On Songs & Albums

This year, my countdown of the previous year's best music has been a marathon of four posts: Honorable Mentions, #36 through #21, #20 through #11... and now this one. Here are my ten favorite albums of 2022. Sample tracks from each one and see if any of them speak to you. Then, post notes about your own favorites in the Comments if your favorites differ from mine!

Are you up for a treasure hunt? Here we go with one of the last two parts of my 2022 musical review.

You're likely to find some new favorites here in this wildly diverse list of albums and selected tracks from my favorite 2022 recordings.

As I'll need some time to prepare my post on my Top 30 Favorite Recordings of 2022, I hope that this substantial feast of "Honorable Mentions" leads you to many hours of new musical discoveries.

It has taken three decades — 30 years to the month! — for the truth to come into focus. In the early '90s, Sinead O'Connor risked her career to speak truth to power. She was condemned by Christians, by pop culture, by almost everyone. And now we've seen her laments justified, her prophecies coming true. Here, thank God, is a movie that loves her and grieves for her.

Arcade Fire's seven-track tapestry of anxiety, alienation, and disillusionment sounds epic, but it can be a bit disillusioning itself in its obvious sermonizing.

One of my favorite records of 2021 won the Album of the Year award: Jon Batiste's We Are.

You are arriving at the summit of my 2021 Music Mountain. These are my fifteen favorite albums of 2021

It has finally begun! On January 20, Looking Closer's look back at favorite recordings of 2021 has begun! Keep watch for Part Two and Part Three, coming soon.