He said I could do whatever I wanted to with these posts from his blog, so here's the intro to and comments on his singles picks(with link to whole thing)---he didn't do a sep list x comments for top albums, but I've boldfaced the ones he mentions in passing here:
40+ Best Country Singles of 2022From what I’ve read, 2022 is supposed to be the year that neo-traditionalism (i.e., singers trying to sound like Travis and Strait and McEntire trying to sound like Haggard and Jones and Wynette) returned to country radio while everybody showed how much they missed to the ’90s (i.e., Twain and Brooks and Brooks & Dunn.)
I apparently wasn’t paying close enough attention to notice much of. the former, though I definitely caught glimpses of the latter, which you’ll find below. But seems like mostly what caught my ear were (sometimes blatantly ’90s styled, sometimes not) dance songs, as often as not by women without major label recording contracts, or maybe recording contracts at all — not nearly purist enough for “alt-country”; maybe not purist enough for commercial country. In fact a couple feel flat-out disco. But then again sometimes I think I live for category errors — When I told my wife that Anna Vaus’s “Didn’t Even Date” is my favorite country single of the year, she quickly replied “it doesn’t sound country!,” and I’m fine with that. Vaus brands herself as “honest girl pop country,” and Big Machine signed her to to a publishing (why not recording?) deal in August. So who am I to argue?
If Nashville Scene still sent out country critics poll ballots, my top 10 albums this year would have probably looked something like: Miranda Lambert, Ingrid Andress, Anna Vaus’s EP, Kimberly Kelly, Ashley McBryde, Breland, Lainey Wilson, Pillbox Patti, Willie Nelson, Brennan Leigh, or maybe Alela Diane if I decided she qualified. Either way, 80% women. Singles might be even more lopsided, gender-wise.
I didn’t number the songs below because it seemed most efficient to pair multiple singles by a few of the artists with each other instead of splitting them up, and numerically that would’ve just confused things. So let’s just say these are listed in roughly approximate order of how much I enjoyed them, with other songs I liked slightly less or didn’t have as much to say about affixed alphabetically at the end. There are…more or less 40. I keep losing count. Feel free to build a playlist.
Anna Vaus “Didn’t Even Date” and “Kinda Don’t Ever.” I liked this unjustly slept-on Southern California via Nashville hopeful’s evidently self-released (Epola Road Records) 2018 EP The California Kid and put “Day Job” on my Nashville Scene ballot that year, and I like her even more now, even if the ambiguity of feeling “some kind of way” will always get on my nerves and I’m not sure “we were golden with an ocean view” means anything at all, except maybe that she’s still got Pacific Coast connections. “Didn’t Even Date” is more blue-eyed r&b c&w with all sorts of vocal tricks built in (breathiness, chuckling, mini-melisma); “Kinda Don’t Ever” more old-school Taylor Swift. Not saying it’s better than anything on Midnights, but not saying it’s not.
Megan McKenna “Single” and “DNA.” The “English TV personality” (as her wiki page puts it) put out 14 singles in 2022; I liked two a lot. Both affirm the resilience of unpartnered women; both use what I’d call Europop-Mediterranean semi-flamenco guitar strums in a pop-country context. I also just learned that the “LBD” she says she slips on is a “little black dress.” Wrote more about her songs (and Anna Vaus) here.
Chris Lane feat. Lauren Alaina “Dancing in the Moonlight.” Seventeen years ago, I initiated a King Harvest vs. Starbuck thread on the I Love Music board, wondering which band’s proto-disco-country soft-rock moonlight smash was better — the former’s #13 ’72 “Dancing in the Moonlight” or the latter’s #3 ’76 “Moonlight Feels Right”? Still not sure which I’d pick, but at least for now, Nashville seems to have made a choice — not as a cover version, per sé; more like a rewrite hitching recognizable remnants of the original chorus to stuff about “heaven with your hands on me” and “boys passing something from Kentucky.” @KingHarvestMusic, on you tube: “No words to describe what an absolute pleasure it is to hear a country rewrite of our hit from 1973. Great vocals! Great production! Here’s hoping you guys take it all the way to the top.” Not only did it not climb to the top; it didn’t chart at all. Maybe all the ’70s (Lane’s pornstache) and non-’70s (Alaina’s flapper outfit) referents in the video confused people chronologically.
Kassi Ashton “Dates in Pickup Trucks.” She of the fullest and huskiest woman’s voice in current country also has the best pants; an episode of something called The Look has her taking us into her closet and telling us she personally handcut her dungarees’ fringe. Youtube viewers who claim to have no use for country say they love the song — which stayed on Billboard‘s country airplay chart for eight weeks but never got higher than #57 — regardless, and people make interesting comparisons. @toddritter5612: “Got a nice Amy Winehouse vibe to it.” @kimvann8246: “I’m ALL east coast, S. Philly and S. Jersey (yeah, Jersey shore and all. But real old school 80’s). I was broken hearted when we lost Lady T., plus I’m now in Cali. Then I hear this vibe under CM. [sic?] Wait, Backup, What’s this I’m hearing? Hallelujah! I’ve been rescued. Your voice is lovely so keep bringing the joy. Be blessed.” Somebody on WikiCelebs: “This is the reason she posts a photo in a bikini on social media and tagged the boy, who said that she had a flat-shaped figure like a pencil for taking revenge.” I’d also vouch for 2021’s “Heavyweight,” which earns its title amid bragging that Ashton’s “a full grown woman,” and her 2020 version of “Hard Candy Christmas.” And I hope not all her pickup truck dates involve having to watch her boyfriend’s bros wrestle in dirt. A possible red flag, maybe?
Melanie Dyer “Dumb Decisions” (with Caitlyn Shadbolt) and “Cheap Moscato.” Two upbeat and catchy songs about how poor momentary life choices involving alcohol can be worth it anyway, for the stories and memories they spawn. Dyer and Shadbolt are both Australian (Sydney and Gympie respectively), which seems to free country singers of the uptight ideological baggage that weighs down so many of their American counterparts. In “Dumb Decisions” girls get crazy and flirty when sipping on tequila or a “Buffy” (dark rum, passoã, lime and orange juice, simple syrup, passionfruit); in “Cheap Moscato” clothes and hopeless hearts wind up all over the floor. Furniture and interior decoration in the latter video seem decidedly high-end and kind of trendy, suggesting a down-under market for country less rural, younger and freer of quasi-populist class delusions than what we got here. (By the way, an entirely different Melanie Dyer put out a terrific avant-jazz-meets-African-American-fiddle-band album with her improvising sextet WeFree Strings in 2022. Check out them, too!)
Priscilla Block “My Bar.” Wednesday night regular at local watering hole ’cause she digs the band sends ex-boyfriend back to his side of town. An actual hit — #50 Hot Country Singles, #26 Country Airplay, which again hints that, no matter how unadventurous country radio is, country fans might be worse. In the video she divides time between said tavern, the stage, and for some incongruous reason a huge red tractor with a snowplow. Inspiring how Block has no qualms showing off her zaftig figure, even more overtly in 2021’s ”Thick Thighs“: “I can’t be the only one who likes extra fries over exercise….You can’t spell ‘diet’ without ‘die.'” She even twerks! Breland needs to work her into his song “Thick,” which already shouts out to Lizzo, Megan Trainor, Kelly Clarkson, Ashley McBryde (or Graham?) and Serena Williams.
Abby Anderson “Juicy.” More curvaceous body positivity: “full figure, full figure, you’re gonna need both your hands.” Spelling lesson: “Jay! You! I see why! You wanna squeeze me.” Till the juice runs down… In the tradition of Robert Johnson, Led Zeppelin, Mtume, Oaktown’s 357 and Notorious B.I.G., except more disco than any of them. Abby Anderson from the outskirts of Dallas sang some patriotic corn on Glenn Beck’s show as a 17-year-old in 2014 and wound up in the top 10 of Billboard‘s Christian chart; four years later, “Make Him Wait” just barely squeeeezed into country’s Airplay top 60. She claims K.T. Oslin and Freddy Fedder among her influences — about time somebody did! Later in 2022 she released “M.I.A.,” apparently from a “podcast musical” called Make It Up As We Go, and she recited its three-letter title in the same notes Stacey Q used to do the title of “Two of Hearts.”
Dozzi “Messy.” More optimistic un-neurotic Aussie sheilas praising cut-rate booze (“cheap champagne” in this case), sister trio (mandolin Andrea and guitar Jesse and keyboard Nina) with a Bo Diddley beat, like SheDaisy crossed with Westworld or identical Twains if that’s easier to grasp, tell some lucky bloke to “put your hands in my hair give me face to face.” Of all their outfits, I definitely prefer the sailor suits.
Blake Shelton “No Body.” According to Wide Open Country, “No Body” (was) part of a nostalgia-driven trend in 2022 that also brought us such ’90s homages as Lainey Wilson’s ‘Watermelon Moonshine,’ Kane Brown’s ‘Like I Love Country Music‘ and Cole Swindell’s ‘She Had Me at Heads Carolina‘; he even grew his mullet back to revive his early “hat act” look. WOC also points out that “No Body” (#34 Country Songs, #21 Country Airplay) isn’t part of the deluxe version of Body Language — which makes perfect sense, if you look at their titles! Anyway, it’s a total boot-scoot-throwback dance floor stomper.
Kimberly Kelly “Summers Like That” and “Blue Jean Country Queen” (featuring Steve Wariner.) Talk about ’90s homages. In “Summers Like That,” this former schoolteacher with a Master’s in Speech Pathology from Texas Woman’s University directly references Trisha Yearwood’s “Walkaway Joe,” Pam Tillis’s “Maybe It Was Memphis,” Brooks & Dunn’s “Neon Moon,” Tracy Byrd’s “The Keeper of the Stars” and especially (most prominently) Deana Carter’s great “Strawberry Wine,” all from ’91 to ’96, the last of which makes this nostalgia for nostalgia. Plenty of cassette tapes in the video too, and that Kelly remembers sitting on the hood of an “’02 model Mustang” is a bit confusing but the sound’s perfect. Actually I doubt in a blindfold test I’d guess ‘90s, but I get that all those bygone decades blur together for non-senior-citizens out there. Wonder what 1961-born Toby Keith, who put out Kelly’s album on his Show Dog label, thinks. Dancing queen in dance tune “Blue Jean Country Queen” has a “Farah Fawcett smile,” so “girls are all glarin’,” boys are all starin’, the 1970s called.” Why quibble?
Kate Underwood “Mascara.” Song about the love of one’s life winding up happily married to a different woman and how that makes one’s Maybelline streak, as classic sounding as anything by Kimberly Kelly — Absolutely could’ve been a hit for, say, Lynne Anderson or somebody a half-century ago. But googling not only the title but chunks of the lyrics turns up nothing, and searches for the singer’s name come up blank as well. Australia has a singer named Katie Underwood, but this is clearly not her. Carrie Underwood seems to have two sisters, both much older, and two sons, both much younger. The video has a grand total of one youtube thumbs-up, which for all I know could be Kate herself….But wait!!! If you hunt long enough you finally find a very sparsely posted-on Kate Underwood Music facebook page. And Kate Underwood Bowman’s personal page tells us “I was a songwriter in Nashville for over a decade and lately I am really missing it!” Turns out “Mascara” is an original number, produced by Lari White, the mid-level ’90s country hitmaker and self-proclaimed Green Eyed Soulster who also produced Toby Keith’s best album, White Tra$h With Money. Him again, wtf?