Monday Music: A Few of My Favorite Sounds

The Music that Made My Year

I listen to a lot of music. I buy a lot, as well. And I don’t think I’m shy about sharing opinions about what’s been in my personal rotation. I’ve been burying myself in the late ‘70s and early 80s of late, particularly music that references the underlying fear of nuclear assault that I remember infecting the culture at the time. I’ll have more to say about this at a later date, as I complete the long chapter on nuclear culture, Kerouac, the Beats, and punk rock that is fast becoming the central aspect of a book I’m working on.

For this newsletter, I want to focus on the new music I engaged with in 2022. The focus here is on my favorites — I have no interested in discussing what I didn’t like — and I’m breaking this up into four types of albums:

1) My top 10, which is not meant to designate the best music of the year, but the music I found indispensable over the course of the year.

2) The best of the rest, which covers good work, music I loved, but that did not hit me in the same way that, say, Nikki Lane’s brilliant record did.

3) Releases by favorites like Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, and Neil Young — artists that are difficult for me to fully judge because creating the necessary critical distance has grown impossible for me.

4) A mention of some reissues and compilation albums worth noting.