The end of year music lists are beginning to roll in. I always find it interesting to compare and contrast these lists with my own list of favorites to see how my listening habits line up with the musical zeitgeist. This exercise also allows me to add albums to my list of music to listen to that I may not had heard of or hadn’t given a fair shake.
With that goal in mind, I’ve listed a quick recap of the lists provided by other music sites that I frequent along with some reactions. These are listed alphabetically. I’ll update this list as more end-of-year assessments are published. I’m still waiting on the Pazz and Jop list for example.
[Update 12/21/22 with Rolling Stone’s list.]
NPR Music’s 10 Best Rock Albums of 2022
NPR Music broke out their year end lists by genre (and they are still being published). Their rock albums list lines up most closely with my primary listening habits, even though I do listen to some of those other genres from time to time, but I mostly stick to the classics there.
In this list, the provide their best 10 rock albums, along with a list of 12 more to consider listening to. For the purposes of this exercise, I’ll look at both (along with my list and honorable mentions).
Their top 10 list has a stunning six album overlap with my top 20. And the secondary list has yet another one in my top 20 and one that I listed as an Honorable mention. These are listed below in the order of their rankings:
- Big Thief, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You: #1
- Wet Leg, Wet Leg: #4
- Alvvays, Blue Rev: #5
- Hurray for the Riff Raff, LIFE ON EARTH: #6 (my album of the year)
- Soul Glo, Diaspora Problems: #9
- Kevin Morby, This is a Photograph: #10
- Angel Olsen, Big Time: They had this in their list of 12 more
- Soccer Mommy, Sometimes, Forever: Another in their list of 12 more (from my honorable mentions)
I’m not really surprise with the amount of overlap here. NPR Music and the gang at All Songs Considered have always aligned a lot with my personal music taste, and they have introduced me to a ton of good music over the years. With that history, some of the items on their list that I have not heard bear further exploration on my part. Particularly interesting are the caroline album (caroline) and Peter Matthew Bauer’s Flowers. (A former member of the Walkmen channeling Chris Bell? How did I miss this?)
Paste’s 50 Best Albums of 2022
I’ve been a long-time reader of Paste Magazine. I started subscribing with their second print issue after a co-worker turned me on to their existence. I’ve been regularly reading it ever since, even as the print version went the way of the dinosaur, and they began focusing purely on their online presence. Throughout that time, I’ve always found their writing about music to be insightful and sometimes enlightening. While our tastes don’t align exactly—they historically have leaned more into the alt country and popular sounds than I am wont to these days—they always provide food for thought.
For their 20th best of list, the ranked their top 50 albums. That’s a lot of albums to rank. Given the large sample size, the presence of a lot of albums on both my and their lists shouldn’t be surprising. All told, their list and mine share 17 albums (including those I listed outside my top 20):
- Kevin Morby, This Is a Photograph: #49
- Beach House, Once Twice Melody: #45 (from my honorable mentions)
- Hurray for the Riff Raff, LIFE ON EARTH: #39 (my album of the year)
- Destroyer, LABYRINTHITIS: #34
- The Smile, A Light for Attracting Attention: #29
- Horsegirl, Versions of Modern Performance: #27
- Aldous Harding, Warm Chris: #22
- Soccer Mommy, Sometimes, Forever: #16 (from my honorable mentions)
- The Beths, Expert in a Dying Field: #14
- Sudan Archives, Natural Brown Prom Queen: #13 (from my honorable mentions)
- Spoon, Lucifer on the Sofa: #9
- Angel Olsen, Big Time: #7
- Soul Glo, Diaspora Problems: #6
- Black Country, New Road, Ants from up There: #5 (I have to mention that I discovered this band from their mid-year 2021 list)
- Wet Leg, Wet Leg: #4
- Alvvays, Blue Rev: #3
- Big Thief, Dragon New Warm Heart, I Believe in You: #1
There are a couple of other albums of interest on their list too. First, they have Dry Cleaning’s Stumpwork at #37, and I just acquired this album the day I published my initial list. I’ve liked what I’ve heard thus far, but really haven’t had enough time to sit with it. Also, the album they have at #11, Bartees Strange’s Farm to Table, will be delivered into my hot little vinyl loving hands late this week. So, I’ve obviously read enough about it to acquire a copy. I’ll provide an update once I’ve had time to really listen to both of these.
Pitchfork’s 50 Best Albums of 2022
Pitchfork is the granddaddy of purely online music ranking and reviews sites. It’s been at it for 25 years after all (from when the web still had a bit of the wild west feel to it). Over that time, they’ve involved from the snarky arbiter of all things indie rock to take a much wider view of music, for the better I think. But with their evolution, our tastes have inevitably diverged a bit. Helpfully, this year they also provide a list of the 38 best rock albums. The existence of two lists, however, doesn’t change things much. There’s only one album on one but not the other that overlaps with my own selections. For the sake of completeness, I’ll look at the top 50 list first, which had 10 albums that were also on my list. Reinforcing my point above, most of the overlap was concentrated on the bottom portion of their list:
- Black Country, New Road, Ants From Up There: #49
- The Beths, Expert in a Dying Field: #47
- Soccer Mommy, Sometimes, Forever: #45 (from my honorable mentions)
- Mitski, Laurel Hell: #43
- Soul Glo, Diaspora Problems: #36
- Destroyer, Labyrinthitis: #30
- The Smile, A Light for Attracting Attention: #29
- Big Thief, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You: #7
- Alvvays, Blue Rev: #3
- Sudan Archives, Natural Brown Prom Queen: #2 (from my honorable mentions)
Considering their additional top 38 rock albums adds only one more overlapping album: Wet Leg, Wet Leg. I suppose I’m a little surprised by this.
Looking at both lists together highlights three albums I probably should seek out of pay more attention to: 1) another shout out for caroline, 2) Weyes Blood, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow, and 3) Camp Cope, Running With the Hurricane (I bought this early in the year and preferred their previous album, but I might should revisit it).
Rolling Stone: The 100 Best Albums of 2022
I don’t really read Rolling Stone much anymore. I mean, it is the granddaddy of rock music journalism, and it does a lot of good reporting, but it caters to a taste that’s a bit more broad that mine. But it still bears looking at because of its history.
As they have for time immemorial, the rank the top 100 albums of the year. These lists were instrumental in creating the These Songs Could Be My Life project a couple of years ago.
My list of 20 albums, plus 10 honorable mentions, shares 11 albums with their top 1000 for the year. Most of these can be found in the middle portion of the list:
- The Beths, Expert in a Dying Field: #67
- The Smile, A Light for Attracting Attention: #65
- Mitski, Laurel Hell: #60
- Horsegirl, Versions of Modern Performance: #56
- Soccer Mommy, Sometimes, Forever: #42 (from my honorable mentions)
- Big Thief, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You: #35
- Fontaines D.C., Skinty Fia: #34
- Angel Olsen, Big Time: #18
- Spoon, Lucifer on the Sofa: #13
- Alvvays, Blue Rev: #12
- Wet Leg, Wet Leg: #10
Farm to Table by Bartees Strange ranked in there top 20, but there really weren’t that many more that are on my radar. I mean, we always knew it would be Taylor, Harry, and Beyonce very near the top anyway right?
Stereogum’s 50 Best Albums of 2022
Stereogum has become a daily read for me. It’s become more indispensable daily than any other publication on this list. It’s smart. It’s insightful. And it covers a wide range of music that I like. (If you haven’t been following their series, The Number Ones, stop right now and go check it out.) This made this list possibly the one I anticipated the most.
My list of 20 albums, plus 10 honorable mentions, shares 10 albums with their top 50 for the year. Most of these, unlike Pitchfork, can be found in the top half:
- Angel Olsen, Big Time: #50
- Beach House, Once Twice Melody #23 (from my honorable mentions)
- The Smile, A Light For Attracting Attention: #22
- Horsegirl, Versions Of Modern Performance: #15
- Wet Leg, Wet Leg: #13
- Soul Glo, Diaspora Problems: #9
- Big Thief, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You: #8
- The Beths, Expert In A Dying Field: #7
- Soccer Mommy, Sometimes, Forever: #4 (from my honorable mentions)
- Alvvays, Blue Rev: #1
A few items on their list that aren’t on my have been mentioned above: Weyes Blood and Bartees Strange. This list also contains an outlier from the other lists that I just downloaded last week: Knifeplay, Animal Drowning. Based on two listens, this may turn out to be the biggest omission from my list, but I’ll wait on that judgement until I look backward at this list next year.