And here it is, the last week of 2022. A year ago today, Bitcoin was trading at $52,100 and Elon Musk was universally hailed as a modern day Thomas Edison. As I write this on December 26, 2023, Bitcoin is trading at $15,460 and a guy I never heard of until a month ago (Sam Bankman-Fried) took his crypto company to $30B+ within 2022, lost all of it, and has fled to the Bahamas to avoid fraud charges. Meanwhile, Mr. Musk paid $44B for Twitter in 2022 despite claiming that it wasn't profitable, promptly revealed that it is indeed not profitable, and has gone about destroying any last value that it might have (not to mention destroying any of his credibility) in his short tenure. So....a lot can happen in a year.
It's also hard to remember that we were still in the clutches of Covid-19 at this time last year. I was meant to fly home for Christmas last year but rafts of flights (including ours) were being cancelled due to flight crews coming down with the Omicron variant. mRNA vaccines showed just what a game changer they are by churning out an Omicron vaccine in the first half of the year and here we are, now, acting like Covid-19 is done and gone (spoiler alert, it's not).
As far as music goes, this was just an epic year. Narrowing my favorite list down to 10 was a real chore. I teased a bunch of 2022 albums on my list last year including Mitski, Spiritualized, and David Bowie. None of those ended up making the list although Spiritualized's Always Together With You is still one of my absolute favorite songs of the year. It's all of the quiet and gentle to beautiful noise that I've always loved from J. Spaceman. Alas, the rest of the album isn't quite as good and they were the culprits behind the worst concert I've been to in a long time. The show was moved from an epic location in Big Sur to an old movie theater in Santa Cruz that didn't serve alcohol and Spaceman was clearly high the whole time. Fortunately, there was another concert this year that was one of the best I've ever been to (read on to learn what it was).
Best Singles without Albums
Just like last year, there are a couple of great singles that were either launched without an album or are on an album coming in 2023. The National and Bon Iver proved that the indie rock Wonder Twins could absolutely produce a great tune with Weird Goodbyes. Jack White and Q-Tip released a sort of goofy, sort of genius update of Hi-De-Ho for Record Store Day. As far as singles off albums poised to hit in 2023, there's Algiers releasing this banger with Zach de la Rocha but nothing has me more excited than Australian-Ghanaian hip-hopper Genesis Owusu with Get Inspired. The Walkmen are also getting back together for a number of concerts next year which might (I hope) mean a new album soon. And Charles Bissell from the Wrens has promised, once again, that their album is definitely coming out next year and he means it this time.
Just Missed
There really were a lot of albums this year that I loved that just didn't crack the top 10. It was a really good year. This is all subjective and there are a lot in here that you'll probably like more than what's in my list. My tastes tend to be all over the map but if you're into indie you'll likely really like albums from Beach House, Alvvays, Yot Club, Horsegirl, Dehd, Arcade Fire, Kevin Morby, and Spoon. I've got a lot more hip hop than usual in this year's list but I just couldn't find room for Pusha T, Vince Staples, and Earl Sweatshirt. An all-time high with two country-ish albums on the list, but fans might also like Nikki Lane's album (she also guests on the number 2 album on the list). No room for jazz on the list this year but I enjoyed albums from Andrew Cyrille and Cecile Salvant. Over in the world of pop, everyone is obviously going to love Beyonce and T Swift. It's just not my thing. But, as you can see, 2022 was an amazing year for music.
Two albums that came really close and deserve special mention are from Rosalia and My Hair Is a Rat's Nest. Rosalia gets this year's SNL award (given last year to Billie Eilish) for an album that I paid no attention to until I saw her crush it on SNL. Her album is all over the place (in a good way), her delivery doesn't give a f***, the production is killer. At the end of the day, she just loses out on my list a bit because I don't always want to put on an entire Spanish language album. That's on me. The other album is The Longing Machine from My Hair Is a Rat's Nest. You gotta get past the band name and the fact that they're a screamo band because this album is a masterpiece. Only problem is that the entire album is one 24 minute long song. But it's an absolute noise symphony. I didn't think I could put a one-song album on the list so I give it a special nod here.
10. Bjork - Fossora
This album is really not going to be for everyone. As you can imagine, it's pretty f***ing weird. Fossora is this concept album about death (literally about her mother's death and figuratively about her marriage) and the hope that springs from it. There are a lot of analogies to death and rebirth in nature and it all blends elements like dissonance, Iceland's Hamrahlid Choir, DJs, church organs, orchestras, etc. It's magnificent just maybe not always enjoyable...but an album about death isn't always supposed to be enjoyable. Also, if you watch the full video for Atopos (below) with Bjork and a bunch of Icelanders dressed as mushroom people you are going to have nightmares particularly if you get to the end when Bjork transforms into this frenetic electronic dance fairy person. Don't say I didn't warn you.
9. Amanda Shires - Take It Like a Man
There's a lot of Nashville in my list this year. We were there a couple times this year and it's only by travelling there that you can get past the gravitational pull of the Grand Ol' Opry and find the underbelly of outlaw country and punk rock. Amanda Shires is one half of Nashville's alternative power couple with her husband Jason Isbell and is part of the country supergroup the Highwomen. But this album is all sex and attitude alt-country. The first line of the album is "I'm well aware of what the night's made of. And I'm comin' for you like a hawk for the dove." It's cool, sexy. It's country for people that don't like country.
8. The Smile - A Light for Attracting Attention
I've always loved Radiohead but not as much as a lot of people. My favorite album of theirs is still The Bends, I never got into Kid A, but I did really like Amnesiac. So it was great to see that this side project of Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood was less experimental than a lot of Radiohead fare. It definitely has enough of Radiohead's musical and experimental chops but it hews towards safer fare. Basically, there's enough of the experimental elements that make Radiohead who they are but without going too far into the abyss. All of which makes this a really satisfying album.
7. Sudan Archives - Natural Brown Prom Queen
What I will always love about music and about doing this list are the amazing albums that just come out of nowhere. Brittney Parks (she's from Ohio!) is Sudan Archives and she's a classically trained violist and self-taught multi-instrumentalist that dropped this f***ing amazing album. It scored a 9.0 on Pitchfork. Selfish Soul became an unlikely radio hit that's all booming bass, handclaps, and violin about embracing being a black woman. There's a lot here that's reminiscent of FKA Twigs who made this list a few years back. This is an album about embracing empowerment that's celebratory instead of preachy.
6. Wet Leg - S/T
I really, really, really hated this album for a long time. The first single, Chaise Longue, was played a ton on indie radio and I hated everything about it. I hated how much it was played, the endlessly repeated lyrics, how the word "lounge" is misspelled, etc. One day, I finally got it. Music doesn't need to be serious. A lot of times it can just rock and be stupid and funny and just be about screwing. Wet Leg is effectively the female counterpart of The Strokes. And the whole album delivers on exactly that vibe. This is the best party album of the year.
5. Danger Mouse & Black Thought - Cheat Codes
It's crazy that this isn't the best rap album of the year (spoiler alert). It's been a while since producer extraordinaire Danger Mouse and Black Thought (you know him from the Roots) have collaborated but they basically picked up where they left off. This is socially conscious rap delivered at laid back speeds. This is definitely a hip hop album that you can put on any time. The rhymes and production on most every track is incredible. It's really nice to hear the late MF DOOM as well.
4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cool It Down
As you can tell from the list of indie albums that didn't make the list, this was an incredible year for indie records. But nothing tops this comeback from the band that, together with Arcade Fire, defined indie rock in the aughts for me. Karen O has always been as much of a showman as Win Butler but the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were always power trio garage rock compared to Arcade Fire's giant soundscapes. They were always punk compared to Arcade Fire's indie pop. They've always reminded me of a modern day Velvet Underground with Karen O's punk princess surrounded by two jazz musicians (Nick Zinner and Brian Chase). This album is right up there with 2003's Fever to Tell in my opinion. The lead track, Spitting Off the Edge of the World, is vintage, Burning is every bit as good as Maps, Wolf should be a dance party staple. It's really fabulous when a great band comes back after a long lay-off with an album this good.
3. Orville Peck - Bronco
This album may get a bit of a bump for me since this was easily the best concert of the year for me and the best concert in a long time. We saw Orville in Nashville at the iconic Ryman Auditorium. The pandemic had precluded him from playing there on previous albums so this was his first show at the home of country music and he delivered. It's hard to overstate how amped this Nashville crowd was to see this gay, Canadian cowboy's first show there. Bronco doesn't quite match the standard set by his debut album Pony but it's still got his deep baritone, outlaw country rock, and Broadway type showmanship. Lots of great tunes here including Daytona Sand, Lafayette, and Hexie Mountainsbut his melodramatic old school country torch song, Let Me Drown is a real show stealer.
2. Dropkick Murphys - This Machine Still Kills Fascists
Man, I've loved the Murphys since I was a teenage punk. America's best version of Irish punk has provided the soundtrack to my life at many points. Most recently, I remember making time to watch their St. Patrick's Day broadcast in 2020 in the heart of the pandemic while we were all still in lockdown with no immediate sign of a vaccine. They are the true meaning of punk: fuck racists, fuck homophobes, fuck misogynists, down with anyone who thinks they're better than you. Punk and outlaw country are two sides of the same coin, just different styles. That's why it makes perfect sense that they'd record an album of Woody Guthrie lyrics. The story is that Woody's daughter, Nora, had an inkling that Woody would have loved the Murphys and approached them to go through her father's archives and pick songs to cover. The songs are probably still closer to Guthrie songs than Murphys songs, but they all rock. I could listen to songs like The Last One, All you Fonies, and Two 6's Upside Downany day, but 10 Times More is the song that I imagine will be played at protests for the next 50 years.
1. Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers
Even if you're not a fan of rap / hip-hop, I hope everyone appreciates that we are living through the most productive era of the best rapper of all time. For my money, Kendrick is rap's Elvis or Beatles or Rolling Stones. It very well will never be better than this. There was a lot of hand wringing about this album and a few songs that address cancel culture but that misses the point. Like every Kendrick album this is about the issues of the day viewed through his lens and that of being a black man in America. All of his albums are great, but it feels like the lyrical density, the poignancy, the melody, and the production is better than everything he's ever done. I think it's easily his best album.
