False alarm – I got a bit to say about my Top 5 Albums and Top 5 Singles of 2022 as well! Trying to keep my YouTube channel chiefly focused on film and videogames, though, so I’m sticking with the classic blog format this time:
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ALBUMS
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5 – It Was Fun While it Lasted, Sueco
As someone who barely listened to anything outside my parents’ music collection ‘til the end of high school, I missed pop punk’s mid-Aughts heyday. Still, call me a late bloomer, but I’ve coveted its idiosyncratic blend of youthful indignation and radio-ready chords ever since! It’s been interesting yet invigorating, then, in recent years, to see the scene resurrected with an injection of hip-hop—and as albums like It Was Fun While it Lasted by Sueco prove, the procedure can produce striking results. Granted, there’s a bit more misogyny and fixation on substance abuse here than I’d prefer, but every swift song crackles with snotty, infectious energy, especially when elder statesman Travis Barker clocks in for a feature on “SOS.” Elsewhere, “Loser” gets points for mixing self-deprecating malaise with manga nods (“If I had a Death Note, I would write my name on every page”), while “Drunk Dial” had me singing along before the end of my first listen. It’s crass, it’s mopey, and it’s riding Machine Gun Kelly’s ratty coattails from the first note to the last, but damned if I won’t still have it on repeat when I’m either feeling real good or real bad. What else is the subgenre for?
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4 – Midnights, Taylor Swift
Lover and Folklore were my favorite albums of 2019 and 2020, respectively, so it’s with a somewhat heavy heart that I put Taylor Swift’s latest record comparatively low on this list. However, while Midnights may be moodier and less focused than its predecessors, it’s still full of outstanding tracks that further boost the singer’s climb back from the insecure Reputation era to the throne of the Queen of Pop. Jack Antonoff continues to be an ideal co-writer/producer, aiding in an introspective vibe which befits both the titular setting and Swift’s matured delivery. I like the apt little blinging noises on “Bejeweled,” I like that we’re keeping shades of red going as a theme with “Maroon” and “Lavender Haze,” and I especially like the standout single “Anti-Hero,” which feels like a follow-up to “The Archer” in its fretful confessions, even as it contains one of the worst verses I’ve heard in recent memory (with all due respect, ma’am, no one else has ever felt like “everybody is a sexy baby”). With a “3am” edition that practically adds a bonus EP, we got a whole lotta Taylor this year, but you’ll never hear a complaint out of me!
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3 – Dreamkid, Dreamkid
From a certain point of view, it doesn’t take much to make a latter-day “synthwave” album: a palm tree here, an electronic keyboard riff there, sprinkle in some cyberpunk or John Hughes references, and you’re golden. As a fan of the genre—nay, the lifestyle—though, one learns to discern artists who nevertheless put their all into a sincere spin on the sound—and I’m here to report that Dreamkid, with their self-titled debut, is the genuine article. With track titles like “America,” “Game Over,” and “Night Ride,” there’s one particular group whose neon-lit shadow hangs heavy over this project. But while The Midnight explored ballads and Eighties rock this year on Heroes, Dreamkid stakes their claim with a combo of cozy and pulse-pounding instrumentals layered with vocals uniquely evocative of Eiffel 65. From gaming anthem “Restart” to the plaintive refrain of “Parents” (“Mama said, ‘I’m sorry, but I gotta go—your daddy and I still love you so’.”), this is nostalgia incarnate—and sometimes, a little comfort goes a long way.
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2 – Dawn FM, The Weeknd
Few artists make music suited for both the bedroom floor and bathroom floor like The Weeknd, who followed up 2020’s outstanding After Hours with another torrid, time-centric LP: Dawn FM. A concept album presented as transmissions from a fictional, fantastical radio station, the sixteen core songs explore love, loss, and all the little pains in-between as that light at the end of the tunnel grows ever-brighter. Jim Carrey, of all people, plays a soothing DJ in several interludes, and even closes things out with an existential poetry reading. Along the way, “Gasoline” is a nihilistic banger, “Take My Breath” spins that three-word plea into another eminently hypnotic danceable track, and I still can’t decide whether my favorite line in “Here We Go… Again” is “make her scream like Neve Campbell” or Tyler, The Creator aggressively intoning “you gon sign this prenup.” If I’m looking to keep a smile on my face, I’ll probably keep Dawn FM out of my stereo, but when the sun is down and you’re short a plus-one, there’s no better soundtrack.
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1 – Vaxis II: A Window of the Waking Mind, Coheed & Cambria
For the longest time, Coheed & Cambria was a band I liked in concept more than execution: a prog outfit whose discography is 95% concept albums set in an elaborate sci-fi universe, with the visuals and bombast to match. That changed with 2018’s Vaxis I: The Unheavenly Creatures, which embraced not only a new cast of characters unmoored from the alliterative couple but also shorter, poppier songs. The wait was agonizing, but 2022 finally brought us Vaxis II: A Window of the Waking Mind—in this humble listener’s opinion, their best album yet. “The Embers of Fire” cranks the riff from Vaxis I’s “Up in Flames” to eleven, an opener sure to give even first-time listeners goosebumps, before delivering a dozen more tracks of straight fire indeed. Older C&C fans maybe bemoan the arena-rock production and new emphasis on electronic instrumentation, but for my money (spent on not only VIP concert tix but also the ultra collector’s edition), it’s only fitting for a band this nerdy to finally sound the part. The actual “story” is as thinly sketched as ever—most lyrics pull double duty as vague glimpses into a dysfunctional relationship—but after experiencing this many propulsive earworms under one cover, Vaxis III can’t enter our galaxy soon enough!
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SINGLES
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5- “emo girl,” Machine Gun Kelly & WILLOW
I already know I’m not getting invited to a party at Anthony Fantano’s any time soon, so I’ve got nothing to lose by saying I actually really liked “emo girl” by Machine Gun Kelly. The encircling album, Mainstream Sellout, unfortunately let me down in comparison to 2021’s surprise guilty pleasure Tickets to My Downfall—the hooks were weaker, MGK wastes a Bring Me the Horizon feature, and at least on the stream I listened to, the vocals were mixed like crap. Smack dab in the middle, though, comes this loud, boneheaded duet with WILLOW (easily having the best 2022 among Will Smith’s family), about the helpless appeal of a gal in fishnets and a Blink-182 shirt. Who else can relate?
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4 – “EDGING,” Blink-182
Speaking of Blink-182: Tom’s back! After 2019’s NINE saw Matt, Mark, and Travis kinda just going through the motions to fill time, what a joy it was to hear “EDGING,” the band’s lone 2022 release, get the band back together for the second time in… twenty years? Good lord. You can say the boys are still on autopilot here, but if only til the next album drops, two-and-a-half minutes of catchy, classically irreverent Blink is all it took to get in my top five.
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3 – “You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween,” Muse
I never know how to feel when Muse puts out a new album—from piano rock to glam, to dubstep, to synthwave, the troupe has constantly reinvented its sound while also not-unjustifiably being accused of copying their peers’ homework, all while maintaining a tinfoil-hatted persona that’s often more cringeworthy than cerebral. This culminated with 2022’s Will of the People, a distressingly aimless record that careens wildly between literal and figurative tones in search of a standout moment it never finds. At least, though, with an early-autumn street date, we got the delightfully groovy, creepy “You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween,” which scorns an abusive partner while also being a certified spooky bop. For the holiday, one is usually stuck with “The Monster Mash” and some Danny Elfman tracks, but count this one amongst my annual October playlist from now on!
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2 – “Emergency Contact,” Pierce the Veil
There’s not much to report about my number two slot, except to say that it’s another classic emo group triumphantly returning to the airwaves: Pierce the Veil with “Emergency Contact.” While I wasn’t crazy about “Pass the Nirvana,” their other single from earlier in 2022, this tune gives me exactly what I look for from Vic and company: a portrait of chaotic yet enduring romance, with a chorus that won’t easily leave your head once it enters. If this track is any indication, the pending Jaws of Life LP will make for a worthy followup to 2016’s Misadventures!
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1 – “Don’t Let the Light Go Out,” Panic! at the Disco
As has been a theme with this list, the full album from which my top single of the year emerges left me lukewarm in sum: on Viva Las Vengeance, Panic! At the Disco pivoted from the brooding and/or operatic tenor of previous albums to functionally generic rock ‘n roll, buoyed only by Brendon Urie’s incomparably hyperactive voice. Indeed, the man likes to shout—but on “Don’t Let the Light Go Out,” he channels that gusto into the beseeching of a man laid low by heartache. When Brendon wails “you’re the only one that knows how to operate my heavy machinery,” the guitar seeming to beg along with him, it’s a peculiar yet immediately understandable metaphor, one which only grows in intensity with every repetition. To me, some of the best songs are the kind that sound as raucous and desperate as true love feels. P!atD may have long since have become a solo project, but when its frontman gets theatrical, I’ll always tune in to belt it out to the cheap seats—or just an empty passenger seat.
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Notes&Sketches 