The 2022 End of Year music lists thread

The Alvvays choice is weird but I think there are a bunch of places where they chose the "right" song -- Rosalia, Bad Bunny, Beyonce, Taylor, The 1975, CRJ, Maren (good for them putting this in the top 50)

no "western wind" is a very weird pick for crj too

Glutton for punishment, I've ploughed straight into the caroline album. I mean who knows

Well, credit for picking the only really good song on that YYYs album.

oh look there's a song called Very Online Guy YES HELLO I'M HERE I'M REAYD FOR MY CALLOUT

This was, by pure chance, the first song I heard off the new one, and the last one.

"western wind" is great but not picking "the loneliest time" seems like the wrong kind of contrarianism!

I agree

feel like if they had gone with pomeranian spinster as the #1 everyone would have called it a boring consensus vote-by-committee choice

though listening to "belinda says" now it's maybe the biggest POP song on the album so i don't know why everyone's surprised

Not to argue the point to death, but "PS" is such a more exciting / better song (IMO), why would it have been called a boring choice(?)

i would be baffled no matter which alvvays track was #1

bc it's the song everyone highlights from the album

Good, it's the best! lol

"Western Wind" was the lead single?

it wasn't a good lead single

Because I've siloed myself off so much, these lists always befuddle me completely— most of this stuff is utter mind detergent, imho, but I guess that's the purpose of pop music, so ymmv.

I do like the Utada, fwiw. Alvvays certainly a band for the "bands I've avoided even listening to because of the stupidity of their name" thread.

That Steve Lacy song is both charming and catchy and incredibly annoying at the same time.

I can never remember— when do we start doing our EOY 77 lists again?

The Alvvays album is great and that is one of the best songs on there, but them being number one on the Pitchfork list and The Beths getting shut out completely is disappointing. Nothing on Blue Rev comes close to Expert In A Dying Field's title track.

nominations usually open pretty soon

Guardian's Top 20 songs:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/dec/05/the-20-best-songs-of-2022

Wow I just heard "The loneliest time" and holy shit when did CRJ become this bland.

https://i.imgflip.com/48mqsj.jpg

heyyyy

haha

i've been dishing it out tbf

this is definitely caring too much but when was the last time p4k had such a middle-of-the-road indie track as #1? "seasons (waiting on you)"? there was at least a little bit of zeitgeist around that to help justify it

Are Beyonce & Two Shell the only artists with more than one track?

dj python as well

funny i have never really loved crj but i do love “the loneliest time” (the song)

https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/best-albums-2022/

That Guardian list of 20 songs w/three repeat artists is a firm rejoinder to people who don't like editorial meddling with the results

reading the description of that steve lacy song and imagining just how angry listening to it will make me, it is quite a powerful feeling

kinda hard to imagine that song making anyone angey

or angry

those are the songs that make me angriest!

The Wire's list is out.

1. Lucrecia Dalt - ¡Ay!
2. Moor Mother - Jazz Codes
3. Bill Orcutt - Music For Four Guitars
4. Oren Ambarchi - Shebang
5. Kali Malone - Living Torch
6. Sarah Davachi - Two Sisters
7. Billy Woods - Aethiopes
8. Björk - Fossora
9. Silvia Torozzi & Deborah Walker - Canti Di Guerra, Di Lavoro E D'Amore
10. Carl Stone - Wat Dong Moon Lek
11. V/A - Fragility Of Sounds
12. Soul Glo - Diaspora Problems
13. Aldous Harding - Warm Chris
14. Sun Ra Arkestra - Living Sky
15. Daniel Bachman - Almanac Behind
16. Horse Lords - Comradely Objects
17. Mary Halvorson - Amaryllis & Belladonna
18. Jeff Parker ETA IVtet - Mondays At The Enfield Tennis Academy
19. Claire Rousay & More Eaze - Never Stop Texting Me
20. Diamanda Galás - Broken Gargoyles
21. Vanessa Rossetto - The Actress
22. Coby Sey - Conduit
23. Hudson Mohawke - Cry Sugar
24. Ashenspire - Hostile Architecture
25. Horsegirl - Versions Of Modern Performance
26. Moin - Paste
27. The Smile - A Light For Attracting Attention
28. Bennie Maupin & Adam Rudolph - Symphonic Tone Poem For Brother Yusef
29. Éliane Radigue & Frédéric Blondy - Occam XXV
30. Robert Storey - The Eventual Window
31. Tegh & Adel Poursamadi - Ima
32. Devin Townsend - Lightwork
33. Laura Cannell - Antiphony Of The Trees
34. Dewa Alit & Gamelan Salukat - Chasing The Phantom
35. Richard Dawson & Circle - Henki
36. The Lord/Petra Haden - Devotional
37. Afrorack - The Afrorack
38. Roc Marciano & The Alchemist - The Elephant Man's Bones
39. The Ephemeron Loop - Psychonautic Escapism
40. Julmud - Tuqoos
41. Alvin Curran - Drumming Up Trouble
42. N Chambers - Mirage Colony
43. Phelimuncasi - Ama Gogela*
44. Eric Chenaux - Say Laura
45. Tomáš Niesner - Bečvou
46. Brian Eno - Foreverandevernomore
47. Ishmael Reed - The Hands Of Grace
48. Oren Ambarchi/Jonas Berthling/Andreas Werliin - Ghosted
49. Deliluh - Fault Lines
50. Bitchin Bajas - Bajascillators

*the only album on this list I voted for

great no. 1

Haven't heard it, but not that surprising - she was on the cover three issues back.

Interesting - #18 on that list was my #1 vote, none of my other votes placed

I still love Sarah Davachi’s music but have fallen behind by a couple releases - too many, with too much frequency for me to be able to absorb and appreciate them.

(But I have no doubt this one was great and I’ll get to it by 2024.)

Orcutt solo is a thing that everyone seems to love but that has never fully clicked for me. This one came closest.

Interesting - #18 on that list was my #1 vote, none of my other votes placed

Phelimuncasi was my #1. (And I suspect that Devin Townsend album at #32 to be a thumb on the scale — I know reviews editor Joe loves Townsend but I can't imagine any other Wire writers giving him the time of day.)

ha i have loved all the orcutt guitar albums but don't care for the newest one as much

Looks like the Big Thief album may end up being underrated...

I think it's weird for Pfork to call it "contemporary Brooklyn indie rock’s answer to the Beatles’ White Album or Prince’s Sign o’ the Times." Do any of the band members even live in Brooklyn? (Maybe Adrianne, for parts of the year?) It would be like a review of the White Album calling it "contemporary Liverpool post-skiffle" or something

it's funny to me how high the weeknd is on a lot of these lists when it was prob the biggest flop pop album of the year & critics haven't much cared for him in years. he made a consciously cool album qua album that was critic bait in a lot of ways & it was rejected by the public... critics at the time were like "hey pretty good record let's keep it moving" but i guess it held for ppl over the course of the year? it feels like there weren't a lot of albums for ppl to rally around this year

I thought Big Thief would do better tbh

Wet Leg too.

https://www.complex.com/music/best-albums-2022/

this top 10 is pretty boring but the complex list is one of the few mainstream publication lists i've seen that seems to reflect reality in some way... it at least acknowledges that artists like brent faiyaz, yeat, wizkid exist

the lack of mainstream rap and R&B on the pfork list is quite noticeable

I've been trying to find a way in to the Lucrecia Dalt album for a while now and it just keeps not clicking. Someone who loves it please evangelize.

^same, I enjoy the opener and then immediately struggle with it