The Best Albums of 2022

1. Beyoncé – Renaissance

After so much time indoors in the past quarter decade, the urge to go out, get sweaty, and dance with somebody who loves you has never been stronger. Beyoncé knows this as well as she knows her own worth — she’s number one, the only one, the alien superstar — and in 2022 she gifted us earthlings with an endlessly replayable and infectiously fun record that pays tribute to the predominantly Black and queer history of the art form while capturing the transcendent and unifying power of dance music. Renaissance goes hard in its braggadocious boasts and heavy, gyrating beats on standouts like “PURE/HONEY” and “MOVE” (the latter featuring disco legend Grace Jones in full form), but it also has a softer, joyous side in summery hits like “CUFF IT” and “PLASTIC OFF THE SOFA.” Get you a record that does both. No album this year gave me such an intense and lasting reaction, the best work yet from the artist of the moment. It’s so good, it’s so good, it’s so good.

1. SZA – SOS

Leave it to SZA to wait until the tail end of 2022 to release SOS and almost run away with the whole thing. An ambitious, messy, and radiant follow-up to her 2017 release CTRL, one of the best R&B albums in recent memory, SOS is a double album in a year of double albums: a flex of the singer’s creativity and deep, almost uncomfortable knowledge of herself, her needs, and her shortcomings. While SOS offers plenty of the alternating heartache and neo-soul swagger we saw on her debut, the singer isn’t afraid to try something new, whether it’s the Olivia Rodrigo-adjacent “F2F,” her impressive bars on “Low,” or the teary singer-songwriter twang of “Nobody Gets Me.” SOS occasionally feels weighed down by its own ambition, but more often it soars on the strength of SZA’s excellent songwriting, buttery voice, and armour-piercing honesty. It’s the gift that keeps on giving: the stars align on outstanding Phoebe Bridgers duet “Ghost in the Machine,” CTRL standout “Normal Girl” gets a sequel in “Special,” and we get an ex-lover revenge fantasy for the ages in “Kill Bill.” SOS has it all, and it’s a confident and well-realized manifesto for one of our most gifted musicians.

1. Björk – Fossora

Björk has long been in a league of her own, carving out her place in the canon with an otherworldly sound that is so unique it has led to as many excellent impressions as it has effusive praise. Part of the joy of every new Björk album is seeing whether she can top herself, and after a stretch in the mid-2000s where it seemed the highs of Homogenic and Vespertine would never be reached again, the singer’s past half-decade has been like the second coming. Fossora is another home run, an ethereal and deeply yonic masterpiece that centers on heartbreak, matrilineality, and a deep affection for bass clarinets and fungi. The unique joy of Björk’s vocal deliveries and bizarrely perfect lyrics are matched by the album’s alternatingly sorrowful and whimsical arrangements, with an assist from Iceland’s Hamrahlid Choir. All of it makes for some of the singer’s best work on record, a joyfully complex and rewarding late career highlight.

1. Black Country, New Road – Ants from Up There

More than any other album I listened to this year, Ants from Up There felt Big. Look no further than its cathartic “Intro,” a nonstop aural assault of woodwinds and galloping drums. It doesn’t stop there: every song on Black Country, New Road’s sophomore slam dunk is a world unto itself. Every emotion is in surround sound, and lead vocalist Isaac Wood’s delivery is part emo, part David Bowie circa Ziggy. It’s almost overwhelming at times — specifically in the raw emotion on display in standouts “The Place Where He Inserted the Blade” and post-rock adjacent closer “Basketball Shoes” — but there’s a well-earned catharsis in each listen, and the sense that we’re hearing a band with an almost blindingly bright future, Wood’s departure earlier this year notwithstanding. Ants from Up There belongs near the top of any best-of 2022 list, if not for its excellence than at least for its ambition and scale. It swings for the fences and succeeds against all odds.

1. Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You

I listened to more Big Thief than almost any other artist this year, and their bountiful double album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You is a big reason why. As varied and exploratory as its free association title, Dragon New is the synthesis of everything the band does well — gentle ballads, barn burners, folksy numbers befitting any summer mixtape — and an impressive feat of creativity and ingenuity. Running almost as long as a feature film, the album reveals just how creatively at the top of their game the band is. What it lacks in brevity and focus it more than makes up for in invention: Big Thief have never been goofier than on “Spud Infinity,” never as current than “Little Things,” never as heartbreaking as “Promise Is a Pendulum” (unless you count Lenker’s solo Songs). Comparisons to the White Album and Mellon Collie are inevitable, and it’s all the more amazing that Dragon New can stand alongside them.

1. ROSALÍA – MOTOMAMI

There’s no reason MOTOMAMI should work. Spanish singer ROSALÍA melds her previous success with urbano music with reggaeton, hip-hop, and even piano balladry (?) — it’s as though the singer picked a handful of genres from a hat. Of course, its placement high on this list is a testament to how well everything fits together. MOTOMAMI may be the most interesting and unique record I listened to this year (something extra impressive given this was the year of Björk). I firmly believe there is something for everyone here, from the groovy bachata of Weeknd-featuring “LA FAMA,” to the bubblegum beats of “BIZCOCHITO,” to the gentle yet extremely horny “HENTAI.” What’s not to love? Only an artist with ample confidence and the skills to match could release a record like MOTOMAMI, and we’re lucky to be living in ROSALÍA’s strange, wonderful world.

1. Alvvays – Blue Rev

As an Alvvays fan since the days of their debut, the runaway success of Blue Rev this year was absolutely a treat — it felt like the world woke up to a secret I’ve been in on for the better part of a decade. The band’s third record, recorded with a new bassist and renewed confidence after 2017’s Antisocialites, is a triumph of addictive power pop and gorgeous melodies from singer-songwriter Molly Rankin and guitarist Alec O’Hanley. It features all the best elements of Alvvays’ previous works — most prominently their sardonic humour and infectious hooks — with an extra layer of fine tuning and a new reliance on synths and noisy, shoegaze-inspired production. The result is an irresistible pop masterpiece, at turns sorrowful and anxiously anticipatory: a perfectly calibrated sign o’ the times.

1. Kendrick Lamar – Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers

Kendrick Lamar has always thought of himself as the king of hip-hop. In 2022, the world having caught up to him, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers shows that the head has never been so heavy. A two-disc, big-budget follow-up to 2017’s DAMN., Mr. Morale may be Kung Fu Kenny’s most complex work yet, tackling everything from daddy issues and grief to queerness and the immeasurably heavy expectations that come with being the genre’s crown prince. As with any double album, Mr. Morale struggles to maintain its quality across all its 18 tracks — but Kendrick’s batting average is well above average, and the album includes some of the best work of his career, most notably in the aching “Mother I Sober,” a heartbreaking meditation on family trauma with accompaniment from a sublime Beth Gibbons. At first impression, Mr. Morale is uneven in comparison to To Pimp a Butterfly or good kid, but the album rewards subsequent listens, and stands as one of the most rich works in the artist’s discography.

1. Weyes Blood – And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow

Natalie Mering belongs in another decade, or maybe in another dimension. The nostalgic, almost otherworldly glow of her Titanic Rising was matched by its radio pop quality — And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow, the second of her planned trilogy of albums as Weyes Blood, is equally evocative and lush, but in a gentler, more reserved way. The best and most obvious way to describe the music would be gorgeous. Its soaring orchestral arrangements, along with Mering’s siren-like voice, reveals depth and multiplicity to even the simplest melodies and lyrics. To listen to And in the Darkness is to be enveloped by it, bewitched, bothered and bewildered. Weyes Blood’s latest had big shoes to fill after Titanic Rising, itself one of the best records of its year, but And in the Darkness is its perfect counterpoint, a mirror’s reflection that reveals new layers without losing focus or precision.

1. Joyce Manor – 40 Oz. to Fresno

If Ants From Up There and Dragon New Warm Mountain were the biggest records I listened to this year, 40 Oz. to Fresno was the smallest. Running just under 17 minutes, it’s worth arguing whether it’s an album at all. But whether or not it makes the cut, it deservedly made the one for this list: Joyce Manor’s album packs as many hooks and earnest pleas for affection into its quarter hour as is humanly possible. JM would be among my picks for most slept-on bands out there, and their infectious version of pop punk will satisfy anyone missing the verve and confessional spirit of Algernon Cadwallader or early Weezer. This is an album made for your inner teenager, something that would fit perfectly on your walkman or iPod shuffle if you’re of a certain age. Its admirable commitment to bleeding heart honesty and sunny guitar melodies is so enjoyable it’s almost embarrassing — but not quite.