Spreading a little bit of joy to wrap up the year: My Top 10 Albums of 2022

1.   Gang Of Youths – Angel In Realtime

Gang of Youths' Angel in Realtime is a deeply layered song cycle chronicling the life and passing of lead singer David Le’aupepe’s father in which he explores his ancestry filled with emotions – and surprises. The Australian band delivers a genuine masterpiece built around gorgeous melodies (and David Le’aupepe is blessed with an amazing voice!) and bathing in lush orchestration with infusions of Māori/Polynesian-infused roots accents. Highly rewarding, it is a record that is so complexly poignant and song after song so beautifully constructed that it will hit you right between the eyes.

Influenced by U2 (‘Spirit Boy’ is the best U2-ballad not composed by U2 since ‘One’) and The National yet unmistakably with its own identity makes listening to this album from start to finish extremely satisfying. This record makes the difficult world we currently live in just a bit more beautiful.

2.   Spoon – Lucifer On The Sofa

Ten albums on their resume and Spoon has never issued a bad one, but they are at their peak on this last album, arguably the best one they ever made. On this first album in 5 years, the Texas band wanders through different styles: from piano ballads, over power pop to glam rock a la Roxy Music – and yet always sounds uniquely themselves. This collection of songs is superb and flawless throughout the whole record. With every repeated listen, this album keeps growing and revealing its splendor: guitar, piano, vocals: every note is perfectly placed, and every song so well built up, resulting in a fantastic album that will no doubt feature in many ‘best-of’ lists of 2022.

3.   John Mellencamp – Strictly A One-Eyed Jack

Mellencamp has never released a poor album, but this last effort is easily his best work in close to 2 decades. His husky voice nowadays sounds more like a mid-career Tom Waits or a 21st century Bob Dylan but serves the rootsy songs perfectly. The first 3 songs are not an easy listen but then the album comes to full fruition with several highlights - not in the least the 2 songs in which The Boss himself joins the party: ‘Did You Say Such a Thing’ thrives on the twanging Telecasters as they were omnipresent on his best album ‘Scarecrow’ and enjoys a chorus with great harmony vocals of Springsteen who gets even to sing his own verse on ‘Wasted Days’, a classic rock song. Most songs are about loss and grief, so life still hurts – albeit not so good anymore 😉. Ain’t that America(na) for you and me? You bet!

4.   The 1975 – Being Funny In A Foreign Language

On their 5th studio album, their shortest and most-coherent with ‘only’ 11 songs, Matty Healy’s poetry is carried by more intimate folky acoustic guitars and piano than any of their previous work, emerging into lush melodies and beautifully arranged songs such as opening track ‘The 1975’ (which admittedly is a total rip-off of the piano-riff of ‘All My Friends’ by LCD Soundsystem), ‘All I Need to Hear’, ‘Part of The Band’, ‘I’m In Love With You’, ‘Wintering’ and ‘When We Are Together’ next to some real catchy up-tempo songs. There are still one or two songs that border dangerously close towards ‘sellout-Coldplay’ but overall less is more this time around for The 1975 and this results in their best album yet.

5.   Arcade Fire - WE

Arcade Fire’s 6th album enters with an irresistible piano-riff that grabs you straight by the throat and introduces a musical journey where the band returns to the grand form of their earlier albums such as ‘The Suburbs’. Broad orchestration, layers of acoustic instruments and a refocus on compelling melodies make this a highly enjoyable album which as usual addresses big themes of these crazy world we live in. Most songs are built up as multiple musical suites and as such the album should preferably be listened to in one full take. A big ask in this era driven by short attention spans, but the prize is worth it!

6.   The Smile – A Light For Attracting Attention

Thom Yorke’s and Jonny Greenwood’s new band sounds more than any of their side-projects like a refreshed Radiohead 2.0 and they enter the stage with an album on which melody and experiment find that unique balance again that made ‘OK Computer’ such a timeless album. Obviously, the stratospheric level of that classic album is out of reach (who could still achieve that?!) but gems like ‘Free In The Knowledge’ could have made that masterpiece album. Arguably the best melody sung by Thom Yorke since the turn of the century.

7.   Wet Leg – Wet Leg

A ridiculous band name and funny lyrics combined with infectious new-wave melodies and irresistible hooks: Wet Leg picks up where The Breeders and The B-52s left off. Following the hilarious smash singles ‘Chaise Longue’ and ‘Wet Dream’, Wet Leg now delivers a full-fledged effort of 12 songs that race by in less than 37 minutes. A highly enjoyable joyride that creates high expectations of what will come next.

8.   Paolo Nutini – Last Night In The Bittersweet

Nutini (Scottish from Italian descent) has one of the most versatile voices in today’s rock scene: he opens this album with a Robert Plant howl in the most bizarre song on a very eclectic album in which he switches effortlessly between Otis Redding-, Bob Dylan- and Van Morrison-voice and -song styles – yet making each song definitely his own. This album is rich in diverse styles and melodies, and keeps revealing more beauty after multiple listens – often in little details such as the early-Elvis Costello-like organ in ‘Petrified in Love’. To top it all off this album bathes in a warm organic analogue vibe reminiscent of the great albums of the sixties and seventies. Contemporary nostalgia (an oxymoron I guess 😊) at its best!

9.   Elvis Costello & The Imposters - The Boy Named If

At 67 Elvis C came storming into 2022 with one of his best latter-day career albums. Opening track ‘Farewell OK’ is a distant offspring of ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’ and elsewhere it is obvious that Elvis is still a fan of Ron Sexsmith (the chorus of ‘Mistook me for a friend’ is vintage Sexsmith) and ‘all things Fab Four’, but most of all does his own unique thing in a collection of superb songs with typical Costello-barbs backed up by the fantastic Imposters. This Elvis has definitely re-entered the building!

10. Bret McKenzie – Songs Without Joke

Remember that hilarious TV-show ‘Flight of the Conchords’ about a New Zealand folk duo who are desperately trying to break through musically? Of this musical couple, Bret McKenzie was clearly the more talented one (he even won an Oscar for a Muppet Show song he wrote) which is now witnessed by this debut album which hovers between Harry Nilsson, a less sarcastic Randy Newman and Gilbert O’Sullivan-inspired songs and in its best moments even reminds of the great Billy Joel (“If You Wanna Go”). No groundbreaking new music, but just a great feel-good album with a collection of songs in a variety of styles.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS (in no particular order):

Taylor Swift - Midnights

Harry Styles – Harry’s House

Arctic Monkeys – The Car

Kendrick Lamar – Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers

Rosalia - Motomami

Marcus Mumford – (self titled)