" is simply devastating - and he deserves the chance to air his grievances with a messy and difficult work. This is an Important album of clearly superior craft and vision, but it's one that I would be okay with not hearing again for quite some time.

Reissues, etc.

The Beatles, Revolver: Super Deluxe
The granddaddy of them all, my favorite album from the Beatles got a hefty upgrade in 2022 with a new stereo mix (not bad) and a few discs of demos and outtakes, some of them available since 1996 on the Anthology series. Favorite piece: the Take 5 actual speed edition of "Rain" sounds hilarious and proves their genius in slowing it down.

Madonna, Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones
50 Dance number ones, that is. Madonna has had a charmed career and has enough hits collections to justify this massive undertaking, 50 of her greatest dance tracks presented in essential remixes that provide a great overview of the past four decades of dance music in general. Her post-Ray of Light tracks especially come off quite well in this format, and may lead you to rediscover her generally underrated past couple of decades of work.

Pavement, Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal
Produced by Nigel Godrich, this final release from the beloved 90s slackers was a sizeable disappointment at the time; now with Godrich's intended track order restored, this edition gives us a new look at the great album we all ignored on release.

Various, Artifical Intelligence
Somehow, this blast of future-perfect electronic home-listening is all of 30 years old: Autechre are listed as "19 and 21" years of age in the liner notes. Unbelievable, and still an unbelievably great collection.

PJ Harvey, B-Sides, Demos and Rarities
The glorious Ms. Harvey closes out her demo re-release campaign with a triple-disc doozy, collecting 59 tracks from across her estimable career, leaving us casuals and possibly the hardcores well sated.

Worst

With the fragmentation of music consumption and a wide range of blogs to read, it's fairly easy to avoid hearing about the fascistic commercial triumphs of Taylor Swift and the nuclear-sized anti-Semitic dumpster fire that is Ye, or listening to new garbage from Machine Gun Kelly, Post Malone and DJ Khaled. Drake attempted to roll on Beyoncé's club direction with a sloppy club album of his own that put us all to sleep. I could also take a moment to remember that Arcade Fire had a new album out but some "surprising" accusations about the frontman basically led to their entire cancelation, with P4K being the giver ("9.7"!!) and taker ("accusations"!!) of Arcade's life. Good riddance to one of the most overrated bands of all time.

The continued dominance of TikTok is a highly lamentable cancer on the music scene, throwing ridiculous "vulgar nursery rhyme" remakes and "slowed down" and "sped up" versions of tracks at us, and generally cutting down on attention span and music composition. Case in point could be Sam Smith and Kim Petras' "Unholy" - the track was hyped on the platform for a good month before release, and when the song dropped it was hardly any different from the clips. What I would give for pop songs to have a couple of different parts rather than repeat the chorus and verses twice and be done: "Unholy" could have been a pretty great track with a solid bridge or some kind of tension build but instead just floats around for 2.5 minutes and leaves.

As always, the passing of artists young and old tends to be the worst news of the year and this space offers me a chance to look back and pay tribute to them. Here is an abridged list of those we lost in 2022.

James Mtume (January 9) - the R&B/jazz multi-instrumentalist (key in Miles Davis' 70s period) was 76.
Ronnie Spector (January 12) - the legendary R&B singer was 78.
Meat Loaf (January 20) - the bat out of hell was 74.
Betty Davis (February 9) - the Different, hugely influential funk singer was 77.
Dallas Good (February 17) - the Canadian guitarist and member of the Sadies was only 48.
Mark Lanegan (February 22) - legendary 90s alt-rock singer of Screaming Trees was 57.
Taylor Hawkins (March 25) - the long-time Foo Fighters drummer was only 50.
Klaus Schulze (April 26) - the Tangerine Dream/Ash Ra Tempel synth maestro was 74.
Vangelis (May 17) - the man behind the most famous inspirational musical motif (among so many others) was 79.
Andy Fletcher (May 26) - the solid man behind the throne of Depeche Mode was 60; the band will return in 2023.
Julee Cruise (June 9) - best known as the vocals behind much of Twin Peaks' music, she was 65.
Monty Norman (July 11) - the "James Bond Theme" composer was 92.
Paul Ryder (July 15) - the groovy Happy Mondays bassist was 58.
Q Lazzarus (July 19) - the singer behind a famous "Silence of the Lambs" scene, she was 59.
Olivia Newton-John (August 8) - a superstar and all-around good person, she was 73.
Jaimie Branch (August 22) - the free jazz trumpeter and composer was only 39.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (September 8) - an icon of the establishment and one of the most famous faces in music (let alone the world), she was 96.
Pharoah Sanders (September 24) - a saxophone colossus who had a triumphant 2021 album, Sanders was 81.
Coolio (September 28) - one of my generation's first exposures to rap, the Compton rapper was 59.
Loretta Lynn (October 4) - a country troubadour and subject of an Oscar-winning movie, she was 90.
Jerry Lee Lewis (October 28) - legendary rock pioneer and murderer, Lewis was 87.
Aaron Carter (November 5) - the troubled former child star was only 34.
Mimi Parker (November 5) - Low's drummer and singer, and perhaps the most shocking death of the year.
Keith Levene (November 11) - wildly influential post-punk guitarist of Public Image Ltd., he was 65.
Irene Cara (November 25) - Oscar-winning pop singer-songwriter, she was 63.
Christine McVie (November 30) - the secret weapon of Fleetwood Mac and author of their best songs, she was 79.
Manuel Gottsching (December 4) - the Krautrock and dance pioneer was 70.
Angelo Badalamenti (December 11) - the Twin Peaks composer was 85.
Terry Hall (December 19) - the Specials frontman was 63.
Martin Duffy (December 20) - Primal Scream and Felt's essential keyboardist was only 55.
Thom Bell (December 22) - the producer behind the Philly soul sound was 79.

Thanks for sticking around and see you all in 2023!

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50. Yard Act, The Overload		The Leeds band stormed out of the gates with their wry, witty observations around politics, human nature and life in modern Britain over sharp guitars, post-punk grooves and anthemic indie sounds. Lyrical verbosity that never got old, and makes them a promising act to follow.
49. VOICE ACTOR, Sent From My Telephone		A random Gorilla v Bear discovery, this epic collection (109 tracks at nearly 4 hours) traverses some of my favorite musical trends from the past couple of decades. I haven't come close to hearing it all, and the alphabetical ordering invites random shuffling, but there is so much to enjoy I know this will be the type of thing that will be playing for years to come.
48. Weyes Blood, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow		Natalie Mering's 21st century upgrade to the Laurel Canyon sound pays dividends again, as she effortlessly sounds tuneful and totally calm in the face of "overwhelming changes" - her fifth album is like a warm blanket to pull over your face as the world descends into chaos.
47. Boldy James & Real Bad Man, Killing Nothing		How does a mere man keep up with the prolific Detroit rapper? He has now released ten albums in the 20's, usually with a single producer behind the decks, and nearly all of them are top-shelf classics. This pairing with the clothing company/production collective of Real Bad Man is a typically golden effort, as Boldy's effortless crime flows hypnotize you, while the musically omnivorous soundscape envelops you. Shout-out to his other excellent works from 2022 with Nicholas Craven, Futurewave and Cuns - an insanely prolific streak that doesn't appear to be slowing down.
46. The 1975, Being Funny in a Foreign Language		Notes on a Conditional Form presented a perfectly bloated endpoint for Matty Healy and his mates, so there was nowhere to go but downsize into a more digestible package. He is still one of the new century's most poignant and on-line lyricists, and these pop tracks have a sense of enjoyment we haven't heard from them in a while - the Music for Cars era is over, but the future is brighter than ever.
45. Elder, Innate Passage		Elder has been traveling from stoner doom and psych into more proggy territory, and have also learned key lessons of minimalism from certain strains of kosmische/space rock and post-rock. There are certainly passages of frantic riffing, but the majority of the time the music floats and pulses with simple beauty, blissfully changing shape rather than taking linear paths.
44. Spiritualized, Everything Was Beautiful		J Spaceman, living treasure, continues to bless us with poignant gospel and space-rock, completing the Vonnegut quote he began in reverse in 2018 and still sounding in awe at being alive. There is still the underlying thought that it could fall apart any time; let us hope it never does.
43. Huerco S, Plonk		Brian Leeds has been away from the Huerco S moniker for some time, and Plonk is a disorienting ambient album, using the automobile as the project's aesthetic grounding - metal on metal that you may expect to recall a krautrock tempo but providing no such thing, and throwing in some experimental rap to really throw you off the scent. A slippery and beguiling work from a trickster.
42. Alvvays, Blue Rev		Having come through a pandemic, a flood and a thief, Alvvays made a gloriously life-affirming album of shoegaze pop, overwhelming in its lyrical prowess and effervescence, at its heart melancholy but always willing to embrace the ups and downs of life.
41. Kelly Lee Owens, LP.8		Skipping ahead from her second album to her imagined eighth, Owens dropped a startling future-shock work on disembodied electronic music, something that I still haven't wrapped the beginning of my mind around and which might very well be in vogue in the 2040s, if we ever make it there.
40. Big Thief, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You		The ridiculous title should clue you in to what is happening in Big Thief's world - their inhibitions are their only limitations, and they clearly have none. Adrienne Lenker further cements her position as one of her generation's great songwriters with this sprawling work that you are tempted to cut down, but what would you cut? It may not work well as a single 80-minute album, but all of the songs are essential and unassumingly important. Even the damn potato song.
39. Dubstar, Two		I have burned a candle for the British poppers since 1995's flawless Disgraceful; how blessed are we in 2022 to receive new material of the same high quality. These tracks pop out of the speakers with giant hooks and sticky melodies, as timeless as all those years ago.
38. Nilüfer Yanya, PAINLESS		Misnomer of a title, as Yanya spends the majority of her sophomore album exploring the pains of being young in an uncaring and painful world, with skittering drum machines and swirling guitar chords providing a solid bedrock for her melodic vocals delivering nihilism and frustration. As good as Miss Universe was, this is a major leap forward and holds great promise.
37. Let's Eat Grandma, Two Ribbons		"These places, they stay but we’re changing / Like two ribbons, still woven although we are fraying" - so say the transgressive duo of Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth on the title track of their third album. Travelling from the exuberant pop of the first side to the haunting balladry of the end, the duo have already had a lifetime's worth of experiences and this next step in their journey is a rewarding one.
36. Wet Leg, Wet Leg		One of the most eagerly anticipated debuts in quite some time, Wet Leg followed through on the promise of "Chaise Longue" with this tongue-in-cheek collection of cheeky youth living large, with giant hooks and loads of fun. Let them butter your muffin.
35. SAULT, Air		The mysterious UK collective went supernova in 2022, releasing 7 different projects through the year, ranging from a 10 minute single to a heaping platter in their seemingly on-going Untitled series. The gimmick of releasing five albums at once on a passcode-protected site was a bit frustrating, but the results were worth it. Trust that all the projects are worth your time and any could be slotted here, but my favorite was the spring's Air, the uplifting and entirely choral/orchestral work that made you think you'd pressed play on the wrong album.
34. Jairus Sharif, Water & Tools		Aside from the usual huge names, the Canadian jazz scene is probably quite low-key; leave it to the Calgary-based saxophonist/producer Sharif to submerge the scene with this one-man-ensemble attack, often familiar but mostly content to explore the astral plane in search of enlightenment. Best Canadian jazz album ever? Discuss.
33. Sorry, Anywhere But Here		Pulling from trip-hop, grunge, post-punk, and straightforward acoustic balladry to explore the messiness and non-linearity of feelings, the London duo followed up their 2020 debut with a refinement of their already-fragmented sound. One of our keenest observers of the human condition.
32. Pusha T, It's Almost Dry		Once again Push gifts us with a lean and ferocious platter of his inimitable cocaine raps, highlighted by some career-high production from longtime cohort Pharrell. You would think the album title refers to his subject matter, but there's no stopping this machine.
31. Porridge Radio, Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky		There are flashes of stadium-rock bombast in Porridge Radio's third album, as hooky choruses loom out of the murk of Dana Margolin's narration, but ultimately this is one for insular listening as the occasional lyrical turn of phrase knocks you sideways. An excellent piece of post-punk indie.
30. Charli XCX, Crash		It is Charli's world of funhouse mirrors and we are merely bystanders caught in the reflection. In a career full of vivid pop smashes and boundary-pushing exploits, her most straightforward effort yet – inspired by an interest in the concept of selling out – turns out to be one of her best, sleek and immediate like a rocket exploding in your face. This is her last album on the contract that hasn't seemed to work out to both parties' benefits, so a free-agent Charli should be pushing pop music into some strange places.
29. Gilla Band, Most Normal		A name change and bouts of depression can't stop the Irish band from pushing the boundaries of noise rock and surveying modern life with an unflinching eye. Everything from Ryan Air to shitty clothes are dissected by Dara Kiely's caustic voice, while the band dips the music into a vat of acid and lets it air-dry into barely discernible shapes.
28. Chat Pile, God's Country		The Oklahoma band is named after poisonous waste deposits in the Tri-State area, and deals in a skin-crawling mix of noise rock and sludge metal. Why do people have to live outside when there are all these buildings? A man is driven to suicide by a 9 foot tall pot-smoking Grimace. The guitars roar and gnash all around you. It is strangely optimistic and cleansing.
27. Just Mustard, Heart Under		Forget the silly name for a second; Ireland's Just Mustard explores a strain of post-punk that places vivid guitar textures over riffs, unsettling and bleak soundscapes out of the Joy Division playbook with the ethereal vocals of Katie Bell spinning emotional gold over top. An excellent sophomore album that promises great things.
26. DJ Lag, Meeting With The King		The iconic producer dealing with the South African gqom movement (read: removing the 4/4 kick from a house beat and replacing it with syncopated rhythms) saw the more melodic amapiano genre gaining ground, and attempted to fuse the two on his debut. This record is absolutely huge and a rhythmic tour-de-force, DJ Lag bringing in a stable of collaborators on the mic and behind the decks, and crafted what is arguably the first essential gqom album, the Timeless of its genre.
25. Beach House, Once Twice Melody		Baltimore's finest have been doing this for nearly two decades – they are now elder statesmen and they have richly earned the right to a self-produced, sprawling 84-minute four-episode album that might be their best effort yet. The formula is not broken and they do not tamper with it, blessing us with their standard hypnotic atmosphere and rich melodies.
24. Mindforce, New Lords		I cannot claim any allegiance to the hardcore scene, but there will be the random album that gets written up in music blogs I follow and I check it out and am pummeled into wonderment. The New York hardcore band cram 10 tracks and about 10 times as many riffs into 17:25 of pure glorious heaviness, trimmed free of any excess and only the most essential ass-kicking remaining, all done up with the perfectly balanced production of a prime Opeth album.
23. Denzel Curry, Melt My Eyez See Your Future		What it lacks of Zuu's swagger and intensity, it more than makes up for with an omnivorous approach, the Floridian rapper Curry recruiting legends like Thundercat, Robert Glasper, Kenny Beats and T-Pain into a kaleidoscopic journey through an artist's psyche - the success, past traumas and sociopolitical conflict - as he discovers that there are no boundaries to creativity. An intriguing next step to assured greatness.
22. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Endless Rooms		Melbourne's finest janglers hit the gold button yet again on their third album, reversing the slight slide into torpor on Sideways to New Italy and crafting another batch of summer anthems with their triple-guitar attack. The songs are allowed to breathe for upwards of five minutes as the mood dictates, and the result is an unhurried lounge on a sunny beach.
21. They Hate Change, Finally, New!		The Florida rap duo pair experimental Southern lyrical inflections and themes over honest-to-goodness mid-90s UK jungle breaks and drum'n'bass assaults on the iconic Jagjaguwar label, one of the great genre mash-ups of recent times. A head scratcher and a neck snapper.
20. Bjork, Fossora		An absolute legend who gives nothing up easily, Bjork makes albums for years down the road, for the time after you've sat with her works and marinated in them like the forest mushrooms of her 10th album. Inspired by the death of her mother and the pandemic, eager to seek life through shared experiences and with the help of her children, Fossora hasn't revealed itself yet but is shaping up to be yet another classic.
19. billy woods, Aethiopes \| Church		A double header from woods was an ideal delivery system for 2022: Aethiopes was produced entirely by Preservation and is an insular exploration of the African diaspora and stasis underpinned by Ethiopean-origin samples, while Church was the more traditionally boom-bap type of album produced by Messiah Music. Whatever the differences in the sound, on both works woods raps literal circles in stunning displays of craft honed over decades.
18. Levon Vincent, Silent Cities		Grand, stately, mournful dub techno from the master of the form. You may see the titles named for animals and rivers and expect lush warmth, but this is sheer urban decay suggested by the cover, a 78-minute stroll through a gentle snowfall in an abandoned city.
17. Vince Staples, Ramona Park Broke My Heart		Yet another in Staples' increasingly long list of great albums, this highly personal and introspective look at the damage wrought by his surroundings might be his best yet - deeply immersive and novelistic, but at heart ultimately a banging hip-hop record from a peerless curator and supremely gifted MC.
16. Soul Glo, Diaspora Problems		Can I live? Can I live? Can I live? Channeling systemic racism and governmental failure and generational trauma, gargling with gasoline and spitting it back out as a relentless hardcore diatribe, it appears to be vocalist Pierce Jordan who runs amok on this album while his band scrambles to keep up. Thrilling and cathartic.
15. D. Tiffany & Roza Terenzi, Edge of Innocence		This debut album from the producers achieves the fine balance of pushing electronic music towards the future while paying tribute to its glittering past; high tempo tributes to jungle and d'n'b are keenly contrasted with the duo's psychedelic lean, eight perfect tracks that duck and weave into a wonderful tapestry.
14. caroline, caroline		Another year, another sprawling UK collective exploding the boundaries of guitar-led rock music. A core of three players improvise the bones of the tracks, and then the full 8-piece band flesh it out in whatever shape the songs demand - there are flashes of post-punk and Appalachian folk and choral singing on this debut, moments of wide-eyed beauty contrasted against baffling experimentation, and yet it hangs together in prismatic brilliance. This act will be one to watch.
13. Special Interest, Endure		One part radical agit-pop sloganeering, one part hardcore punk/industrial house party, all absolutely killer material. The Philadelphia project made the leap to the majors after a couple of highly touted albums and made one of the most vital and joyous blasts of noise this year.
12. Dry Cleaning, Stumpwork		Wasting no time after their excellent debut from last year, Florence Shaw and her band continued in a similar vein on this excellent album, Shaw monologuing the frustrations and vulnerabilities of life in the modern age while a tightly wound post-punk maelstrom lurches around her.
11. Cate Le Bon, Pompeii		In the year Kate Bush was running up the pop chart hill, her spiritual protégé Cate and her haunting alto stood up tall for modern off-kilter and melodic art-pop, weaving a flawless tapestry of adult contemporary, chamber folk and goth-pop. The type of unassuming album that creeps up on you until you find yourself humming the songs weeks later.
10. Black Country, New Road, Ants From Up There		Not willing to be kneecapped by an early release date (not to mention coming a mere 364 days after their debut), the sophomore effort from the Cambridgeshire sextet was destined for immediate infamy due to singer Isaac Wood's departure days before its release. However, the proof was already on wax: this is one of the greatest musical feats in modern times, a razor-sharp and evocative collection of wild stylistic swings and lyrical deftness. Legends in their time already, whatever the future may hold.
9. The Smile, A Light for Attracting Attention		Open your ears and heart, close your eyes, and receive this as a "Radiohead" offering. Thom and Jonny take a break from their assault on Hollywood to hook up with jazz drummer Tom Skinner for a skittering and alive offering of jazz-adjacent art-rock tunes, with a fierce live show to boot. Whether this is a long-term thing or just a one-off (or leads at some point to a new Radiohead offering in this vein), we should be so lucky to get this project.
8. black midi, Hellfire		There appears to be no end in sight to black midi's brilliance, as they have now dropped three consecutive stunners in four years with nary a sweat broken. What started as mere post-punk thrashing has turned into an almost maddeningly complex brew of math rock, jazz, prog-flamenco and inscrutable storytelling. Naysayers could dismiss it as Primus worship; believers are standing in the shadows of giants.
7. Junior Boys, Waiting Game		The Boys played a long waiting game indeed; six years since Big Black Coat, and then they had the nerve to drop the beats out of their sound! It will be interesting to see how these tunes transform in a live setting. It is to their credit that even at their most untethered and ambient, they cannot be mistaken for any other act.
6. Jockstrap, I Love You Jennifer B		Unassuming and maybe even underwhelming at first, Jockstrap's debut album zigged where you expected a line, went quiet instead of crescendoing, and generally acted like the least cooperative musical idea of the year. Full of surprises and more importantly tunes, the pop savants have made a huge splash which will be fascinating to follow.
5. Soccer Mommy, Sometimes, Forever		Difficult third album? Not a chance. Sophie Allison hooked up with suddenly-everywhere superproducer Daniel Lopatin (of Oneohtrix Point Never/The Weeknd halftime show fame) for an instant classic of shoegaze flavored scuzzy 90s style indie rock and difficult feelings, a considerable leap forward from an already promising sophomore leap.
4. Sudan Archives, Natural Brown Prom Queen		The type of go-for-broke massive artistic statement that only youth full of fire are capable of, Sudan (guest curator of this year's Sled Island, for reference) throws it all at the wall, and almost everything sticks. Styles come and go, there is a loose humor throughout, and her musical chops are on full display in the performances and production; a masterclass from a hugely exciting artist.
3. Charlotte Adigery & Bolis Pupul, Topical Dancer		"Go back to the country where you belong/Siri, where do I belong?" Incredibly weighty topics like immigration, misogyny and racism are leavened with incredibly joyous and ecstatic music on Adigery's debut, produced under the guidance of the Soulwax brothers and topped by Adigery's deadpan and flirty French-accented vocals. One of the year's great treats.
2. Rosalía, MOTOMAMI		Perhaps pop will only go where Rosalía dreams it. The Barcelona artist is rapidly escalating into a global superstar with the musical chops and wild ideas that germinate into a startling free-for-all, bending guests like the Weeknd, James Blake and Q-Tip into shapes to fit her vision of a pop utopia. The classically trained flamenco artist had already proved her bona fides on 2018's El mal querer and takes the world by the hand here, guiding it forward into a post-English world where Bad Bunny is already the highest-streaming artist - the future is hers.
1. Beyoncé, RENAISSANCE		She's one of one, she's the only one. At this point it is cliché and lazy to proclaim Beyoncé as the most important star of her generation, much as she has been for the past quarter of a century, but she often makes it too hard to argue otherwise. Her best album in a career full of decent-to-good ones, this effervescent and opulent journey into the Black soul via the dancefloor was a gigantic glitter bomb for an era in sore need of lifting up, and as much as people talk up the first half, it is really in the second half that the album reaches perfection - "Pure/Honey" and "Summer Renaissance" are the finest 1-2 closers since Automatic for the People. It should cost a billion to sound so good, and if this is only "act 1", there will be no way to prepare for the rest.