My Favorite 2022 Albums
#4 – Midnights – Taylor Swift
I just spent a week ranking every song on this album, so I won’t go into a lot of detail here. Suffice it to say that Swift is both a great artist and a great superstar, with a keen sense of how she’s evolving in both of those roles, and Midnights is perhaps the best synthesis yet.
As I mentioned last week, this has been a very lean year for me in terms of new album releases. I know plenty of good new music was dropped, but most of it missed be my a mile.
I hope to remedy that by catching up with some of the more intriguing titles as 2022 turns into 2023. I’m particularly interested in getting to know new albums by The 1975 and Clean Cut Kid, two releases recommended by occasional commenter Daniel.
I recently wrote about the importance of track five on Taylor Swift’s albums, and the Random iTunes Fairy has responded by serving up one of those tracks today.
‘All You Had To Do Was Stay,’ from the 2014 album 1989, is one of Swift’s more upbeat track fives, in keeping with the overall style of that album. But lyrically it delivers a healthy dose of emotional turmoil. If you read the song before playing it, you might expect a tortured ballad rather than a slick bop.
When today’s random selection first popped up, it appeared to be a track from Liz Phair’s 2010 album Funstyle. I knew that album was a lot more experimental than her previous pop-centric releases, but this song sounded more like something from the indie pioneer’s 1993 studio debut Exile in Guyville.
Turns out this cut came from a bonus disc included with Funstyle that compiled tracks from a series of early demos Phair recorded under the name Girly Sound. Released before Guyville, these songs were captured on a four track tape deck in her bedroom.
The second album, in addition to Rosalia’s Motomami, to appear on all three New York Times critics’ ‘best of 2022’ lists is, predictably, Beyoncé’s Renaissance. This album has been a huge critical smash since it dropped in late July.
I have to admit I haven’t listened to the album all the way through since the day it came out. Back then I wrote that, while I recognized its appeal for its target audience, I didn’t count myself among that audience.
Meet Me In Montauk 