what i listened to in 2022
a long, juicy email
I know Spotify is bad. Honestly, as a musician, I get paid nearly nothing from it, and I hate seeing my friends struggle with it too. But as a music listener, it’s so hard to quit the habit. One of the reasons I’m terrified to delete my Spotify account is my monthly playlists.
Every month I start a new one, and put songs in which I’ve liked that month, old or new. This has been going on since 2011.
I have over 10 years of playlists! And I could tell you in an instant what my favourite song of any month was, for the last 10 years.
April 2013? Papa Was A Rodeo by The Magnetic Fields
July 2018? The Sire of Sorrow by Joni Mitchell.
January 2012? Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode (to be fair this is my favourite song like every month anyway).
So! This all means I can give you a very detailed rundown of my favourite songs of the year that’s flown by.
⛄️ January
January’s playlist is called “Womps” which I guess is like a sad trombone sound, maybe you could even say, “I got the womps” if you’re feeling down. Was I feeling down in January? I have no idea, but the playlist is short! In fact, it is only 2 songs long. Tragedy! This normally happens when I listen to a lot of podcasts. Anyway, the songs of the month were:
Beg For You by Charli XCX and Rina Sawayama
On Your Way (Felix Song) by Anais Mitchell:
🌹 February
February’s playlist was titled “Space Crabs” because I was reading the most awful sci-fi book that I picked up on a whim in WH Smiths one day. Anyway February was a slight improvement because we have THREE whole songs on the playlist. I remember liking this lead single from Fontaines but little else of their new album. Also Mitski came out with new music and it was excellent, she is particularly good at music videos. When I think about moving visuals I always aspire to Mitski levels of conceptualisation.
🍳 March
March was a great month for music! And the playlist title this time round was “I’m A Volcano Girl,” because, well… I’m a volcano girl. 💁🏻♀️ I discovered my most-listened to band and most-listened to album of the year, and I can’t recommend them enough: Beatenberg. Their album The Hanging Gardens of Beatenberg was on repeat all the time, especially the songs Ithaca, Pluto, and the danceable, joyful Chelsea Blakemore:
Honorable mentions also go out to these songs:
Naked in Manhattan by Chappell Roan
Talk by beabadoobee (this one is really great, go listen to this one)
All My Ghosts by Lizzie McAlpine
🌷 April
April’s playlist is called “Suilven Calling” because I’d just discovered the existence of this mountain in Scotland and was really excited to go climb it. It was one of the first things I wrote about for this newsletter! I still have not climbed nor seen Suilven but it is on my list of THINGS TO DO.
Toronto punk band PUP released an album around this time and it was the first time I really got into PUP, actually.
I also really liked this chaotic song: Bored Again!
The punk band Wipers released this song in 1979 and it also made it on to April’s playlist:
⛅️ May
May’s playlist title is “Wassa Wassa Whaaa?” which is inspired by this child’s drawing of the Easter Bunny being crucified like Jesus:
May was a bumper month for music! I don’t know how to fit it all in! Dan Fogelberg’s ‘74 album Souvenirs was a heavy favourite, with basically the entire thing on rotation throughout the month (and the rest of the year).
Eurovision also happened this year and, boy, let me tell you, if I’d gone through a breakup, Sweden’s entry would have just about ended me (“I’ll be bleeding but don’t you mind, I’ll be fine”….WELL OKAY THEN):
I have also liked a lot of the songs which artist David Shrigley has created in collaboration with people. This one with Scottish musician Lord Stornoway was also a big favourite this month:
🏔 June
June’s playlist is called “Is It A Poopy?” and I genuinely cannot remember or explain why.
It was the month I rediscovered Billy Talent and realised, after taking a break from my favourite Canadian emo band for a few albums, that they’ve still got it. I loved a lot on their latest release, Crisis of Faith:
Shoutout to the album Afraid of Heights as well, except for the song called “Ghost Ship of Cannibal Rats” because, it sucks.
Another big discovery was when I was listening to Iain Anderson’s show on BBC Radio Scotland and heard Richard Shindell for the first time. If you’ve been reading this newsletter keenly, you will know I LOVE RICHARD. HE IS AMAZING. Best folk songwriter and guitar player. Please bask in his glory:
🌊 July
Clearly I was having some sort of crisis of self-confidence as July’s playlist is called “I Belief in U”. Love Island was in full swing and I have to say, Becky Hill’s Remember with David Guetta had crawled into my ears ever since she did a surprise set in the villa.
Beatenberg made another appearance with a song off a different album:
I also liked this song by Jockstrap called Glasgow, and Lake Street Dive did a great cover of Bonnie Raitt’s Nick of Time.
🌇 August
August already! Where does the time go? I’m not going to tell you the name of this playlist because it genuinely makes no sense but it only has three songs on it. We’ve got les séquoias by Pomme, Next Time Might Be Your Time by “Blue” Gene Tyranny (which I found as an episode closer on The Resort, one of my favourite TV shows of the year). The best song of this month however was an oldie, by The Jam:
🍁 September
September is called “get me in the tub and SCRUB,” based off an inside joke with a friend of mine when we went to France. It was all sparked by this song, because we kept trying to do the opening part but it would always end up as “SCRUB-A-DUB-DUB-DUB-DUB”:
Paul Carrack was the chanteur du jour for me in September, with this song from Mike & The Mechanics, this one off a solo album, and this Squeeze classic all on the playlist:
🌌 October
Was I dreaming of soupy? “Soupy Dreams” is the title of October’s playlist. I loved Sunset by Caroline Polachek, and look forward to her recently-announced album which drops next year:
Tove Lo also had a great single which I listened to a lot in that month. It was a short playlist, for October! My headphone connector broke and that is genuinely the reason why I listened to less music. Note to self: buy new headphone thingie.
✨ November
My birthday month! November’s playlist is succinctly titled “ooOOOooOooooooooOOOOOOOHH”.
A rediscovery was Keane’s debut album Hopes and Fears, the Kazakh singer Dimash Qudaibergen and his very dramatic live performances, and a band I knew would become a fast-favourite of mine someday, Guided By Voices. I am not exaggerating when I say they have about a billion songs. Here’s one of my favourites recently:
🌲 December
December ain’t over til it’s over! So far we only have two songs. BLÜ EYES is an artist in LA who wrote about her year or so of a health scare and healing period after, and as someone who’s gone through something like that in the past, it really resonated. Her whole EP is great but this one song really hit home:
The other song on this playlist is by Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices. I really like the chord progression in this one:
And that is it!!!
If you are a Spotify user then you can find a playlist of the entire year here.
What are your top songs and albums of the year? What releases are you looking forward to next year? Leave a comment below.
And woohoo! We are done with the big 2022 music newsletter. Go click the heart, claim your prize, and be happy (or not).
Olivia 🌈