#This is about alvvays and also wet leg

[4trackcassette]

end of year listposting. Sometimes when ppl r like... This album is amazing and groundbreaking...to me it just sounds like a good alt rock band making a good and well-balanced album and doesn't strike me at all as brilliant or like. really super notable. like I guess I'd put em on the list if it's a long list but. not top 10?

[samanthaaaachan]

2022 Albums of the year!!

1 - Deep in View by Cola

My favorite album of the year. This is what I wish all post punk was like. Theres a clear pop influence here that drives every song and just makes it a joy to listen to. I'm tired of the sad, ominous dirge of post punk (looking at you UK) and this is the completely opposite direction. The instrumentation is fantastic especially the drums. These songs just move you forward and to dance. I really hope we hear more from Cola and more music in this vein in general. Plus I saw them this year and they were great.

Nothing on here quite reaches the peaks of Beautiful Blue Sky by their former band Ought but wow its so so fun.

Favorites: Blank Curtain, At Pace, Gossamer, Water Table

2 - Blue Rev by Alvvays

Idk what else needs to or can be said about this album and Alvvays in general. Impeccable is the first word that comes to mind. The songs are tight, fun, rocky, power-pop bangers. I mean what more can you want from Alvvays? They're falling into that Beach House category where they don't really branch out much because why would they? They're perfect at what they do. That being said I do love some of the newer directions they've gone like the shoegaze influences and especially how psychedelic they get on songs like Very Online Guy (which sounds like if Kevin Parker somehow ended up playing bass in Alvvays).

Just listen to this album 100 times its perfect, its great, I don't know what more you can ask of Alvvays at this point.

3 - Expert in a Dying Field by The Beths

Power Pop! Power! Pop!! Its so back. A lot of what I said for Alvvays applies here too. I love The Beths the guitar work is awesome and Elizabeth Stokes is one of my favorite song writers nowadays. Every song is so fun to listen and sing to. I really preached to everyone about this album because its so good. 2am is one of my favorite album closers ever. What a beautiful, beautiful song and my favorite song this year. It still gives me chills after listening to this album probably a dozen times this year.

Do you feel it? Feel it like you did back then? 2 a.m., we were pounding the pavement And I wonder could we be that way again? Still awake, talking late in the kitchen

4 - Cave World by Viagra Boys

This album was such a surprise! I like Viagra Boys (I mean who doesnt love Sports?) but I didnt expect this kind of album from them. They've always been good but this album is unique and has such a voice. Its the most topical of all the albums on here with all its references to vaccines and adhd and everything. Its all all tongue in cheek (I'm 99% sure lol) but it puts the album in a really fun place. All of the electric and poppy and rocky influences make this such a joy to listen to. I kind of thought Viagra Boys would fall into the sea of post punk bands and put out solid albums every 3 years but this is one I'm going to keep going back to again and again. I'm really excited to see what they make next. Also I neeeeeed to see this live. I haven't seen them yet and they canceled their show near me.

5 - God Save the Animals by Alex G

Is Alex G emo? Why not? This album is a new direction for Alex G after his kind of maximalist House of Sugar and Rocket it returns to more stripped down guitar and keyboard sound. I love the way he writes songs they're sad but hopeful? The lyrics are almost all dark but the instrumentation is so optimistic and you know the people in the song are trying despite their failures. Its very real plus its fun to listen to. Runner is somehow the best country song released in years while emo at the same time. I'm really happy that Alex G put this one together as he's a very important artist for me and means so much. He's so talented and really puts it all together on God Save the Animals.

6 - Nicks and Grazes by Palm

7 - Horeshit on Route 66 by The Garden

8 - Stumpwork by Dry Cleaning

9 - Super Champion by Otoboke Beaver

10 - Stalled Flutes, Means by Asian Glow

Honorable Mentions: Forget Your Own Face, Wet Leg, Dreams (by Elephant Gym), PRE PLEASURE, Big Time, and Emotional Eternal

[juangallojongaro]

Best of 2022

Alvvays - “Belinda Says” After five years in the wilderness, Alvvays burst back on the scene with a masterpiece in Blue Rev, the ALBUM OF THE YEAR. Supplementing already deliriously catchy songwriting with a thick shoegazey wall of sound, the Canadian crew put out fourteen songs and forty minutes of pop rock perfection. No better example than “Belinda Says,” an aching short story combining clever lyrics, soaringly sympathetic vocals, and a killer guitar solo where you least expect it. It’s the SONG OF THE YEAR.

Big Thief - “Time Escaping” To my surprise, the inscrutable but incessantly listenable Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You was my most listened to album of 2022. Am I a little pissed because that album title is very stupid? I am. However, I’m very happy with the album as a whole and this song in particular. It’s tempting to write something about how this album’s word puzzle lyrics typified my 2022 and my own problems blah blah blah. Instead, let’s just accept that I like to think about songs with weird lyrics.

Disq - “Cujo Kiddies” Speaking of inscrutable, I saw this weird little band of twelve year olds open for Neko Case. And I got to sit in the ADA section real close ‘cause my wife was wearing a surgical boot!

Future Teens - “BYOB” A song so emotionally raw that I asked the singer at an extremely small show at HEALER if they were doing okay. They said they were! Very great song to scream along to in the car while hungover–big Rick Dalton energy.

LCD Soundsystem - “new body rhumba (from the film White Noise)” Obviously, the best thing to come out of the aforementioned ill-conceived film adaptation. An exchange:

Zach: Is it a really good LCD song or, like, are they just giving us what we like?

Me: Yes.

Megan Thee Stallion (ft. Dua Lipa) - “Sweetest Pie” I am a childish boy (FUN FACT: When my pal David and I traveled to Canada last summer, we introduced ourselves to essentially every Canadian bartender as “just childish boys.” We also 1) almost got in a fight [not our fault!] and 2) ate offal [it was gross!]). I guffaw every time I hear, “More bounce to the ounce/Pick it up, put it down/I wanna put his Nutty Buddy/In my, ah, Fudge Rounds.” 

Mitski - “Working for the Knife” Just going to quote the Genius reading of the titular line, “the nature of the knife is that it isn’t just a symbol of oppression that enforces her simultaneous drive and dissatisfaction from a distance; it cuts her down at close range by directly interfering with her life, demanding more of her energy and constant performance. But, as she states, she’s “working for” the knife; she’s doing the knife’s work, cutting herself down as she pushes herself to produce and entertain.” GUH! Mitski! Take a vacation!!!

Pusha T (ft. Jay-Z and Pharell) - “Neck & Wrist” I have nothing clever left to say about Pusha T (PUSH!). He will make a dope song every two to three years, and I will include it in this list. I will copy and paste this caption.

Wet Leg - “Wet Dream” A delightful song off a delightful album whose praises I will not sing more of because I went to see them on my birthday in Louisville and they were very bad. Anyway, here’s the extra dreamy Harry Styles covering. LYRIC OF THE YEAR: “You climb onto the bonnet/And you're licking the windscreen/I've never seen anything so obscene/It's enough to make a girl blush/It's enough, it's enough to make a girl blush.” 

Weyes Blood - “Grapevine” A strong contender for Album of the Year, and may eventually get there in hindsight. Lush and luscious Laurel Canyon pop. 

If you are not my wife, please move on to the next song: I KNOW IT’S ALL MID-TEMPO BUT THAT’S OKAY BECAUSE THE LYRICS ARE POETRY AND LISTEN TO THAT VOICE THOSE HARMONIES! IT’S NOT BORING!!!

Yung Gravy - “Betty (Get Money)” Speaking of my wife, she introduced me to this song which is so 1) stupid and 2) good that it could only result in litigation. Terrific first four lines: “With your baby mama at the crib I blow her back out/Shawty Filipino and she call me Manny Pacquiao/Alley-oop without the hoop they call me Jerry Stackhouse/Dazing out in public but your mama made me snap out.” Yung Gravy loves MILFS. I would represent him pro bono.