Despite the SEO-engineered perfection of this article’s title, it is decidedly not a list of the “best albums" of 2022. Best of lists are inescapably subjective; I am but one author, and in cases like these, chasing comprehension and chasing imperfection are one in the same. Also, there are no fewer than 147 "best of" lists already scattered across Digital Hell. This being at least the 148th, I personally don’t think it’s necessary to present a list of already deservingly lauded albums.
Ask those closest to me, and they’ll tell you I harbor a mind-boggling aversion to cleaning up as I go along. (Despite my love for time in the kitchen, I admit I would never make it in the restaurant industry). Like Gabriella Hamilton, I prefer to survey the damage, and take the opportunity to clean as a (paradoxical) catharsis: savoring what memories remain of a good time, now gone. All year-end lists — for movies or books or the Lacrosse All-Name Team — possess an opportunity for cleanup duty. I’ve undoubtedly missed so much over the past 11 months, but now I get to see the roster of all of the things that have brought so many different people so many kinds of joy. And maybe, I can add some of it to my life.
So, here are some albums that I really dug to varying degrees: some throughout the year, some for a few weeks. Some of them I sent to friends after I listened to only one track; some of them came heavily recommended. One of them I missed until, like, a week before I was supposed to write this (sorry, Abel).
Let’s listen to some stuff!
Céclile McLorin Salvant
“Ghost Song”
“Ghost Song,” Cecile McLorin Salvant's Nonesuch Records debut, opens with phantom melismas that introduce an interpretation of Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights," setting the tone for an album concerned about ghosts, shades, memory, nostalgia — whatever you call the ethereal residue that persists beyond the body. With Aaron Diehl (piano), Kyle Poole (drums) and Paul Sikivie (Bass), Salvant has created the rare artifact that, upon first listen, receives unconditional surrender. The fluidity and clarity of her voice is a river — untouched by pollutants, moving unencumbered to its mouth — carrying you to its end, to face the love of what was, but is no more. Or forever.
Pusha-T
“It’s Almost Dry”
Four years passed between Pusha T's last studio outing, "Daytona,” and 2022's “It's Almost Dry.” That is not a long time, but it feels like one, thanks to an isolating pandemic and the fact that fans have gotten really bad at cultivating patience between projects.
Apart from the album title's obvious cocaine connotations, it's also a rebuke to those clamoring for something new before it's ready — before the paint is dry on a canvas. And it was well worth waiting for the rapper to weave menacing stories of mafioso, with perfect annunciation, over beats constructed by Pharrell Williams and Ye (though Thornton has since expressed his disappointment with the latter's antisemitism). Could you rush a collaboration with the eternally busy rapper-cum-art collector Jay Z? Or with the other half of Clipse, Pusha’s elusive brother No Malice (credited on the album with his erstwhile nom de plume MALICE)? Or with Labrinth, between his "Euphoria" commitments? I didn't think so, either.
Immanuel Wilkins
“The 7th Hand”
“The 7th Hand” sees Immanuel Wilkins on a spiritual mission, via a seven-part suite that seeks to capture the divine essence of that mystical number. Accordingly, Wilkins — or some other high power — breathes life to the album, which is at turns active and contemplative.
The quartet's music — Wilkins (saxophone), Michael Thomas (piano), Daryl Johns (bass) and Kweku Sumbry (drums) — is reinforced by contributions from the Farafina Kan Percussion Ensemble and flautist Elena Pinderhughes, whose presence augments the core with new textures and sonic possibilities (please see: "Don't Break" and "Witness").
The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge; Daniel Hyde, conductor
“Now the Green Blade Riseth: Music For Easter”
Several years ago, composer Nico Muhly wrote that choral music was "slow food for the soul." There may be no better five-word characterization of any musical tradition. It's an immense privilege, today, to be able to feed oneself with an album of Eastertide (and, technically, Holy Week) jams whenever you please.
Here, Daniel Hyde and the Choir of King's College, Cambridge plumb the depths of the human emotion, sail to glittering heights on the backs of ascendant descant lines, and deliver the dynamic solemnity and unmitigated joy in equal measure.
Brandon Coleman
“Interstellar Black Space”
When I first listened to ”Interstellar Black Space,” I gave it about 8 minutes before I decided it would be a finalist for personal album of the year.
Brandon Coleman's sophomore album is an instant mood boost; a cornucopia of wet, synth-funk that has you seeing sound. An album should be able to take you places, and this one does. You'll end up in a hyper-funky space. That's black. And also interstellar.
Jean Dawson
“Chaos Now”
Earlier this year, a friend in a group chat lamented the days when angsty, emo, withdrawn, guitar-driven pop ruled the teenage zeitgeist. Whatever happened to it, they wondered? Jean Dawson's head-banging third album did. In songs like "GLORY," he rages against friends and family. In "BAD FRUIT," he teams up with Earl Sweatshirt to express the frustration of being undesirable, seeking solace only in destruction. We want angst! We want "Chaos"! Now!
Moor Mother
“Jazz Codes”
Camae Ayewa is one half of Black Quantum Futurism (alongside author and artist Rasheedah Phillips), and the objectives of that collective are on full display in "Jazz Codes," her latest Moor Mother project. The word is the sound, and the sound yields to music; music that is concerned with all its identities and spaces in Black musical traditions. References abound to Duke and Billie and Coltrane in these warped and sometimes dissonant soundscapes. In the closer, Thomas Stanley reads of a future where "we can dance the Juba into New Congo Square that Sonny has built for us / Between the rings of Saturn, between C-sharp and B-natural."
Nilüfer Yanya
“Painless”
When Nilüfer Yanya’s debut album, “Miss Universe,” dropped, I thought it was a top-tier summer listen: a gold aura pervaded the selections despite its more-than-mildly dystopian themes and concept. But “Painless” is a perfect companion in contrast; its winter sadness to Universe’s summer madness. “Painless,” is above all, a cold album.
But despite the album existing as a voice crying out in a wilderness, "Painless" is still a variegated listening experience. “The Dealer” begins with drumming that’s nostalgic for ‘90s jungle music. “Stabalise” is a song that, in its manic quickness, feels like it’s about to fall apart at any minute. In “L/R,” she wields the saz, a choice of string instrument that’s a nod to her Turkish roots. And above this wintry expanse hangs “Midnight Sun,” where you can practically hear the icicles hang off of the music. Thematically, “Painless” is far from a jolly listen, but it is a manual for finding your voice and seizing a new confidence.
Abel Selaocoe
“Where is Home (Hae Ke Kae)”
The cello — or rather, someone who bows it — carries sonorous, yet weighty, expectations. This is the instrument of Bach’s cello preludes, Dvořák’s concertos, Beethoven’s quartets and Mendelssohn’s trios. It’s an old instrument with a tradition to match, but in Abel Selaocoe's debut, he reminds listeners that there’s always room for expansion; a need to bring your own aesthetic sensibilities to your instrument, not vice versa. He makes extensive use of his own voice (the one from your body, not the instrument), tapping into the tradition of umngqokolo— a South African throat singing — and programming his own compositions alongside aforementioned Bach preludes and a Platti cello sonata. And even then, his presence is well-known, as he layers vocals on a Bach sarabande and augments the Platti sonata with Kadialy Kouyate’s kora.
Goat
“Oh Death”
There is perhaps no band of the last decade more mystifying than Goat, a Swedish outfit concerned with its own myth-making as much as its production of consistently interesting music. “Oh Death,” in line with their previous releases, continues their commitment to an aesthetic incongruous to the popular image of Scandinavia: from the album’s opening with the menacing quote from of the Hearse song ("Did you ever think, when the hearse goes by / that someday you are going to die?") to the untamed saxophone of “Under No Nation,” the echoes of Black Sabbath on “Blow the Horns.”
Goat is like a band that took study abroad about as seriously as you could take it, and “Oh Death” is their end-of-semester project that the experience of those late, hard nights as much as the technique learned in the classrooms.
Originally, I tried to close this list out with a list of 22 additional albums I got excited about in 2022. But, for the sake of formatting — and your precious time — I ran (all but two of) them through a random number generator and came back with these seven picks. I’ll probably list the rest in a Twitter thread or something, for whatever that’s still worth.
Beyoncé
"Renaissance"
Because, between the affirmations of “COZY” running perpendicular to boxy bass; the skate-rink funk of “Cuff It”; the hype of Big Freida on “Energy” and “Break My Soul”; the homage to Donna Summer on “Summer Renaissance”; or it’s comfortable identity as house pastiche, the songs of "Renaissance" have a relationship with each other. That’s what makes a good album more than a collection of good songs.
SZA
"SOS"
With a Dec. 9 release date, this album is a shining example of why you wait until the 11th hour to publish your end-of-year lists.
Lupe Fiasco
"Drill Music in Zion"
Because of bars like: "I was in Roxbury on Malcolm X block / Talking that talk that got Malcolm X watched / Trying to pick up where Malcolm X stopped / Only game I play is a Malcolm X … box."
Robert Glasper
"Black Radio III"
Because of the features: Amir Sulaiman, Killer Mike, BJ The Chicago Kid, Big K.R.I.T., D Smoke, Tiffany Gouché, Q-Tip, Esperanza Spalding, Yebba, H.E.R. and Meshell Ndegeocello — and that's only half of them.
Maren Morris
"Humble Quest"
I promise you will find a suitable karaoke standard thanks to this album, which probably isn’t available on karaoke machines. Yet.
Cuarteto Latinoamericano
"Ruperto Chapi: String Quartets Nos. 3 & 4"
It’s a shame that Ruperto Chapi is so underrecorded, let alone these two string quartets from his small chamber oeuvre. They’re perfectly mischievous and dying to be the musical backdrop to relatively innocuous antics, like experimenting on Thanksgiving.
Samara Joy
"Linger Awhile"
Because she’s not even 25, and demonstrates a profoundly mature voice that doesn’t take a single note for granted in these songbook deep cuts. And that’s before we get to how sparkling the combo is — this is a band so well produced that you can hear its glint, as light on a wine glass.
