22 New Songs I Knew In 2022

I'm still working on the text for a post about my 10 favorite albums of 2022, which will also include a list of 15 or so honorable mentions. Below is a CD-R length mix of 22 good songs from 2022 albums that will not appear in that post. I'm not saying the albums are bad. These aren't even necessarily the best songs from those albums. If you hear a song you dig, you should definitely explore further.

I'm truly not saying these 22 songs the best singles of the last year. I have almost zero personal or cultural context for "singles" at this point in my life and our pandemic. I didn't even know some of these were singles until YouTube demanded I put the Official Video on the playlist or nothing at all (I don't endorse any of the videos I was forced to include, though !!! remains adorable). Between paywalls and the depressing obviousness that "pop" as a crossover commercial nexus is so emaciated that a new album release or a national holiday completely capsizes the Top 40 (and maybe 20 albums a year sell as steadily as Rumours), I don't check the charts much these days. Though I might for yet another end-of-year post...

So to reaffirm, while the albums these songs appear on didn't make my year-end favorites list yet to come, these acts were among the weirdos and heroes, young and old, loud and quiet, who made up the aural tapestry of what I enjoyed this year. And it's not too late for you either!

(caveat: I do not spend enough time exploring the underground sounds on Bandcamp, and I don't even know how one explores SoundCloud. Find somebody even hipper than the guy kicking off a 2022 playlist with The Afghan Whigs & Urge Overkill to help you there.)

22 New Songs I Knew In 2022

(YouTube & Spotify links below)

1. The Afghan Whigs, "The Getaway"
2. Urge Overkill, "Follow My Shadow"
3. Big Joanie, "Confident Man"
4. ADULT., "Our Bodies Weren't Wrong"
5. Bastille, "Back To The Future"
6. Placebo, "The Prodigal"
7. Loudon Wainwright III, "No Man's Land"
8. Beth Orton, "Haunted Satellite"
9. !!!, "Panama Canal"
10. The 1975, "I'm In Love With You"
11. Archers Of Loaf, "In The Surface Noise"
12. Phoenix, "Season 2"
13. Jennifer Vanilla, "Humility's Disease"
14. Mo Troper, "Play Dumb"
15. Mary J. Blige, "Enough"
16. Dr. John, "Give Myself A Good Talkin' To"
17. Hercules & Love Affair feat. ANOHNI, "Poisonous Storytelling"
18. Low, "Dance Song '97"
19. Flume, "Go"
20. quinn, "i've heard that song before"
21. Julia Jacklin, "End Of A Friendship"
22. Superchunk, "If You're Not Dark"