Top 22 albums of 2022.

I don’t think 2022 was as strong for albums as 2021 was, where I could have run 30 deep on the rankings, but I had enough that I could keep up this gimmick of ranking a number of LPs equal to the last two digits of the year, and even made a few cuts in the final go. I know streaming has sort of killed the album in a sense, and I’m partly to blame as someone who generally prefers listening to specific songs over full records, but I also appreciate the artist’s vision for an album and am happy to support that in a tiny way here, even if it’s just “I like this collection of songs.” Honorable mentions include Everything Everything’s Raw Data Feel, Foals’ Life is Yours, and the Mysterines’ Reeling (which would have made the cut if they’d included more of their early singles), MUNA’s MUNA, Little Simz’s NO THANK YOU (released just five days ago, and very good, but I need to listen to it more), and beabadoobee’s beatopia.

You can see my previous year-end album rankings here: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, and my top albums of the 2010s. My top 100 songs of 2022 will go up in the next day or two.

22. Elder – Innate Passage. A very last-minute addition to the list, as Ian Miller of Kowloon Walled City recommended this LP to me over the weekend, and, since he knows my tastes pretty well, it hit its mark. Elder is a progressive metal band with heavy stoner/doom elements to their music, and this album, their sixth, is their first with vocalist/guitarist Nick DiSalvo as the only remaining founding member. It’s just five tracks and runs 53 minutes, with a solid mix of proggy metal riffing, tempo and tone changes, and even some harmonies in the vocals.

21. Sunflower Bean – Headful of Sugar. I feel like Sunflower Bean are a post-hype prospect at this point; the music press seem to have moved on, or decided the band isn’t going to hit its ceiling, rather than appreciating them for what they are and for the potential they still have. Their brand of sunny jangle-pop with a little bit of garage to it might be a little familiar, but they offer a perfect slice of it on this album. Highlights include “Baby Don’t Cry,” “Who Put You Up to This?,” “I Don’t Have Control Sometimes,” and the bonus track “Moment in the Sun,” a one-off single they added to the album after it was used in Heartstopper.

20. Porcupine Tree – CLOSURE/CONTINUATION. Porcupine Tree returned after a 12-year hiatus as if they’d never left, still proggy after all these years, but without becoming overindulgent as the genre often sees. Founder Steven Wilson has produced three Opeth albums in the interim, and Porcupine Tree previously toured with the prog-metal giants, so it’s hard not to hear the latter’s influence here in some of the strongest guitar riffing. Highlights include “Harridan,” “Chimera’s Wreck,” and “Rats Return.”

19. Danger Mouse and Black Thought – Cheat Codes. Hard to believe, but this was Danger Mouse’s first hip-hop album in 17 years, since the last Danger Doom collaboration with the late MF Doom, whose vocals appear on the track “Belize.” This is peak Black Thought, with solid contributions from Danger Mouse, although the producer gets first billing here. Highlights include “Belize,” of course, as well as “The Darkest Part” and “Aquamarine.”

18. The Wombats – Fix Yourself, Not the World. A return to form for the Wombats after the uneven Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life, the band’s fifth album veers more into an overt pop direction than their best LP to date, Glitterbug, but doesn’t skimp on the witty lyrics or shifts in tone and tempo. The EP they released in November of tracks that didn’t make the album, Is This What It Feels Like to Feel Like This?, has six more songs in a similar vein, several of which probably should have made the cut. Highlights from the LP include “If You Ever Leave, I’m Coming With You,” “Everything I Love Is Going to Die,” and “Method to the Madness,” the last one of the most ornate songs the group has ever released.

17. Belle & Sebastian – A Bit of Previous. The Scottish indie stalwarts’ first new album in seven years, although they’ve released three EPs in the interim, A Bit of Previous doesn’t abandon the sunnier pop melodies and sounds of their last record, the effusive Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, although it’s a bit darker in tone and lyrics. Highlights include “Young and Stupid,” “Talk to Me Talk to Me,” and “Unnecessary Drama.”

16. Lizzo – Special. No record surprised me more than Lizzo’s Special, since I was certainly familiar with her work and her impressive voice, but never connected with her music at all. On her fourth album, Lizzo produced an ebullient record full of musical callbacks to pop, disco, and funk from the 1970s and 1980s, along with more than a little nod to Prince here and there. I guess we’ll always have to wonder what that never-made Lizzo EP that Prince was slated to produce would sound like, but I’d like to think we got some of that sound on Special. Highlights include “2 Be Loved (Am I Ready),” the #1 single “About Damn Time,” “The Sign,” and “Everybody’s Gay.”

15. Anxious – Little Green House. The debut full-length from this Connecticut quintet, which draws on emo and punk with a real dose of pop hooks and harmonies, was one of the best straight-out rock records of the year, and would have fit in quite well on a best-of list from 20 years ago at the height of emo and the absurdly titled “screamo” subgenre. There is a decent bit of screaming here, some of which I could have done without, as there’s plenty of dissonance coming from the guitarwork. The album is a raucous joy straight on through until the shocking closer “You When You’re Gone,” a slow song (!) with vocals from Stella Branstool of Hello Mary. Highlights include that track, “In April,” “Call from You,” and “Afternoon.”

14. Freddie Gibbs – $oul $old $eparately. Gibbs might be the best technical rapper going now, and he is certainly the most interesting, doing far more with the music over which he rhymes than anyone else I can think of. He has a host of guests on this sprawling, hour-long record, including Anderson .Paak, Raekwon, Pusha T, Musiq Soulchild, and Scarface. Highlights include “Too Much,” “Feel No Pain,” and “Dark Hearted,” as well as “Big Boss Rabbit” from the bonus edition.

13. Bartees Strange – Farm to Table. Strange’s sophomore album finds him leaning even more into his trad-rock side, and away from the comparisons to one of his inspirations, The National. The glimpses we had of the real Bartees on his debut are the dominant theme here, with great hooks and wistful lyrics about small things like the meaning of life and the prevalence of death. Highlights include “Heavy Heart,” “Wretched,” and “Black Gold.”

12. White Lies – As I Try Not to Fall Apart. Wikipedia calls White Lies a “post-punk revival” band, but this is new wave, and I will not stand for any erasure of that genre. (Get it? Erasure? Never mind.) Their sixth album feels like a culmination, as if they’ve truly identified their sound and have been working towards this for several records now, with previous albums having similar highlights (“There Goes Our Love Again” from Big TV, “Tokyo” from Five) but lacking this one’s depth and consistent quality. The contrast of melancholic lyrics and darkly joyous music is the strongest callback to 1980s new wave, and it’s practically pandering to an audience of me. The bonus edition includes four more tracks, including the outstanding “Trouble in America.” Highlights include the title track, “Am I Really Going to Die,” “I Don’t Want to Go to Mars,” and “Step Outside.”

11. Crows – Beware Believers. I was surprised how little press this sophomore album from Crows received, given the positive reception for their 2019 debut record Silver Tongues. Crows get billed as a punk band, but that sells them short – they’re a hard rock band in the old style, writing heavy, grinding tracks with distorted guitars, big riffs, and no pretense. Highlights include the title track, “Garden of England,” “Healing,” and “Closer Still.”

10. Christine and the Queens – Redcar les adorables étoiles (prologue). Redcar is Christine & the Queens’ latest nom de plume, after he used Chris on his last album and briefly used the name Rahim last year. It’s a breakup album, at least off the lyrics, but the music is anything but depressing. He backs up these tracks about a lost love (or loves?) with soulful music that draws on pop, soul, even elements of jazz. Highlights include “rien dire,” “Ma bien aimée bye bye,” and “Je te vois enfin.”

9. Just Mustard – Heart Under. This Irish shoegaze band showed promise on their 2018 debut album Wednesday, but this album carves out its own post-shoegaze sound, with the same droning guitars but without the inscrutable walls of sound that made My Bloody Valentine critical darlings whose music I couldn’t abide. Highlights here include “Still,” “23,” “Mirrors,” and “I Am You.”

8. Sports Team – Gulp! Coming in at a scant 33:41, this barely full-length record from Sports Team, the band’s second, is ten tracks of raucous, fun, art-punk-inspired rock-and-roll. It gets off to a strong start with “The Game” and never lets up, with hooks and big energy all the way through. Highlights include “Dig!,” “The Drop,” “The Game,” and “R Entertainment.”

7. White Lung – Premonition. The newest album on the list, released just two weeks ago, is also the swan song for this Vancouver punk-metal band, as lead singer Mish Barber-Way decided to call it quits after having her second kid last year. (She’s also apparently still executive editor of Penthouse.) Premonition has apparently been in the works since 2019, but baby #1 and the pandemic pushed the record back, so while they’re going out with a bang, it appears this is the end for this underappreciated act. Highlights include “Tomorrow,” “Date Night,” and “Bird.”

6. Kid Kapichi – Here’s What You Could Have Won. In a year when the Arctic Monkeys confirmed for us all that they’re no longer a rock band – and some critics seemed unwilling to point out that Alex Turner has no clothes – Kid Kapichi are here to take up the mantle of guitar-driven rock with intelligent, sardonic lyrics, here taking aim at the popular targets of those disaffected with late-stage capitalist Britain. Kid Kapichi start off making it very clear where they stand on the snarling opener “New England” – which is not about the changing of the leaves in Vermont – featuring Bob Vylan, and the rage never really slows from there, not even for the acoustic “Party at No. 10.” Highlights include “New England,” “Rob the Supermarket,” “Super Soaker,” and “Cops and Robbers.”

5. SAULT – Today & Tomorrow. SAULT released six albums in 2022, five of them on one day in November. Each of the five explored a different genre or style, with Today & Tomorrow, my favorite of the set, finding the secretive London-based group delving into rock and punk sounds for the first time. Highlights include “The Plan,” “Lion,” “Money,” and “Above the Sky.” If you’re curious about the others, I’d rank the five albums Today & Tomorrow, Earth, 11, Aiir, and God, in order from best to worst.

4. FKA Twigs – CAPRISONGS. She calls this a mixtape, but it’s 17 songs and 48 minutes long. It’s an album. It’s uneven, both in quality and theme, less cohesive than her album Magdalene, but the highs are very high here, and FKA Twigs (Tahliah Barnett) experiments more with tones and styles than on her formal LP. Highlights include “honda,” “darjeeling,” and “jealousy.”

3. Yard Act – The Overload. Thedebutrecord from these likely lads from Leeds might as well be a spiritual sequel to the earliest work of Gang of Four or maybe a lost album from The Fall, but updated with occasional flourishes of hip-hop (which, I concede, don’t always work) and a more modern take on the working class progressivism of their forebears. Highlights include the title track, “Payday,” “Pour Another,” and “The Incident.”

2. Sudan Archives – Natural Brown Prom Queen. Sudan Archives is violinist/singer Brittney Denise Parks, who released her second LP this year to massive and well-deserved acclaim. It’s a genre-bending, world-spanning record that features abrupt tonal shifts within and between songs, lyrics that are by turns smart and frivolous, and a whole bunch of songs that just plain groove. Highlights include “NBPQ (Topless),” “Yellow Brick Road,” the sinister-sounding “Homemaker,” and “Freakalizer.”

1. The Beths – Expert in a Dying Field. This is the album I’ve been waiting for the Beths to make since I first heard “You Wouldn’t Like Me” back in 2018. Expert in a Dying Field is a perfect exemplar of this New Zealand band’s sunny take on power-pop, with perfect harmonies and an endless supply of melodies. They call back to ‘80s power-pop standouts like Jellyfish and Apples in Stereo while adding their own stamp, not least from lead singer/guitarist Elizabeth Stokes’ delightful accent. There’s enough diversity in the tracks here to make it worth listening all the way through, but it’s also the best collection of singles I heard in 2022. Highlights include the title track, “When You Know You Know,” “Knees Deep,” and “Silence is Golden.”