Top 10 Albums of 2022

Listen up for earworms only.

Instead of spending your weekend placidly scrolling Twitter to track which Tweeps are currently being banned by Master Elon, open your horizons to new music by sampling my list of #Top10 Albums of 2022.

My bias is electronic and hip-hop, but I’ll really try anything except TSwift. Anything that vanilla and universally popular should be suspect. Good taste requires some hard red lines and gentle snobbery.

You won’t like everything on here; nor you should, but here’s a guide to trying something new.

There isn’t much genuine pure ROCK music left, but if you’re in the INDIE ROCK vein, try the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Pitchfork describes “Cool It Down” as “tempered joy.” I’d call it melodically delightful.

HIP HOP fans? You have to go with Pusha T, whose “It’s Almost Dry” has won wide critical acclaim, despite being partially produced by Ye, who features on three of the album’s dozen tracks. This, of course, was before Kanye’s most virulent public meltdown.

MORE INTO ALT-POP? 070 Shake is your move. The northern New Jerseyan is described as Alt-Pop-Ambient-Pop-Alternative R&B . . . so it’s a little choose your own adventure there. Listen to “Web” and you tell me. Similarly, Shygirl is hard to purely categorize. Like Shake, she swings between experimental hip-hop and dancy electronic.

For my adventurous ELECTRONIC-curious folk, Flume easily produced the album of the year, for his sheer audacious inventiveness. Australia’s Harley Edward Streten’s “Palaces” is the most unique, majestic body of work out there and its string of female features elevates its beauty. Start with “Sirens” for Caroline Polachek’s sheer pageantry then listen to the first five songs consecutively. They don’t miss.

Everything else on the list is electronic . . . Moderat is a German supergroup that reunited for some tribal “Drum Glow,” Andrew Bayer is a D.C. native who sees himself more a musician than traditional D.J., Odesza always delivers an opus, the closest thing to a Broadway show, fred again … is a London producer who makes hypnotic beats off of real people’s words on the streets, and Mura Masa is another compilation of genres that defies easy categorization.

So take a spin on some of these earworms and let me know what ya think.

And only send your tops if you have curated #taste.

Happy listening.