All year-end lists must begin with some grand statement reflecting the essence of the year, but they always go on for far too long, try too hard to make each year significant and unique despite doing this every year, and usually get skipped despite their best efforts to paint themselves with the utmost grandiosity as canonizers and narrativizers of the present. So all I will say is that 2022 saw some of the best releases in recent memory that will be (in a just world) considered classics for far into the future. Themes, parallels, trends, I will leave for you to decide. Hopefully you will be able to find, appreciate, and take issue with the placements of your favorite albums as well as albums you despise, and even to discover something you haven’t heard yet. This post also passes the email length limit, so you can click on the title to view all of the listings. The version available in the email will be a truncated version. Happy New Year!
Darkthrone — Astral Fortress
Ulk — Restoration Magic
Mamaleek — Diner Coffee
Earl Sweatshirt — SICK!
Skullcrusher — Quiet the Room
Mother of Graves — Where the Shadows Adorn
The Mountain Goats — Bleed Out
Aldous Harding — Warm Chris
Wormrot — Hiss
Sports Team — Gulp!
Loraine James — Building Something Beautiful for Me
Grima — Frostbitten
Joey Bada$$ — 2000
Special Interest — Endure
Benjamin Clementine — And I Have Been
Ethel Cain — Preacher’s Daughter
Conjurer — Páthos
Ben McElroy — How I Learnt To Disengage From the Pack
Spiritualized — Everything Was Beautiful
Sudan Archives — Natural Brown Prom Queen
VISIO — Privacy Angels
Pyrithe — Monuments to Impermanence
Wailin’ Storms — The Silver Snake Unfolds
Sooner — Days and Nights
Teen Suicide — honeybee table at the butterfly feast
Silvana Estrada — Marchita
Cities Aviv — Working Title for the Album Secret Waters
Jenny Hval — Classic Objects
Kae Tempest — The Line is a Curve
Pharmacist — Flourishing Extremities on Unspoiled Mental Grounds
Beach House — Once Twice Melody
Conway the Machine — God Don’t Make Mistakes
Wet Leg — Wet Leg
Just Mustard — Heart Under
Emily Steinwall — Welcome to the Garden
Denzel Curry — Melt My Eyez See Your Future
of Montreal — Freewave Lucifer f<ck f^ck f>ck
Ibibio Sound Machine — Electricity
Valentina Magaletti — A Queer Anthology of Drums
CMAT — If My Wife New I’d Be Dead
Kendrick Lamar — Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers
Sarah Davachi — Two Sisters
The Comet is Coming — Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard — Laminated Denim
Warmduscher — At The Hotspot
Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul — Topical Dancer
Fievel is Glauque — Flaming Swords
Destroyer — LABYRINTHITIS
Ghais Guevara — There Will Be No Super-Slave
Boris — Heavy Rocks (2022)
Comment your favorites below, and return tomorrow for the final 50!