THE 75 BEST ALBUMS OF 2022
10 FONTAINES D.C. Skinty Fia (PARTISAN)
“I always dreamed as a teenager of making three great albums, like Nirvana had,” Fontaines D.C.’s Conor Deegan told MOJO. “Now we’ve done that, I don’t really mind what we do.” Skinty Fia marked three MOJO Top 10 albums in four years for the Dublin quintet, as they developed their post-punk sound into something unostentatiously anthemic, while never losing any of their relatability or poetic intensity. A model of how an old-fashioned rock band could grow in challenging times. Standout track: Jackie Down The Line
5 ARCTIC MONKEYS The Car (DOMINO)
“It’s definitely not just four people playing indie music any more,” bassist Nick O’Malley told MOJO last month, emphasising the intriguing complexities of the biggest British rock band of their generation. Away from the festival moshpit, Sheffield flâneur Alex Turner and his cohorts continued to disdain riffery on their magnificent seventh. Instead: Curtis soul, Scott 4 drama, ravishing orchestrations and, from Turner, a droll, nuanced cinematographer’s eye for detail. Standout track:
Body Paint
9 DRY CLEANING Stumpwork (4AD)
As with Fontaines D.C., a high MOJO placing for Dry Cleaning’s second album, Stumpwork, showed how major talents were now consolidating out of the recent UK post-punk glut. Florence Shaw’s spoken-word reveries continued to be weird, gripping and hypnotic – “People say, ‘You’re like the woman on the satnav,’” she told MOJO – but the music was subtly richer, too, with warm Johnny Marr jangles to illuminate the Sonic Youth gridwork. Oh, and that sleeve… Standout track:
Hot Penny Day
4 HORACE ANDY Midnight Rocker (ON-U SOUND)
The journey from Studio One in Kingston, Jamaica to Ramsgate, Kent, proved smoother than most would’ve anticipated, as reggae’s most seraphic voice conspired with UK dub don Adrian Sherwood for a timeless album of roots. Old Studio One sides were revisited, fellow travellers covered (Safe From Harm, a Massive Attack tune not sung by Andy), for Andy’s best album in 40-plus years – and the dub version, Midnight Scorchers, was every bit as good. Standout track:
Try Love
8 JACK WHITE Fear Of The Dawn (THIRD MAN)
A bountiful year for White fans saw two terrific new LPs, with the rootsy and relatively conventional Entering Heaven Alive swiftly following this energetically eccentric fourth solo set. The wild ideas kept coming on MOJO’s preferred Fear Of The Dawn: rap-metal! Dub! Q-Tip! William Burroughs and Manhattan Transfer samples in the same track! Even garage rock! But, crucially, White’s experimentation was tightly packaged too, aligned to some of his sharpest tunes in years. Standout track: Morning, Noon
And Night
7 BILL CALLAHAN (DRAG CITY)
Long-term Bill Callahan addicts will have adjusted to his late-flowering openness and beneficence by now, ushered in by 2019’s Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest. Still, his third album after becoming a father was striking in its stated aim to “rouse people”, as Callahan artfully transcended ruminative states – and added horns as he went – to produce genuinely uplifting songs like Natural Information. As skilled, wise and quotable as ever, but with bonus good vibes. Standout track: Partition
3 DANGER MOUSE & BLACK THOUGHT Cheat Codes (BMG)
“We made this record for people from a certain place and time who identify with specific aesthetics,” Roots MC Black Thought told MOJO – people, perhaps, with a profound love of rap but a wariness about its contemporary form. For his return to hip-hop, Danger Mouse saturated Cheat Codes in vintage samples – Gwen McCrae, Hugh Masekela – creating the perfect soundbed for Black Thought’s uninhibited flow. Old school reinvented for 2022. Standout track:
No Gold Teeth
6 SUEDE Autofiction (BMG)
Suede’s effective knack of transcending ’90s Britpop nostalgia was reinforced by album nine, boldly trailed by frontman Brett Anderson as their “punk album”. Autofiction, in fact, followed a plausible alternative trajectory they could have taken in the mid-’90s – an urgent, heroic and gothically-attuned take on guitar rock informed by PiL, The Chameleons and even The Cult. High drama ensued, of course, but with gritty verité detailing rather than pantomime self-parody. Standout track:
She Still Leads Me On
2 WET LEG Wet Leg (DOMINO)
What lurked beyond the Chaise Longue? Could 2021’s peculiar one-hit wonders turn out to be the breakout new stars of 2022? Wet Leg’s apparently effortless way of nailing the latter scenario hinged on this exceptional debut album, where their unforced Isle Of Wight surrealism and post-Breeders antics turned out to be just as much fun over 37 minutes. Sometimes poignant, too: there was a lot more to Wet Leg than buttered muffins. Standout track:
Too Late Now
JAZZ Compiled by ANDY COWAN
1 BINKER & MOSES Feeding The Machine (GEARBOX) 2 TUMI MOGOROSI Group Theory: Black Music 3 (MUSHROOM HOUR HALF HOUR) ROBOCOBRA QUARTET Living Isn’t Easy (FIRST TASTE) 4 SARATHY KORWAR KALAK (THE LEAF LABEL) 5 MAKAYA MCCRAVEN In These Times (XL) 6 SHABAKA HUTCHINGS Afrikan Culture (IMPULSE!) 7 LAMPEN Lampen (WE JAZZ) 8 CÉDRIC HANRIOT Time Is Color (MORPHOSIS ART) 9 NDUDUZO MAKHATHINI In The Spirit Of Ntu (BLUE NOTE) 10 ALABASTER DEPLUME GOLD (INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM)
AMERICANA Compiled by SYLVIE SIMMONS
1 MAVIS STAPLES & LEVON HELM Carry Me Home (ANTI-) 2 WILCO Cruel Country (DBPM) 3 AMANDA SHIRES Take It Like A Man (ATO) 4 DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS Welcome 2 Club XIII (ATO) 5 MALCOLM HOLCOMBE Tricks Of The Trade (NEED TO KNOW) 6 FATHER JOHN MISTY Chloë And The Next 20th Century (BELLA UNION) 7 MOLLY TUTTLE Crooked Tree (NONESUCH) 8 STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES Jerry Jeff (NEW WEST) 9 MARGO CILKER Pohorylle (LOOSE MUSIC) 10 MIDLAKE For The Sake Of Bethel Woods (BELLA UNION)