Albums Of The Year 2022

charlie clown · December 10, 2022

Just completed my annual survey of various publications and websites who publish end of year "albums of the year" lists. In all the years that I've been doing this I think it's the first time I've felt like the results are a bit ho-hum. There're a lot of records here by people who seem to be on the list because they're usually in the list, rather than because they've made great records this year. Maybe I'm wrong on that, I dunno. And there are a lot here too that seem to be here because they were mid-table in a lot of lists rather than scoring big points in a few lists. It all seems just a wee bit meh.

There were two or three albums which really scored highly with a couple of sources but didn't feature anywhere else at all (Taylor Swift, Jack White, billy woods) and a few that appeared on a lot of lists but didn't accumulate enough points overall to hit the top 30 (The Beths, Gwenno, Beth Orton).

And as always, the really interesting stuff is probably tucked away in the lower reaches, below the surface, charting weird and new paths (usually the type of stuff that @pipnasty lists in his end of year round-up).

Anyway, here are the scores on the doors for 2022:

1 Wet Leg - Wet Leg

2 Kendrick Lamar - Mr Morale & The Big Steppers

3 Beyoncé - Renaissance

4 The Smile - A Light for Attracting Attention

5 Jockstrap - I Love You Jennifer B

6 Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You

7 Fontaines D.C. - Skinty Fia

8 Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band - Dear Scott

9 Alvvays - Blue Rev

10 Alex G - God Save the Animals

11 Rosalía - Motomami

12 Danger Mouse & Black Thought - Cheat Codes

13 Soul Glo - Diaspora Problems

14 Björk - Fossora

15 Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There

16 Angel Olsen - Big Time

17 Cate Le Bon - Pompeii

18 Sudan Archives - Natural Brown Prom Queen

19 Ethel Cain - Preacher's Daughter

20 Arctic Monkeys - The Car

21 Yard Act - The Overlord

22 Horsegirl - Versions Of Modern Performance

23 Aldous Harding - Warm Chris

24 Rina Sawayama - Hold The Girl

25 Caroline - Caroline

26 Pusha T - It's Almost Dry

27 Nilüfer Yanya - Painless

28 Weyes Blood - And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow

29 Richard Dawson - The Ruby Cord

30 The Weeknd - Dawn FM

Tommok · December 11, 2022