I'm not sure what makes 2022 stand out. It felt, as a year, unremarkable. At least unremarkable in its unchanging strangeness. Musically the year started strong, and stayed strong. Unlike 2021, I spent my time keeping up-to-date, not listening to older stuff. My most listened to album was Aldous Harding's
Warm Chris from 2022 (ranked #15). I listened to more Metal and Country this year, but still returned to my favorite weirdos. I also decided to stop reviewing albums released in December. Those releases will get their due in 2023. I picked the title of this year's curation, Spanish for "I transform" from the song SAOKO, off of Rosalía's revelatory third album
MOTOMAMI.
Some numbers: I listened to 186 albums and EPs, had 148 standout favorites that were whittled down to 50 (which means you shouldn't sleep on anything that didn't make the Top 50). I marked these favorites with a star ★. According to Spotify, I listened to over 205,153 minutes and my favorite genre was Art Pop (for the 5th year in a row).
I rated these albums before reading any top album lists. I found my closest match in Pitchfork's list, but there was a lot of variation in top album lists this year (though not for the #1 album). See how my selections match up to the
NYTimes,
Pitchfork,
NPR,
Consequence Of Sound,
Stereogum,
The Guardian, and
The Needle Drop.