Top 100 Music Albums of 2022 by 
Arthurknight 
2022 was a really pleasant year for music. I think that sense of post-Covid energy shines through a lot of the albums that have come out and I for one like this as a nice change from the trend of bored artists making boring lockdown recordings which were continually dolled out as low-stakes releases throughout 2020 and 2021. Musically, the 2020s continue to not be particularly radical – nobodies making anything daringly "new" – but I think a set of sounds that distinguish the decade are beginning to emerge: It's the return of softcore, the "rock band", the concept album, and political music being cool again. Meanwhile, Tiktok looms over us all as the cultural behemoth which will eventually consume the entire industry and convert all artists into short-form vloggers peddling portable smoothie blenders.
Top 15 Songs of 2022:
1. Black Country, New Road: The Place Where He Inserted The Blade
2. Bluetile Lounge: Easterly
3. Blackwinterwells, 8485: halo3
4. Yo La Tengo – Fallout
5. Rachika Nayar, Maria BC – Heaven Comes Crashing
6. julie: pg. 4 a picture of three hedges
7. Kendrick Lamar - The Heart, Part 5
8. Horsegirl: Anti-glory
9. Julia Holter: Heloise
10. Uboa, vi a: Dead Time's Broken Arrow
11. Saya Gray: If There's No Seat In the Sky (Will You Forgive Me???)
12. Sons Of: A Yellow Robe
13. Enablers: Year Of The Dog
14. Jessie Ware: Free Yourself
15. Oiseaux-Tempête: A Man Alone - In A One Man Poem
Additional "Significant" reviews (Written reviews in album comments):
Ethel Cain – Preacher's Daughter: 6
Belle and Sebastian – A Bit of Previous: 6
Sault – Air: 6
Soul Glo – Diaspora Problems: 6
Nouns – While of Unsound Mind: 6
Desire – Escape: 6
Pusha T – It's Almost Dry: 6
Wet Leg – Wet Leg: 6
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Omnium Gatherum: 6
Pinegrove – 1111: 6
FKA Twigs – Caprisongs: 6
Leikeli47 – Shape Up: 6
Earl Sweatshirt – Sick!: 6
Yard Act – The Overload: 5.5
Father John Misty – Chloë And The Next 20th Century: 5.5
Soccer Mommy – Sometimes, Forever: 5.5
Melody's Echo Chamber – Emotional Eternal: 5.5
Black Star – No Fear of Time: 5.5
Soccer Mommy – Somtimes, Forever: 5.5
The Weeknd – Dawn FM: 5
Spoon – Lucifer On The Sofa: 5
Jack White – Fear Of The Dawn: 5
Everything Everything – Raw Data Feel: 4.5
070 Shake – You Can't Kill Me: 4
Arcade Fire – We: 4
Arctic Monkeys – The Car: 2
Unsurprisingly, Muse released the year's worst album: a crass and masturbatory exercise in fantasised hubris masquerading as music. Will Of The People is the closest Muse have got to creating music that can work like the "Killer Joke" from Monty Python's Flying Circus, and after listening to it I could only wish that they had succeeded. Solid attempts at releasing worse music this year were made by Drake, Jack Harlow, and most-daringly Avril Lavigne, but it's hard to actively criticise the sausage factory for the junk it pumps out. Instead, Muse claim to be making art.
- Chart updated: 02/02/2024 04:15
- (Created: 02/07/2022 05:58).
- Chart size: 100 albums.
There are 3 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Music Albums of 2022 has an average rating of 90 out of 100 (from 4 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.
View the complete list of 53,000 charts on BestEverAlbums.com from The Charts page.
Buy album 
- #Sponsored
8.5/10
Simple low-fi music born from circumstance. In a first listen, it may feel like a first draft, something that needs refinement. However, as with any piece of art interfaced with context, knowing Lilitri decided to call the record done from a single and ultimately final recording session with Maloney before his passing re-situates Sore Thumb; the words mean more and mean differently... The overall quietness of the masters is no longer hollow but embraced in a comforting emptiness... The songs are pleasant, and that's all they need to be.
_ [First added to this chart: 03/21/2022]
Simple low-fi music born from circumstance. In a first listen, it may feel like a first draft, something that needs refinement. However, as with any piece of art interfaced with context, knowing Lilitri decided to call the record done from a single and ultimately final recording session with Maloney before his passing re-situates Sore Thumb; the words mean more and mean differently... The overall quietness of the masters is no longer hollow but embraced in a comforting emptiness... The songs are pleasant, and that's all they need to be.
_ [First added to this chart: 03/21/2022]
1
Buy album
- #Sponsored
8/10
Truly splendid. Lafourcade does the Jazz club; or, Lafourcade does her Asylum Era record. What results is that De Todas Las Flores is maybe Lafourcade's funnest album in a long while, while somehow also being a full embrace of orchestral backing. Classical motifs are most prominent on the opening track and closing track, but even when they occur they are transient interventions in Lafourcade's latin music. These styles are wonderfully woven together conceptually, melodically as well as through the album's sublime production work. "De todas las flores", "Maria la Curandera", and "Canta la arena" are favourites, but it's one of those albums that rewards commitment to reach its conclusion by presenting its most beautiful ideas in those final minutes, a beauty that can only be understood through that commitment.
_ [First added to this chart: 11/03/2022]
Truly splendid. Lafourcade does the Jazz club; or, Lafourcade does her Asylum Era record. What results is that De Todas Las Flores is maybe Lafourcade's funnest album in a long while, while somehow also being a full embrace of orchestral backing. Classical motifs are most prominent on the opening track and closing track, but even when they occur they are transient interventions in Lafourcade's latin music. These styles are wonderfully woven together conceptually, melodically as well as through the album's sublime production work. "De todas las flores", "Maria la Curandera", and "Canta la arena" are favourites, but it's one of those albums that rewards commitment to reach its conclusion by presenting its most beautiful ideas in those final minutes, a beauty that can only be understood through that commitment.
_ [First added to this chart: 11/03/2022]
Year of Release:
2022
Appears in:
Rank Score:
370
Rank in 2022:
Rank in 2020s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
- #Sponsored
8/10
Frog Eyes were a relatively recent discovery of mine. They are, arguably, found at the periphery of Canada's 2000s indie moment and not for the uninitiated. Carey Mercer, best known for Swan Lake, heads up this group and it's maybe some of the weirdest stuff you could imagine an otherwise normal looking band to make. Their discography has gradually mellowed out that weirdness, trading it in for cleaner production and tighter song structuring, but that essence of the uncanny is always there. The Bees reaches back to the sounds of when Canada's music scene were heard the world over.
_ [First added to this chart: 02/02/2023]
Frog Eyes were a relatively recent discovery of mine. They are, arguably, found at the periphery of Canada's 2000s indie moment and not for the uninitiated. Carey Mercer, best known for Swan Lake, heads up this group and it's maybe some of the weirdest stuff you could imagine an otherwise normal looking band to make. Their discography has gradually mellowed out that weirdness, trading it in for cleaner production and tighter song structuring, but that essence of the uncanny is always there. The Bees reaches back to the sounds of when Canada's music scene were heard the world over.
_ [First added to this chart: 02/02/2023]
Buy album
- #Sponsored
8/10
Really playing into my love of Jason Molina here, this is straight up another Magnolia Electric Co., just a little louder. Also, the production on this is near perfection, the clarity and space around every part is immaculately executed.
_ [First added to this chart: 05/18/2022]
Really playing into my love of Jason Molina here, this is straight up another Magnolia Electric Co., just a little louder. Also, the production on this is near perfection, the clarity and space around every part is immaculately executed.
_ [First added to this chart: 05/18/2022]
Buy album
- #Sponsored
8/10
The best R&B album of the year and a musical journey which re-envisions The Bluest Eye in the 21st Century as a contemporary moment where racial aestheticism and internalised racism are foregrounded by a world in which we live as much through images as through materiality, and in which part of our souls are now and forever always incontrovertibly tied to the internet.
_ [First added to this chart: 10/01/2022]
The best R&B album of the year and a musical journey which re-envisions The Bluest Eye in the 21st Century as a contemporary moment where racial aestheticism and internalised racism are foregrounded by a world in which we live as much through images as through materiality, and in which part of our souls are now and forever always incontrovertibly tied to the internet.
_ [First added to this chart: 10/01/2022]
Year of Release:
2022
Appears in:
Rank Score:
419
Rank in 2022:
Rank in 2020s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
- #Sponsored
8/10
A great Radiohead side-project, that basically – to me – is the perfect marriage of A Moon Shaped Pool's almost orchestral grandeur and Anima's synth and beat driven existentialism. At some level though, this feels like a lower stakes Radiohead project, with weird moments such as some of the guitar mixing on The Opposite just not indicative of the kind of finesse we've come to expect from Greenwood's playing. Yorke also sounds a little tired? I don't know, I usually find myself warming to Radiohead's material over multiple listens after initially not caring that much whenever something comes out – maybe that's going to be the same here.
_ [First added to this chart: 05/15/2022]
A great Radiohead side-project, that basically – to me – is the perfect marriage of A Moon Shaped Pool's almost orchestral grandeur and Anima's synth and beat driven existentialism. At some level though, this feels like a lower stakes Radiohead project, with weird moments such as some of the guitar mixing on The Opposite just not indicative of the kind of finesse we've come to expect from Greenwood's playing. Yorke also sounds a little tired? I don't know, I usually find myself warming to Radiohead's material over multiple listens after initially not caring that much whenever something comes out – maybe that's going to be the same here.
_ [First added to this chart: 05/15/2022]
Year of Release:
2022
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,504
Rank in 2022:
Rank in 2020s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
- #Sponsored
8/10
This hits. Forever In Your Heart was a more ambitious follow up to Peaceful as Hell, but this new album is so much more a proper development of what made Peaceful the kind of impactful name making record it was. Loud headphone listeners beware, I may have developed tinnitus.
_ [First added to this chart: 03/21/2022]
This hits. Forever In Your Heart was a more ambitious follow up to Peaceful as Hell, but this new album is so much more a proper development of what made Peaceful the kind of impactful name making record it was. Loud headphone listeners beware, I may have developed tinnitus.
_ [First added to this chart: 03/21/2022]
Buy album
- #Sponsored
8/10
Hellfire is very similar to Cavalcade – the changes from Schlangenheim stylistically are mostly consistent, even down to the cover art – it's hard to consider this as anything other than a 2nd half. After the brief title-track opener, Sugar/Tzu just sounds like it picks up exactly where Ascending Fourths ends – its motifs are very close. Eat Men Eat is really the only truly chaotic song on this album (everything else is just very crisp and contained), but god it just transitions into Welcome to Hell superbly. Some transitions have a great ability to change what you focus on in the next song, and in this case the formalist absurdism of welcome to hell comes through very well in the context of the album (in isolation it's just a bit flat). Picton's vocals on Still are just not as interesting as they are on Eat Men Eat, but the song has a nice tonal shift in it. However, I remain unconvinced by the 4 last (very jam orientated) tracks that follow the interlude, but Dangerous Liasons and (especially) 27 Questions are the exemplars of the heightened theatricality of Hellfire over previous releases. In these cases emphasis on the theatre; 27 Questions is littered with musical theatre song tropes, and this is at least interesting but ultimately feels like just a gimmick introduced to their sound to mix it up a little – despite what on paper feels like a 180 turn, Black Midi on these tracks just sound like they're regurgitating the same things. Maybe this is the ultimate shortcoming of improv/jam composition, you can end up getting into comfortable terrain. At least the sound remains compelling.
_ [First added to this chart: 07/20/2022]
Hellfire is very similar to Cavalcade – the changes from Schlangenheim stylistically are mostly consistent, even down to the cover art – it's hard to consider this as anything other than a 2nd half. After the brief title-track opener, Sugar/Tzu just sounds like it picks up exactly where Ascending Fourths ends – its motifs are very close. Eat Men Eat is really the only truly chaotic song on this album (everything else is just very crisp and contained), but god it just transitions into Welcome to Hell superbly. Some transitions have a great ability to change what you focus on in the next song, and in this case the formalist absurdism of welcome to hell comes through very well in the context of the album (in isolation it's just a bit flat). Picton's vocals on Still are just not as interesting as they are on Eat Men Eat, but the song has a nice tonal shift in it. However, I remain unconvinced by the 4 last (very jam orientated) tracks that follow the interlude, but Dangerous Liasons and (especially) 27 Questions are the exemplars of the heightened theatricality of Hellfire over previous releases. In these cases emphasis on the theatre; 27 Questions is littered with musical theatre song tropes, and this is at least interesting but ultimately feels like just a gimmick introduced to their sound to mix it up a little – despite what on paper feels like a 180 turn, Black Midi on these tracks just sound like they're regurgitating the same things. Maybe this is the ultimate shortcoming of improv/jam composition, you can end up getting into comfortable terrain. At least the sound remains compelling.
_ [First added to this chart: 07/20/2022]
Year of Release:
2022
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,482
Rank in 2022:
Rank in 2020s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
- #Sponsored
8/10
Really good debut from music collective/“spud” murphy come-uppers/Corbynite rockers/Black Country New Road-but-folky Caroline. I’ve long thought just doing Dirty Three but with vocals would spell over great, but this is that and quite a bit more too; a promising new act.
_ [First added to this chart: 05/18/2022]
Really good debut from music collective/“spud” murphy come-uppers/Corbynite rockers/Black Country New Road-but-folky Caroline. I’ve long thought just doing Dirty Three but with vocals would spell over great, but this is that and quite a bit more too; a promising new act.
_ [First added to this chart: 05/18/2022]
Buy album
- #Sponsored
8/10
This is a really nice folk project by Grizzly Bear frontman Daniel Rossen, and stands right up there with their best albums. Also, this album screams Scott Walker all throughout it, but I never really felt that this influence came on too strong. Rossen takes the melodic phrasing in slightly different directions, and the rhythmic flurries that come up at different moments shatter any illusion it was made by a dead man.
_ [First added to this chart: 05/05/2022]
This is a really nice folk project by Grizzly Bear frontman Daniel Rossen, and stands right up there with their best albums. Also, this album screams Scott Walker all throughout it, but I never really felt that this influence came on too strong. Rossen takes the melodic phrasing in slightly different directions, and the rhythmic flurries that come up at different moments shatter any illusion it was made by a dead man.
_ [First added to this chart: 05/05/2022]
Total albums: 100. Page 2 of 10
Don't agree with this chart? Create your own from the My Charts page!
Top 100 Music Albums of 2022 composition
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
|
|
| Lambchop | 1 | 1% | |
| The Weather Station | 1 | 1% | |
| Black Dresses | 1 | 1% | |
| Jockstrap | 1 | 1% | |
| Gospel | 1 | 1% | |
| Craig Finn | 1 | 1% | |
| Wild Up | 1 | 1% | |
| Show all | |||
| Country | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
45 | 45% | |
 |
20 | 20% | |
 |
6 | 6% | |
 |
4 | 4% | |
 |
3 | 3% | |
 |
3 | 3% | |
 |
2 | 2% | |
| Show all | |||
Top 100 Music Albums of 2022 chart changes
| Biggest climbers |
|---|
 Up 1 from 99th to 98thAir Guitar by Sobs |
| Biggest fallers |
|---|
| Down 1 from 98th to 99th How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars by The Weather Station |
Top 100 Music Albums of 2022 similarity to your chart(s)
Not a member? Registering is quick, easy and FREE!
Why register?
Join a passionate community of over 50,000 music fans.- Create & share your own charts.
- Have your say in the overall rankings.
- Post comments in the forums and vote on polls.
- Comment on or rate any album, artist, track or chart.
- Discover new music & improve your music collection.
- Customise the overall chart using a variety of different filters & metrics.
- Create a wishlist of albums.
- Help maintain the BEA database.
- Earn member points and gain access to increasing levels of functionality!
- ... And lots more!
Register now - it only takes a moment!
Other year charts (from the 2020s) by Arthurknight
Top 15 Music Albums of 2024 by Arthurknight (2024)Top 100 Music Albums of 2023 by
Arthurknight (2024)Top 100 Music Albums of 2021 by
Arthurknight (2023)Top 100 Music Albums of 2020 by
Arthurknight (2024)Top 100 Music Albums of 2022 ratings
90/100 (from 4 votes)
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
N.B. The average rating for this chart will not be reliable as it has been rated very few times.
Showing all 4 ratings for this chart.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 100/100  | 07/24/2022 13:50 |  ForegroundNoise | | 87/100 |
| 100/100 | 07/16/2022 22:16 |  travelful | | 99/100 |
| 95/100 | 07/10/2022 20:39 |  ghosttomost | | 85/100 |
| 100/100 | 02/09/2022 19:47 | DJENNY | | 100/100 |
Please log in or register if you want to be able to leave a rating
Top 100 Music Albums of 2022 favourites
Showing all 1 members who have added this chart as a favourite
Top 100 Music Albums of 2022 comments
Showing all 3 comments |
Most Helpful First | Newest First | Maximum Rated First |
Longest Comments First
(Only showing comments with -2 votes or higher. You can alter this threshold from your profile page. Manage Profile)
From 
cestuneblague 01/07/2023 01:55
cestuneblague 01/07/2023 01:55
Great chart and love all the reviews- keep it coming!
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
100/100
From ForegroundNoise 01/05/2023 12:39
ForegroundNoise 01/05/2023 12:39
Went to give this a 100/100 and praise your writing when I noticed I'd got there already! Interested to hear your thoughts on my own top 20 – got a piece on Ants From Up There coming out soon too
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
100/100
From ForegroundNoise 07/24/2022 13:51
ForegroundNoise 07/24/2022 13:51
Another class year chart!! Genuinely a better standard of journalism than most 'Best of 2022 So Far' lists I've seen from major publications; looking forward to checking back on what it looks like in December!
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Please log in or register if you want to be able to add a comment
Your feedback for Top 100 Music Albums of 2022
Let us know what you think of this chart by adding a comment or assigning a rating below!
If you enjoy our site, please consider supporting us by sparing a few seconds to disable your ad blocker.
A lot of hard work happens in the background to keep BEA running, and it's especially difficult to do this when we can't pay our hosting fees :(
We work very hard to ensure our site is as fast (and FREE!) as possible, and we respect your privacy.
A lot of hard work happens in the background to keep BEA running, and it's especially difficult to do this when we can't pay our hosting fees :(
We work very hard to ensure our site is as fast (and FREE!) as possible, and we respect your privacy.