Check out my Best Of coverage from last year: 50 things that make sounds, 150 do it all again, 250 sounds of people, 365 where this goes, 500 last call, and 600 hidden meaning.
For my run-up to my Best of 2022 playlist reveal, I’m covering some of my favorite things that shaped my calendar year. What with Spotify Wrapped and everyone and their mother putting out definitive superlative lists, it’s easy to forget that music released before the year of our lord 2022 still exists. I had lots of wonderful discoveries that shaped my year that won’t get the shine of other Best Of lists, so I’m going to talk about them here:
My song of the year is “Damage” by Yo La Tengo. Is it unhealthy how many times each day I think about these lines? Yes:
I used to think about you all the time
Now I think about you all the time
Will I continue to do so? Yes!
History of a Feeling (2021) is a great example of an album I found just a few weeks too late to make it to the top of my Best of 2021 list. It’s one of those records that keeps revealing itself in new ways; I am always finding new favorites. I have a lot of respect for the way that she writes about the surface of a feeling, the really tender and literal level of emotion, but also speaks to the more complex and cerebral aspects of loss and anger. I saw her just last week perform almost every song of this record, and it was one of the best shows I’ve seen this year.
“Confirmation” comes in at a close second place for my song of the year. My friend Madeline played this song for me and I was so enraptured by it—the clean guitar, the strange melody, the propulsive chorus. I can never get this song out of my head.
I got really into Pinegrove this year, lucky me! I wrote a piece about my complicated feelings around being a Pinegrove fan, and I feel like thinking that hard about this band has made them a more fixed part of my rotation. Nothing makes me feel more righteous in my huge feelings than this album, Cardinal (2016).
I’m a huge Holly Humberstone fan, as I’m sure readers of this newsletter already know. I still haven’t gotten to see her live—two shows cancelled at the last minute by sickness!—but it will surely be one of my most anticipated live acts next year. I won’t be surprised if “Scarlett” or “The Walls are Way Too Thin” are in my top five most played songs this year. Her writing is so good, the synths are so bubbly and expansive, the vocals! Don’t even get me started on her vocals. She’s maybe my favorite discovery of this year.
I don’t know how I even first heard this Grimes song, but it’s so unlike the Art Angels (2015) work I know her for, I was immediately taken with it. Her voice is so interesting when used outside the context of her usual hyperpop style; in another life she could have been a punk rock star for sure.
Highs in the Minuses (2021) is another one of those albums that keeps getting better the more I listen to it. I feel like I get to rediscover it every time I go looking for another song to put on a playlist. The writing really cuts me to the bone:
When you pushed me away
Something in me atrophied
I was caught up in our sad ballet
Of fighting 'til we fell asleep
You don't even like my songs
You don't even like me
And left in the light of day
The trouble is all you see
Another song of the year! I love Jenny Hval, and I really just discovered her this year. “Spells” really had me in a chokehold for much of the year, and I’m still unpacking its impact on my writing and taste in music in general. Jenny Hval never plays it live—I’ve seen her twice this year and pored over all her setlists—but it will live forever in my heart.
I’ve always known of Indigo De Souza, but I’ve never taken the time to really familiarize myself with her discography. This year, the algorithm served up a few songs from Any Shape You Take (2021) at opportune moments and now Indigo De Souza is at the top of my must-see list for next year.
One of my best friends got really into this album this year, so obviously I had to come along for the ride. We saw Wolf Alice on their Blue Weekend (2021) tour and it was one of the biggest shows I’ve seen in quite a while. This album has no skips, which is a quality I’m really learning to appreciate.
I had a cruel summer! I bet you did too. This song has no business going as hard as it does, and that’s all I have to say about that.
I saw Remi Wolf cover this song at her show coincidentally at the same time as I was having a John Mayer moment… obsession doesn’t even begin to describe it. I listened to this song everyday for weeks.
I am a longtime Broken Social Scene fan, and I got to see them on their You Forgot It In People (2003) anniversary tour this year. I’ve said before that Broken Social Scene kind of invented indie music, and I owe them a great debt for that. My favorite fact about this tour is that Meryl Streep and Tracy Ullman are apparently also worship at the church of You Forgot It In People and joined the band onstage for their performance of “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl.” That’s so deeply bonkers to me; I love everything about it.
I went through a big Alex G phase this year. If you’re thinking, “Amaya, that’s a lot of phases, how did you have time for all that?” then that makes two of us. I really love Trick (2012), partly because of how self-similar it is. It all runs into itself, in a good way. His biggest fans know his secret: Alex G really is just some guy.
I feel that this year has been dominated by something verging on hyperpop for me—Charli XCX, Hyd, Grace Ives. Magdalena Bay fit perfectly in that space; their album Mercurial World (2021) is a universe in itself.
What are some of your favorite non-2022 discoveries that shaped your year? I’d love to hear what 2022 sounded like to you.
I’ve been really obsessed with Lord Huron for the past year. This is the first year I’ve been able to drive so I’ve spent a lot of time exploring Mt Hood, the mountain I live at the base of. It is a very creepy place at times so Lord Huron’s tales of forest cryptids and cursed wildernesses feel almost like they grew here. Ben Schneider is easily one of the most multitalented artists around right now, from his stunning lyrics to the beautiful paintings he does for all his album art.
I’ve also been on a Grimes kick. I fully believe that she is a musical genius. Miss Anthropocene is such an absolutely bonkers album yet all of it somehow works. My Name Is Dark will probably be in my top five wrapped this year.
I discovered Halsey late last year and I can honestly say that her music has changed me. Her lyrics are so brutally honest it sometimes takes my breath away. Manic is a very dear album to me personally but If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power is the album she was always born to make.
Colter Wall’s first ep American Appalachia is probably going to be my top album this year. If you haven’t heard his jaw-dropping voice you really need to. He’s one of the few country artists today who really captures the essence of country music as it began.
Hole’s iconic album Live Through This came to me this year and overturned my entire perception of grunge and punk music. The anger expressed by most male rock bands has always seemed tiresome and stupid to me, but when I heard this album I finally understood angry music. When Courtney Love screamed she screamed about women getting raped and murdered and taken advantage of and soon I found myself screaming about it too.
And finally, I found myself in a rut during July of this year. I did what I always do in such situations and dove into the music of my childhood. In the space of two weeks I listened to seventeen Bob Dylan albums, many of them for the first time. It was such a crazy experience. I found myself in awe of the huge range of Dylan’s storytelling and humor. It was like absorbing whole poetry books directly into my brain. I have since decided that Dylan has an album for every experience and every season and anyone who hasn’t heard them is sorely missing out in ways I can’t describe
This year (or at least the last 5-6 months anyway) have seen me spinning the following almost nonstop:
Japandroids- Post-Nothing
YLT-Painful
Graham parker-Squeezing Out Sparks