Below, my 21 favorite songs from 2022. Some trends:
- Young-ish women/poppy songs. I’m sure it says something about me and my advancing years but once again I find my list dominated by women with chiming guitars celebrating new love in complicated ways or reflecting on exes ibid. Try to listen to the stretch below from track 9 (Momma) to track 13 (The Beths) without a pure-pop-for-now-people smile.
* - Radio-friendliness. Lots of songs here you’ll hear on an average January 2023 day of AAA (adult album alternative) radio: check out the stretch from track 14 (Noah Kahan) to track 16 (beabadoobie). All great songs! Not to mention Track 2 (Harry Styles, 1.7 billion plays on Spotify) and Track 3 (Steve Lacy, a mere 500 million). Also great songs! Plenty of obscurities as well like Eytan Mirsky and Martha (songs with so few Spotify listens they don’t even list a number) but I sorta like it when my tastes correspond to what’s on the radio, it makes me feel less alone. A pandemic reaction? Speaking of which…
* - Lurking pandemic anxiety. My wife and I have a running joke of how rock critics seem to detect the shadow of Charles Manson in every song released in 1969/1970. And in a similar vein I hear the pandemic in Night Shop pledging to love someone until the end of time, as if the end of time is imminent and plans must be made, and in Ezra Furman screaming “You remember when we thought the world was ending/Seems funny now…” There’s something apocalyptic as well in SG Goodman’s squeaky voice belting “All my love is coming back to me” like a desperate middle-of-the-night self-reassurance. Plus Reina del Cid reaching a hand across the Internet to an anonymous fellow bather in the “warm bath made of content” that provides a temporary hold against isolation…
* - Sappiness. My son is disgusted with me for liking “All I Need to Hear” by the 1975. When I was his age, I probably would have been disgusted with myself as well. Speaking of which…
* - Nostalgia. I love Steve Forbert doing the unrockandroll thing of feeling nostalgic for when he was 53 (do people really live that long?) I love Nikki Lane missing how she felt in the first flush of various teenage experiences but determined to continue to search for that feeling as an adult.
My favorite lyric of the year is from Father John Misty, after sleeping with an ex on the occasion of the death of pet they owned together:
Do you swear it’s not the cat?
You don’t have to answer that…Second favorite lyric is also about an ex, The Beths trying to figure out what to do with the memories/emotional baggage/shared possessions when moving on after a break-up:
I can close the door
But the room still exists…
Finally, my favorite misheard lyric is from Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season.” I was sure for months he was singing “And my soccer Mom, she forgot that I exist,” which I thought was cool and specific, a guy having his heart broken by an older, maybe-married woman with a kid. Turns out it was “Saw your Mom, she forgot that I existed.” Which is less interesting. But “And I’ll dream each night of some version of you/That I might not have, but I did not lose,” from the same song, is Taylor Swift-worthy.
- The End of Time, Night Shop
- As It Was, Harry Styles
- Bad Habit, Steve Lacy
- I Don’t Wanna Brag, Eytan Mirsky
- Forever in Sunset, Ezra Furman
- You Can’t Have a Good Time All of the Time, Martha
- All My Love is Coming Back to Me, SG Goodman
- Hey Baby, The Cactus Blossoms
- Speeding 72, Momma
- Shotgun, Soccer Mommy
- Easy on Your Own?, Alvvays
- Oxygen, Beach Bunny
- Expert in a Dying Field, The Beths
- Stick Season, Noah Kahan
- Hospital, Madison Cunningham
- the perfect pair, beabadoobee
- Say Hello to Gainesville, Steve Forbert
- First High, Nikki Lane
- Goodby Mr. Blue, Father John Misty
- All I Need to Hear, The 1975
- Carl Sagan, Reina del Cid