Eps 1645: The best of 2022

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Everett Pena

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If you get a minute, please tell MOJO what your favorite album from the year 2022 is by clicking on the link below. We will come back with more in the coming months, but for now, here are the best albums of 2022, up to this point.
Once again, MOJO has polled the MOJO team of world-class writers and experts to deliver what hopefully is a definitive list of the best albums from the past 12 months. Read on for the personal MOJO editors favourite albums of 2022, featuring 110 interesting, sometimes surprising records to dig deep. As we hit the halfway mark of 2022, the Complex Music staff got together to sift through all of the years new music and put together our favorite tracks thus far.
We ended up creating a ranking list of 100 songs that captures this years expansive, energy-filled chaos. In a year so weird that Kate Bushs single from thirty years ago somehow ended up topping the charts, it is appropriate that some of the years best tracks felt like the wild cards. We also dove headfirst into the virtual reality world for the first time, with one headset coming out on top, and spent endless hours playing games in an effort to choose the best gaming monitors and controllers to play the game like a pro.
Mojos best album of 2021, from floating points and the late Pharoah Sanders, makes clear a prevalent conversation between jazz and ambient music -- a conversation that stretches all the way to 2022. The big headliner may be Time Skiffs, Animal Collectives first album in six years, but Panda Bear had some meaningful after-school activities in 2022 as well. Given that its release was late December, it is likely that you missed No Bear this year - but it is still playing theaters.
It just so happens that Harry Styles recorded it in 2022, not, say, The Strokes, twenty years before. It is a perfect soundtrack for dancing in your kitchen with the person you love, and it might just be one of the best love songs that 2021 has given us. Like a lot of people on TikTok, I fell for 2021s PinkPanthress, and it is the debut from Olivia Rodrigo to thank.
I was hoping to get the full Caroline Polacheck album 2021, but am content with this glittering, earworm-esque track. Caroline Polacheck has been a staple in my rotation this year, just like Olivia Rodrigos debut.
Leikeli47 has formed a figure for Brooklyn rapper, closing out his Beauty Series album trilogy with some of his most assured, diverse music. Lizzo Special The multifaceted talent follows up her breakout album, Cuz I Love You, with confessional, musically adventurous songs.
I have kept both full-lengths on constant repeat ever since they came out, but the new songs are some of the most beautiful in her career, I believe. One of the best parts about two full-length albums is hearing Taylor Swifts previously unreleased tracks from the vault. Even after six years off, Adeles voice is on point, and, dare I say, her best yet.
One of the best rap songs that 2021 gave us, Cardi Bs Up earned her a 2022 Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance, cementing her spot as the woman with the most nominations in that category. When your label is another banger, you better bring the heat, and BECK is the living, breathing Fire Emoji on this one, in no small part because of this love song earworm that is all about keeping things fresh around the younger ladies. The song no doubt succeeded as a catchy song about a lover coming his way , but I think it really stuck in my head for most of 2022 because I could not stop going over the grammar of that lyric.
As a person that was obsessed with Pop Punk and Emo when that was cool, from my very first listen, it was obvious I was going to get a kick out of Best 4 U, which is still one of the best songs out there.
Because end of year is a good time to celebrate the things you love, but this is a great time to listen to some stuff that is out of your comfort zone. Because a year is about so much more than insulated corners, which, in the age of streaming, can seem so comforting. That is particularly true of a year like this, one whose excitement, even in retrospect, is hard to order into tidy categories or hierarchies.
Last year, I wrote about how I wish I had annual best-of lists from everybody I knew, and those lists were not limited to just the usual kinds of things you might listen to or watch or read. My friend Alis list for the best-of-everything includes changing up her grocery-shopping routine, picking only the things that she needs at the markets rather than stocking her pantry like she did at the height of the pandemic.
Scottish film-maker Charlotte Wells made perhaps the best directorial debut of the year with "Aftersun," a harrowing family drama that is at once a coming-of-age tale and an acute depiction of mental illness. It is also worth noting that Jafars 39-year-old son, Panah Panhaj, made an astonishing directorial debut with Hit the Road this year, Panah Panhajs film about a family, which serves as the perfect companion piece to No Bears .