Welcome to the 90th edition of Content Nausea. You can read No. 89 right here. Please let me know what you think. Thank you for being here. Here is the welcome blog.
I suppose it’s about time to lay out some of my favorite albums and favorite songs of the year so far, even though I don’t think I ever nailed down my favorites of 2021. Maybe that will be next week. Anyway, I’m in beautiful Indianapolis right now. Here’s the music I’ve really enjoyed this year.
15 favorite albums of 2022
The caveat that should be unspoken here that I will speak anyway is that this is a wildly incomplete list. I was going through my master list of albums that came out this year and there were a couple that I was close to adding, but I feel like I needed to give them a few more listens, or else I hadn’t listened to them since February or March. I really hate that my listening habits have become more playlist-oriented over the past few years, but that’s neither here nor there. So here’s the albums that made the arbitrary cutoff.
Albums that missed the cut but will probably make the year-end list: Launder — Happening; Soccer Mommy — Sometimes, Forever; Momma — Household Name; Marigold — A Better Place; Anxious — Little Green House; Orville Peck — Bronco; Beach Bunny — Emotional Creature; more.
15. Big Thief — Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You
This album is too long and probably won’t make the year-end list. Big Thief is a singles band for me, and that’s OK. Speaking of that, Big Thief released too many singles ahead of the album release, which diluted the impact of the full album. “Little Things” was maybe my favorite song of 2021 (and soundtracked one of my favorite moments of the year on I-80, of all places), and it came out six months before the album. That’s too much of a buildup.
Top track: “Little Things”
14. Frank Turner — FTHC
I finally let myself “get” Frank Turner over the past year, and it’s been a rewarding experience. It’s OK to like music that is painfully earnest, sometimes.
Top tracks: “A Wave Across A Bay” / “The Work”
13. Charli XCX — Crash
The “emilys baseball hotline” group chat really put me in my place on this one. The album rollout was annoying and really made me not want to like this album, but it grew on me. The deluxe edition might be a bit stronger, but Charli is at her best in a couple places on this one.
Top track: “Twice”
12. Kurt Vile — (watch my moves)
There’s something warm and familiar about a Kurt Vile album at this point, and (watch my moves) fits into the discography perfectly. I don’t have much more to say about it than that.
Top track: “Jesus on a Wire”
11. Hikaru Utada — Bad
I forget the exact reason why I was leaving State College, but I have a distinct memory of leaving town in the evening with the windows down listening to this album. Beautiful experience. “Somewhere Near Marseilles” is going to be a real test on whether a 10-minute song can be my song of the year.
Top track: “Somewhere Near Marseilles”
10. Caroline Loveglow — Strawberry
It’s definitely some level of regression on a personal level, but over the past year or so, I started to make a concerted effort to read Gorilla vs. Bear again and to take the time to read the songs that were getting posted. I found Caroline Loveglow on the 2021 year-end playlist, and Strawberry’s release was a nice treat earlier this year. It’s beautiful, easy listening.
Top tracks: “Patience Etc…” / “Happy Happy”
9. Bad Bunny — Un Verano Sin Ti
Un Verano Sin Ti helped soundtrack turning 30 and, appropriately, my first trip to Puerto Rico, so there’s a good chance it could end up higher on this list by the end of the year. Bit of a cliche, but it’s a great album to put on during a bad day.
Top track: “Enséñame a Bailar”
8. Beach House — Once Twice Melody
Once Twice Melody deserves a deeper return from me, given I didn’t listen to it too much after it initially came out. But it made a significant early impression on me. I’m critical of long albums because I always have an eye out for streaming bloat, but with Beach House, you know what you’re in for, and you know it’s going to be good. They’ve still got it.
Top track: “New Romance”
7. Widowspeak — The Jacket
Widowspeak’s longevity has been a pleasant surprise to me. The self-titled debut is a beautiful document from a beautiful time, but I felt like the quality fell off over the next few releases. With 2020’s Plum and now The Jacket, I’m all the way back in.
Top tracks: “Everything is Simple” / “Salt”
6. Kevin Morby — This Is A Photograph
The other soundtrack to confronting mortality… Morby is at the top of his game and isn’t afraid to try new things, which I deeply appreciate. He picks a theme and explores it from the inside out, and the result is something incisive and lasting.
Top tracks: “Stop Before I Cry” / “Bittersweet, TN”
5. Dehd — Blue Skies
In some real accountability journalism, I looked back through my text messages to see what I told Matt after listening to Dehd’s Flower of Devotion at the end of 2020: “felt like someone was trying to imagine what indie music sounded like 10 years ago.” I didn’t like it. But Blue Skies clicked in a real way for me, and it’s strong from front to back. “Hold” is sneakily a really, really great track. It reminds me a bit of Harlem with its ramshackle charm.
Top track: “Empty in My Mind”
4. Oso Oso — sore thumb
It warmed the heart to have Jade Lilitri back on the scene. It felt like it had been too long since basking in the glow in 2019. The night the NBA shut down and the pandemic became “real” in 2020, I wanted to see Oso Oso but decided against it. Kind of wish I had? But alas… sore thumb is a showcase of Lilitri’s unique songwriting abilities, with a pleasant mix of aggressive rockers and pulled back, melancholic ballads. Plus, it’s funny at times.
Top tracks: “nothing to do” / “fly on the wall”
3. Young Guv — GUV III
Front to back, 11 really good pop songs. It reminds me of The Byrds and why there are so many Byrds records in my living room right now.
Top tracks: “Couldn’t Leave U If I Tried” / “Only Wanna See U Tonight”
2. Night Shop — Forever Night
Justin Sullivan’s switch from the drummer for The Babies to front man for Night Shop has been fun, and the result has been one or two songs on each of his releases where my reaction is, “This is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard.” His songwriting is so strong, especially on the title track here. “At the Opera” reminds me of New Order, a sound that is seamlessly weaved in to the more straightforward Americana rock songs.
Top tracks: “Forever Night” / “At the Opera”
1. Nilüfer Yanya — PAINLESS
Nilüfer Yanya’s releases slot into the more “difficult” category of listening for me, given there’s always something going on with the rhythms, the instrumentation, the tones. But it’s always rewarding. The first time I listened to this record, it struck me as a “big” album, and that’s held up over the past few months. I think it’ll be hard to knock this off the top (but don’t quote me on that).
Top tracks: “anotherlife” / “chase me”
25 favorite songs of 2022
I’ll drop a little top 25 at the top, and then the playlist below has 76 songs I’ve enjoyed this year in no real order after the top 25.
Hikaru Utada — “Somewhere Near Marseilles”
Bad Bunny / Bomba Estéreo — “Ojitos Lindos”
The Wonder Years — “Wyatt’s Song (Your Name)”
Frank Turner — “A Wave Across A Bay”
Charli XCX — “Twice”
Young Guv — “Couldn’t Leave U If I Tried”
Dazy / Militarie Gun — “Pressure Cooker”
Beach Bunny — “Entropy”
MJ Lenderman — “You Are Every Girl to Me”
Ducks Ltd. — “Sheets of Grey”
Kurt Vile — “Jesus on a Wire”
Ethel Cain — “American Teenager”
Kevin Morby — “This Is A Photograph”
Alex G — “Runner”
Night Shop — “At the Opera”
Young Prisms — “Honeydew”
Let’s Eat Grandma — “Happy New Year”
Marigold — “A Better Place”
Nilüfer Yanya — “anotherlife”
Sunflower Bean — “Who Put You Up To This?”
Widowspeak — “Everything Is Simple”
Joyce Manor — “Gotta Let It Go”
Sky Ferreira — “Don’t Forget”
Means/Ways — “Hollow”
Caracara — “Strange Interactions In The Night”
Definitely a bold gambit to go with a 10-minute song at No. 1, but we’ll see where we are when the dust settles. There’s definitely a lot more I could have done in terms of tweaking these rankings, but that’s not really what anyone is interested in right now.
Happy listening.
Thank you for reading the 90th edition of Content Nausea. It will get better. Thank you, and see you soon.
We don't have to be like they are
—D.G.