Staff Picks: Best Albums of 2022

Megan Thee Stallion – Traumazine

Song to listen to: Budget
Realest of real hot girl shit. 10/10. No notes.

WILLOW – <COPINGMECHANISM>

Song to listen to: curious/furious
I genuinely didn’t expect this to be a no-skip album for me, but it RIPS.

Brockhampton – The Family

Song to listen to: Boyband
The group’s final album. End of a well-lived and well-loved era. 

Coast Contra – Apt. 505

Song to listen to: 505
A discovery from this year that I kept on coming back to. 

Freddie Dredd – Freddie’s Inferno

Song to listen to: Wrath
Freddie Dredd makes music that makes me think I could get away with murder. (For legal purposes: this is a joke, I would never get away with murder.)

The Wonder Years – The Hum Goes On Forever

Song to listen to: Low Tide
This band has never put out a bad album, if you think otherwise you’re wrong and I’m sorry you live life that way.

Young Culture – You Had To Be There

Song to listen to: Whiskey
Just a GOOD album start to finish. Can’t wait to see how far this band goes.

The 1975 – Being Funny in a Foreign Language

Wet Leg – Wet Leg 

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Cool It Down 

Oliver Tree – Cowboy Tears 

Beach Bunny – Emotional Creature 

Cave In – Heavy Pendulum 

An all time favorite.  

The London Suede – Autofiction

Beautiful Glam-Rock classic.  

Convert – Saves  

Ok, so here’s the thing.  It’s been a LONG time since I have been so moved by a “local” artist.  The world should take note.  Convert Saves.

Frank Turner – FTHC

 “A Wave Across a Bay.”  An intensely intimate conversation between a man and a friend he has lost.  Brings me to tears every listen.

Harry Styles – Harry’s House 

 A Perfect pop album 

Tears for Fears – The Tipping Point

It’s rare that a band that has been around this long.

Taylor Swift – Midnights (3am edition)

Songs to listen to: “Karma” + “Anti-Hero”

Umphrey’s McGee – Asking For A Friend

Songs to listen to: “Small Strides” + “Fenced In”

Death Cab for Cutie – Asphalt Meadows

Songs to listen to: “I Don’t Know How I Survive” + “Here To Forever”

Florence and the Machine – Dance Fever

Songs to listen to: “King” + “Free”

Momma – Household Name

Songs to listen to: “Medicine” + “Motorbike”

Plains – I Walked With You Always

Songs to listen to: “Problem With It” + “Line Of Sight”

(note: this is Waxahatchee and Jess Williamson)

Butch Walker – Butch Walker as… Glenn

Coheed and Cambria – Vaxis II: A Window of the Waking Mind

Lizzo – Special

Harry Styles – Harry’s House

Spoon – Lucifer on the Sofa

Carly Rae Jepsen – The Loneliest Time

SPICE – Viv

The Stereo – Thirteen

Wet Leg – Wet Leg

PUP – THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND

Coheed and Cambria – Vaxis II: A Window of the Waking Mind

Song to listen to: Comatose

Dan Vapid & the Cheats – Welcome To Dystopia

Song to listen to: Sour Pauline

No Trigger – Dr. Album

Song to listen to: No Tattoos

Bob Vylan – Bob Vylan Presents The Price Of Life

Song to listen to: Drug War

Rise Against – Nowhere Generation II

Song to listen to: This Time It’s Personal
My favorite band in the whole wide world.

Lucy Bennett – Bedtime Songs by Lucy

Song to listen to: Danny Boy
In my first year as a parent, this album has been clutch when I need my kid to go to sleep and stop screaming at me.

Dolly Parton – Run Rose, Run

Flo Milli – You Still Here, Ho?

J-Hope – Jack in The Box

Bad Bunny – Un Verano Sin Ti

Weezer – SZNZ

All of them: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter even though this one hasn’t come out yet.

JBE Nature Sounds – Nature Ambience