The last year has been a strong one for music. While COVID-19 isn’t exactly over, its shadow on music has receded, with many acts getting back to business as usual with touring and festivals moving back into full swing. As my Spotify Wrapped reveals, it was also a year in which my own listening leaned heavily into nostalgia. If I’m being fully honest, my favorite albums of 2022 are probably ones that came out a decade or two ago. But in terms of new albums, this year was packed with surprises. This list contains some old favorites of mine, but it also contains left-field contenders, artists I’d never heard of until a standout track caught my ear. 

Unlike some other year-end music roundups, I am in no way claiming that this list represents an authoritative record of the best music of 2022. I didn’t listen to nearly enough new music this year to make that claim. Nor is this a list with much importance given to its rankings. Yes, there are numbers on it, but take them as loose indicators of preference more than anything else. This list is simply a compilation of ten albums that made this whirlwind year a little more enjoyable for me. If you think your tastes might align with mine, I invite you to listen along.

10: ATEEZ – The World EP.1: Movement

Sounds Like: Intense, dystopian dance anthems

Recommended Track: “Cyberpunk”

Eight-member boy band ATEEZ are masters of high-drama K-pop, and, on their latest EP, the intended kickoff to a series, they conjure an enthralling science fictional world across seven high-intensity tracks. The group’s longtime collaborators, the production group Edenary, give the songs a richly produced musical backdrop, blending orchestral flair, techno synths, and hip-hop beats as the members’ vocals run the gamut from soaring operatic belting to gruff rapping to metal-inspired screams. 

9: ONE OK ROCK – Luxury Disease

Sounds Like: Theatrical, punchy pop rock

Recommended Track: “Save Yourself”

In their tenth studio album, whose title is an English translation of the band’s first album Zeitakubyō, Japanese pop-rock titans ONE OK ROCK put forward a polished body of work that smoothly incorporates the wide range of sounds the band has inhabited throughout their nearly two-decade career, from hardcore punk to lilting acoustic pop. Overseen by producer Rob Cavallo, who is known for work on such rock epics as Green Day’s American Idiot and My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade, this album has a sense of sonic grandeur, underpinned by the band’s impeccable ear for hooks and frontman Taka Moriuchi’s piercing tenor. 

8: Mitski – Laurel Hell 

Sounds Like: Indie gloom with a twinkling synth sheen

Recommended Track: “Love Me More”

Mitski’s latest album builds on the eclectic sonic palette of 2018’s Be The Cowboy, this time leaning further into the synthesizer-dependent sounds of the 1980s. While Mitski’s signature characteristics, her emotional openness and soft, raw voice, remain as present as ever on Laurel Hell, a more upbeat range of instrumentation provides a sometimes-ironic counterpoint to the more downbeat lyrics, including grim meditation on her own fame and the very creative process which produced this album. 

7: ky vöss – the after

Sounds Like: Fizzy synth-pop beats with a melancholic undertone

Recommended Track: “N.E. Thing”

New York-based musician ky vöss is one of my favorite new musical discoveries of the last year. I started listening to them after seeing their set opening for Beach Bunny (who, despite being favorites of mine, did not make this list, as I found their latest LP, Emotional Creature, a slight step back). vöss’s music is a rich sonic brew of dazzling synth tones, driving 808 percussion, and heavily filtered vocals, with equal shades of M83 and Grimes. Contrasting this sparkling sound, the lyrics on the after see vöss contending with abuse, trauma, and addiction in deeply self-aware and introspective ways, lending a dark lining to their bright pop confections. 

6: Rico Nasty – Las Ruinas

Sounds Like: Kaleidoscopic, in-your-face hip-hop experimentalism

Recommended Track: “Black Punk”

Las Ruinas, the latest from rapper (and Spring Fling 2019 performer) Rico Nasty is, depending on who you ask, a mixtape or an album. Whatever it is, it is undoubtedly a captivating collection of eclectic tracks, exploring everything from growling trap to vocoded hyperpop to acoustic emo ballads alongside a long list of collaborators, including Teezo Touchdown, Marshmello, and 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady. While Rico Nasty is best known for her brash, near-shouted vocals and proclamations of extreme confidence, and she doesn’t shy away from it here, Las Ruinas also features moments of tender vulnerability and introspection in equal measure. 

5: The 1975 – Being Funny in a Foreign Language

Sounds Like: Hooky, 80s-tinged, heart-on-its-sleeve pop

Recommended Track: “Looking For Somebody (To Love)”

On their latest album, The 1975 are in top form, combining sonic experimentation with instantly catchy pop hooks, all held together by frontman Matty Healy’s characteristically tongue-in-cheek, stream-of-consciousness lyricism. The band’s knack for airy indie pop-rock is given an 80s-inspired twist, courtesy of production from pop superproducer Jack Antonoff. While there are shades of Bleachers, the Antonoff-fronted solo project, in Being Funny in a Foreign Language, the songwriting, alongside with Healy’s light, often sardonic delivery, are classically The 1975. 

4: Haru Nemuri – SHUNKA RYOUGEN

Sounds Like: A hypnotic blend of punk, pop, shoegaze, and spoken word

Recommended Track: “Bang”

The music of Japanese singer-songwriter and self-described poetry rapper Haru Nemuri often seems contradictory. Her music is, at times, distorted, guitar-heavy, and noisy. At others, it’s breezy and pop-friendly. But while its elements may not sound harmonious on paper, on her latest LP, SHUNKA RYOUGEN, which means spring fire lighting the field ablaze, they blend into a captivatingly unique whole. The album references philosopher Jacques Derrida and his concept of déconstruction as its lyrics reference challenges both personal and global, while ultimately landing on an uplifting, optimistic note. 

3: Weezer – SZNZ: Autumn

Sounds Like: Power pop earworms with a nervy synth edge

Recommended Track: “Can’t Dance, Don’t Ask Me”

As I wrote in my review in September, Weezer is an incredibly prolific band. Autumn is their third EP of four coming out this year (Winter is coming out on Dec. 21). Even though I’m a fan, that doesn’t mean I’ll automatically like everything they do; even the first two installments of SZNZ were mixed bags. That being said, Autumn contains some of the band’s best music in years, taking their famously hooky, heart-on-its-sleeve songwriting and infusing it with high-strung synthesizers and shuffling dance-punk rhythms. The result is a short and sweet collection of songs with everything from brief, intense shots of self-loathing to soaring rock epics. 

2: Kendrick Lamar – Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers

Sounds Like: Sprawling, introspective rap confessionals

Recommended Track: “Father Time”

In the five years since Kendrick Lamar’s last album, DAMN., the mystique over his next one only grew. How, fans wondered, would he follow up an album that won him a Grammy, a Pulitzer Prize, and wide proclamation as a modern-day musical prophet? On the epic double album Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, Lamar, rather than taking on the world’s problems, takes a look at himself, how he’s struggled with fame, mental health, and his upbringing, rejecting those who’d put him on a pedestal and proclaiming, “I am not your savior.” Of course, an album is only as good as its music, and Mr. Morale also sounds great, containing everything from brisk trap bangers to spare, experimental meditations. 

1: beabadoobee – Beatopia

Sounds Like: Dreamy, wistful grunge-pop contemplation

Recommended Track: “10:36”

On her sophomore LP, the UK singer-songwriter truly comes into her own, lyrically navigating the challenges of modern romance and intimacy over a sonic landscape that ranges from effect pedal-heavy guitar pop to tender acoustic ballads. While beabadoobee wears her influences—from The 1975 to Pavement—on her sleeve, here she’s grown enough as a musician and artist to also have a cohesive voice all her own, crafting the greatest-ever soundtrack to a nonexistent coming-of-age movie I’ve ever heard. 

 

Oscar Kim Bauman can be reached at obauman@wesleyan.edu.