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2022 Wrap-Up

Music

Best Album: DAWN FM by The Weeknd. This album is distinctly not AFTER HOURS, one of my favorite records of all time. It’s not coming apart at the seams, no matter how much the music video saga tries to convince you that the album somehow reflects fictional-Abel’s own surrealist gerascophobic suffocating backrooms nightmare. It’s not a vulnerable portrait or an avant-garde portfolio. DAWN FM’s twinkling charm arrives suspended in amber, syrupy sweet quality abounding. It’s too perfect. It's a pop pastiche of a Weeknd album. Abel left spiraling into despair behind with “Until I Bleed Out”. Now he spirals in circles, numb, serenading an enthralled club he thinks is a cathedral. He’s doomscrolling into a microphone. He developed a tolerance to the varied hedonic fuels of TRILOGY and STARBOY, so he floats in immaculate soundscapes, unmoored and unbothered. “Out of Time” and “Less Than Zero” are ballads from heaven; “Gasoline” and “Sacrifice” undeniably rip. All killer, all filler. DAWN FM is the ultimate throwaway album, dropped casually and without forethought. Poetically, The Weeknd’s next media venture is in partnership with the creator of EUPHORIA, the television equivalent of this record: a surface-level pendulum between pain and pleasure with no real stakes, unraveling into nothing but polish and more polish.

Honorable Mention 1: HYPOCHONDRIAC by brakence. A better writer than me has deciphered the psychology of brakence’s aesthetic choices. Like H.D., I too hear the fastidious precision of Ableton strata. I’m certain each reverb throw, pitched-up vocal, and synthetic tape pause was agonized over. Breaths are often meticulously edited out, giving the vocals a digital jagged over-compressed punch. I am captivated by brakence’s production-voice, don’t get me wrong, but his concoction of self-diagnoses explicit and implicit are much more fascinating. He crashes and burns on cue, emerges in time for the next harmony with soundstage-perfect hair, ready to resume the cycle without complaint. Is he a manic-depressive dissociative narcissist with anxieties compounded by clinical obsessions or is he just an algorithm-poisoned 20-year-old playing a part? I imagine I’d have similar trains of thought in his shoes.

Honorable Mention 2: MOTOMAMI by Rosalia. My two favorite albums of the year were both plastic at heart, but MOTOMAMI is flesh and blood all the way through. Rosalia can hide behind autotune waterfalls and blown-out 808s all she wants, but the truth always shines through—this is the music she yearned for on the radio, the club stereo, the iPod. MOTOMAMI’s tracklist is too chaotic and unfettered to disguise anything whatsoever. The lyricbook doubles as a playlist in its own right; on “Candy”, singer and title both shout-out Plan B’s “Candy”, before the former breaks into plagiarist homage to Burial’s haunting “Archangel” melody. I can hear her smiling between takes. EL MAL QUERER, her last full-length, was the most acclaimed album to ever be a college thesis, a tortured inspection of toxic love through the lens of flamenco tradition and a Spanish novel with music videos like stage productions. MOTOMAMI displays Rosalia’s life through all of her favorite things: teriyaki, designer fashion, dance, friends, motorcycles, Japan, New York, hentai. There’s levels to this shit. Be yourself.

Best EP: STEP BY STEP EP by Braxe + Falcon. This is the best project of the year bar none. Alan Braxe and DJ Falcon working together is the collaboration I didn’t know I needed until it was announced, two legendary yet elusive craftsmen of euphoric dance music combining forces. 24 minutes of bliss. Listen if you haven’t already, words can’t do this justice.

Honorable Mention 1: SICK! By Earl Sweatshirt. A small dose of Earl is more meaningful than most 90-minute deluxes released by his peers. The rippling Escher staircase piano of “2010” alone is its own world, but SICK! flows through multiple worlds effortlessly. Indie darling guest stars like Zelooperz and Armand Hammer play their parts as needed, never overshadowing or underperforming. This is my favorite Earl project, encapsulating everything I love about his voice and taste in one digestible package.

Honorable Mention 2: NOVA/MOTH by Burial & Four Tet. Only two songs on this one, but quantity is far from quality. Burial drums, Four Tet synths, and the combination’s gift for ethereal sampling makes for moody downtempo greatness. Still get chills when I hear the vox on “Moth”. Still wish “Wolf Cub” went along with the 2-pack, but I’m grateful nonetheless. Any Burial is good Burial.

My full list of best albums (in order) and best songs (sequenced for good listening) of 2022 follows:

Time for the individual awards, inspired by Adam Silver.

Ghostface Killah Most Valuable Player Trophy: Yeat. This one is undeniable to me. I haven’t listened to anyone this year as much as Yeat. If Carti defined the sound of the next few years with WHOLE LOTTA RED, Yeat distilled it into one infinitely replayable song, then managed a way to clone it. Might be the corniest most successful rapper out now, but I don’t care. Favorite songs of the year: “Luv Money”, “Cant stop it”, “Flawless”, “Jus Better”, "Tried Once".

Drake Defensive Player of the Year Trophy: Drake. Once again, defending his unassailable title, the king returns. After dropping a forgettable “dance” pop album with a perfect 21 Savage collab backstop, Drake realized his mistake and dropped an entire album of 21 Savage collabs to shore up his image without even waiting for the calendar to flip. My bias is well-known in the circles I tread. Drake will have the throne until he decides to give it up or truly stops making any effort whatsoever. Favorite songs of the year: “Sticky”, “More M’s”, “Major Distribution”, feature on “I’M ON ONE”.

DMX Rookie of the Year Trophy: CEO Trayle. Trayle made his initial statement with 2020’s single “OK Cool”, but this year has been the bona fide coming out party; just look at his output. An impressive album, a leak-collection-turned-mixtape, a couple EPs, and singles galore without quality being compromised? Color me impressed. Favorite songs of the year: “Alter Ego 2”, “Craxk Flow”, “DrillC4”, “Song Cry”.

Pharrell Williams Producer of the Year Trophy: Tony Seltzer. This guy never fails to show off a new otherworldly bounce. Enough said. Favorite beats of the year: “God of War” by WIFIGAWD, “Postcard” by Papo2oo4 & DJ Lucas, “Know the Difference” by Sha Hef, “Risk” by Gabe ‘Nandez & Radamiz.

Film

Best Movie: THE NORTHMAN dir. Robert Eggers. Three viewings later, this is still the perfect film for me to come out this year. Note I don’t say “objectively” best—I feel like this movie was developed in a lab to check each of my boxes. Beautiful cinematography? Check. Attention to historical detail? Check. Performances out the ass? Check. Vikings and specifically Viking spirituality? Check. Heroic tragedy? Check. Skarsgard? Check. Go see it, if you haven’t already, then bump some Heilung.

Honorable Mention 1: EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE dir. Daniels. I think this is everyone else’s pick for that “Best Movie” spot. It is objectively amazing, especially considering that those FX were put together by a department of three people. Performances were great. Themes were great. Jokes were A+. Go see it. I assume you already have.

Honorable Mention 2: TÁR dir. Todd Field. First half is stronger than the second, but Cate Blanchett is stunning here. I wish that a couple of the ideas established in that strong first half had been carried through. The three (sometimes uncomfortably) long scenes back-to-back-to-back to open the film are the most compelling, and that trend could’ve continued. Implications could be more explicit or more connected thematically. Still, Cate’s performance is enough to get my recommendation. Shoe-in for Best Actress.

Best Live Action TV: THE BEAR. Every second of this miniseries is real like a bite. Restaurant lingo and the nonstop stress of the line are not explained or even really the focus, just set dressing. Jeremy Allen White leads an ensemble with no weak links. Tension is drawn out to the breaking point, released for a second, then drawn out even further. There's no winning, there's just persevering. 10/10.

Honorable Mention: SEVERANCE. Not a shred of fat on this season. Exposition is delivered and the plot continues. The four leads are great (I've had a soft spot for Zach Cherry since his appearance in the C-plot of one episode of Succession, and if I gave a film/TV MVP award, John Turturro would be on the short list for THE BATMAN and SEVERANCE alone), but the antagonists (Patricia Arquette and Tramell Tillman, especially him) manage to overshadow them. Every detail of the worldbuilding sucks you in more. Can't wait for more.

Best Animated TV: CHAINSAW MAN. Den-den-denji-kun! This is the most fun I've had watching an anime. Appointment viewing. Haven't read the manga. Spare Aki and Power plz.

Honorable Mention: CYBERPUNK EDGERUNNERS. David-o! This anime is objectively pretty wrote and a little cheap. I predicted the majority of plot beats ahead of time, and I joke when talking with friends that Studio Trigger blew each episode's budget on a ridiculously awesome fight sequence, then had to resort to shot-reverse shot dialogue where the listener is the subject of each shot so they didn't have to waste money animating mouths. Objectively the prettiest thing I've seen all year, though, and it got me into the game, which stole ~60 hours of my life and counting. Dorio best girl.

Fights

Fight of the Year: Jiri Prochazka vs Glover Teixeira. This fight has to be seen to be believed. I watched it live drunk and cackling on my living room floor, repeating "They're so fucking stupid" to myself, and over repeat viewings, I still can't believe this happened in reality. Jiri is an unstoppable force and for four and a half rounds, Glover was an immovable object. Then he wasn't. The champion has a name.

Fighter of the Year: Alex “Poatan” Pereira. The biggest hater of all time. Beat Izzy twice in a totally different sport so bad that he fled to MMA, and Alex just had to follow him there to complete the sweep. It only takes one shot.