This was music’s emancipation year. After 18 months of delay, restraint and career/identity crises, pop music returned – rejuvenated – to the dancefloor, flouting a revived sexual confidence (TMI Charli XCX, Rosalia, Beyonce?) but also struggling with a hangover of pandemic introspection (Mitski, Rina Sawayama, Beyonce again: u ok huns?). Its lockdown listening appeared to have exploded its horizons; industrial rock, experimental electronics and a leftfield sonic mindset were wholeheartedly embraced by the mainstream, making ear-widening, genre-fluid pop records virtually the norm.
Alternative acts, meanwhile, pivoted away from the ghetto. Yard Act, Fontaines DC and Wet Leg evolved the post-punk and sprechgesang trends in more accessible directions, the latter act even defying the algorithm’s diktat of conformity to shed welcome light on their eclectic Isle Of Wight scene, turning heads to the wonderful Plastic Mermaids. There was oversharing and tubthumping aplenty in 2022, but largely in the spirit of musical renaissance and tentative celebration. And here are the records most worth celebrating.
20. Lizzo – Special
Continuing to carbonate the global mood, Lizzo flute-funks it up throughout this fabulous motivational disco record. Only the most churlish could resist her goofy-cussy invitation to celebrate “bad bitch o’clock”. But you’ll have to bust some moves to keep up with the tendon-twanging pace because, as she warns us on “The Sign”: “I’ve been training, I can flex that ass/ So when I shake it, I can shake it fast.” Shimmering with spandex-sprung winks at glitterball classics from the likes of Chic, Irene Cara and Gloria Estefan, this is a big-hearted, beautiful sung party album for all ages. HB
19. Wet Leg – Wet Leg
Entirely justifying last year’s rush of excitement around “Chaise Longue”, the Isle Of Wight duo’s debut album was the sort of immaculate indie pop collection that entire scenes used to be built around. Its infectious melodies, where Blur and The Cardigans met early PJ Harvey, seemed effortlessly plucked from the ether, its concerns – fragile love, frank lust, shopping on drugs – were casually modern and its charm was utterly beguiling. Glastonbury flocked, the Grammys knocked and any talk of “this generation’s Ting Tings” was roundly silenced. MB
18. Plastic Mermaids – It’s Not Comfortable to Grow
If Spiritualized’s Jason Pierce was particularly arsed about playing Reading & Leeds again, Plastic Mermaids’ second album is the sort of record you’d imagine him making. The Isle of Wight five-piece – sometime cohorts of Wet Leg – imbued the vast yet vulnerable textures of Pierce, Grandaddy and The Flaming Lips with the electronic alt-pop gloss and boyband hooks of The 1975 or Glass Animals and emerged as the grand indie showstoppers of their generation. MB
17. Ezra Furman – All of Us Flames
Or Torn In The USA. Ezra Furman’s fuzz-scorched evocations of classic rock’n’roll, drivetime synth rock and Springsteen largesse have rarely been as welcoming as on her eighth album, all the better to illuminate pressing themes of gender identity, transgressive sexuality, religious dilemma and feeling lost and afraid in a combative post-pandemic society. “Lilac and Black” was a tormented trans power anthem; “Ally Sheedy In The Breakfast Club” a moving portrait of gender envy; “Come Close” a ballad that found romance in snatched moments of furtive sex with hobos and truckers. A deeply personal proclamation of an album then, but also a call for a culture war ceasefire. MB
16. Rina Sawayama – This Hell
Few records of 2022 justified critical comparisons to Lady Gaga, AC/DC, Paramore, The Corrs and The Village People, but that Rina Sawayama’s second album encompassed all this and far more is testament to her comprehensive grasp on pop culture. More introspective than her 2020 debut Sawayama, Hold The Girl set weighty topics – childhood trauma, the immigrant experience, religious erosion of LGBT rights – to country pop, industrial rock, hi-NRG dance, even a dash of bhangra. The title was a supportive embrace for her younger self, but it was clear nothing was going to hold the girl back. MB
15. Phoenix – Alpha Zulu
Rammed with edgy, elastic beats, restless melodies and quirky, stream-of-conscious philosophy, Alpha Zulu saw the French hipsters channelling Talking Heads at their finest. This album was recorded inside the Louvre during the pandemic, and Thomas Mars drew eclectic inspiration from the strange mix of artefacts. Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter was drafted in for production, bringing crispness to their clever, quirky-jerky style. Addictive. HB
14. Mitski – Laurel Hell
Light relief: the sleeve of Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’
“Who will I be tonight?” Mitski Miyawaki deadpanned at the opening of her long-awaited sixth album and the following half-hour of lyrical soul-searching and sonic shape-shifting dug deep on the conundrum. A self-proclaimed “album for transformation” which went through punk and country iterations before ending up as introspective and experimental electronic pop, Laurel Hell wrapped songs of self-forgiveness, heartbreak and insomnia in gentle melodic drones, industrial dream pop, dark dance beats and bright orchestral disco. Tonight, it transpired, Mitski would be alt-pop’s lugubrious Lorde. MB
13. Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You
A rather cumbersome title for such an easy-going album. But the darlings of American indie-folk polished their craft to mellow, organic perfection on this collection of beautiful, heartfelt songs. Adrienne Lenker has a magpie’s beady eye for the details that makes her lyrics resonate. Against a creaking, woody backdrop of acoustic guitar, fiddle, accordion and harp she sings of sweet honey stirred into hot tea, dried roses, ivy, eagles, apples and “crows gnawing on the dawn”. Nourishing. HB
12. Spoon – Lucifer on the Sofa
Soulful mood: Stormzy
Gleaming form: Charli XCX
