Music Saved Me in 2022

The Best Albums of My Year

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Pierce McIntyre issues many challenges, as does Paul Combs, and I can’t respond to them all — though I want to, I want to — but I cannot pass up a chance to weigh in on a year’s worth of great music. I think it’s been such a strong year, with comebacks and genre shifts for so many of my favorite artists, and welcome to some new-to-me ones, too.

What I’m loving most these days are the voices who are taking over what we are still calling Country Music. So many adjectives to use for this style, many of them taking up slots near the late 50’s on your Sirius-XM dial. For me, though, the ones that I live and die for are those who sound fresh and old. That might not make sense to all of you, but picture me as a boy sitting in front of the TV while Loretta Lynn or Buck Owens plays.

I can’t take my eyes off them, though I’m mildly scolded by parents who prefer sultry Sinatra or friends who skip to newer beats. What I’m hearing and seeing, though, are storytellers helping me feel free and not so alone as they smile and brandish guitars and pedal steels, singing me home or to sleep.

So no wonder that my favorites are those who are doing the same now. I’m a fairly urbane man in his 60’s and yet when this first group of my favorites plays, it’s Saturday afternoon again, and my soul is caught between short ribs and trips to the neighborhood grocery — Monte’s on Carolina Avenue — with my mother and grandmother, where one of them will surely buy me a box of Jell-O with Roger Maris’s baseball card on the back.

Know what I mean?

1. Angel Olsen, Big Time. I loved the past Angel and ADORE this one. She lost her parents to Covid, she came out as queer, and she recorded an album, featuring the title cut and “All the Good Times,” that I’ve listened to more than I’ve eaten good meals over the past six months.

2. Orville Peck, Bronco. Queer country is a thing and had it come out this year, Lavender Country would have been here, too. Bronco is Peck’s sophomore release, and when “Daytona Sand” first hit me, I wondered why none of the country singers back then, except ol’ John, had such resonance. The rest of the record keeps that voice and the subtle twang going, too. Masks up.

3. Amanda Shires, Take It Like a Man. Man. Woman. From someone who has always identified as “Outlaw Country” or Southern Noir, Shires got my attention with “Bad Behavior”: “Maybe it’s my nature, maybe I like strangers, so what if I do?” The title cut also thrills, like a ride at the county fair, “manned” by someone whom you wouldn’t be trusting otherwise, so why do you now? And what about “Stupid Love?” Yeah, not so…

Slightly switching gears into alternative rock/pop, we have…

4. Maggie Rogers, Surrender. Just found this one a week or two ago, and while I haven’t listened to it as much as some of these others, what’s undeniable about her is the power of that voice, especially on my favorite track, “That’s Where I Am.” Maybe I like it so much because where I am is an in-between place — feeling sad and blue and feeling love, and it occurs to me at this late date that they are really and have always been the same thing. “Want Want” tracks well too, and who doesn’t…?

5. Taylor Swift, Midnights. As my daughter says, it grows on you. I am also getting tired of men my age who, when I mention Swift, get that look on their faces, as if I’ve just claimed I love Donna Fargo or something, which I do. “Anti-Hero,” of course, but “Snow on the Beach” with Lana Del Rey makes me even happier because we are *** beautiful. But “Lavender Haze” kills me, and those I’ve come to love deeply, too.

6. Jack White, Entering Heaven Alive. The slower, moodier of his two 2022 releases, featuring “If I Die Tomorrow.” It also includes the “gentle” version of “Taking Me Back,” and “Love Is Selfish.” When my wife and I saw him back in September, in what feels like a lifetime ago, I realized a dream. And then I almost forgot it, in that spirit of dreams that I know too well.

Dreamy sounds:

7. Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Cool It Down. It’s been a long wait, but worth it. Karen O stays busy, though, and so what feels long is short. “Burning” is the cut I love best, as does the rest of the YYY world it seems, but the whole thing celebrates life or the edge of the world where you must do whatever feels best at that moment you have left. Sonic super sounds. Listen for Perfume Genius, too.

8. Beach House, Once, Twice, Melody. “Superstar” is my favorite song of the year, the one that helped me step back from the edge of the world, but seriously, as with most Beach House records, listening all the way through has certain advantages, because the dream pop/alt keeps coming your way, the layers messing with your system until you realize your system is alive and better for it.

9. Arctic Monkeys, The Car. Another late addition to my library of acquired tastes. I have always liked them, but now I love them, and my Rock/Soul students helped me listen harder to this, as they did with the next one.

10. The 1975, Being Funny in a Foreign Language. Yeah, this record, this band, is popular on the college circuit, and why not? If you or I were 21 again, what better sound to see us through finals or on a plane over the seas to home? Why is my record store out of vinyl copies, I wonder? Oh, right! “Looking for Somebody to Love,” “Wintering,” and “About You” are on hot play on my computer until the wax comes in.

And…

Two more just to get even: The Fontaines DC’s Skinty Fia and **Sharon Van Etten’s **We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong.

There ya go. I’m proud of the list and ready for yours and whatever comments you have, Kevin Alexander, JP Timko, Charlie Cole, Nicole Brown, If Ever You’re Listening, Jeffrey Harvey, Steven Hale, Steve Goldberg, Alex Markham, Anthony Overs, Jessica Lee McMillan, Chris Zappa, and Alexander B..

Here’s Pierce’s story: https://medium.com/plethora-of-pop/rocking-popping-in-2022-my-favorite-albums-of-the-year-ee8550b604ce

And an old one of mine:

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