A quick rundown of my favorite 15 albums of 2022.
15. Taylor Swift – Midnights
Taylor Swift’s “folklore” and “evermore” were my top two joint albums of 2020. Since then, she has re-released her own versions of “Fearless” and “Red.”
“Midnights” is a new tack, a movement away from “folklore” and “evermore” – one which takes her back to her full pop roots, albeit a slightly darker one. Swift again joins forces with Jack Antonoff, who she has worked with before on an on-and-off basis. The entire album is strangely compelling, and she sounds so confident. She sounds like she knows where she is.
Whether you like the synth-pop direction she appears to have taken, this is just an interesting and intriguing album. It has been described as her “take on glassy and splashy poptronica“. I think “poptronica” is pretty appropriate to describe this album.
I love the lyric in “Question…?”
… “Can I ask you a question? Did you ever have someone kiss you in a crowded room, and every single one of your friends was makin’ fun of you? But fifteen seconds later, they were clapping too? Then what did you do?”
The album is a compelling and incredible testament to an artist who has broken out of her past and is now one who is truly her own. She is terrific.
PS: Lana Del Rey contributes to “Snow on the Beach,” which is gorgeous.
14. Phoenix – Alpha Zulu
So, Phoenix. Where have they been, because this is one fine, great, and very danceable record. If you want synth-disco-pop, this is it. It is loads of fun.
Not much to say, but this is an album that most definitely doesn’t wear out its welcome and is so catchy you’d be happy to leave it on repeat for … quite a while. Lyrically, it is the same old, same old, but I love the outro in “Season 2”:
“Another season, and it’s almost new, it tastes like heaven. Last drink, show me something you would not think.
But hold the thought before you ask what’s new… in Season 2.”
Throughout the song, Thomas Mars is singing about finding fresh angles on familiar things, whether they’re on television shows or whether they are long-term relationships.
The album is only 35 minutes long, but Phoenix has made a tight, tight album, and it is great to hear them back. They are in control of their disco-pop soundscape, and the results are brilliant. Vive la France.
13. Father John Misty – Chloë and the Next 20th Century
Father John Misty is sort of hard. I’m trying to mean that in a good way.
His “Chloë And The Next 20th Century” has been described as Josh Tillman’s album of lovelorn orchestral melancholia.
I’m not sure it is melancholia – it is vintage, dreamy, orchestral, and mostly lush. I am convinced that Josh doesn’t take himself that seriously (OK, query “Pure Comedy,” which was pretty fucking dark). But Chloë is a jazzy, Hollywood-sounding, “take me back to the 1950s” sounding album. For the most part.
First, for an FJM album, it is extremely accessible. Good. When you look back to “Leaving LA” from “Pure Comedy,” which was a track well over 13 minutes, you, well, absolutely have to be an FJM fan to enjoy it. This album, however, has a swizzly, instrumental feel that is enjoyable from start to finish. It’s… smooth.
But it still ends with “The Next 20th Century Wars” – gloomy, the lyrics: “Now we’ve got all the love to pay for, like a thousand different wars.” but then he moves on, “I’ll take the love songs, and give you the future in exchange.”
So yes, in the end, hang on to the love songs. No matter what.
What I love is that Josh is – love him or not – a constantly evolving artist who brings something new to the table with each album he drops onto it.
12. The 1975 – Music In a Foreign Language
The 1975 is an interesting band, and this is probably their best album ever.
I could just stop there, but that would be too easy. A few things. First, this album proves that Matt Healy is a songwriter/performer to be reckoned with (if you ever had doubts). Second, shortening the length to just over 40 minutes instead of over 80 (per the last album) makes a huge difference. It is yet again a lesson that less can be more.
Finally, thank you, Jack Antonoff. He takes The 1975 to a far looser, fresher point than they have ever, ever been. Songs such as “Happiness,” where Healy sounds completely lovestruck (“I’m happiest when I’m doing something that I know is good…That’s happiness for me”) or “Part of the Band” which is more or less typical Healy, (“Am I ironically woke? The butt of my joke? Or am I just some post-coke, average, skinny bloke?”).
“Oh Caroline” is as poppy a song as I can imagine Healy ever singing. But for the fact, it starts: “I’ve been suicidal, You’ve been gone for weeks. If I’m undecided, will you decide for me?”
It is a great return to form, a pleasure. The 1975.
11. Tegan and Sara – Crybaby
Once I learned that Tegan and Sara were going to release a new album in 2022, I was, well, “YESSSSS!!!”
This album doesn’t disappoint when listening to everything they’ve done before. It is a mish-mash of everything they have done before. And I like that.
I don’t think it will draw anyone into the “OMG THIS IS THE BEST BAND EVER” crowd, but it really satisfies their fanbase.
You have your fun songs such as “I Can’t Grow Up,” “Fucking Up What Matters” and “Smoking Weed Alone.” You also have the beautiful “Yellow,” which ranks amongst one of my favorite T&S songs ever, with the lovely refrain “I’ve been gone too long, this bruise ain’t black, it’s yellow. (I’ve been gone too long)”. Looking back at old wounds. Looking back at a healing bruise.
And there is the gorgeous, tender ballad ‘Faded Like A Feeling’ (“Even when I was lying right there next to you / I was nothing but a shadow”).
Hearing identical twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin recording and playing so consistently well, thirteen years since their first Canadian indie pop album, is a delight.
10. Superorganism – World Wide Pop
Easily one of my favorite bands from 2018 (I cannot believe it has been 4 years since their first release – lead vocalist Orono Noguchi still looks under 18, but it’s unclear as she sorta keeps it a secret).
World Wild Pop is – admittedly – pretty all over the place. They are psychedelically goofy and fun. They bring in other artists like CHAI, Stephen Malkmus, and Gen Hoshino (please look up the latter… please – he is fantastic). It’s all pretty chirpy and poppy. I suggest really good headphones to benefit from the nutso, loveable freakiness.
Covid alert: “It’s been like a year now, right? Did you put on a few pounds?…Trust me, just put down your phone”. Orono and her cohorts pull everything together to make a maddeningly creative, infectious album.
But even a glowingly poppy place has its moments of introspection.
From On & On: “Am I insane, or is it now the normal way? Reason’s out, let’s hope and pray. We switch off ’til it goes away. And can I break, it’s all I crave?”
It’s all I crave. Don’t we all?
9. Death Cab For Cutie – Asphalt Meadows
This is an album where I came in with really low expectations. I can’t say I’ve been super fond of DCFC’s 2010’s output – or perhaps, none of their albums have grabbed me since 2005’s “Plans.” But this is a winner. It feels a bit more “Ben Gibbard” than any other previous stretching back. Sort of because, well, Death Cab For Cutie is Ben Gibbard.
But it is DCFC in a rock/pure indie mode. The first track: is “I Don’t Know How To Survive.” It sort of starts off like a fairly dull DCFC song, but at around 50 seconds, the song starts to blast out, “These nights, I don’t know how I survive!” Like a lot of the songs within the albums in this list, the pandemic raises its head. “I don’t know how to survive.”
Ben hits so many high notes, not just musically but lyrically. I love the music, but, oh Lord, I love listening to his prose, like, from their lead single “Here to Forever”: “In every movie I watch from the Fifties, there’s only one thought that swirls around my head now. And that’s that everyone there on the screen, yeah, everyone there on the screen, well, they’re all dead now.” It’s such a strangely poignant lyric, at first, I was thinking, “WTF is he talking about?” but then the shift into “I wanna know the measure from here to forever, and I wanna feel the pressure of God, or whatever.”
So, basically, he’s confronting his future. Being just like a 1950’s movie star.
It’s a brilliant song but just an example of many that Ben Gibbard pulls together on this extremely, extremely good DCFC album. If you are a remote fan, love it and listen to it.
8. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Cool it Down
It’s been over 9 years, and this album is only just over 30 minutes long, but that length doesn’t matter. It is a cracker from start to finish, full of energetic melodies which don’t wear out their welcome. It’s what has been described as “gloom-disco” but how fine it is. The lead single, “Spitting Off the Edge of the World,” contains the sort of feel throughout the album: “Spitting off the edge of the word, out comes the sun, never had no chance… nowhere to run.”
There is a kind of nihilistic feel to much of it. In my favorite track, “Wolf,” Karen O repeats: “Don’t leave me now, don’t break the spell – in Heaven, lost my taste for hell” And it is somehow all strangely danceable (albeit in a really strange, dark dancefloor). A lot of the reviews of this album are along the lines of “dark but danceable.”
It sounds great, no matter what. Partly because it is not, indeed, an extremely lengthy album. It is also extremely tight, and there are no tracks that stand out as being poor.
You could say the album is one for the apocalyptic times we may now be living in, but it is so powerful, it sizzles, and is so great it may even somehow bring out a smile while listening to it.
7. Tears for Fears – The Tipping Point
This came out of the blue. A new Tears for Fears album. Well, just not just a Tears for Fears album, but one of their finest. When I first started listening to this album, I kept thinking… wait, are these guys almost 60? (They are 61).
They don’t sound it. Close your eyes, and it’s pretty much 1984 again. There is, however, a sadness that accompanies it. Some lyrics were inspired by the death of Orzabal’s wife in 2017. The song “Break The Man” is about patriarchy and marks the first time Tears for Fears have released an original song as a single not written or co-written by Roland Orzabal. It was originally going to be called “Kill the Man.” Like so many post-Covid releases, this is fraught.
“Life is cruel, life is tough, Life is crazy, then it all turns to dust. Will you let ’em out? Will you let ’em in? Will you ever know when it’s the tipping point?”
When is that point? “The Tipping Point” can range from the slightly bleak to the extremely beautiful… and hooky. No matter, the fact that Orzabal and Smith are still strong enough to get together to make this lovely, warm, and lush embodiment of not only their talent but their chemistry is a wonderful listen.
6. The Weeknd – Dawn FM
Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, or The Weeknd, dropped this album in January 2022, and I knew once I heard it, there was no doubt – whatever came after it – it didn’t matter.
This was going to be in my Top 10, easily. It’s his best album. One long radio evening/night with Jim Carrey at the helm. “You are now listening to Dawn FM – time to walk into the light.” And yes, right from the start, it is one beautiful, extraordinary, groovy, silky smooth production by The Weeknd. The transitions between so many of the songs make it sound, at times, like one long radio mix interspersed by Carrey as the radio DJ. Synth/dance-pop at its finest.
Going from “How Do I Make You Love Me?” to “Take My Breath” is seamless and gorgeous. During “Sacrifice,” one of the album’s highlights, at 2:30 seconds into the 3:08 second song, Abel breaks into a Michael Jackson riff, which makes you think that “Hey, is that MJ??” Following that, Quincy Jones’ “Tale by Quincy” is a touching recollection of his childhood and trying to bring up his kids, and just when you think, “Jeeezus…” he ends up finishing, “Looking back is a bitch isn’t it?” and then a bit of a laugh. Abel.
“Out of Time,” “Is There Someone Else?”, “Less Than Zero” are just the final highlights of a solid, enjoyable album from start to finish. I cannot wait to see what Abel has up his sleeves next.
5. Arcade Fire – WE
First, when “Lightning I, II” came out in March 2022, I listened to it so much that I thought my other family members wanted to kill me.
Yes, I love the Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire, the core of which is married couple Win Butler and Regina Chassagne (Regina appears to be able to play almost every instrument on the planet). “WE” doesn’t wear out its welcome and is a tight, concise record, unlike the much-maligned (unfairly so, in my opinion) “Everything Now,” their 5th album.
“WE” is an album I’d find hard to put on ’shuffle’ – it is meant to flow as one piece. As an example, the fairly epic “End of the Empire I–III” combined with “End of the Empire IV (Sagittarius A)” which is the core of the album, a climactic centerpiece, is hard to separate.
Ultimately, Win contemplates modern life and technology, pulling listeners into the now with references to social media and streaming services. He repeats, “I unsubscribe,” and then flips to, “We unsubscribe, fuck season five.” Season five is a direct reference to “Everything Now.”
Finally, the “Lightning I, II.” In Part II, Win sings, “A day, a week, a month, a year… Waiting on the lightning…what will the light bring?” – a lyric he stated, post-Covid, post-Trump, meaning you cannot win them all. Trying to make grand plans only to have the storms of life force you to improvise.
“WE” is epic Arcade Fire and a must-listen.
4. Harry Styles – Harry’s House
4. Harry Styles – Harry’s House
I don’t care when someone says, “hey, you’re 50 years old, and why on earth do you love Harry Styles?!” I did write a piece a while back that alluded to Harry heading toward “pop perfection.” I wasn’t kidding.
This third album proves it. There aren’t any slow, romantic songs like “Two Ghosts” or “Falling,” but what replaces them is a fun bucket of songs that feel…. uniquely Harry. Funky, British, romantic, lively, and… did I say fun? It is full of energy, and overall, it is probably his most consistent of the three albums made so far.
It’s not like his difficult third, which so many artists struggle to make. It’s an album so many artists would kill to make. Even when he makes his poppiest song on the album, “As It Was,” he stretches so slightly deep and notes the post-pandemic life we’re now in, you’d barely notice it: “In this world, it’s just us, you know it’s not the same as it was.“
Everything is accessible, pumping with synth energy, incredible pop production, and… Harry. I don’t even remember that this person was a member of a band called One Direction.
He has moved so far, far away, to be… Harry Styles. He’s now created three albums to become one of the greatest pop artists we now have.
3. Jack White – Fear of the Dawn
Jack White. Oh, Jack White.
Yes, I was fortunate to see him live earlier this year in a smartphone-less venue, which was an enthralling experience. “Fear of the Dawn” is a startling, intense, unique rock album from start to finish – something only Jack White could produce and perform. Jack is a blessing. The rock world needs someone like Jack White.
The album is like a dizzyingly unstoppable rock concept album as it moves on from track to track, non-stoppable. The theme appears to be someone coming out of the pandemic to a world of pandemonium: two tracks, “Eosophobia” – an irrational fear of the dawn and daylight. “It’s coming up, It’s burning up.”
Or “You were safe underground, not a sound,” he sings in “That was Then, This is Now.”
As a direct nod to his second album he released in 2022, the acoustic “Entering Heaven Alive,” he asks in the song “What’s the Trick?” the question: “If I die tomorrow, what did I do today?”
Jack, just keep doing what you’re doing, and please don’t fucking die.
2. Wet Leg – Wet Leg
If I had to repeat how much I love Wet Leg, you’d have to tie me to a chair and gag me. The combo of Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers creates gleeful, rocky, and shout-out “oh yes” indie music.
Brash and cheeky, it brings back a sort of Brit-pop feeling to the forefront of music I cannot remember ever since, well, perhaps before they were born (Pulp, Elastica, Blur, etc.)
What I love the most about this album is their rawness, but also, I love the way it just sounds like they are just having a great time doing what they are doing (I am sure they are). “Chaise Longue” is the one everyone will recognize (how can you not with such an unabashedly ambiguous lyric: “I went to school, and I got the big D”).
But the entire thing, from start to finish, is a sound blast of what music can be if you want it to be.
Goddamn fucking fun.
1. Spiritualized – Everything Was Beautiful
It sounds funny to say that Everything Was Beautiful sounds like the Spiritualized’s spiritual successor to one of my favorite albums from the late nineties, 1997’s “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space,” but from the opening track, the gorgeous, spacey “Always Together With You,” you do get the feeling that Jason Pierce – who crafts everything that is Spiritualized – was happy to, or wanted to, tie the two together. Distant, lush, and comforting. Flowery and airy. “If you want a universe, I would be a universe for you.” To call it dreamy is an understatement.
“The Best Thing You Never Had (The D Song”) is the kind of song where Pierce takes rock and gospel, fluctuates, and blends the two, creating a pulsating, rhythmic beast. “The Mainline Song/The Lockdown Song” becomes practically hypnotizing, with its gradual progression, before Pierce even starts to sing.
He finishes with the almost 10-minute “I’m Coming Home Again,” which contains the lyrics “I’ve been there, and I’ve been back again, gonna dull it with lorazepam” and “this life is scaring the life out of me, and I’m gonna lay it all out, I’m coming home again.”
Written during the Covid-19 pandemic, while in solitude, Pierce had time to time to create what has been called a “sonic forest.”
A modern psychedelic masterpiece full of wonder, happiness, and, yes… fear.
Chris Garrod, December 9th 2022