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Year in Review: Music of 2022
Spotify Wrapped and Apple Replay are out. Soon we'll start being deluged with annual Best Of lists like this one. It's that time of year!
What were your favorite listens this year? What new finds did you unexpectedly love? How did your tastes change/evolve (if at all)? What do you consider the best albums of the year? What did the critics get wrong?
Discuss any and all end-of-year music stuff here. Share your Wrapped/Replay/Last.fm/Listenbrainz summary if you'd like. Hype up that hidden gem you think deserves more attention. Anything goes!
Spotify Wrapped 2022 | Mycketforvirrad
Very plugged into the underground metal community online so I tend to be a metalhead first and foremost. I enjoy all sorts of music though, so some other recommendations also appear in the list. I listen to and try so much new music (my bandcamp wishlist has like 900 items on it) that it's hard to keep track and remember favorites, when I don't use streaming services very often. However, I've combed through my bandcamp collection, wishlist, streaming history, and just anything else that came to mind and included the most memorable items here. Probably forgetting a ton, but enjoy this non-exhaustive list.
Metal or metal-adjacent:
Moonlight Sorcery - Piercing Through the Frozen Eternity
Daeva - Through Sheer Will And Black Magic...
Sonja - Loud Arriver
Spiritworld - Deathwestern
Raptore - Blackfire
Blackbraid - Blackbraid I
Pilori - Quand Bien Même L'Enfer et le Déluge S'abattraient sur Nous
Paganizer - Beyond the Macabre
Schizophrenia - Recollections of the Insane
Worm - Bluenothing
Ninth Realm - A Fate Unbroken
Spell - Tragic Magic
Tribal Gaze - The Nine Choirs
Brymir - Voices in the Sky
Chaotian - Effigies of Obsolescence
Wormrot - Hiss
Esoctrilihum - Consecration of the Spiritüs Flesh
Gevurah - Gehinnom
Non-metal:
fleshwater - We're Not Here To Be Loved
Pedro the Lion - Havasu
Lissom - Eclipses
James and the Shame - Human Overboard
one of my favourite listens was I'll Call You Mine
Aquamarine is my most played song.
It's perfect. Cheat Codes is probably my favorite album of 2022.
Someone posted JEZ_EBEL here and they have quickly become my favorite new artist.
Ab-Soul is finally dropping an album. Do Better is beautiful.
It's been a good year for music to be honest, especially in hip hop.
I'll take credit for JEZ_EBEL. 😉 But seriously, glad for your discovery. I love that feeling of vibing a new artist!
It's much appreciated! Thank you, and me too!
Waving back! Thank you, I gave it a spin. I liked Christine, Versailles, Remorseless and Smith + Cross the most on first listen. Will definitely come back to it!
Most definitely go on if you feel like it. Thank you! I'm checking out Sedale Threat.
Languish Arts / Woeful Studies by Ka is my second favorite this year. They're released as separate albums (on the same day) but I'm sorta counting them as one.
All but one of my Top 5 artists are French, while all Top 5 songs are in French.
Stromae, Polo & Pan, Englewood, L'imperatrice, and Moussa for artists.
Songs were: Canopee (Polo & Pan), Attrape-reve (Polo & Pan), L'enfer, Fils de Joie, and Sante (all three by Stromae).
I should mention that I don't speak nor understand but a few words of French 🤔
Top Genre is Lo-Fi Beats. No, not to study to...
I was apparently in the top 1% of Bad Religion listeners, which is funny because I also sort of burned out hard on them last month and moved on to other stuff. It's good background music that is not generally super disagreeable, so I like to play it.
I didn't listen to much new this year, but my new album of the year absolutely has to be GRIT. by Luke Vibert. I can't remember the last time I ever had an album make me feel as good. I just drove home from work and laughed at how perfect everything on this album is, which I've never done. I think anybody who likes anything to do with retro house/techno should listen to this album, because Luke Vibert absolutely killed it, and has been for decades.
A surprise was the "comic music" genre being a big one. I listen to a lot of MC Frontalot and a bit of Jonathan Coulton, but don't generally put them in anything like a comedy genre, even if they have a lot of funny songs. On the same "comic music" playlist was Aesop Rock's "At the Gates" off of Spirit World Field Guide, which was odd.
I'm ashamed to admit my top Spotify listen was Fever for the Flava by Hot Action Cop, which I put on as a warmup when I played guitar. I think it's a funny song, sort of extreme bro rock, but it's just so much fun to play. If I can be said to have a "guilty pleasure" song, it's definitely this one.
The only album of theirs I really skip is their Christmas album. 'm partial to True North, and the song with the same name, Dharma and the Bomb, and "My Head is Full of Ghosts."
Age of Unreason is their most recent album and worth checking out, but it marks an interesting shift for the band. It's sort of the tipping point where Greg's vocals are completely sang, with nearly no traces of earlier punk shouting, and I'd swear he's writing like a college professor more than a musician, which adds an interesting flavor.
But the year isn't over yet!
Eh. I certainly get their reasoning from a data stand point. I personally prefer to get all my retrospection done at the end of the physical year so that with a new year and clean slate I can look ahead. Each to their own. 🙂
I agree, but Spotify Wrapped is a force more powerful than time. The barn doors have been opened!
Also there are already 16 different Album of the Year lists out. We’re not getting the horse back!
I owe you a debt of gratitude for introducing me to The Beths.
They’re three albums in, and they’ve managed to strike gold every time! Expert in a Dying Field was a highlight for me this year too. They’ve consistently been my favorite band since I started listening to them, and I owe that to you. Thanks, Loire!
I recently wiped out my spotify account and started a fresh one (its on a family plan.) The old account had too much house music. The new account is pretty much all Atlanta hip hop / trap... so I might also have to ditch this one in a bit. You'd think I had shares in 21 Savage.
I literally didn't find anything good this year.