My Very Good Music Opinions Present: Top 10 Albums of 2022

I’m a month late, but I still beat the Grammy’s, so that’s something. I hate the Grammy’s, and honestly most music review outlets, so I’m being the change I wish to see in the world.

I’ve already had to have some reviews scrubbed from the internet recently, so I’m hoping none of these or any other of my favorite artists decide to become prominent anti-semites this year. Apparently that’s a taller order than I had previously thought. Fuck you, Kanye.

Without further continuance on unnecessary intro, let’s get into the list.

If Playboi Carti is going to continue delaying the release of his album, I’m glad he at least signed Destroy Lonely to actually release music.

The sound of Carti’s Opium label is becoming the sound of the younger generation of rap, but Destroy Lonely stands out among a field where clones pop up daily.

These beats are crazy. There’s so much going on, but rarely does this project sound overproduced. The synths consistently come up beautifully, most of all on the album’s titular track. The album comes through with a great electronic sound, and Lone’s flows throughout the project match the energy.

This genre doesn’t need to lift much weight lyrically, and NOSTYLIST is no exception, but who cares? The innovative production alone is enough to give this one a listen. The lyrics are typical for the genre, but there’s some insane ones that are a pretty good laugh which is a plus.

NOSTYLIST does exactly what it needs to to succeed, and I will not tire of this sound any time soon. TikTok just needs to stop slowing and reverbing it and claiming its better. It isn’t.

Future came back from the washed allegations with a vengeance.

I Never Liked You comes screaming out of the gate with “712PM,” and the tempo rarely slows down from there. Typical for a Future album, it does have its slower, more emotional tracks, such as “PUFFIN ON ZOOTIEZ” or Rap Song of The Year nominated “WAIT FOR U.” By and by however, this album is a high-tempo headbanger from start to finish.

It gets a little redundant in the latter half of the album, but generally speaking even the later tracks still move the needle enough for this album to avoid overstaying its welcome.

This is a fun one, and many of these tracks will remain in my rotation for some time to come, especially “PUFFIN ON ZOOTIEZ,” one of my favorite tracks of the year.

Alright, first I’ll admit I’m not overwhelmingly well versed with this album.

I’ve listened to it all the way through, and I really did like it. But compared to the rest of the nominees, I’ve barely listened to it.

The reason it is on this list is twofold: first, it’s been put up as Album of the Year by just about every single music outlet there is, so I don’t want to look like a clown by not putting it on my list at all, even though I may still look like a clown for rating it below some of the following albums.

Secondly, and more importantly to me, this album makes my list out of spite for Drake. I don’t hate Drake nearly as much as I once did, as multiple listens through his catalog have shown me that, at least at one point, he actually is a talented artist. However, when his steaming pile of dog shit Honestly, Nevermind came out back in June, he had the audacity to suggest people hated it because they weren’t ready for the sound yet.

It’s house music. People have heard house music before. You did not reinvent the wheel. We hated it because it was horrifically awful. You sampled a squeaking bed… and thought that was good enough for an entire song.

For that alone you should’ve been dragged.

More importantly, shortly thereafter, Drake was proven catastrophically and unequivocally wrong by the actual sound of the summer: Beyoncé’s Renaissance.

Here’s an album that also dabbled heavily into house music for its production, but people actually liked it. It was commercially successful. It’s likely going to be AOTY at the Grammy’s, and has already been crowned by Rolling Stone. Renaissance released a mere month after Drake’s heaping trash pile, so the whole “you’re not ready for this sound” argument entirely falls apart.

The transition from “Energy” to “Break My Soul” is generational, and I’ll never pass up a track with a Mike Dean synth outro like “Alien Superstar.” As a whole, this album is an instant hit for the solo-bedroom dance session community. Not one song misses the mark of me noticing I’m dancing in my chair while trying to work on something else.

Beyoncé’s 2022 album is amazing, both as its own entity and for its role in proving my agenda correct.

Make fun of me if you want, but this project is shockingly good. No, I do not know a single lyric, but I also don’t care at all. Nobody is listening to Yeat for a lyrical masterpiece, just shut up and deal with it.

These beats are INSANE. The production on this project consistently has me embarrassing myself head-banging in public, and has me feeling like I could run through a brick wall in the gym or take on every Sunday-stroller in the airport.

The beats are futuristic, and Yeat’s vocals are very heavily auto-tuned to match. I’m not exactly sure how to describe the actual sound, and am unsure if this rap-subgenre has a name yet, but I am absolutely here for it. It’s aggressive and it’s fun, and I could not care less what its actual musical merit is.

I am unashamed to say I love this project, and “Talk,” “Flawless,” and “Up Off X” especially will remain in my heavy rotation for the foreseeable future.

Pusha T returned with his newest installment in a big way. Following the 7 track blitz that was Daytona was no small task, but Push delivers in a big way on It’s Almost Dry.

Pusha T knows he’s delivering another classic, and that chip-on-the-shoulder feeling is evident throughout the project. There’s an arrogance to the thing that only he could deliver so convincingly, and the album’s features compliment this well, a rarity in a day that mostly sees features being used to drive streams.

Unsurprisingly, the self titled “trapper turned rapper” delivers his share of now expected and memed coke bars, but there’s enough self-awareness on the project to still show some development over prior installments, most evident on “Diet Coke.”

The sound of the project isn’t overly ambitious, building largely on the Daytona sound that worked so well for him. Still, there is a feeling of increased modernity, particularly on songs like “Neck & Wrist,” or “Scrape it Off” featuring newer generation artists Lil Uzi and Don Toliver.

This album is cocky in a way that puts your ego on its own high horse, and it most certainly should’ve at least been nominated for Rap AOTY (Fuck The Grammys).

One of the more conspicuous absences on this list is Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers. This album has and will continue to receive numerous accolades, but I’ve just never gotten Kendrick Lamar. The music just has zero replay value except for the odd single. Yeah, sure, it’s as good as everyone says it is. Fantastic, I’m still never listening more than once, Pulitzer Prize or no.

Denzel Curry is what I want Kendrick Lamar to be. The beats are fantastic, dynamic, and keep me engaged. The lyrics have obvious depth and could easily be considered “conscious rap,” just like Kendrick, engaging with race struggles, politics, and personal strife, but I can also just listen to this project like I would any other music, something I haven’t felt about Kendrick’s music since good kid, m.A.A.d city.

The purpose of saying this is not to hate on Kendrick Lamar; he’s a legend for a reason, his music just isn’t for me. That’s fine. What I’m saying is that Denzel Curry should receive those same flowers given the catalog he has assembled.

Melt My Eyez, See Your Future is a fantastic album from every angle. It’s one you could write a thesis on, all the while maintaining its replay value. That’s an exceptionally tall order, but Denzel continually manages to do it with relative ease.

This album has at least a few tracks for any rap listener. Denzel is comfortable over everything from soul samples to industrial, and this project is another welcome continuation of his astounding development as an artist.

JID broke into the mainstream with The Forever Story, and it’s rare to see such early success as deserved as this. The cornerback turned rapper was signed by J Cole and has earned every ounce of respect that comes with that.

I could say much of the same I said about Melt My Eyez, See Your Future about this project. It’s conscious, it has replay value, it’s just all around great.

However, it’s the storytelling on this project that sets it apart. It’s increasingly rare to have such fantastic storytelling in music, but JID delivers in spades. He’s one of the first artists I didn’t really feel the need to look up on Wikipedia after listening to him for the first time. He tells the listener exactly who he is and where he’s come from if you listen to this project closely, a task he makes quite easy with music this good.

Being signed to J Cole comes with very high expectations for a young artist. While he may shrug the “conscious rapper” title, many consider Cole front of the pack for deep lyrics that deal with real struggles and avoid the played-out rap bravado.

Does JID meet that? Well… I think many people might very quietly agree with me in saying that I think JID might already be better. He doesn’t have the catalog to match that claim, sure. But if The Forever Story is any indication, JID can COOK. His writing ability, diversity of flows, ability to work with varied production styles, and vocals work fantastically on every single track.

Similar to the comparison I made between Denzel Curry and Kendrick Lamar, JID just has that intangible of replayability that I think J Cole generally has much less of (though I was a huge fan of Cole’s most recent project, The Off Season, which even J Cole hater Anthony Fantano agreed with me on).

Every time I listen to this album a new song, and therefore a new story, grabs and commands my attention. It’s rare to find an album this compelling, and I very much look forward to future additions to the JID catalog.

This album is, in a word, huge.

I am a sucker for the new wave of synth, and this album delivers in spades. Every track sounds BIG, with booming synths that give it a cosmic, ethereal feel. This sonic size gives it a feeling of imposing and circumstance, making the listening experience feel like an event, even if I’m just laying in bed with my eyes closed.

Lyrically, this project is quite good. 070 Shake has a deceptively nonchalant delivery through much of the project’s lines, opting often for quality over quantity. Most of the lyrics come in short bars that use the space created by the sound to create an overarching narrative rather than an intimate detailing.

More often than not, it’s the sound that does the story-telling, and much of that come’s from Shake’s own backing vocals. Her vocals is hauntingly beautiful, and working in conjunction with the synths develop their own form of storytelling.

Still, the project does have its more intimate, down to earth moments, which contrast very well with its usually grand scale.

I’m a very big fan of this album, and am looking forward to seeing 070 Shake’s talent continue to develop.

The Weeknd’s January entry Dawn FM is an amazing feat of emotional depth fusing itself with danceability. This album is equal parts danceable and existentially challenging.

The sound is an evolution of what Abel Tesfaye has been developing through his past few projects, moving on from a modernized 80s sound on After Hours, which featured production from legendary trap producer Metro Boomin, to an all out 80s sound partly produced by the synth-god himself, Mike Dean.

The sound of the project only slightly masks its darker lyrical undertones, a theme which is prevalent throughout Abel’s catalog. Jim Carrey acts as a narrator for the album’s titular radio station, but also as a guide through the purgatory that The Weeknd finds himself in following his death on the preceding album. He also wrote and performed the project’s haunting closing track, “Phantom Regret by Jim,” which challenges The Weeknd and his listeners as to whether they’re ready to move onto the afterlife. I don’t think that’s usual for an album with this many club bangers.

This project has undeniably impressive artistic merit, and I cannot wait for the third installment in the Toronto artist’s current album trilogy.

Honorable Mentions:

And #1….

Yes I have already reviewed this one, but I still have not run out of things to say about it, and won’t any time soon.

The mix of genres in the previous nine albums might make this one seem a bit out-of-left-field, and that’s because it is. The state of modern country is an absolute train wreck, which is something Zach Bryan himself acknowledges at points on this album. The genre which lost its soul to the mainstream sound and whose lyrics aren’t anything more than cash-grabby radio fodder is the least likely candidate for where the album of the year might come from

But that’s one of the things that makes this album so amazing. It proves that country is just as capable of a genre as any other for real, true art to rise to the surface, bolstered by the success of American Heartbreak in the mainstream.

This album is an absolute masterpiece. It finds its sound in folk and indie influences, all the while harkening back to the origins of its country genre with its prolific use of harmonica and violin. Zach’s vocals are raw and emotional, letting every little emotion and “flaw” in his voice be heard, which makes the emotional edge of the project all the more impactful. The writing on each and every song is pure poetry, ranging from heart-wrenching pleas to former lovers to reveling in overcoming abuse and personal failings.

This album is one of very few albums I would call perfect, a feat that is borderline impossible for an album with a leviathan run time of over two hours. What makes it perfect, to me, is that it is soul crushingly human. It is so painfully, joyfully, horrifically, and beautifully human. The emotions and storytelling deals with things that human beings encounter. It’s not a tale of the struggles of fame, endless youth, carefree summer days, and especially not of a guy driving a vaguely old pickup truck with his esoteric daisy-dukes clad blonde girlfriend in the passenger seat to the insert-hometown-here high school football game.

No, American Heartbreak is the story of a human being. Every song has a life that has actually been lived, and that gives it enormous emotional resonance. Each track speaks to an accessible human story written with such dense artistry that every replay yields new reasons to cry or rejoice about the fact that you are alive.

How rare it is to find something this beautiful, but how wonderful for it to exist.

Some Closing Remarks

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading this.

Music is immensely important to me, and will continue to hold a significant place in my heart. It means a lot to me that you would have read this one in particular, as it’s outside of what I normally use this blog for and is just a passion project.

I’m hoping to do more album reviews this year, so hopefully you can look forward to those. There are lots of albums I’m excited for, with expected releases from Rihanna, A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, Zach Bryan, Travis Scott, and countless others, and many more from artists I don’t even know I like yet, so there should be plenty to talk about.

Cheers to you, and to more good music in 2023.