After a triumphant year of incredible new music hitting us a weekly basis, we’ve finally come to the end of 2022 and the look back period has begun. Earlier this week, I shared my favorite songs and albums of the year on my blog OMG!NYC and you can find links to both lists below as well as applicable playlists and links to purchase the albums directly (support the art you love!).
I’ll keep sharing more lists for the next few weeks as I continue to recap the remarkable year we’ve all been experiencing and will return to weekly updates of the best new tunes in 2023.
I know that long lists can be overwhelming and without write-ups for each, it’s hard to know what genres to expect without committing a decent amount of time towards listening to each entry, so I’ve broken down things a bit and complied best-of lists, unranked, based on genres to help make things a bit easier to digest and explore.
Rock
Alvvays | Blue Rev
Big Thief | Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You
Black Country, New Road | Ants From Up There
MJ Lenderman | Boat Songs
The Smile | A Light for Attracting Attention
Pop
Harry Styles | Harry’s House
Florence + the Machine | Dance Fever
Maggie Rogers | Surrender
Sharon Van Etten | We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong
Weyes Blood | And In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow
Country/Folk
Angel Olsen | Big Time
Bill Callahan | YTI⅃AƎЯ
Orville Peck | Bronco
Plains | I Walked With You Aways
Wilco | Cruel Country
Hip-Hop
billy woods | Aethiopes
Ka | Woeful Studies / Languish Arts
Kendrick Lamar | Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers
Pusha T | It’s Almost Dry
Quelle Chris | Deathfame
Punk/Metal
Chat Pile | God’s Country
Cloakroom | Dissolution Wave
Fleshwater | We’re Not Here to be Loved
Soul Glo | Disapora Problems
Vein.fm | This World Is Going to Ruin You
Electronic
Björk | Fossora
Braxe + Falcon | Step By Step EP
Burial | Antidawn EP
Panda Bear / Sonic Boom | Reset
Sam Prekop / John McEntire | Sons Of
R&B
SadBoi | Were All the IG Girls Worth It EP
Kehlani | Blue Water Road
Ravyn Lenae | Hypnos
Sudan Archives | Natural Brown Prom Queen
SZA | SOS
Experimental
Bill Orcutt | Music For Four Guitars
Moor Mother | Jazz Codes
Oren Ambarchi | Shebang
Pan-American | The Patience Fader
Raum | Daughter
Jazz
Brandee Younger | Unrest EP
The Comet is Coming | Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam
Kokoroko | Could We Be More
Makaya McCraven | In These Times
Anteloper | Pink Dolphins
Dance
Axel Bowman | LUZ / Quest for Fire
Beyoncé | Renaissance
Daphni | Cherry
Overmono | Cash Romantic EP
Two Shell | Icons EP