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cristalconnors · 1 year

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SONGS OF 2022

find the best albums of 2022 here

20. "Coochie (a bedtime story)" SHYGIRL

Silly, sexy, and sophisticated, this fairly straightforward, sweetly raunchy track is complicated by a lush, immersive soundscape that once again places Shygirl at the forefront of electronic production.

19. "Ask me how I sleep at night" EIKO ISHIBASHI

The entirety of For McCoy, Eiko Ishibashi’s bizarre ode to the beloved protagonist of Law & Order, is compelling stuff, but it is when the themes of the gargantuan, at times esoteric “I can feel guilty about anything” converge on the jazzy, ruminative “Ask me how I sleep at night” that the record really comes alive, evoking Bernard Herrman’s Taxi Driver score and Mike Post’s iconic Law & Order theme while imbuing them with both a wistfulness and a strange kind of optimism to imagine a rich interior life for Jack McCoy that the show doesn’t let us see.

18. "Ribs" TIRZAH

Tirzah returns to the sound palette of last year's monumental Colourgrade, marrying live instrumentation with harsh, avant garde textures that embrace dissonance and “ugly” sounds to somehow fashion a gorgeous vision of domestic bliss that hangs in the air, meandering along at its own pace.

17. "Dog Pound" BBYAFRICKA

There's a subtle chaos to Bbyafricka's raps- the vaguely sinister beats, the sometimes unintelligible lyrics, her propensity for getting off rhythm, intentionally rushing or lagging behind the tempo to create a fascinating tension. "Dog Pound" exemplifies all these tendencies in a standout track that announces her as a thoroughly new voice in rap.

16. "Leathery Whip" ALDOUS HARDING

The image that Aldous Harding conjures of the beastly nature of life's trials and tribulations- "Here come life with his leathery whip"- is as funny as it is frightening, much like life itself, and is ingeniously echoed in the bizarre, cartoonish supplemental vocals of H. Hawkline and Jason Williamson.

15. "Pressed" ALVVAYS

"Pressed" best exemplifies the controlled chaos Alvvays distills on Blue Rev, a blistering, frenetic two minutes of soaring melodies and dense arrangements that perfectly fold into each other to create truly sublime indie pop rock.

14. "Twin Flame" WEYES BLOOD

Natalie Mering expands her toolkit on "Twin Flame" by bringing the drum machine to the foreground with a driving beat that vaults her sound forward a decade or so into the 1980s, creating an interesting juxtaposition of the album's recurring theme of flames with the cool, submarine groove, becoming the beating heart of the album.

13. "God is a Circle" YVES TUMOR

Over the course of their career, Yves Tumor has been gradually softening the edges of their songwriting while also letting us get a slightly clearer picture of the artist. While the labored breaths and horror shrieks that provide the foundation for this rollicking track could only constitute a "softening" for Tumor, the portrait they paint of a dysfunctional relationship feels like possibly the most straightforward song of their entire ouevre, both lyrically and structurally. It is also perhaps the most vulnerable we've ever seen them, laying their most intimate feelings bare while also grappling with their oppressive, religious upbringing in more explicit ways than ever before.

12. "Wake Me up to Drive" BIG THIEF

An unlikely marriage of accordion and drum machine provides the base for "Wake Me up to Drive," a dazzlingly strange ode to companionship and selflessness on the road. Are they driving a car or a schooner wagon? It's hard to tell, but that uncertainly underlines the refreshing lawlessness of Big Thief's songwriting on their expansive 5th album.

11. "S.D.O.S." ALEX G

As a percussionist in school, I longed for an opportunity to play the güiro, the ribbed, gourd-like Puerto Rican instrument that you play by dragging a scraper across its ridges, but its almost comically frog-like sound was rarely called for in classical music. On "S.D.O.S.," Alex G inspiredly juxtaposes its inherent silliness with a sinister piano melody and disturbing, distorted vocals that make for one of the most idiosyncratic soundscapes in his catalogue, a remarkable feat for such a distinctive and prolific artist. By the time we reach the first legible lyrics- "God is my designer / Jesus is my lawyer,” we’ve given up on trying to decipher what “S.D.O.S.” might stand for and instead embrace the inexplicable allure of Alex G's sonic world.

10. "home" TWO SHELL

A sickly sweet, supersonic drum n' bass beat that reminds you of The Powerpuff Girls theme song and pitched up vocals so squeaky they're nearly unintelligible collide in this euphoric barn burner of a track that should come with a disclaimer for inducing mania.

9. "No Tiempo" LUCRECIA DALT

Warbling organ and whirring electronics that sound beamed in from outer space suddenly give way to earthbound clarinet and airy flute in this stunning impression of an alien being's first encounter with the terrestrial world, with sparse woodblock keeping the languid tempo and a memorable implementation of the vibraslap evoking a kind of exotic whimsy that sets the tone for Dalt's genre expanding 8th studio album.

8. "Poland" LIL YACHTY

It's incredible how much meaning Lil Yachty packs into this little ditty (that clocks in well under 2 minutes) about smuggling lean into a foreign country with the simple refrain "I took the Wock to Poland"- simultaneously a comment on drug dependency and substance abuse, the excesses of fame, his worldwide reach, all hypnotically quavered atop woozy synths to undeniable effect.

7. "Movie Screen" JUNGLEPUSSY

"Don't give me side eye / As I shapeshift" is just one of Junglepussy's knowing winks at her own maturation as an artist on "Movie Screen," one swaggering flex track among many in her discography, but this one sees her in full command of her powers, spitting bars about Ludi boards and roti folding, but also about personal betterment and self realization atop a Nick Hakim produced beat of looped tremolo violin that lends the track a cinematic grandeur.

6. "Bootstrap Jubilee" YVES JARVIS

Yves Jarvis reflects on his upbringing and early development as an artist by faithfully emulating the sounds of his influences where he’d typically refashion them into something more idiosyncratic and avant garde. A sunny, looping acoustic guitar riff and driving verses that build in unbroken, sing-songy fashion delivered in his now trademark stacked vocals combine to create what has to be his catchiest tune to date and perhaps also his most conventional. Only the chorus, which is something of an anti-chorus the way it abruptly interrupts the gleeful rhythm by scrapping the drums and replacing them with discordant harmonies that unexpectedly resolve back into the lilting verses, reminds us that he can’t ever let anything be too straightforward.

5. "Happy Ending" KELELA

When Kelela re-emerged from her long self-imposed hiatus with the stunning ballad “Washed Away,” she assured her rabid fans “please TRUST the bangers are on the way.” And as promised, just one month later she returned once more with “one for the club”- a sexy, infectious dance track that feels like an unexpected continuation of that first single. Where “Washed Away” found her shedding the markers of her previous work in search of a “change of pace,” this song picks up the tempo and slips tantalizingly between major and minor keys, recalling the euphoric, boundary pushing heights of classics like “Rewind” or “Frontline,”assuring the listener that Kelela remains Kelela.

4. "Victimhood" BJÖRK

Björk deploys ominous, billowing bass clarinets to cast victimhood as a boggy prison she’s struggling to escape, calling to mind the image of Kirsten Dunst trudging through black gunk that clings to her legs and threatens to swallow her in Melancholia. The combination of reed instruments and rave inspired beats that is the central sonic idea of the album never works as well as it does on the transcendent bridge, charting Björk’s Orphean journey out of the clutches of victim mentality and toward accountability.

3. "Light Me Up" RAVYN LENAE

“Light Me Up” finds Ravyn Lenae luxuriating in the abandon of new love, her pillowy vocals fluttering over a gently pulsing, unrushed beat from frequent collaborator Steve Lacy that stops time, gradually gaining complexity as you slowly slip deeper into the song’s lush textures.

2. "the mystic" NILÜFER YANYA

PAINLESS was in constant rotation for me this year. Stacked front to back with catchy, approachable indie pop rock that is also deceptively complex and textually rich, there were multiple songs I considered for this list. I went through several phases of different favorites; opener “the dealer” with its skittering drumbeat and propulsive energy, “midnight sun” with its arpeggiated, melancholic pulse. Settling on “the mystic” felt more instinctual than logical. Taking the sunny, radio-friendly sounds of turn-of-the-millennium acts like Sugar Ray and imbuing them with a yearning wistfulness, the song feels like sitting in the backseat, watching the world whiz by in wonder while powerless to do anything about it. The lyrics are abstract enough that I hadn’t realized that this feeling was precisely what the song was about until I read her description of the track in the editor’s notes for the album on Apple Music. “It’s about watching other people get on with their lives and feeling like you’re being left behind…” Perhaps I subconsciously understood this and gravitated to the song because I’ve felt that way myself, particularly as I hurdle inexorably toward 30. That Yanya conjures the sensation so exactly and so impressionistically is a small miracle.

1. "AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM" BEYONCÉ

With a title like “AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM,” I worried briefly that this song might be some hollow, trite comment on any number of the numerous problems plaguing our country, well-meaning but ultimately ineffectual. But when the song finally rolled around and those punchy, late 80s / early 90s synths came in, announcing that America’s “problem” is actually the dangerously addictive nature of Beyoncé herself, I quickly realized that this was my very favorite kind of Beyoncé song; the kind she lets her hair down in, where she doesn’t take herself too seriously, where she isn’t afraid to lean into the humor, or sometimes even outright camp. Borrowing its hook and general themes from Kilo’s 1990 track “America Has a Problem Cocaine,” a lively yet unsparing meditation on the crack epidemic set to a rollicking dance beat in the vein of Grandmaster Flash, Beyoncé substitutes herself for the cocaine to craft an inspiredly silly flex track about how we’re all so obsessed with her, with sonorous bass lines that rattle your speakers and an infectious, driving groove that demands to be heard on the dancefloor. When she bellows "No!" with an authority only she could command, she is the voice of God.

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