As I was compiling a list of favorite songs from 2023, I realized that several I wanted to include had actually been released in 2022. Since I was already having a hard time winnowing down the new list, I decided to make a second 2022 list of songs that I’d come across over the year or had cut from last year’s list to keep it a manageable length. Below is an hour-long mix of excellent electronica, rap, pop, neo-grunge, and indie rock songs that hopefully has something interesting for most folks.
“Yerimayo Celebration”, Baaba Maal, from the album Being: Baaba Maal‘s career-long melding of Senegalese styles, sounds, and language with Western production values made him a natural choice to contribute to the soundtracks of both Black Panther movies. In his seventieth year, the legend released one of the most irresistible songs of his career, a celebration of the fishermen who are, in his words, “the guardians of the river.”
“Free Yourself”, Jessie Ware, from the album That! Feels Good!: In the past few years, diva Jessie Ware has embraced the retro disco sound that is a familiar motif in contemporary British pop (see also: Dua Lipa). “Free Yourself” could be slotted in on the dance floor between Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” and Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” and no one would bat an eye. Almost half a century later, it still feels good.
“Ghosts”, Two Shell, from the Icons EP: Two Shell are a shadowy pair of London techno DJs whose 2022 debut EP Icons delivered frothy, compulsive tracks that bridged hyperpop aesthetics with sturdy dubstep beats. Leadoff track “Ghosts” was the standout.
“Kill Bill”, SZA, from the album SOS: I had to ask my culture-savvy college student kid why SZA is such a phenomenon among the 25-and-under crowd. I recognized her talent and liked several of her songs, but her fervent following mystified me. My kid’s response (or at least how I heard it): SZA is the friend everyone has on social media, the hot mess who posts jokes about crippling depression and spills her guts to anyone who cares to listen. In other words: she’s real. With that in mind, I took another listen to her massive hit “Kill Bill”, and it clicked. When SZA sings deadpan, “I just killed my ex / Not the best idea,” it’s a meme in musical form. Good luck getting that sweet melody out of your head.
“Heart on Fire”, Little Simz, from the album NO THANK YOU: Little Simz is one of the elite of the British rap world, winner of the Mercury Prize for her 2021 album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, and based on the evidence of her surprise-drop album NO THANK YOU, she is not happy about it. The more she delivers, the more people — record label executives, fans, hangers-on — want her to deliver. In “Heart on Fire”, she talks frankly about the treadmill of the music business. “We all start off so pure / Do it for the love, nothin’ more … Now every time you do something, you need an applause.”
“Runner”, Alex G, from the album God Save the Animals: Many artists who broke out in 2022 got their start by putting out DIY bedroom pop on forums like Soundcloud, Youtube, and Tik Tok. Alex G was a pioneer in this regard, building up a following online through independent releases on Bandcamp in the early 2010s when he was still in his teens. It wasn’t until his ninth album, God Save the Animals, that he left his bedroom (metaphorically) and went into a studio to record new songs. The sound may be a little more hi-fi than his previous work, but what hasn’t changed is his studied indie rock jangle and clever lyrics that could either be about his drug dealer friend or his dog.
“Western Wind”, Carly Rae Jepsen, from the album The Loneliest Time: I’ll admit, I’ve been sleeping on Carly Rae Jepsen for the past decade, but the youths, particularly queer youths, certainly have not. When we saw Jepsen open for Boygenius in July 2023, everyone around me was singing along and bouncing like they were 13 years old again. “Western Wind” had already caught my ear months earlier because it was produced by Rostam, the Vampire Weekend-alumnus-turned-superproducer who has a knack for making songs sound like they’re full of soft breezes and bright colors. It’s a perfect fit for Jepsen’s effervescent pop sensibility.
“Problem With It”, Plains, from the album I Walked With You a Ways: Plains is the duo of veteran roots/country rockers Katie Crutchfield (who records under the band name Waxahatchee) and Jess Williamson. Their collaboration resulted in one of the best-received albums of both their careers. “Problem With It” was the lead single and a conscious homage to the country songs of breakup and heartache both women grew up listening to.
“Anti-glory”, Horsegirl, from the album Versions of Modern Performance: Horsegirl is to late ’80s punk as Jessie Ware is to ’70s disco. The members of the Chicago-based trio were all 18 and younger when they recorded their first album, Versions of Modern Performance, but on songs like “Anti-glory” they already sound like Sonic Youth did a decade into their career — and standing on the shoulders of Kim Gordon, who knows how far they could go?
“Welcome to Hell”, Black Midi, from the album Hellfire: As with Horsegirl, the members of Black Midi launched their career before they were out of their teens. Led by a singer with the fabulous name of Geordie Greep, they play highly improvised songs with challenging time signatures and theatrical, baroque lyrics. “Welcome to Hell” is from the point of view of a naval commander telling his men on shore leave to eat, drink, and be merry while they can, for tomorrow they face the nightmare of war: “Limbs rendered birds by the speed they flew off / A soup nothingness that once was your best friend.”
“New Body Rhumba”, LCD Soundsystem, from the White Noise soundtrack: When James Murphy brought an end to LCD Soundsystem in 2010, it was an attempt to pull the plug on something that felt like it was getting too big and too corporate. But as he told The Guardian ahead of the band’s 2017 return on the album American Dream, he couldn’t stop writing songs, and he didn’t want to put the songs out without his friends and bandmates. David Bowie ultimately persuaded him to get the band back together. In subsequent years, LCD Soundsystem has mostly gone quiet again, but in 2022 they provided a song to the soundtrack for the film version of Don Delillo’s novel White Noise that showed them just as playful, intense, and memorable as ever. Despite the worries Murphy voiced nearly two decades ago on their first single, they haven’t lost their edge.
“Bull Believer”, Wednesday, from the album Rat Saw God: Led by Karly Hartzman, with her boyfriend MJ Lenderman (who has his own burgeoning solo career) on lead guitar, the band Wednesday presents songs about the disaffected and drug-addicted of the Carolinas and Virginia the same way Kurt Cobain wrote about the dark corners of the Pacific Northwest. “Bull Believer” is the first song I’ve heard in three decades that fully embraces the sheer unhinged squall of Nirvana at their most raw: dissonant guitars, surreal lyrics, a ragged voice clinging to the edges of the melody, and a climactic throat-ripping scream. “Bull Believer” is full of blood — the blood of a dying bull, a nosebleed that won’t stop, the cartoon blood of Mortal Kombat — but to my mind what the song is really about is the terminal exhaustion of living: “Comfort fools us into faith / Then fate pulls us away again / A corpse with a spirit / Got out of my bed today.” Finish him, Hartzman wails; end it already. It’s a song for the ages.
“Saccharine”, Oliver Sim, from the album Hideous Bastard: Oliver Sim is best known as the male singer and bassist from The xx. In 2022, he released his first solo album, a soulful collection of personal-sounding tunes that sits somewhere in the space between his home band and Antony and the Johnsons. “Saccharine” is sung from the point of view of a reluctant lover who doesn’t trust his own sweet feelings. Produced by his bandmate Jamie xx, the music mirrors the singer’s tense, wobbly emotions. It’s a beautiful little gem of romantic angst.
“Hold On feat. Baba Stiltz”, Axel Boman, from the album LUZ: In 2022, the Swedish DJ Axel Boman released two albums simultaneously, LUZ and Quest For Fire, apparently inspired by the 1981 film about stone age people that shares the second album’s title. “Hold On” is the hinge point between the two albums, the final song on LUZ and the only one that has written lyrics. Sung by Baba Stiltz, the words are simple — “‘Cause when the going gets tough, it sucks / That’s why you got to hold on, hold on” — but in the embrace of Boman’s warm electronica, they offered a genuine sense of comfort in 2022, when the world was finally emerging from the pandemic. The song still resonates at the end of 2023, in a world scarred by two brutal ongoing wars, a rapidly evolving climate emergency, and a mass mental health crisis. The going is tough, and it sucks, but we keep holding on, not least because Boman’s music, like all the songs on this list, makes the burdens feel lighter.
Author of unpublished novels, dad/husband to extraordinary humans, anti-fascist, music-besotted American he/him. Rep’d by Roseanne Wells @lucindaliterary
