The thing about priding yourself in your wide music taste is you have to be able to back it up. This year’s list features several artists and subgenres that I’ve come to appreciate only recently, after long periods of indifference or even resistance. That’s why this year’s list features albums from across the last 20 years, rather than any shortage of good music in 2022.
So, as always, enjoy my Christmas present to you all. A feast of highlights from my 2022 soundtrack, and a post-turkey cheeseboard of new music to bring you into the new year. If you want to join in, let me know which artists and albums you’ve discovered or particularly enjoyed this year in the comments.
Blue Weekend (2021) by Wolf Alice
My brother has been trying to make me a Wolf Alice fan since they released My Love Is Cool in 2015, and not without reason. A female-fronted British rock band with a sense of humour, they should be right up my street. But I found their early work a little too atmospheric for my tastes, and I’ve always been content to shelve them alongside indie one-hit wonders like The Temper Trap.
But everything changed when Blue Weekend attacked. On this record, they experiment with the noise-rock formula that has served them well so far. Where their first albums’ double whammy of mumbled lyrics behind echoing walls of sound failed to inspire me, the imagination and craft of songs like ‘Delicious Things’ and ‘Feeling Myself’ keep me coming back for more.
This is an album of contradictions. Lyrically, tracks like ‘How Can I Make It OK?’ and ‘The Last Man on Earth’ are mired in fragility and uncertainty, yet here the band feel more at home than ever, and frontwoman Ellie Rowsell finally has room to showcase her true vocal talents. A vein of dry wit runs from track to track, yet their music has never felt more urgent and deliberate. The result? A masterwork of 21st Century rock, which has - my brother will be pleased to know - increased my fondness for Wolf Alice’s earlier work as well.
My Highlights: Delicious Things; Lipstick on the Glass; Smile; How Can I Make it OK?
Punisher (2020) by Phoebe Bridgers
Yes, this album did get an honourable mention on last year’s list. But Punisher has been so central a part of my musical landscape this year that it deserves a review of its own. You might think it’s rich for someone who labelled Wolf Alice’s early work ‘too atmospheric’ to be effusing about Phoebe Bridgers, but bear with me.
It’s a testament to Bridgers’ musical skill that arena rock fans like me find themselves enjoying her lilting, low-energy music. The melodies on Punisher are particularly entrancing (epitomised by tracks such as ‘Kyoto’ and ‘Savior Complex’), as is her ability to create drama and tension with the simplest of flourishes. An audience of thousands singing the title track along with her was a highlight of Glastonbury this year, and as thrilling a live moment as any U2 performance.
Not in genre, instrumentation or vibe is this an emo album. Yet it serves a similar function to me, as I imagine it does for many others. Its lyrics are honest, elegiac poems that explore overwhelming experiences. Yet they are bathed in spine-tinglingly immersive musical arrangements - a cathartic paradox that even My Chemical Romance would be proud of.
My Highlights: Punisher; Savior Complex; Graceland Too, I Know the End
Big TV (2013) by White Lies
Dark, baritone-led, post-punk bands are enjoying something of a golden age at the moment, with established acts like Editors and The National perhaps more popular than they’ve ever been. So this was the perfect time to revisit White Lies - a band I hadn’t listened to since the noughties. A friend of mine introduced me to Big TV not long ago, and it’s been a staple of my work soundtrack ever since.
This album is at once familiar and innovative. The singable hooks and potent electronic landscapes of ‘Mother Tongue’ and ‘There Goes Our Love Again’ recall Depeche Mode at their height, and truly live up to the sonic ambition of the record. But this is an addition to, rather than a replacement for, White Lies’ signature sound. The driving, bass-led arrangements and creative drum lines cement Big TV as a rock album - a true space-age rock album.
But despite the cosmic aspirations of the music, the lyrics could not be more earthbound. ‘Getting Even’ and ‘Tricky to Love’ tell of unreliable relationships, while the title track explores what it means to be at the mercy of a materialist society. This, combined with the new-age-inspired music, gives Big TV the feel of a dystopian novel - an album about the present, wrapped in the high-octane trappings of the future.
My Highlights: Big TV; First Time Caller; Mother Tongue; Be Your Man
Sometimes I Might Be Introvert (2021) by Little Simz
Little Simz’ breakthrough album Grey Area was my favourite among the 2019 Mercury Prize nominees. Her vicious, unflinching approach to her craft meant that even as a relative minnow in the British hip-hop scene, she could hold her own with the best. Her next effort is more considered and introspective, but no less compelling.
Lyrically, Simbi is just as sharp as ever. From the outset, she glides effortlessly from armed conflict to class war to the moral battles within ourselves. Opening track ‘Introvert’ sets out her stall clearly, emphasising how inextricable the personal and political are. And this continues right up until the final track, where her personal and professional struggles are woven carefully with nods to other black women who have had to fight for their place in the spotlight.
It is musically where this album surprises and delights the most. Little Simz joins fellow Mercury nominees Kojey Radical and Ghetts in flawlessly blending seductive hip hop with other genres, from the jaunty R&B of ‘I love You, I Hate You’ to the African influences and ska beat of ‘Fear no man.’ It’s a diverse, mature album from an artist at the top of her game, and diverting from start to finish.
My Highlights: Two Worlds Apart; I See You; How Did You Get Here; Miss Understood
A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out (2005) by Panic! At the Disco
One of my musical highlights of the year has been Hayley Williams' BBC Sounds show Everything Is Emo. Equal parts 'Intro to Emo' class and tour of the Paramore frontwoman's varied music taste, it's a pleasing combo of familiar tunes and new music to explore. And while it hasn't found me many new favourites, it has helped me dive further into artists I thought I already knew pretty well.
One such band is Panic! At the Disco, whose early work I knew very little of. Content with singles like 'I Write Sins Not Tragedies' and 'Nine in the Afternoon', I went on to enjoy the opulent, polished pop-punk of their later albums. But little did I know what I was missing. If Vices and Virtues is the high-end music hall of their florid oeuvre, then A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out is the seedy but pretentious speakeasy down the road. And I mean that as the highest of compliments.
Acerbic lyrics fly past at breakneck speed, processing death, jealousy and criticism of their work with eloquent disdain. The punk aesthetic of the instrumentation belies the musical prowess that shows itself in brief a-cappella arrangements and well-chosen electronic elements. Panic! have always been the divas of the emo scene, and this pulsing cabaret of breathless drama and raw emotions is a perfect manifesto.
My Highlights: The only difference between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage; Nails for Breakfast, Tacks for Snacks; But It’s Better if You Do; I Write Sins Not Tragedies
Honourable mentions:
- Of Brine and Angels’ Beaks (2021) by Azure - Voted ‘best unsigned band of 2021’ by readers of Prog magazine, Azure are all the evidence one needs that Prog Rock is alive and well in the UK. Adventure and scope, humour and tenderness - this epic sophomore album has it all, and I can’t wait to see what they have in store. Start with ‘The Jellyfish’
- Raw Data Feel (2022) by Everything Everything - Beating out Taylor Swift, Harry Styles and Rina Sawayama for my pop album of the year, Raw Data Feel is as enjoyable as it is prescient. Its lyrics (co-written by a custom AI programme) find connection and hope within our demanding, tech-focused world, while addictive and nuanced melodies hold even the shortest attention span right until the end. Start with ‘My Computer’
- Birds with Broken Wings (2015) by Ben Caplan - A Johnny Cash for the 21st Century, Ben Caplan’s captivating voice guides us through existential heights and lonely nights with equal dexterity. One of few artists truly deserving of the term ‘troubadour,’ his gift for metaphor can spin even the most mundane threads of thought to gold. Start at the beginning
