not another year end list...
music that made my life worth living in 2022
Such a glut of new media this year; we are lucky indeed. With a tremendous wealth of content it makes sense that we feel the need to rank and order, to pick the pearls out from the mud and present them urgently to the swine. I loved living in 2022. Thank you for joining me this year, in the extended adolescence of our third millennium. Here is a brief list of some things that were meaningful to me.
I had “Bad Love” by Dehd on repeat as I ran away from an unhappy affair in St. Louis. I listened to Wednesday’s album of covers as I brooded over an unhappy affair in Chicago. I wept driving over the Donner Pass listening to the new Big Thief as it snowed. I listened to a lot of music and it still somehow felt like not enough.
The best show I saw this year was the bewildering Turnstile-JPEGMAFIA-Snail Mail tour (but not because of Snail Mail). I think Turnstile’s relatively mainstream position among hardcore bands is primarily because the lead singer is hot. I think Snail Mail’s music is flagrantly overrated, and find Lindsay Jordan’s general attitude lamentable.
The two albums I loved the most this year are “Squeeze” by SASAMI and Florist’s self-titled release. Both were tremendous and inventive and felt truly exciting and fresh. The new Bug Bath was a game changer– “Coward Song” and “When I Wanted U” are both transcendent, truly a jewel of the Reno scene. Alvvays (“Belinda Says,” my god). “Roll the Dice” by Sunflower Bean. “Next to Me” by Cheekface. What a treat to have a new Dear Nora album for the first time in 4 years! I think the perfect guitar tone can be found in “sinaloa restaurant.” The Soul Glo release was phenomenal, I desperately want to see them live. I thought the new Mitski was just okay. Alex G got enough attention.
That’s all for now. Tell me if I left your favorite off. Or, if you’d like, share a particularly vivid moment you experienced with new music in 2022.