Best music of 2022

Howdy folks. Here we are again. Earlier than usual this year – I finished a final run-through of my 2022 playlist (at the time of starting writing, 284 albums, 240 hours, and 3,243 tracks) so I’m ready to ramble! This also means I can spend the rest of December listening to what I want to. Not that I don’t enjoy listening to all this new stuff, and there was a tonne of great music released in 2022, of course, but perhaps it’s a question of when. Sometimes you’re just in the mood for some 1980s Iron Maiden, y’know? Or Christmas music, given the time of year. This is mostly the only time when I forget I’m not supposed to like cheesy music, but then some records, like Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas, are classics regardless. Plus, as I’ve written before, a December cannot go by without a ritual listen of Tool’s Lateralus and AFI’s The Art of Drowning (or Korn’s Issues at New Year’s).

And Spotify Wrapped only goes up to the end of November – I had previously hoped it would refresh every time I clicked on it, but no dice. Alas, not even something as seemingly sweet and harmless as Spotify Wrapped (I said Spotify Wrapped, not Spotify) can be considered uncontroversial or something not worth being shamed for on the internet (not me personally, I have nice friends, but I’ve seen a few memes taking the piss out of it. It makes you wonder what social media is for if not a bit of fun). But another record year as it happens, being over 101 days’ worth of listening! As my ever-longer suffering wife will tell you, there is noise from some speaker or other pretty much from 0700 to 2300. Every day. Even when I have a call or meeting. This worked fine until a) I realised I wasn’t always taking in what folk were saying, and b) when I changed a setting which meant background noise came through much louder and clearer and colleagues started asking me about it. Luckily, I have fixed the latter.

My top artist was Melvins. I was in the top 0.1% of listeners apparently, but as a learned friend pointed out, one could probably achieve that without listening to the same Melvins song more than once. My top song was Blacklight Shine by The Mars Volta.

I often mention disappointments, as personal, mean-spirited, and unnecessary as that is. I only really mean where expectations aren’t met – y’know, coz happiness = reality less expectations. (I thought the new Arcade Fire albums was fairly bad but I’m not a fan so who cares.) I don’t think much of the new Beyonce or Taylor Swift, but as amazing as Lemonade and folklore/evermore were, I was never going to, was I? I should say that I am even more unqualified to comment on such genres I know little about. But given how wide I cast my net of musical consumption, I don’t often get accused of discernment either. Well anyway, the only real disappointment was Pianos Become the Teeth’s Drift. It’s basically Kyle Durfey with backing tracks, but since he’s musically the weakest link (when they’re all working together, he normally still manages to be wonderful) this was not a good idea.

I didn’t mention Red Hot Chili Peppers. It would be rich of me to sit here and say something disparaging about Anthony Kiedis, or any other aspect of the band, given 1) what I was saying about social media a moment ago, and 2) they were my 3^rd most listened to band on Spotify (after Melvins and Cult of Luna, ahead of Lamb of God and The Mars Volta). If you’re a fan, particularly of ‘classic’ Chilis, then what a year it was to be alive! 34+ tracks of new music! The return of John Frusciante! I guess my expectations were never going to be met though. Frusciante returning? They did that already. Why bother writing any more songs at this point, could we just have some jamming? Well, we’ve had a Frusciante solo EP including a 15-minute track of basically just guitar soloing, and I wasn’t into it. This is not to say there are not plenty of great moments among those two 17+ track albums, but I’m not sure what the records add overall. Then again, I like the lounge jazz moments on Return of the Dream Canteen, so you can’t trust anything I say…

There were many wonderful surprises though:

• Slipknot’s The End, So Far fits in, I think, with the idea that the odd-numbered major Slipknot releases are the best (s/t, vol.3, 5. The Grey Chapter). I sometimes listen to WANYK and remember I don’t like most of it, whereas with The End I remember I do
• Porcupine Tree and Alexisonfire’s comeback albums are both pretty great. Coheed and Cambria’s new one wasn’t exactly a comeback but a new C&C being good isn’t guaranteed. This one is though
• A return to form (again) from Joss Stone, and a Christmas album too
• A return to form (again) from Machine Head
• I will apparently never not like alt-J
• Some of my favourite releases are from genres I wouldn’t normally listen to and artists I hadn’t previously heard of, but more on that in a bit
• If you like electronic / ambient music, then you’ll have loved 2022 (current affairs aside, I mean). So many incredible releases, even though it wasn’t hard to pick a favourite, but more on that in a bit too

Near misses:

• Yard Act – The Overload: post-punk with talky vocals. Didn’t like the first listen. Loved it from the second. Political and witty
• Korn – Requiem: honestly, really enjoyable. Very strong melodies
• Rolo Tomassi – When Myth Becomes Memory: one of the most consistent bands around. Something about the new record doesn’t quite put it on par with the last two, but it’s not far off
• Placebo – Never Let Me Go. The best album since Meds, IMO. And quite possibly they finally have something approaching good album art. Maybe
• Meshuggah – Immutable. I remember finding Clockworks indistinct, particularly when compared to Koloss and Obzen. Seeing the Swedish djent overlords live this year (at the Royal Albert Hall of all places) and listening to the new record enough have ensured that hasn’t happened again. While the usual things that make Meshuggah the band it is are present and correct, there is the odd curveball thrown in too
• Fontaines D.C. – Skinty Fia. Another one I didn’t take to initially but soon grew on me. The tunes are really beautiful in a way they wouldn’t be if someone sung them properly
• King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Too many albums released to pick from, so I haven’t. But they’re great fun
• Cave In – Heavy Pendulum. Their best album in 17 years. Rifftastic. A bit long, perhaps
• Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band. A friend has been telling me about this multitalented Liverpudlian for years and years. Then I got dragged to a gig at Shepherd’s Bush earlier this year. It was wonderful. And this particular musical outlet of Mick Head released an album. That album is very good. It consists of great song after great song that stay at the forefront of your mind and attention
• Warmth – The Night. Huerco S. – Plonk. Loscil – The Sails, Pt.1. Blood Incantation – IO. Nils Frahm – Music for Animals (all 3 hours of it). Just five of the fantastic and gorgeous ambient releases that are beautiful but I didn’t love quite as much as the one I put in my top list
• Greg Puciato – Mirrorcell. Second solo album from The Dillinger Escape Plan frontman. His first – 2020’s Child Soldier: Creator of God – was heavy on atmospherics and weirdness. This one is more about riffs and melody, and succeeds pretty well on that front
• The Mars Volta – s/t. OK, yes, sure. If it had been released as an Omar (Rodriguez-Lopez) solo record no-one would, having listened to it, accuse it of sounding like a Mars Volta record. On the other hand, The Mars Volta was a band of ideas, and this is exactly what this album is. The difference is that without the noodling there is no breathing room for those ideas and they come at you a bit relentlessly. It sounds incredible though (coming from someone who thinks De-Loused had their best production and sound), and features some of Cedric’s best ever vocal work
• Blaqk Audio – Trop D’Amour. Davey and Jade’s (AFI) most consistent album from start to finish
• I initially had these in my top few separately but if I’m going to pick just one black metal album then I will relegate Wake – Thought from descent and black particles – loss function to this list of near misses. Both really are excellent though

As usual, I’ll have missed and overlooked and forgotten things, and been hopelessly wrong about others, but here are the records that really stood out for me this year.

As ever, cheers! And happy Christmas and new year.

Link: 2022 best SONGS playlist

Link: 2022 best ALBUMS playlist

Wiegedood – There’s always blood at the end of the road

Imagine black metal that is incredibly fun, dare I say even catchy, but with no loss of pummelling savagery. Voila.

Cult of Luna – The long road north

My favourite album of the year is by Cult of Luna. Again. What an astonishing late period (or mid I suppose if they go another 20 years) they are having. Fans liked 2013’s Vertikal and 2016’s Mariner well enough but, a couple of tracks on Vertikal aside, I’m fairly lukewarm towards those two records. So, for me 2019’s amazing ‘A dawn to fear’ was a real surprise. What’s perhaps even more surprising is that three years later (not forgetting last year’s EP ‘the raging river’) they’ve done it again! TLRN is perhaps not a million miles from ADTF in terms of style or sound or construction, but there is still a sprinkling of small innovations, most notably avant-garde saxophonist Colin Stetson’s involvement. Once again, it’s the guitar top lines singing out over everything that steal the show, but the chilling and cohesive atmosphere is also what makes it yet another masterpiece from the post-metal Swedes.

Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

I have this vague idea that sometimes a good sound can hide unexceptional songwriting. And that often I’m willing to forgo the latter for the former. When your band doesn’t use a lot of dirty vocals or distortion on the ol’ guitars and that, there are fewer places to hide. But you can still be layered and complex, of course. Now while this double-album starts off totally fine, after about the first third, or perhaps even quarter, we suddenly get this incredible run of strong songs. There’s a fair bit of variation in there an’ all, which I guess is essential for such a long record! Worth it though.

Zeal & Ardor – s/t

I kept thinking this basically sounded like Kings of Leon with blast beats. Then I actually bothered to look it up and the idea is a combination of African-American spiritual music and, well yes, black metal. But who knew it was possible to still be original in 2022? And pull it off too.

Nilüfer Yanya – PAINLESS

The second album from the English/part-Turkish singer-songwriter (she also plays guitar and keyboard I think). I read in a review somewhere that Radiohead is a clear influence. And yes I can definitely hear that. But I’m fine with it. Great artists stealing and all that. Not the only album in this list that sounds like Radiohead.

Charlotte Adigery, Bolis Pupil – Topical dancer

Definitely one to file in the Pitchfork folder of things usually too cool for me. But the stark clarity and sly humour of every element – vocals, lyrics, beats – appeals anyway.

DARK – dark_1

This is my favourite ambient/electronic release of the year. There was a dark_2 too but the first one just really stood out for me. I’m beginning to think that anything with a Steve Reich style pulsating repetition I’m going to like by default.

Machinedrum / tstewart – elysian

My other favourite electronic / producer record this year. I loved 2013’s Vapor City but haven’t delved beyond – there’s quite a lot of material under various different names. Speaking of which, I think this may technically count as a tstewart (as in Travis Stewart) release, but it shows up under both names. I seem to recall Bonobo’s Simon Green did the artwork too.

The Smile – A light for attracting attention

The Smile consists of Thom and Jonny from Radiohead and one of the drummers from Sons of Kemet. So far, so amazing. Described as the best thing to come out of a Radiohead side-project, I would certainly agree with that. It’s probably the best Radiohead-related thing since In Rainbows (or Nilüfer Yanya’s PAINLESS – see above). Have I mentioned Radiohead enough? Radiohead.

Wovenhand – Silver sash

Another sterling record from the heavy-but-slightly-country rock and roll brainchild of singer and songwriter and guitar player David Eugene Edwards. According to Wikipedia, the latter stuff is less country and more “gothic Americana”. Sounds apt to me

Nduduzo Makhathini – In the spirit of Ntu

For most of the 2010’s I had my favourite contemporary jazz artists whose new releases I would await with bated breath. For many of those it seems their heyday has probably passed, and since I had my children I’m not at Ronnie Scott’s every week or at the London Jazz festival every night like I once was, keeping up with what’s cool. But I still manage to check out some new stuff, and keep an eye on jazz magazine recommendations and year-end best-of lists. Near misses include Trish Clowes’ ‘A view with a room’, Immanuel Wilkins’ ‘The 7^th Hand’, and Empirical’s Like Lambs. But in the end, I have plumped for South African pianist Makhathini’s record, which manages to feature both everything I already love about jazz – driving rhythm, soaring solos, distinct little motifs that stay with me, only occasional vocals – and a fair bit of incorporation of African sound and original flourishes.

OFF! – Free LSD

A hardcore supergroup of sorts, it manages to stand well on its own. This third album is somehow classic but also refreshing, with some incredible riffing. With 20 tracks over only 38 minutes, it succeeds not only in vitality and urgency but craft and concept.

Oren Ambarchi – Shebang

A guitar led jazz quartet with a heap of electronic loops and effects, beautifully realised. Bears another Steve Reich comparison, particularly on the relentlessly forward-moving IV

Svaneborg Kardyb – Over Tage

Understated and Danish jazz from the Portico Quartet school of haunting melody. Sounds like an electronic chillout album played by two humans – Nikolaj Svaneborg on the Wurlitzer and piano, and Jonas Kardyb (Cardi B?) on percussion.