33Forever 33 Favorite Albums of 2022 (#12-#1)
My favorite / top / best albums of 2022 (#12 - #1)
“And the blame that I can't face And memories are something Even smoking weed does not replace And I am terrified of weather 'cause I see you when it rains Doc told me to travel, but there's COVID on the planes”
12 Wilco - Cruel Country. Upon reviewing some of my previous years rankings it seems clear that I tend to underweight how much albums from bands I am a long time fan of stick with me. And Wilco is a great example of this. I was essentially uninterested in Sky Blue Sky when it came out and it’s probably a top 3 Wilco album for me. All this is to say, I didn’t engage with this album a ton this year. And I missed out on a prime opportunity to see them live, in my home town, on the stage I graduated on. As mentioned in many places this album has a distinctive country vibe to it - it is named, Cruel Country. It sounds nice and if you dig Wilco’s more mellow and dare I say restrained music, you’ll likely dig this album. It doesn’t showcase Nels as much as I’d like, but, I suspect when I hear these songs live I will feel differently.
11 Pool Kids - Pool Kids. If you’re looking for something new and that the kids are listening to that is also guitar driven, you need to check out this album. This is essentially a relationship album and deals heavily with breakups. But, it also just sounds great and combines the best of many aspects of indie rock drawing heavily on emo and shoegaze. One of their songs made my Best Song Ever list this year. Overall, even though I don’t connect to a lot of the themes, I really dig how this sounds.
10 Death Cab For Cutie - Asphalt Meadows. I already wrote a lot about this album. I’m not sure how much I will go back to this in the future. It’s certainly my favorite Death Cab album since the aughts. It sounds great. Its post pandemic for sure. Similar to Jack Johnson’s album you can engage at whatever level you want to engage.
9 (self titled) - Marcus Mumford. This is a super heavy album dealing with super heavy topics around childhood trauma, specifically sexual abuse. It’s Marcus dealing with his personal childhood traumas and everything that goes with that. Marcus is supported by a host of female collaborators and according Brandi Carlile it was akin to a massive trust fall as Mr. Mumford opens up about all his trauma for everyone to see. If you’ve got some really heavy trauma in your life and you’re just now processing and dealing with it, you’re likely going to connect to this album.
8 Orville Peck - Bronco. I wrote about this album extensively earlier in the year. There is a certain strain of folks that dislike country music because there is very little diversity in its artists and themes, I refer you to this Bronco. Love songs that are clearly written by a man for another man. A perspective I rarely see represented in country music. It sounds like old and classic country. Not 80’s and 90’s prime country, but 40’s and 50’s country music. But, with a totally modern, unique, and I’d argue, subversive take. If you prefer to challenge your notions of what certain music sounds like and talks about, you need to check this out. If you dig country music at all, I strongly suggest you check this out.
7 Wet Leg - Wet Leg. Do you prefer your rock n roll full of detachment, sarcasm, wit, and sexual energy this is your album of the year. Every song on this album is awesome and I dig it. Two of my favorite songs, were released last year so they didn’t make my song list otherwise I would have had four songs on that list. Could have been more. If you long for the days of guitar driven rock, you will want to check out this album. If you want to be listening to whatever is trendy…you may be slightly late here, but I still strongly suggest you check this album out. If you dig fuzzed out guitars, check this album out. Just. If you like rock n roll, check out this album.
6 Craig Finn - A Legacy of Rentals. This for sure moved up in the rankings based on the awesome live set I saw Craig perform at Cafe Du Nord. I wrote about it a Scene Report. I suspect that this is an album that will stick with me more-so than most albums on this list and five years from now I’ll be confused why its not ranked higher. This album is a much darker Craig Finn album and thats with the full realization that most of his solo work has been pretty dark. It deals with people struggling to make it through life. Different character studies on folks dealing with some different challenges. But the central theme is that they’ve all got shit they’re dealing with. If you dig the darker sides of Craig Finn’s solo work, you’ll for sure dig this album.
5 Mt. Joy - Orange Blood. If you’re looking for a guitar driven indie rock album that sounds nice, you‘re going to find it here. This whole album sounds excellent and there isn’t a bad song on it. I wrote about this album extensively earlier in the year. If you are looking for some just good rock n roll music with a bit of an indie bent to it, you’ll dig this album.
4 Jack Johnson - Meet The Moonlight. Man did I need this album this year. I wrote about this album earlier in the year. I needed something that was thoughtful and hopeful, yet light and not overbearing. I found that in this album. It’s essentially Jack Johnson doing Jack Johnson covers. It’s excellent and you’ll enjoy it.
3 WE - Arcade Fire. Here is what I wrote when I wrote about two songs I put in the top 33 songs of 2022: I appreciate that Wynn Butler, the lead singer, main songwriter, and general leader of Arcade Fire is problematic right now. I accept that I am going to be one of the few people out there that features the band’s recent music so prominently in my list. I wrote about these songs earlier the year at length in two separate posts. Both written before the news of his frankly, pretty creepy behavior, was released. But, given the recent news of his bad behavior, it puts these songs in different context that, for me, significantly heightens the emotion and stakes of these songs. Given this context I view this pair of songs as written to the two most important people in his life: his wife (and bandmate), and his 9 year old son, regarding his bad behavior. Wynn doesn’t call out his bad behavior specifically. But, both now appear to be written by a person who’s life is falling apart completely by their own doing. He is trying to salvage his relationship with his child by showing him that his dad is someone that he can look up to and rely on. In the latter song he is practically begging his wife to stick with him even though he has destroyed everything he worked so hard to build. These songs are about trying to put the pieces together after you’ve made bad choices that have hurts lots of people. You say you’re sorry. You work to make amends. You try to be a better person. I think that is what Wynn is trying to do here. I view these songs as his first attempt at making amends. He has a long way to go. But, I think this is him understanding the gravity of him destroying his life and trying to rebuild.
2 Stick Season - Noah Kahan. It’s unclear to me if this accurately rated since it came in so late in the game for me. But given how much I’ve listened to it since I was introduced and how desperately I was looking for an album like this all year, k feel like it’s appropriate. It’s full of emotion and many of the mostly acoustic songs lead into acoustic anthems. Themes deal mostly with resolving old relationships and long held feelings while living in small town that feels cut off and different from the rest of the world. I still can’t stop listening to this album and it’s my current go to for what to listen to when I don’t know what to listen to.
1 American Heartbreak - Zach Bryan. I can’t say enough about Zach Bryan. He is my artist of the year for 2022. He is not new and American Heartbreak is his 3rd full length album. So, I spent a decent amount of time exploring his first two excellent albums: DeAnn (2019) and Elisabeth (2020). This 2 hr, 34 song, album can be an intimidating starting point. But, it’s so so good. There are so many good songs on this album. In fact, I like about half of the 34 songs and I am not the only one. Only 2 of the 34 songs have less than 5 million listens. So, I can’t make it through about all the music I like on the album. My top 33 songs included three songs from this album alone. As expected with such a long album, there are a lot of themes covered. A lot has to do with Zach dealing with his demon’s and looking for support in others around him: a lover, a partner, a friend, a relative, his audience. There is just a ton of emotion captured throughout this album. If you dig emo music or country music and especially if you like your country or folk music on the totally emo side, you must drop what you’re doing and check out this album. Its amazing and I can imagine I will continue to come back to and discover more of what I connect with in this album.