The 39 Best Albums of 2022: Our Favorite Music of the Year So Far

best thoughts, thinking about smiling
–
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4AD
Aldous Harding:Warm Chris
Best Moment: The culmination of "Leathery Whip," where a chorus of voices sing "Here comes life with his leathery whip"—an essential metaphor in Harding's particular oeuvre
Best Song: "Staring at the Henry Moore"
RIYL: The Muppets, staring contests, PJ Harvey, grimacing
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Jagjaguwar
Angel Olsen:Big Time
Best Moment: When Olsen belts "I'm dancing, baby/But I feel like dying" on "Go Home," as waves of piano and voice rise and crash behind her
Best Song: "This Is How It Works"
RIYL: Doo-wop hooks, pedal steel, country longing
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Domino
Animal Collective:Time Skiffs
Best Moment: The ending of "Strung With Everything," which at first sounds like it will drift and dissolve into ambience but instead explodes into ecstatic, fist-pumping call-and-response
Best Song: "We Go Back"
RIYL: Skittering insects, midafternoon reveries, mild mushroom trips, sweltering summers, pond-surface reflections, old-friend reunions
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music |Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Escho
Astrid Sonne:Ephemeral Camera Feed
Best Moment: The arpeggiated synths maneuvering through the crowd's idle chatter on "Ephemeral V"
Best Song: "Ephemeral II"
RIYL: The expansive sound of Julianna Barwick, the somatic euphoria of being sonically pummeled while standing in a crowded space surrounded by strangers
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Studio Barnhus
Axel Boman:LUZ / Quest for Fire
Best Moment: How the cool, melodious raps on the first half of "BHUKA" build enough momentum to burst over dazzling arpeggiated synths by the end
Best Song: "BHUKA" (LUZ), "Stone Age Jazz" (Quest for Fire)
RIYL: Tender embraces, DJ Koze, wistful summer nights, saturated color displays
LUZ: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp |Spotify | Tidal
Quest for Fire: Amazon | Apple Music |Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Rimas
Bad Bunny: Un Verano Sin Ti
Best Moment: When "Después de la Playa" switches up from a morose trap ballad swirling in synthesizers to a raucous Dominican mambo engineered to flood the dancefloor
Best Song: "Después de la Playa"
RIYL: Trapchata, perreo on the beach
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music |Spotify | Tidal
4AD
Big Thief:Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You
Best Moment: The overly muted acoustic guitars that sound like a cartoon character hitting their head on a succession of hanging frying pans on "Time Escaping"
Best Song: "The Only Place"
RIYL: John Prine, trying to describe just how much you love someone, the faint smell of Dave Matthews Band
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Run for Cover
Camp Cope:Running With the Hurricane
Best Moment: When Georgia Maq screams "Look out boys, I'm on fire, and I'm not going out" at the towering eye of the title track
Best Song: "The Screaming Planet"
RIYL: Emo-country with feminist agency, vulnerability as a tool of liberation, songs about women's desires, double texting, the will to change
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Mexican Summer
Cate Le Bon:Pompeii
Best Moment: The riveting journey Le Bon's voice takes on "French Boys," the high notes cascading into her beautifully droll low register as she chews over this line: "French boys are making me wait"
Best Song: "Moderation"
RIYL: Elastic echoing guitars that are nearly inscrutable from elastic echoing synths, the paintings of Tim Presley, taking every fear that you have and sending them to Pompeii
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music |Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Atlantic
Charli XCX:Crash
Best Moment: Every time Charli says "baby" in "Baby"
Best Song: "Good Ones"
RIYL: Poppers, the clerb, ugly fashion sneakers, the original Techno Viking, "Bunny Is a Rider"
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music |Spotify | Tidal
DEEWEE
Charlotte Adigéry / Bolis Pupul: Topical Dancer
Best Moment: The endless rollicking laughter that guides the melody through "HAHA"
Best Song: "It Hit Me"
RIYL: Electro-pop bangers, campy winks, sarcastic POC wit
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Merge
Destroyer:Labyrinthitis
Best Moment: When the record ends with a lo-fi acoustic singalong that could have fit on a 1990s Destroyer record, and you realize how much ground Dan Bejar has covered since those days
Best Song: "June"
RIYL: Getting lost in a movie without following the plot, books so long they're impractical to take on vacation
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Tan Cressida / Warner
Earl Sweatshirt:Sick!
Best Moment: The burp at the beginning of "Lye"
Best Song: "Fire in the Hole"
RIYL: Thoughtful vibes, spiritual absolution, MF Doom, Luck
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Young
FKA twigs:Caprisongs
Best Moment: The 13 seconds of screwed, slowed-down vocals in the breakdown on "oh my love" that sound like monsters making love
Best Song: "lightbeamers"
RIYL: Feelings of desire, angelic incantations, (happy) tears in the club
–Clover Hope
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GC
Hook: From, Hook
Best Moment: Hook laughing maniacally over a menacing melody and distorted kick drums on "LMAO"
Best Song: "LAnd"
RIYL: Skits on '90s rap albums, riding the line between sincerity and irony, moshing in your car in traffic, dunking on people on and offline
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music |Spotify | Tidal
Incienso
Huerco S.:Plonk
Best Moment: Any time the Kansas City producer takes a cool stream of ambient sound, freezes it, and chops it into tiny ice cubes, which then rain down like a dub-techno hailstorm
Best Song: "Plonk III"
RIYL: Basic Channel played back in a walk-in cooler in zero gravity
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4AD
Jenny Hval:Classic Objects
Best Moment: The glorious sophistipop of "American Coffee"—who else in pop music can make us groove to lyrics about watching The Passion of Joan of Arc while "having a UTI"?
Best Song: "American Coffee"
RIYL: Female genius in pop music, subtly epic songwriting
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New West
Joshua Hedley: Neon Blue
Best Moment: The little steely wiggle right after Hedley sings "bluer than the sound of a steel guitar crying" at the end of "Neon Blue"
Best Song: "Broke Again"
RIYL: The yeehaw agenda, Telecasters, last call, neon moons
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Self-released
Junglepussy:JP5000
Best Moment: When Junglepussy rhymes "cost" and "nervous" on "Movie Screen"
Best Song: "Mystical"
RIYL: Bars, dollar pizza, meeting the love of your life at a Foreign Exchange show
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Sony UK / RCA
Koffee: Gifted
Best Moment: The way Koffee lilts "I wanna just party" on the breezy "West Indies," turning a common phrase into a rallying cry for good times
Best Song: "Lonely"
RIYL: Stress-relieving beach strolls, lovers rock, eschewing loneliness, general uplift
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music |Spotify | Tidal
Hardcover / RCA
Leikeli47:Shape Up
Best Moment: The slow build of the beat throughout "Zoom"
Best Song: "Secret Service"
RIYL: House beats, undisputable hooks
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Dear Life
MJ Lenderman:Boat Songs
Best Moment: When Lenderman expresses solidarity with a supposedly flu-stricken Michael Jordan on "Hangover Game": "Yeah, I love drinking too."
Best Song: "You Are Every Girl to Me"
RIYL: Sports, indie rock memes, icy brews, fuzzy guitars
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music |Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
ATO
Nilüfer Yanya:Painless
Best Moment: he storm front of guitar distortion that thickens around "Midnight Sun," out of which Yanya's falsetto beams: "always I did it for ya!"
Best Song: "Midnight Sun"
RIYL: The xx, Radiohead's The Bends,alternating waves of euphoria and dysphoria
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music |Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
G.O.O.D. Music / Def Jam
Pusha T: It's Almost Dry
Best Moment: When Malice arrives to close the album with a brief but triumphant Clipse reunion, and opens his verse by asking "Tell me what I missed"
Best Song: "Call My Bluff"
RIYL: Icy luxury, playful threats, the old adage that Inuit people have 50 words for snow, except in this case by snow we mean cocaine
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music |Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Atlantic
Ravyn Lenae:Hypnos
Best Moment: The bridge of "Light Me Up," where Lenae's falsetto reaches an exquisite, seemingly impossible upper register
Best Song: "Light Me Up"
RIYL: Steve Lacy's warped guitar melodies, flirting on the dancefloor, '90s R&B
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music |Spotify | Tidal
Columbia
Rosalía:MOTOMAMI
Best Moment: The sonorous, semi-nonsense raps of "Chicken Teriyaki" and "Saoko," where she sculpts her voice like a glinting blade and emerges as one of the stealthiest pop threats of the present day
Best Song: "Saoko"
RIYL: Reggaetón turned inside out
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music |Spotify | Tidal
Forever Living Originals
Sault: Air
Best Moment: When the brass first crashes into the choir on "Reality"
Best Song: "June 55"
RIYL: High drama choral music, epic film scores, Basil Poledouris
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music |Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Jagjaguwar
Sharon Van Etten: We've Been Going About This All Wrong
Best Moment: The buildup in "Darkness Fades" at about 1:24, when the drums and keys kick in
Best Song: "Home to Me"
RIYL: Cat Power, Mazzy Star, watching your memories in slow motion through an old film projector
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music |Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal