The Best Albums of 2022: #25-21

I’m back for another year of counting down the best albums of 2022! Each article will cover five albums. As always, share your thoughts on the chosen records in the comments below. It’s worth noting that I spend the entire year working on this, listening to 204 albums this year. We’re getting things started with 25 – 21, so let’s get to it.

#25 – Earl Sweatshirt, SICK!

14 days into the start of 2022, Earl Sweatshirt’s first full-length LP in four years felt symptomatic of the COVID pandemic’s lasting impact on our society. Even as Earl explores fatherhood through the lens of a child’s future and his own past experiences, it’s clear that things won’t ever be normal again. It’s an existential anxiety that’s likely to leave one rambling and searching for words, but every insight on Sick! is poignant and precise. We’d expect nothing less from Earl at this stage.

Something evident in Earl Sweatshirt’s progression, particularly post Some Rap Songs in 2018, is that he thrives in moving slowly with his lyrics. This is not an effort that relies on quick flows or pressurizing diction that overwhelms to craft a synthetic effect on the listener. In 10 tracks and 24 minutes, 2022’s energy was encapsulated in Earl’s slow drip of musings and insights. With a diverse array of beats and production, the rapper continues to be one of the most unique voices in the genre and music altogether.

#24 – deer scout, Woodpecker

On Dena Miller’s first full-length album as deer scout, the New York singer-songwriter embodies every last virtuous element of DIY bedroom pop. With vocals that procure comfort and care, Miller’s strength as a songwriter is on full display during Woodpecker, which itself only lasts 22 minutes. In that short amount of time, eight tracks explore the artist’s memories in Philadelphia before returning home to release 2022’s strongest lo-fi album of the year.

With less than 20,000 listeners on Spotify, deer scout continues to be the indie folk scene’s best-kept secret. Fans of Florist, Waxahatchee, and Cat Power won’t need more than a track to feel at home with Miller’s soft, singular voice. What sets deer scout apart throughout the entirety of Woodpecker is a keen sense of dissonance, which beautifully complicates her at-a-glance simple folk songs. There’s more than meets the eye here, and the project deserves to continue finding new listeners into the New Year.

#23 – MJ Lenderman, Boat Songs

As a huge alt-country fan, there’s something special about hearing a friend mention a new album that has Uncle Tupelo vibes. Sure enough, MJ Lenderman, guitarist for the band Wednesday, is carrying on the spirit of No Depression with his first solo full-length, Boat Songs. Best of all, it’s not your standard breakup song lyrics that meet a distorted guitar setup. It’s a deeply premeditated exploration of some of the best granules of Tom Petty, Built to Spill, and Dinosaur Jr.

The satisfying part of Lenderman’s first album as a solo act is that all of the gravitas that comes with being in a great band carries over as the artist explores his own influences. What culminates across 33 minutes of assorted emotions and styles is an album you simultaneously want to drink alone to as well as share with others. Boat Songs walks the line between fragile and impenetrable adroitly because it’s rooted in the same complexities and blends of emotion we feel in our own lives.

#22 – Beach House, Once Twice Melody

Beach House was a full reset to indie music in 2006, particularly because it had enough foresight to see beyond twee replications of 90s shoegaze-adjacent pop. It wasn’t enough to rely on Victoria Legrand’s dreamlike vocals. The band pushed through progressive projects in the last 16 years that lead to Once Twice Melody, a 17-track exploration of dream pop past, present, and future.

This is the largest scale sound we’ve seen from Beach House, not just in sonic layers but in what it hopes to elicit. In one listen front to back, you might think the music feels like a natural expansion for the band. After a few more spins, you’re wandering the most innocent and natural tendencies you have to desire everything the world has to offer. This album doesn’t even ask you to dream big, it simply reminds you that it’s possible because we can comprehend just how miraculous it is we’re here in the first place.

#21 – Wilco, Cruel Country

It is fitting that we’d mention Uncle Tupelo and end up covering the 2022 record of Jeff Tweedy’s more prominent band, Wilco. Cruel Country is a double album that follows some of the most isolating work in Wilco’s eclectic discography. We strayed so far from the days of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot that it seemed impossible to guess where Wilco would head next. As it turns out, the path led to a country record fitted with ineradicable traits of the band’s core sound.

You can tell the album was recorded live with the full band playing together. It’s a funny juxtaposition of the album’s investigation of America in 2022. For a topic that could easily embody the country’s frantic, furious stride we’ve become accustomed to since 2016, nearly all of Cruel Country’s tracks keep a steady tempo. It’s almost unsettling to hear such steady ruminations about how we got here. Whether we end up fixing all of this or falling deeper into our own failures, Cruel Country reminds us that little comforts can go a long way.