Top 20 sounds about right; Florence + The Machine - Dance Fever Porridge Radio - Waterslides, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky Camp Cope - Running with the Hurricane Yeule - Glitch Princess Foreign Television - Cartoon Sun Bjork - Fossora Bob Vylan - Bob Vylan Presents the Price of Life Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There Haru Nemuri - Shunka Ryougen Holy Fawn - Dimensional Bleed Lorna Shore - Pain Remains Gentle Sinners - These Actions Cannot Be Undone Lande Hekt - House Without a View Mitski - Laurel Hell Russian Circles - Gnosis Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cool it Down The Tallest Man on Earth - Too Late for Edelweiss Beabadoobee - Beatopia Deathcrash - Return Hatis Noit - Aura Honourable mention for the series of Bright Eyes' EPs, which I really enjoyed, but wasn't sure where to rank.
Super excited to see all the lists. There were big gaps during the summer and the last month that I feel like I missed a lot. 1. All Get Out - Kodak 2. Gregor Barnett - Don't Go Throwing Roses On My Grave 3. Anthony Green - Boom. Done. 4. Paolo Nutini - Last Night In The Bittersweet 5. Charles Watson - Yes 6. Pool Kids - Pool Kids 7. Alvvays - Blue Rev 8. Pup - The Unraveling of Pup the Band 9. The Lumineers - Brightside 10. Mom Jeans - Sweet Tooth
Yeah, I got kind of burnt out on a lot of my usual stuff this year, so I did a lot more "digging" than I usually might. That list is pretty all over the place, so there's probably some more stuff in there for you regardless of what genres you're into!
AOTY Tier 01a. Bartees Strange - Farm to Table 01b. The Wonder Years - The Hum Goes on Forever 01c. PUP - The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND 04. Everything Everything - Raw Data Feel 05. Proper. - The Great American Novel 06. Rolo Tomassi - Where Myth Becomes Memory 07. Saba - Few Good Things 08. of Montreal - Freewave Lucifer F^ck F<ck F>ck 09. Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers 10. Fontaines DC - Skinty Fia Really Good Shit Tier 11. Yr Poetry - Yr Poetry Ruin Music 12. Sea Power - Everything Was Forever 13. Bloc Party - Alpha Games 14. And So I Watch You From Afar - Jettison 15. Arctic Monkeys - The Car 16. Dance With the Dead - Driven to Madness 17. Editors - EBM 18. Rina Sawayama - Hold the Girl 19. NNAMDÏ - Please Have a Seat 20. THUMPER - Delusions of Grandeur Good Shit Tier A Place For Owls - S/T Arm's Length - Never Before Seen, Never Again Found Boxplot - Here & Now Brutus - Unison Life Camp Trash - The Long Way, The Slow Way Columbia Mills - Heart of a Nation fred again.. - Actual Life 3 (January 1-September 9 2022) Gatherers - (mutilator.) Meryl Streek - 796 Mt. Oriander - Then The Lightness Leaves, And I Become Heavy Again Oceanator - Nothing's Ever Fine October Drift - I Don't Belong Anywhere Pictoria Vark - The Parts I Dread Poly-Math - Zenith Pool Kids - S/T Press Club - Endless Motion Richard Edwards - Ghost Electricity/Vampire Draw Riverby - Absolution Stella Donnelly - Flood Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs - When the Lights Go
1. Coheed - Vaxis II 2. Kolby Cooper - Boy from Anderson County 3. Jon Pardi - Mr. Saturday night 4. The Wonder Years - Hum 5. Whisky Myers - Tornillo
wrote in more depth about my list for the newsletter with @Glaurung, which you can find here: HYLI - Patrick's Best of 2022 (The Not-Metal One) Top 10: 1. Gang of Youths - Angel in Realtime. 2. Alvvays - Blue Rev 3. MJ Lenderman - Boat Songs 4. Dazy - OUTOFBODY 5. Dry Cleaning - Stumpwork 6. Father John Misty - Chloe and the Next 20th Century 7. Birds in Row - Gris Klein 8. Arctic Monkeys - The Car 9. The Berries - High Flying Man 10. Drug Church - Hygiene
Mom Jeans.: Sweet Tooth Taylor Swift: Midnights Omar Apollo: Ivory Oso Oso: sore thumb Mitski: Laurel Hell Father John Misty: Chloe and the Next 20th Century Turnover: Myself in the Way Death Cab For Cutie: Asphalt Meadows Harry Styles: Harry's House Pup: THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND Tove Lo: Dirt Femme Panic! At the Disco: Viva Las Vengeance! The Wonder Years: The Hum Goes On Forever Alvvays: Blue Rev SZA: SOS (honestly should be higher but it's just so soon) The Weeknd: Dawn FM Anthony Green and the High and Driving Band: Boom. Done. Maren Morris: Humble Quest Odesza: The Last Goodbye The 1975: Being Funny In a Foreign Language Flume: Palaces Charli XCX: Crash Miranda Lambert: Palomino Orville Peck: Bronco Florence + the Machine: Dance Fever Le Youth: Reminders Wet Leg: Wet Leg Beyonce: Renaissance Yumi Zouma: Present Tense Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows: Destroy Rebuild Honorable mention: Beach Bunny: Emotional Creature Momma: Household Name Fred again..: Actual Life 3 Dry Cleaning: Stumpwork
Love this time of year SO MUCH! Can’t wait to dive into some of these (and publications) YE lists and finalize a revised 2022 best of list in January. Always blown away by some albums that I missed, so I need a refractory period lol
(lists in no order) emo/post-hardcore/punk 10 the callous daoboys celebrity therapist city of caterpillar mystic sisters gospel the loser show me the body trouble the water birds in row gris klein ithaca they fear us no devotion no oblivion rolo tomassi where myth becomes memory ken mode null other half soft action metal 10 ashenspire hostile architecture keiji haino + sumac into this juvenile apocalypse… wilderun epigone messa close satan earth infernal sonja loud arriver white ward false light high command eclipse of the dual moons ultha all that has never been true dream unending song of salvation indie rock 10 arctic monkeys the car deliluh fault lines lambchop the bible alvvays blue rev the beths expert in a dying field daniel rossen you belong there nilufer yanya painless will sheff nothing special gilla band most normal …and you will know us by the trail of dead xi: bleed here now rap+r&b 10 freddie gibbs soul sold separately billy woods aethiopes + church ka languish arts + woeful studies boldly james / real bad man killing nothing danger mouse / black thought cheat codes roc marciano / the alchemist the elephant man’s bones kehlani blue water road amber mark three dimensions deep bad bunny un verano sin ti sza sos other stuff 10 the unthanks sorrows away (folk) jake xerxes fussell good and green again (folk) dim steeped sky, stained light (ambient) the bad plus the bad plus (jazz) brian eno foreverandevernomore (ambient) alabaster deplume gold (jazz) oren ambarchi ghosted + shebang (avant/drone) makaya mccraven in these times (jazz) the comet is coming hyper-dimensional expansion beam (jazz) maya shenfeld in free fall (avant/drone) stray tracks on repeat soul glo “spiritual level of gang shit” born without bones “dancer” coheed and cambria “love murder one” algiers “bite back” moon tooth “phototroph" cactus blossoms “one day” beach house “superstar” men i trust “hard to let go” joyce manor “reason to believe” kendrick lamar “rich spirit” caitlin rose "black obsidian" greg puciato/reba meyers “lowered” denzel curry “walkin” surface to air missive “attic” spoon “lucifer on the sofa" slipknot "adderall" the smile “thin thing” the wonder years “low tide” emperor x “stars”
Completely forgot that Daniel Bachman album came out this year. Definitely lumped it in with 2021. Great rec!
Nothing particularly formal about this list. Just the records I'm finding myself particularly enjoying and going back to more than others. Unranked. I think the 18 Carat Affair one is probably my AOTY just on number of listens. Moin - Paste Minimalist post-rock, kind of like a less processed version of Tortoise. The rhythmical elements are particularly good and the voice samples over the top work damn well. Loving this record in the month and a half since it came out. 18 Carat Affair - Body Double Vaporwave's an interesting one; the aspects of it that tend to get discussed - capitalist satire and nostalgia - don't really interest me. What does is the dreamlike quality and this has it in spades for me, like it was made by an alien. The tracks are so short that ideas never outstay their welcome and the old channel hopping effect is probably some kind of statement but it's one that just augments the surreal dreamlike feel. Great mix, and different moments stand out on each listen. Probably the album I've listened to most this year. I had a day where I basically listened to Simulations Of Insecurity on a loop. Nils Frahm - Music For Animals Three hours. Too long? Meh...it's an ambient record. Casting off the lo-fi piano stuff he's broadly known for, and focusing on detailed, gradually evolving, analogue synth pieces. Like all good ambient, it works as a background record but I think it sounds particularly good on headphones where the low end really stands out. Easily one of the best ambient albums of recent years. 36 - Colours In The Dark 36 - Symmetry Systems (EP) Grouped these two together. Both gorgeous, electronic ambient records to just bathe in. Weyes Blood - And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow I think Titanic Rising is slightly tighter but not by much. Another beautiful piece of chamber pop, all shades of purple and pink mixing together. Erasers - Constant Connection Simple, hypnotic mix, with some really cool drum machine beats, keyboard/synth vibratos and calming vocal melodies. I really like sticking this on during a quiet moment of the day. Saya Gray - 19 Masters I wouldn't say this is a perfect record - I think it slightly sags in the middle - but I find the playful spontaneity of it really endearing and the moments the melodies really hit are awesome. Experimental, acoustic pop I guess. The last song on the album, IF THERE'S NO SEAT IN THE SKY (WILL YOU FORGIVE ME???), is one of my favourite tracks of the year - the kind of ramshackle way it builds, taking weird textures and really crappy sounding drums but everything finding its connection in the vocal melody. Brainwaltzera - ITSAME Think of a mix between Aphex Twin and Boards Of Canada. Beautifully composed and designed. Sam Gendel - blueblue Such a soothing record. Hits that melancholy feel just right for me in the way that Bohren & Der Club Of Gore often do but also somehow has this underplayed hint of swagger occasionally. He's often a little more eclectic than this but this is mainly guitar and it's broadly very restrained. A fizzing, lo-fi warmth to the recording which makes it a really cool nighttime record. John Roberts - Wrecked Exotic John Roberts is on a run of form at the moment where I basically just love everything he puts out. This hits me on a sad day like nothing else on this list. Not much hint of his old deep house style but certainly not a one-dimensional record. Really spacey at times, beautiful piano moments but also some elements of noise music and dub. Momma - Household Name Heard the first single, Medicine, last year and was instantly in on it, and not just because it sounded kinda like Pinback. Album doesn't disappoint. Not exactly reinventing the wheel with an unapologetically 90s alt rock influenced album but it has hooks for days. Great album. Kuedo - Infinite Window Another instrumental electronic record. Saw some description of it that compared it to a mix of The Weeknd and Vangelis, and it's sort of that and sort of neither. Some great tracks on it; I think Harlequin Hallway's my favourite. Clams Casino, Jazztronic - Winter Flower Reimagined As the title suggests, a collaborative reimagining of Clams' Winter Flower full length from last year. That record itself was a kind of collaboration between the two anyway, with CC working off samples of Jazztronic's work and this time it's flipped around, with the final results of that initial project being stretched, reworked and added to by the latter. I don't want to say soundscape because that would be a typical misuse of that word but some really gorgeous, tranquil synth pads layered with sparing, traditional Japanese instrumentation. Unknown Tokyo is unbelievably good. Gold Panda - The Work Damn, I think I've just settled into being a chill, electronic music for headphones type listener in the last two or three years and I need to get back to just listening to heavy, melodic rock music. Anyway, this record is really good too. Check it out. SHXCXCHCXSH - Kongestion Pummelling, rich techno that becomes almost ASMR in the way it causes a genuine sensation on the ears towards the end. I've somehow only just realised the track names are four letters from the title, moved on a letter each time. ††† - Permanent.Radiant (EP) This new EP I think is the best thing they've done. Lots of low end, dynamic production, great synth and melodies. Definitely some Depeche Mode influence but with a heavier sound and then you get a track like Day One which has this upbeat Latin feel that feels out of place on first listen but absolutely grooves and fits perfectly after that. A random assortment of tracks I've listened to a lot that aren't on these records: ML Buch - High speed calm air tonight Ultraflex - Relax Whatever The Weather - 25°C Kenny Mason - Halloween Alex G - Ain't It Easy Hudson Mohawke - Ingle Nook Slumber IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII - The Plagwitz Drum Incident Belief - Ulu Sam Gendel, Antonia Cytrynowicz - Something Real Dotlights - Gin O'Clock Boris - Drowning By Numbers Pan-American - Swimming in a Western Hotel Pye Corner Audio - Lyracal Commodo - Living Bones Gatherers, Geoff Rickly - gift horse Sun's Signature - Golden Air
Noah Kahan, Penny & Sparrow, Madison Cunningham, and Molly Tuttle all had very good albums in the folk/acoustic space
Only doing a top 10: 1. MJ Lenderman - Boat Songs 2. Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You 3. Spoon - Lucifer on the Sofa 4. L.S. Dunes - Past Lives 5. Titus Andronicus - The Will to Live 6. Wild Pink - ILYSM 7. Oso Oso - Sore Thumb 8. Chat Pile - God's Country 9. Plains - I Walked with You a Ways 10. Ian Noe - River Fools & Mountain Saints Listened to less new music this year than at any point in the last fifteen years (became a parent! have a new, demanding job!) and it shows.