2022's Best Music...or Is It?

December 31, 2022 11:13 AM

On this final day of the Year of Our Load 2022, a gallimaufry of best-ofs from largely reputable publications and sites both general and music-oriented. In no particular order:
MOJO: The 50 Best Albums of 2022

The Wire: Releases of the Year 2022

Bleep: Bleep 100 Tracks of 2022

The Guardian: 10 Best Global Albums of 2022

The New York Times: Best Jazz Albums of 2022

Pitchfork: 100 Best Songs of 2022

NME: 50 Best Songs of 2022

NPR: The 100 Best Songs of 2022

Variety: The Best Albums of 2022

The Atlantic: The 10 Best Albums of 2022

Drowned in Sound 2022 Album of the Year Polling Thread

KCRW: Best Albums of 2022

Billboard: 50 Best Dance Songs of 2022

Goldmine: The Best Music Releases of 2022

Los Angeles Times The 100 Best Songs of 2022

Metacritic: 2022 Album Releases by User Score

posted by the sobsister (23 comments total)

Year of Our Load 2022

Not sure if typo or not, but I appreciate it.
posted by nubs at 11:27 AM on December 31, 2022 [4 favorites]

Not a typo. More of a characterization, if you will.
posted by the sobsister at 11:32 AM on December 31, 2022 [2 favorites]

Only reason my band's not on there is cause there's no "2022's Top 100 EPs by thought-to-be-defunct-bands which sold eleven copies or fewer" category.
posted by not_on_display at 12:04 PM on December 31, 2022 [15 favorites]

I love a best-of-the-year list--thanks for this post.
posted by box at 1:11 PM on December 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

Anthony Fantano:

Top 50 Albums of 2022
Top 50 Songs of 2022
The Worst Albums of 2022
Top 10 Worst Songs of 2022
posted by Pendragon at 1:52 PM on December 31, 2022

Clicked the first link. CTRL-F for "Wet Leg." Found it. Approve. Carry on.
posted by delfin at 2:13 PM on December 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

I heartily recommend Passion of the Weiss' eternally hip-hop and rap-heavy annual best-of list: The POW Best Albums of 2022 with a few unranked self-promotions in the mix from their in-house label.
posted by JauntyFedora at 6:16 PM on December 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

I don’t know which makes me sadder: that Say Sue Me aren’t on any of these lists or that Maya Hawke ended up on the Metacritic list. (Also, Jack Johnson didn’t end up on any Worst lists? WTF)
posted by pxe2000 at 7:04 PM on December 31, 2022

There's one song that came out this year that I just couldn't stop playing on repeat: Hospital by Madison Cunningham. The rest of the album is great. Briefly going through the lists, I was pleased to see her show up here and there.
posted by onehalfjunco at 8:07 PM on December 31, 2022

That MOJO list? 50 albums and I don't know a single band. Like, I haven't heard of any of them. I am so old and so uncool it's ridiculous.
posted by zardoz at 5:04 AM on January 1, 2023

I'm over 50, and knew most of the artists on the MOJO list, and regularly listen to about a third of them.
posted by pipeski at 7:07 AM on January 1, 2023

KEXP: Crowd sourced and DJs.
posted by sevenless at 8:18 AM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

For techno and electronica aficionados, there's Resident Advisor's Best Albums of 2022
posted by Morpeth at 12:44 PM on January 1, 2023

Pitchfork: 100 Best Songs of 2022

Danger Mouse/Black Thought/DOOM's "Belize" is an absolute gem of the year, for sure.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:45 PM on January 1, 2023

/r/indieheads Top 101 Albums of 2022
posted by MrVisible at 2:29 PM on January 1, 2023

Bandcamp's end-of-year lists are among the most thoughtful and interesting out there, and include the bonus of being able to listen to almost every album in its entirety for free. They gave up numbered ranking a couple of years ago and the lists are full of primo stuff:

The Best Albums of 2022: A – D
The Best Albums of 2022: E – L
The Best Albums of 2022: M – Q
The Best Albums of 2022: R- Z

The best-ofs by genre are fabulous resources, too:

The Best Punk of 2022
The Best Ambient of 2022
The Best Contemporary Classical of 2022
The Best Soul of 2022

Hip-hop, metal, country...lots of lists. Just scroll down at Bandcamp Daily for their full end-of-year coverage.
posted by mediareport at 4:57 PM on January 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

Luke O'Neil - The 50 best emo/punk/hc/&c songs of 2022
posted by General Malaise at 5:09 PM on January 1, 2023

Metafilter: Not sure if typo or not, but I appreciate it.
posted by jpziller at 3:06 AM on January 2, 2023

Anyone run some comparisons on these lists? I'd be interested in seeing which albums show up on the most lists in high spots, things like that.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:20 AM on January 2, 2023

I always find new gems through the Quietus and their end-of-year list
posted by horopter at 1:10 PM on January 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

>Anyone run some comparisons on these lists?

This is an aggregate of 100+ lists:
https://www.albumoftheyear.org/list/summary/2022/
posted by Limivorous at 1:18 PM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think it's kind of funny that Fontaines DC got on so many year end best of lists, when their single Roman Holiday is extremely similar to Kings of Leon's single The Bandit, both released the same year so I'm not alleging plagiarism on anyone's behalf, just if you like one you probably like the other because vibes, but KOL isn't on any. Personally, I think the KOL song has far better lyrics.

Also the other Fontaines DC track Jackie Down the Line sounds like the Arctic Monkeys, whose midtempo listless indie-rock critics have always loved, and thus is also on the year end bests with yet another listless mid-tempo indie album.

I also will continue to think it's very silly that Beyonce is #1, with her 'pop throw in everything but the kitchen sink approach' while Fontaines DC is #7, and they barely bother to sing, vary the tempo, or write choruses, more than a few lyrics, or anything.

It also may sound like I don't like Fotaines DC because I did criticize them a lot, but I think they are fine.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:25 AM on January 3, 2023

Thanks, Limivorous!
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:43 AM on January 3, 2023