NYT Times best albums of 2022

[Mike Eskimo]

Regarding streaming, there’s a new paradigm. The old paradigm will never return, at least not anytime soon.
Bruce Springsteen in the recent Howard stern longform interview admitted that he and all the artists who had great success from the mid/late 60s up through about 20 years ago, were very, very fortunate.

Now for most ? Live appearances and merch .

Like many we add , and then later delete, many of the pay TV streaming services.

I told my wife, always the last thing to go will be pay Spotify.

The vast majority of all music in your pocket , whenever you wanna hear it, right when you think of it ?

Is it good? Is it bad? I don’t know, but I do know , its a powerful thing.

 

[maxvintage]

What's funny about this is that the comments on this thread don't really match the artists on the list! Porridge Radio and Black Midi are making pretty aggressive guitar based rock music. I can understand why Black Midi is not everyone's cup of tea, but they're about as far away from pop music as I can imagine and are killer musicians.

That was cool

 

[imwjl]

@Mjark You might really enjoy trying a streaming service. I've thoroughly enjoyed purposely streaming new music and things I don't know in a tuned my me and the robots mode. It was just made more enjoyable with Apple pushing the year in review stuff - a by the numbers analysis. I listened to 2600+ tracks new to me, discovered a lot of neat stuff, and it's been great pleasure.

More beauty in it is at any time I can also go for classics I've known, genres I like, but now take that twist of following and the robots exposing me to more in those areas too.

If they paid the artists fairly I would but they don’t. I buy music directly from them when I can. Or at least on iTunes.
[/QUOTE]
Part of our family choice for Apple Music was the compensating artists better than Spotify and others plus the Apple overall record of Apple's transparency and candor.

The general state of radio station ownership means we don't really have much else for the way I can learn new stuff. Wanting or expecting radio and record stores as they were decades ago now is pretty much tilting windmills. That annual replay report illustrates a sort of richness that did not even exist before. If you or someone here can help me know Apple is not living up to terms I'll join picking that fight in a hurry.

Another part of our choices is at the time we committed Apple beat others for seamless or easy combining or having others music purchases. My attempts to have lists and the audio files from those purchases in the other platforms was pure f*ckry by comparison. It even lets me go on with stuff I bought from now defunct services.

Some of the new to me artists in all this are on other continents and not mainstream artists. It seems absurd that I should not listen and compensate artists because I'm not making regular trips to Africa, Australia, or Europe in order to buy CDs after a show. In other scenarios of distribution and payment the hosting firms and payment processors are charging amounts. They can add up to near or same as the giants take. Local record stores still in business don't have the total selection and have higher margins.

 

[ShortintheSleeve]

As others have said, Sylvan Esso is really worth checking out, even if you won't hear many telecasters on their songs. Check out "Die Young" and "Coffee." I haven't heard their latest though.

"Die Young" is terrific. I haven't heard the latest record either.

 

[Electric Warrior]

Love Sylvan Esso. Saw them several months ago. They're a terrific live act, great vibe and sound with cool fans. Nice to see them get recognized.

 

[ShortintheSleeve]

Aside from Beyoncé and Bjork I've never heard of any of the other artists. Rosalia, Beth Orton, Sudan Archives, iLe, Sylvan Esso, black midi, Billy Woods and Porridge Radio. And that's as should be. I'm 71, I don't stream, I don't watch much TV. Does MTV still exist? None of the clips I listened too caught my ear. I think black midi was what sounded like Rock music.

My musical tastes are pretty broad but don't extend far into contemporary pop music. I guess it's good the but gulf has grown so large between me and popular culture I may not ever cross it again. I'm okay with that.

Even when I spent more of my time trying to stay apprised of every new album under the sun, year-end lists always had a wealth of things I'd never heard. I don't care about a publication's rankings, but I do like the lists in so far as they sometimes tip me off to something that flew under my radar that I wind up liking. I had no idea Beth Orton put out an album this year. I like some of her earlier material, so I'll check that one out.

Although I like songs from a number of genres, my real affinity has always been for what one could broadly classify as rock, rock/pop, and indie rock. Some of my favorites from this year in that musical territory (band - album title):

Good Looks - Bummer Year - The opener, "Almost Automatic," might be may favorite song of the year.

Wild Pink - ILYSM -- The album is pretty subdued overall, but there are some songs that cut loose (e.g. Jay Mascis's guest solo on "See You Better Now" is glorious.)

Gang of Youths - Angel in Real Time

The 1975 - Being Funny in a Foreign Language - They're much more indie pop than rock

 

[Geo]

The only new or relatively new music liked here is played on WMOT, a local college radio station.
The play some classic stuff too and a good mix or styles. Web Wilder has a cool afternoon show.

 

[scrapyardblue]

one of my faves

Perhaps I need to check her out.

 

[scrapyardblue]

Hands down one of the best living American singer songwriters.
Brilliant.
And really good live.

I'm liking what I'm hearing. She may be one of the best and I'm open to find out. Nobody, I mean nobody, tops what S.G. Goodman from Hickman, Ky is writing and singing.

 

[Killing Floor]

I'm liking what I'm hearing. She may be one of the best and I'm open to find out. Nobody, I mean nobody, tops what S.G. Goodman from Hickman, Ky is writing and singing.

Seventeen is probably her most popular song from a few years ago.