This list is mostly a side effect of next week’s. I’m usually pretty bad at keeping up with new music releases, and when I do I’m (1) not at all adventurous and (2) more interested in singles than albums. Maybe I’m part of the problem.
I think the way I engage with music is closer to how normal people engage with film. I know what I like. I stay in my lane. Most of my analysis comes down to “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it.”
In other words, I am out of my depth! With my film lists, I like to think that I can speak to that subject with some amount of weight. I would never tell anyone they’re wrong for disagreeing with me that, for example, Tár is the best film of last year, but I could put together a decent argument that it is. I have no such delusion of authority here. Part of my brain is screaming that I shouldn’t bother. But it’s my blog! I can share some stuff I liked!
I think of my first film list from 2016. In retrospect, it’s embarrassing. (And it’s something I’ll come back to for a later post, I promise.) Isn’t that what these lists are for? Maybe in a few years when I’ve developed my sensibilities more I’ll come back and giggle at how many important albums I never gave due consideration. So scoff away. Someday I’ll join you. Keep in mind, of the 10 artists on this list, I had heard of exactly 3 of them before this year.
3D Country
Artist: Geese
Genre: Rock?
Biggest Bop: 3D Country
I have an irrational fear that we will someday run out of music. If music is math, doesn’t that make it finite? If I listen to enough, won’t I start to get bored of it on a fundamental, structural level?
3D Country‘s opening track “2122” starts with what I assume is an intentional reference to an iconic Led Zeppelin riff and then spends the rest of the runtime disjointedly jamming as if mocking you for thinking you knew where this was going. That energy carries through the rest of the album. Each track is so different from the ones before and after, yet they clearly belong to a cohesive whole.
So no, I don’t think I can get bored of music as a concept after all. What a stupid idea.
Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?
Artist: McKinley Dixon
Genre: Wikipedia says this is “Jazz rap”
Biggest Bop: Run, Run, Run
I get the feeling McKinley Dixon is a fan of Toni Morrison.
Great, me too, I’m already hooked. I had to listen to a lot of rap music this year (again, next week) and few was so thematically ambitious. The rap I personally find most appealing are genre fusions like this. Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly and Robert Glasper’s Black Radio for example are two of my all time favorite albums. I hear a lot of that same DNA in Dixon’s work. No wonder I had this one on loop all summer.
The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons
Artist: The Hives
Genre: Rock
Biggest Bop: Countdown to Shutdown
One of my favorite things in music is hearing young punks get old. How do you navigate that, especially in an industry that caters so much to teenagers? Superchunk gave us one interpretation of what it means to age gracefully this year. The Hives gave us the exact opposite. It’s a denial that they’ve aged at all.
Imagine approaching 50 and still wearing matching outfits for an album named after your own self-aggrandizing mythology. Juvenile? Definitely. Embarrassing? That’s a matter of perspective. I think it’s aspirational. This is exactly where I’d want to be at that age.
Everything Harmony
Artist: The Lemon Twigs
Genre: Soft rock
Biggest Bop: Any Time of Day
As a child of severely Eagles-pilled parents, the intensely nostalgic aesthetic around this album kind of worked on me. Never mind the fact they’re throwing back to an era decades before I was born. The production, the music videos, even their hairstyles have apparently popped out of a time machine. You just don’t hear this sound very much anymore, at least not in the mainstream, and certainly not from artists this young. It could easily tip over into kitsch if The Lemon Twigs hadn’t delivered with such gentle sincerity.
Oppenheimer
Artist: Ludwig Göransson
Genre: Soundtrack
Biggest Bop: This is a film score.
I’m positive I will have more to say about the film itself in a few weeks’ time. The score is profound when heard in that context. But even on its own, listened to actively or passively, it delivers the weight of its subject matter with force. As I’ve listened to this in the background while working I’ve come to really appreciate the quieter moments as well. Nolan movies are, understandably, associated with that Zimmer-esque eruption of sound: BWAAAA. Goransson’s score is more delicately detailed. It’s easily one of the best scores to any Nolan movie.
That! Feels Good!
Artist: Jessie Ware
Genre: Pop
Biggest Bop: Pearls
Honest question: Why isn’t Jessie Ware the biggest pop star on the planet? Why am I not sick of hearing her on the radio?
Trick question. That wouldn’t be nearly enough to make me sick of this. Jessie has cracked that disco revival sound that seems to be so in vogue recently (déjà vu?) and hits all the marks here. It’s grandiose, polished, and—essential but oft overlooked—sexy as heck. Her music is a loud assault on your inhibitions. She is doing important things here.
Time Will Wait for No One
Artist: Local Natives
Genre: Indie rock
Biggest Bop: NYE
The vibe I’ve gotten from critics and forums is this is a mostly forgettable—or already forgotten—Local Natives album. I don’t feel equipped to respond to that. All I know is this is one of my most listened to albums of the year. At a brisk 35 minutes, and with no tracks that stand out as skippable, it’s just such an easy listen. This has been my “I need a break from the world” comfort object. I reached for this while flying this summer and genuinely think it helped permanently alleviate my airplane anxiety. Surprisingly good vibes for an album with that title.
Wallsocket
Artist: underscores
Genre: Zoomer
Biggest Bop: Cops and Robbers
I love this album’s energy. It’s a frenzied anthropological expedition, a tour through the fictional town of the narrative done at 80 miles per hour. I could see myself easily being put off by the volume; I listened to some stylistically similar albums from other artists that just succeeded in giving me a headache. Underscores threads that needle. The vocals have just enough of that hyperpop tinge to scratch your ears without drawing blood.
Look at me, using the word “hyperpop” like I didn’t just learn it a few months ago.
Water Made Us
Artist: Jamila Woods
Genre: R&B
Biggest Bop: Practice
After listening to Water Made Us the first time, I was not at all surprised to look Jamila up on Wikipedia and see the lede categorize her as a “singer, songwriter and poet.” The labels should be reversed. Her writing is so deliberate and evocative. Who else could look at Allen Iverson’s “practice” rant and see a foundation for a gorgeous love (or lust) song? That’s not to discount the sonic element either. I’m not sure I can describe what “good production” means yet, but I’m pretty sure it sounds like this.
World of Hassle
Artist: Alan Palomo
Genre: Electronic
Biggest Bop: Nudista Mundial ’89
I imagine if you tried to make an EDM track on a Sega Genesis, you’d wind up with something like this.
I’m not even familiar enough with Neon Indian to know if that’s an actual band or just one of Palomo’s stage names. My only point of reference for his work is the Miami Horror album Illumination, on which he made a guest appearance. Now I wonder if the reasons I liked Miami Horror are actually the reasons I should have liked him. This album sounds like goofing off on an idle, youthful summer day.
To reiterate, I’m not concerned about these picks being bad, more so that there are other great albums that should be here had I bothered to give them the time. I’m pretty sure I listened to that new Lana Del Rey but couldn’t tell you a thing about it. Must have been background noise while I was at work.
See? I bet that sentence made someone mad.
I never share my year in review from Apple Music or Spotify because they’re always so boring. Musically I’m a creature of habit. Whenever I do a certain drive, I almost always put on a particular album, and that has been my most listened to album nearly every year since 2016. I have playlists from 2015 that are still in my go-to rotation. No more.
If I liked these albums so much, what did I miss out on in 2022? And all the others years I’ve been alive? Did my favorite album come and go without my noticing? I have a newfound appreciation for the need to expand my musical palate.
Next week, I’ll talk about more music and hopefully justify the 1000-odd words spent on this.
