Happy New Year for 2022. My favourite albums of last year:
50-41:
Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over the Country Club
Kitten - Personal Hotspots
Halsey - If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power
Me Not You - Do You Feel The Same?
Japanese Breakfast - Sable (Original Video Game Soundtrack)
Lil Nas X - MONTERO
IDestroy - We Are Girls
Demi Lovato - Dancing With The Devil…The Art Of Starting Over
Pom Poko - Cheater
Kississippi - Mood Ring
40-31:
Slothrust - Parallel Timeline
Thirty Pounds of Bone - whence, the
Liz Phair - Soberish
Magdalena Bay - Mercurial World
Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR
Pale Waves - Who Am I?
Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever
Hayley Williams - FLOWERS for VASES / descansos
Eliza Shaddad - The Woman You Want
Julien Baker - Little Oblivions
30-21:
Adna - Black Water
The Go! Team - Get Up Sequences Part One
Colleen Green - Cool
Goat Girl - On All Fours
Julia Stone - Sixty Summers
Natalie Imbruglia - Firebird
Lorde - Solar Power
ABBA - Voyage
Middle Kids - Today We’re The Greatest
Elaine Mai - Home
20-11:
Madi Diaz - History of a Feeling
Dave - We’re All Alone In This Together
Billy Bragg - The Million Things That Never Happened
Black Honey - Written & Directed
MARINA - Ancient Dreams In A Modern Land
The Anchoress - The Art of Losing
Kylie V - Big Blue
Allie Crow Buckley - Moonlit and Devious
The War On Drugs - I Don’t Live Here Anymore
CHVRCHES - Screen Violence
10 TORRES - Thirstier
9 Desperate Journalist - Maximum Sorrow!
8 Juliana Hatfield - Blood
7 Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend
6 The Weather Station - Ignorance
5 Linn Koch-Emmery - Being the girl
4 Self Esteem - Prioritise Pleasure
An absolute revelation for me. Appearing at Latitude as a last minute replacement in an early afternoon slot, Rebecca and her dancers stole the show, despite not having fully rehearsed. No surprise this album has dominated end of year polls. She put everything into this.
3 Orla Gartland - Woman on the Internet
A festival discovery. Loved hearing these songs at Latitude and ordered the LP as soon as I got home. A brilliant debut that gets better with each listen.
2 Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
In many other years this would have topped my list. Simbi’s always been excellent, but this album is something else. Huge and ambitious.
1 Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee
“Be Sweet” is my favourite song of the year. I smile every time I hear the first note on the radio.
“Posing For Cars” is a very close second fave. The perfect album closer. The acoustic version is beautiful, and the album’s big electric guitar outro version is everything.
I haven’t loved an album this much since Art Angels.