The 100 Best Albums of 2022

Few albums this year had a bite as sharp as Squeeze, a thrashing, scowling project brilliantly executed after the classically trained artist and former Cherry Glazerr member Sasami decided to mess with stark metal sounds. The idea, she has said, was to barge into music too often thought of as the domain of white dudes: “The more I feel I’m made to be small, I just turn the amp up and my voice gets more aggressive.” But Sasami’s take is entirely her own thing. She’s singing or snarling, depending on the song, loading up tracks like the jagged opener “Skin a Rat” with so much chaotic, combustible energy, they throb long after they’ve ended. —J.L.

It takes a combination of raw talent and deep introspection to birth an album like Maggie Rogers’ Surrender. Full of collaborations with artists as varied as Rogers’ old pal Del Water Gap and late-night bandleader Jon Batiste, the album never settles on a direct muse, but flits between radio-friendly rock and early girl-power pop. While not quite as daring as its predecessor, Heard It in a Past Life, the album still delivers as an honest expression of the singer’s desire to be taken seriously as an artist. Perhaps Rogers said it best in “Anywhere With You,” one of the album’s breakout hits: “All I ever wanted is to make something fucking last.” This time around, she has. —C.T.J.

Calling this a country album is only half the story — really, Cruel Country is more of the same big-hearted, humanistic rock that Wilco do best, a generous double-album offering in the tradition of 2007’s Sky Blue Sky and 2016’s Schmilco. There’s room for politically pointed Americana (“Cruel Country”), existential folk (“The Universe”), swirling steal-your-face guitars (“Bird Without a Tail/Base of My Skull”), tender wife-guy pleas (“Tired of Taking It Out on You”), and, yeah, a Nashville romp or two (“Falling Apart (Right Now)”). If you enjoy the wide lane that Jeff Tweedy and his band have carved out over the past two or three decades, there’s nothing cruel at all about a treat like this. —S.V.L.

As Mavi shared with us in an October profile, his worry about the ramifications of the Covid pandemic and other social epidemics was compounded by grief. He was brave enough to lift that weight off his chest and share it with the world on Laughing So Hard, It Hurts, a diaristic project that he mostly wrote a cappella, then paired to beats from producers Dylvinci, Monte Booker, and Wulf Morpheus. Mavi delves into the toll of losses and the conclusions he reached from them, from the doleful to the ultimately hopeful. The project’s art and standout track “High John” both reference John the Conqueror, a figure of African American folklore who represents joy amidst pain. Mavi channeled that energy on a project that challenges listeners to feel all their emotions, but also appreciate life’s gift of being able to feel at all. —A.G.

There’s no question that Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin, and Hyein made a splash this year with their first EP. Clocking in at just under 13 minutes, the singles “Attention,” “Hype Boy,” “Cookie,” and Hurt” each feature a unique sound and fresh visual component, leaning heavily into a Nineties pop aesthetic that suits this band well and guarantees replays. NewJeans are part of the latest generation of K-pop groups, and with New Jeans, they have a strong foundation to evolve and grow from. It’s just a bite-size EP, but it’s left us wanting a lot more. —K.K.

Riding high on the commercial success of their 2021 single “Silk Chiffon,” Muna’s newest album had a lot to live up to. But the L.A. pop trio continued in the long history of successful self-titled albums, debuting a collection of songs that smoothed their wildest synth urges into a cohesive, mature indie-pop sound that still delivers on their tried-and-true themes of queer desire and defiance. Sophisticated without being full of itself, it’s no wonder the group was chosen to open on Taylor Swift’s upcoming Eras Tour. MUNA is an album that gives fans exactly one song before they’re forced to prepare that bittersweet epithet, “I liked them before it was cool.” —C.T.J.

Emails I Can’t Send was exactly the album Sabrina Carpenter needed to hit send on. Her fifth album, but first with Island Records, grapples with the frustrating perceptions she faced after being thrown into a Disney Channel love triangle she never asked to be a part of. “Tell me who I am, ‘cause I don’t have a choice,” she sings on “Because I Liked a Boy.” She lightens things up with the silly “Nonsense,” singing about the fun parts of falling in love. “I had to fight the urge to do what I normally do — cover it up with confidence — and instead just actually feel those feelings,” she told Rolling Stone. —T.M.

Argentinian rapper Trueno takes the hard-scrabble rap skills and quick-witted rhymes he picked up while dominating the Buenos Aires freestyle scene and channels it all onto Bien o Mal, a mature, socially conscious standout for an artist so young. While songs like “Hoop Hoop” and “Dance Crip” are odes to old-school rap, the album is at its complete peak when Trueno infuses it with touches of folk traditions and ghosts of the past: “Tierra Zanta” is one stunning example that incorporates samples from legendary musicians Victor Heredia and Gustavo Cerati to build a modern-day anthem for Latin America. —J.L.

As Soccer Mommy’s Sophie Allison made Sometimes, Forever, she and producer Daniel Lopatin (a.k.a. Oneohtrix Point Never) joked about the three kinds of songs on the LP: normal ones, evil ones, and magic ones. They were mostly kidding, but it’s a potent trifecta. There’s evil in the industrial churn of “Unholy Affliction” and the ghost story “Following Eyes”; there’s magic bursting from “With U” and “Shotgun.” Even “normal” is still stunning, whether it’s the devastating depiction of depression on “Still,” or the way “Feel It All the Time” starts as a straightforward song about a truck before doubling as a meditation on growing older. Allison told Rolling Stone she was interested in impermanence and “accepting that everything in life comes in waves.” Sometimes, Forever is an album you can sink into, or use to stay afloat. Both are necessary, and the last impression Soccer Mommy leaves on Sometimes, Forever is that crucial reminder. —J. Blistein

The New York trio burst into full glam splendor on album three, delivering on the promise of a thousand sweaty club dates with an album packed full of unforgettable hooks and attitude. “Baby Don’t Cry,” “Who Put You Up to This?,” and “In Flight” deliver as much rock & roll fun as any act in recent years; on “I Don’t Have Control Sometimes,” singer Julia Cumming spins convincingly toward pure pop. It adds up to a polished case for Sunflower Bean as one of their generation’s most pleasurable rock bands. —S.V.L. 

Cruel Santino — a key figure in the Nigerian alté scene, one that coalesced around music, art, and fashion left of Afrobeats’ center — has always been eclectic, drawing on his adolescent love of storytelling, East Asian film, rap, reggae, and dancehall. In turn, his second album, Subaru Boys: Final Heaven, is a technicolor drama that illustrates the expanse of what African music is today. “A lot of people worry that because of the music they make, they can’t be who they are,” he says. “I feel like in the next two, three, four, five years, rap songs here can actually be Number One in the world. Rock songs here can be Number One in the world.” —M.C.

Asake has become one of Nigeria’s biggest breakout stars in recent years, thanks to a street-pop sound that mixes up snatches of local styles with big, bold hooks and vivid dispatches of life in Lagos. Mr. Money With the Vibe was the highest-charting Nigerian debut album to ever hit the Billboard 200, and for good reason: Long on pleasure and presence, it offers everything from a Burna Boy cameo (the remix of “Sungba”) to hypnotically grooving burners (“Joha”) to incantatory slow ones (“Dull,” about refusing to be). —C.H.

Koffee won a Grammy on her first go, and that was just off an EP. Her debut album, Gifted, delivers on that skill and promise. The Jamaican singer balances her penchant for traditional reggae with modern flourishes, engaging her wisdom with her youth. When she flows, she’s dextrous and intricate; when she sings, she’s earnest and heartfelt. Her optimism and gratitude remain remarkable, and the sprinkle of romance is endearing. Everything she feels — joy, pride, duty — is contagious. —M.C.

Released just one week into January, Dawn FM was the perfect start to 2022. Its poignant narration by Jim Carrey is interlaced with beats that can make us dance no matter what. Dawn FM was also the perfect successor — and perhaps the only plausible one — to After Hours, the album that took the Weeknd to a new level of pop megastardom in 2020. Not only is this one of the strongest conceptual albums of the recent past, imagining a radio dial spinning through purgatory, but it is also loaded with surefire hits like “Gasoline” and “Less Than Zero,” the latter of which could have been a hell of a sing-along at the Super Bowl halftime show had he been invited back to perform this year. —T.R. 

On Familia, Camila Cabello taps into the sounds of her roots for a record that lyrically rips out the pages of her life’s diary — all its heartbreak, drama, and self-doubt — for everyone to see. She sings in English over mariachi on “La Buena Vida,” tries out salsa on “Bam Bam” with Ed Sheeran, and goes full Latin pop on standout “Hasta Los Dientes” with Maria Becerra. Throughout the album, she sings about her headline-making breakup with Shawn Mendes and even addresses her departure from Fifth Harmony on “Psychofreak.” “Talking about things that I have gone through that I never spoke about before was really healing for me,” she told Rolling Stone. Three albums into her solo career, Cabello is as raw as she’s ever been. —T.M.

Big Thief swung big with their latest statement to the world: a double album, much like Wilco’s Cruel Country, that draws on the folk-rock-country comfort food the Grateful Dead cooked up with Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. The result is a (post-)pandemic banquet, from a band woodshedding at the top of its game. The styles are shifty, and the shagginess is deceptiveness — beneath ramshackle surfaces are meticulous constructs, earworm melodies, and undeniable grooves. Adrianne Lenker’s voice may be an acquired taste, with shades of idiosyncratic forebears like Karen Dalton, but it’s a marvelous one, and the way it blends with Buck Meek’s guitar demonstrates the magic that can happen between musicians after years of creating together. Sure, it’s 80-minutes long — but halfway through the first song, you’ll be ready to take the rest of the day off. —W.H.

The punk band’s third album homes in on the experience of being an Irish person living in England — and all the trials, tribulations, and culture clashes inherent in that reality. It’s also just a straight-ahead, powerful rock & roll record packed with James Joyce references, accordion (yes, really), and Nineties alternative angst. “’Skinty Fia’ is an expression that our drummer’s great auntie used to say,” the band’s Grian Chatten told Rolling Stone. “It sounds like mutation and doom and inevitability and all these things that I felt were congruous to my idea of Irishness abroad. … It’s just a completely new beast.” —B.E.

Oklahoma native and Navy vet Zach Bryan vaulted from cult figure to full-blown star with this supersized major-label debut, a 34-track treatise on heartbreak and restlessness that felt like country music at odds with Nashville. He’s a skilled storyteller, bringing poetic flair to tales of the touring life (“Highway Boys”), struggling friends (“Mine Again”), and youthful misadventures (“Heavy Eyes”), all sung with raw intensity and arranged like a friendly backyard jam. He’s at his best when he’s showing his vulnerable side, as on “Something in the Orange,” searching the light and shadows for signs of the woman he’s missing. —J.F.

R&B’s king of mystique followed up his 2020 Fuck the World release with an album that aims even bigger. Wasteland sees him floating over strings-laden instrumentals as tempos shift and everyone from Drake to the Neptunes, Raphael Saadiq, and Alicia Keys come by for cameos. Those are the highest-profile guest appearances of his career, but they didn’t disappoint, and Faiyaz showed he can hold his own with any of them. “For me, Wasteland is just what I felt like we living in with this post-pandemic clusterfuck of emotions,” he told Rolling Stone this year. In 2022, that combination hit just right. —D.G.

On Versions of Me, Anitta masters the rare art of the tri-cultural crossover. Opening with the  megasmash “Envolver,” a song that made her the first Latin solo artist with a Number One hit on Spotify, the album shoots off into multiple directions like a radiant firework, and not unlike Anitta herself. “Gata,” with reggaeton pioneer Chencho Corleone, flirts with dembow beats; “Boys Don’t Cry” is a giddy disco lightning storm; “Girl From Rio” reinvents the Sixties classic “The Girl From Ipanema” with up-tempo R&B melodies. Each track is a new side of Anitta, catching her at her wildest and most playful  — reminding listeners exactly why the world has fallen in love with her. —J.L.

The second solo release from Odd Future member and the Internet leader Syd starts off uneasily: “Could you break a heart?” she asks over the fluttering synths and cavernous drums of the Lucky Daye duet “CYBAH.” This song cycle about what happens when that answer is “yes” has a wide-eyed first half — including the splendid Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins production “Control” — that bridges the gap between Quiet Storm lushness and modern R&B’s more atomized production. When heartbreak hits, though, the emotional impact is shattering, with tracks like the slow-burning pre-breakup tussle with Kehlani “Out Loud” and the swirling Steve Lacy production “BMHWDY” capturing the fragments of Syd’s emotions. —M. Johnston 

Earl Sweatshirt is at peak form on SICK!, unfurling his dense lyricism over largely non-conformist production that serves to make musings like “They start hackin’ when they can’t shrink us” on “Old Friend” feel all the more otherworldly. This album feels like it was as revelatory for him to create as it was for the listener, as he explores the tumult of the pandemic and applies previously learned lessons to these times. Earl also invites in Armand Hammer and Zelooperz to the proceedings as features, but it’s largely a solo lyrical exhibition — one that outclasses just about everything else released this year. —A.G.

On Dirt Femme, Tove Lo pushes hard into melodrama, as she tangles with ideas around femininity and romance that are confining in their fantasy. Over pulsing club beats tricked out with Eighties-inspired synthesizers, the singer-songwriter rejects the Stepford-wife archetype on “Suburbia,” conveys the sick pressures of body image through the grim wit of “Grapefruit,” and yearns for a love that she could die for — because “it’s tough out in the real world,” as she lays bare on the exposing ballad “True Romance.” Throughout it all, her voice shimmers, soars, and breaks, operating in all the shades between vulnerability and invincibility. —M.H.K.

The longer his career goes on, the more Alex Giannascoli seems like himself — a shaggy indie-rock everydude who can’t help writing great melodies, any more than he can stop messing with them by adding weird vocal effects. He doesn’t seem to care about winning more fans, which is one reason it keeps happening with each album. Alex G dials up the strangely compelling contrasts to excellent effect on God Save the Animals, adding light religious overtones and hints of maturity to songs like “Miracles” and “Cross the Sea.” The result is the Philly songwriter’s strongest album since 2014’s breakthrough DSU, and a new sacred text for his devoted fans. —S.V.L.

It was hard to imagine how Wizkid was going to follow up 2020’s Made in Lagos — the beloved album that launched Afrobeats to heights it hadn’t seen before on the charts, sent Wizkid on an uber-successful North American tour, and solidified another new superstar’s place in the current vanguard of African music. With More Love, Less Ego, he doubled down on the grooves, romance, and sex appeal of his previous smash without outrightly re-creating it. Here, the rhythms are more urgent, the sensuality is deeper, and fun is even more freeing. —M.C.

Jisoo, Lisa, Jennie, and Rosé have long ruled K-pop as the “Lovesick Girls,” but with Born Pink, they blow up into rock queens. It’s short and sweet — eight songs in 20 minutes — but that’s all the time Blackpink need to sashay through a whole wardrobe of star poses, blazing with high-energy confidence. “Pink Venom” goes for Sunset Strip glam-metal thunder, while “Shut Down” is the ladies boasting over a trap beat and a classical violin loop from Paganini. But the killer is “Yeah Yeah Yeah,” full of Strokes-style guitar and raging hormones. Born Pink is the most undeniable music Blackpink have ever made — so far. —R.S.

Daddy Yankee announced he was retiring from music back in March, but before putting down his mic, he released Legendaddy, a final victory lap that captures the magic of his three-decade career. Bold, boastful sounds abound on “Campeon” and “Remix” — charged, adrenaline-fueled bangers that prove the reggaeton icon hasn’t lost a drop of energy over the years. Yet the slippery, synth-dipped ease of “Agua,” an unexpected collaboration with Rauw Alejandro and Nile Rodgers, and the nostalgic delicacy of “X Última Vez,” featuring Bad Bunny, are reminders of the versatility and adaptability that’s afforded Daddy Yankee such impressive longevity in the industry. —J.L.

High-octane retro futurism is what Charli XCX served up on Crash, her final major-label album. Its palette is an ultra-glossy pastiche of Eighties New Jack Swing and disco, 2000s Swedish EDM, Seventies funk, and Nineties house-pop by way of the Robin S anthem “Show Me Love.” Yet Charli’s masterclass vocal performance (which lands at the perfect mid-point between amorphous and punchy) and hypertactile production (a philosophy culled from SOPHIE and the PC Music camp) prevent the album from sounding rote or familiar. In similar fashion, the lyrics see Charli as pop caricature, throwing out clichés — “I’mma make you my baby,” for one — with her signature punky irreverence. —M.H.K.

A surprise release, Drake’s seventh album shimmers and flickers to the comforting beat of old-school house. It functions as a slick summer mixtape with ethereal outros and no pauses between songs. If his previous album or two smelled of stagnation — a creative dead end fast approaching — Honestly, Nevermind reinvented Drake’s aesthetic while maintaining the lyrical vulnerability and conversational singing style that made him one of the world’s most approachable superstars. Helmed by a gallery of producers, including South African house eminence Black Coffee and trusted partner in crime 40, the album revels in aural candy: capricious bass lines, rhythmic micro-samples of female vocals, myriad pulsating beats. It peaks on the gorgeous “Massive,” with the joyful swing of its piano chords and its floating, surreal mood. If anything, this eccentric about-face underscores Drake’s remarkable artistic range. —E.L.

This rule-hating Nashville superstar pretty much only makes great albums, from her freewheeling double-LP masterpiece, The Weight of These Wings, to her rocked-out Wild Card. Add her eighth studio set to the list of successes. The sense of musical and personal wanderlust that governs everything she does comes through in free-booted travelogues like “Tourist” and “Scenes,” as well as musically freewheeling songs like “Actin’ Up” and “Geraldine,” which give down-home sounds Seventies rock twists. The big, rousing anthem “Strange” is a fine contribution to the “modernity sucks, let’s do shots” country canon, and she closes things with “Carousel,” an acoustic ballad about a trapeze artist that might make you chuckle at its low-hanging metaphor corniness until it has you choking back tears. —J.D.

The first full-length from the Cyrus clan’s youngest member is a jaw-droppingly intimate record that balances ideas borrowed from classic Laurel Canyon pop with modern country aesthetics. Grappling with love, loss, lockdown angst, and the weirdnesses inherent to being a member of a famous American family, The Hardest Part searches for peace yet doesn’t turn away from pain. The Ben Gibbard duet “Every Beginning Ends” is a gorgeous ballad that throws back to the days of dime-a-song jukeboxes, while the hymnlike “Loretta’s Song” celebrates the life of Cyrus’ late grandmother Loretta Finley with a gospel choir that sends the track heavenward.  —M. Johnston

How did Vince Staples follow up one of the past decade’s strongest runs of critically acclaimed, fearlessly inventive full-lengths? With his most personal body of work to date. Named for the part of Long Beach, California, where he grew up, Ramona Park Broke My Heart is an inside look at what it’s like to be from where he’s from. And while he’s been exploring those themes since his 2015 debut, this album displays his growth as a songwriter. “When Sparks Fly” is a brilliant play on comparing his relationship with a firearm to a romantic relationship; the Ty Dolla $ign-assisted single “Lemonade,” probably Staples’ most radio-friendly track to date, captures the essence of West Coast music past and present. Staples uses melody to get his message across, singing on the hook, “Feelin’ like ice-cold lemonade/Nowhere to go when we in the shade/Nowhere to go when we in a cage.” It’s one of the finest rap albums of the year, and it’s hard to see how it got not even one Grammy nomination. —D.G.

The title is wryly self-aware: Olsen’s artfully moody albums have always been beloved for their crushing intensity and expansive grandeur. Big Time adds a new warmth, generosity, and brightness: “Good-morning kisses, giving you all mine/Pull back the curtains, show me the sunshine,” she sings on the title track. Coupled with production that evoked Seventies country and spacious vocal performances that could bring to mind greats like Donna Fargo and Sammi Smith, it made for an album that felt like a revelation, and her new sense of emotional bounty made bleaker turns (like the chamber-goth of “Go Home”) feel more earned and urgent than ever.  —J.D.

“Going through some shit so I gotta stay busy/Bought a ‘Rari, I can’t let the shit I’m thinkin’ catch up with me,” Megan Thee Stallion raps with typical bluntness on “NDA.” True to form, she blazes through much of her second official album, luxuriating in her physical and lyrical talents while taking aim at haters on and offline, with her ire reserved for a particular Canadian melodic rapper. But it’s the handful of moments when she pauses to consider her life, from mourning the death of her parents on “Flip Flop” to admitting that she has “Anxiety,” that make Traumazine more than just another hard-rapping showcase for Houston’s finest. —M.R.

Call it indie rock if you’d like, but there’s no real precedent for the mix of emo, country, rap, club-pop, and noise rock that comprises the thrilling second studio LP from Bartees Strange. It’s a collision of sounds that feels as innovative as it does natural, whether the singer-songwriter (real name Bartees Cox Jr.) is delivering a declaration about identity and self-definition (“Hennessy”), shredding his way through lonesome heartbreak (“Heavy Heart”), or waxing philosophical about the pitfalls of seeking fulfillment through success (“Cosigns”). It all amounts to a powerful, poignant, and most of all, genuinely fresh blend of storytelling from one of the fastest-rising rock stars in the country. “Bartees has so many interests, and he’s done lots of things,” his friend L’Rain told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “Of course his music would be a reflection of that.” —J. Bernstein

A Mexican American singer-songwriter who moves with stunning ease between moods and genres, Omar Apollo threw himself a major coming-out party on his debut album. Ivory goes from the sleek R&B glimmer of “Go Away” to the light-touch bedroom-pop of “Waiting on You” to the lovingly rendered traditional Mexican balladry of “En El Olvido,” feeling at once ravenously intimate, immersively impassioned, and vividly idiosyncratic. Appearances from Pharrell, tricksy Colombian singer Kali Uchis, and rising R&B artist Daniel Caesar demonstrate how well he plays with others, but this record is about his story: a queer kid from Indiana who sings in English and Spanish, loves hard and thinks deep, and just happens to be making restlessly omnivorous music that feels damn close to the pop of tomorrow. —J.D.

What makes Gemini Rights feel so timeless? The answer lies with the way it embodies Steve Lacy’s zodiac sign, referenced in the title. Though the album was technically released during the astrological Cancer season, its lyrics and production are pure Gemini — flexible, clever, dual in both messaging and song structure, with nearly each track breaking into a groovy outro that deserves to be its own standalone. Although its breakaway hit, “Bad Habits,” has spent weeks atop the Hot 100, other songs showcase the rest of Lacy’s impressive range: “Mercury” gives listeners a taste of Earth, Wind and Fire-style futuristic funk, while the soulful and yet hip-hop approach of “Sunshine” (featuring Foushée) will have you crooning as if you were a member of the Delfonics. Shortly after the album’s release this summer, Lacy took the album on tour during a time when astrologers said that Mars entered Gemini and went retrograde. Sure enough, his performances went viral for mishaps including too much smoke on the stage, audience members yelling during his set, or simply not knowing the lyrics to his songs. The poetic justice in it all just made Lacy’s album even more enticing. —M. Jordan

The pandemic meant that Spoon spent a long five years following up 2017’s Hot Thoughts, but their 10th album feels immediate, not labored. After a couple albums heavy on studio-craft, Lucifer on the Sofa is a return to the rowdy, artful, live-in-the-room feel of Spoon’s 2000s classics. Britt Daniel’s scratchy shout takes elegant command of “Feels Alright, ” an instantly ingratiating classic-rock pastiche. “There’s juju coming down all around you,” he sings on “The Devil & Mister Jones,” which now plays like a theme song for the Red Wave That Wasn’t. —M.M.

What if My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless and the Go-Go’s Beauty and the Beat were the same record? Amazingly, that’s pretty much where these Canadian dream-pop ninjas land on their enormously charming third LP. Alvvays have a total mastery of the indie-pop canon — from candied Pixies noise bursts to R.E.M. jangle sunbursts to gray-day Smiths majesty to New Pornographers pop-hook pileups. It all might only add up to a lovely distraction if not for singer-songwriter Molly Rankin’s indelible melodies, along with her ability to map out the many splendored in-betweenness of feeling like “an assistant to the way life’s shaking out.” Being stuck there has rarely felt this awesome. —J.D.

Several months later, the incendiary debate over Kendrick Lamar’s first album in five years still burns. Yet for all the arguments over his “Auntie Diaries” and “cancel culture” lyrics, his recruitment of troubled rap star Kodak Black for several numbers, and industry concern that sales weren’t as stellar as 2017’s Damn. … it’s still more dynamic and thought-provoking than nearly everything else in rap. Some critics will retort that his sense of ambition is an albatross, and that he should drill down on head-nodders like “Humble” or “Backseat Freestyle.” But after several game-changing albums, Mr. Morale is Lamar’s moment to explore a future filled with family, therapy, and a sense of himself. He’s not focused on the past. Judging from his sold-out world tour, there are millions ready to join him. —M.R.

One of the best new rock bands to come around in the past five years, this duo from the Isle of Wight garnered buckets of well-deserved hype thanks to catchy, joyfully caustic singles like “Wet Dream” and “Chaise Longue,” and proceeded to slaughter all expectations with their fantastic full-length debut. Wet Leg bristles with sharp tunes and even sharper jokes, offering a 2020s update on deadpan Nineties legends like Pavement and Elastica. “I don’t wanna follow you on the ‘gram/I don’t wanna listen to your band,” they snipe over the sidelong guitar shimmer of “Angelica.” This is a band we’ll probably be following for a long, long time. —J.D.

The first BTS member to release a solo album, J-Hope set the bar high with Jack in the Box, a 10-track concept album that opens with a retelling of the myth of Pandora’s box. The last item in that mythical, chaotic container was hope, after which the rapper named himself — an apt description, if this growly, endlessly creative debut is any indication. “What I really want to say is that the album is filled with my soul and my sincerity,” he told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “In that way, it’s a unique album, and the album is very meaningful because, in terms of musicality, it’s going to act as a stepping stone for J-Hope to go forward.” After a debut like this, J-Hope’s fans (new and old) can be pretty sure they won’t be disappointed with his future offerings. —B.E.

Caprisongs is revelatory simply because it sees FKA Twigs, known perfectionist, finally letting loose. Emboldened by her fellow London collaborators (Pa Salieu, shygirl, Dystopia, Jorja Smith), as well as other encouraging friends whose voices appear throughout the eclectic mixtape, Twigs takes her glitchy R&B style and gleefully scatters it in the directions of Afropop, dancehall, hyper-pop, and grime. Through all its tender introspections, playful vocal performances, and fiery beats, the project captures Twigs’ process of building herself back up again after heartbreak. “I’m not the accessory to the rock star, I’m the rock star,” she declares on “Which Way,” a truth that most of the world knew already, but one she had to realize for herself. —M.H.K.

“How do I write music if it’s not about getting back at someone?” Mikaela Straus remembered asking herself. The answer she came up with is Hold on Baby, a 40-minute odyssey of emotional breakdowns, introspective lyrics, and anthemic choruses that sound like a magical combination of Savage Garden and Audioslave. The 23-year-old might not be heartbroken — as she was on her 2019 debut, Cheap Queen — but she more than makes up for it on bangers like “Cursed” and “Too Bad.” “Having someone,” she told us, “opens your heart to this idea that you don’t have to walk around with heaviness.” —A.M.

There’s the album-of-the-year candidate that seeks to push every creative boundary, and then there’s the beauty of simplicity. Pusha T’s fourth solo LP excels in the latter category. For more than a decade, he’s been navigating his post-Clipse career with projects steeped in his winning formula: dope talk over dope beats. It’s Almost Dry may be his finest offering yet. “Just So You Remember” shows him in full Joker mode, while he and Jay-Z take turns strutting over “Neck and Wrist.” Kanye and Pharrell split the tab on the album’s production, giving Pusha an inspired backdrop to unfurl the sharpest collection of rhymes you’ll hear all year. —A.G.

You know it’s not the same as it was. Harry Styles came up with the ultimate template for a modern pop blockbuster on Fine Line — but with Harry’s House, he decides to rip it up and start again. It’s a vibrant, playful, vividly emotional song cycle about finding different kinds of home on the run. He zips from Tokyo-style city pop (“Music for a Sushi Restaurant”) to disco flash (“Satellite”) to woozy hippie shagadelia (“Grapejuice”). “As It Was” was intimate and personal, but it blew up into the year’s most universal hit — it took six months for this song to set foot outside the Top Five. Yet it’s got the same beating heart as “Matilda,” a powerful guitar ballad about watching a friend come to terms with family trauma. —R.S.

The Catalonian shapeshifter has been triggering arguments about genre, race, and culture in Spanish-language music for years now. But with the polyglot Motomami, she went all-in as a proud pop globalist, flaunting her devotion to Kate Bush, M.I.A., and Camarón de la Isla in equal parts. This album’s got dembow, bachata, bolero, reggaeton, and salsa flexes — flamenco too, of course, plus cameos by James Blake, Tokischa, and the Weeknd, just to give a sense of the company she keeps. Motomami also showcased Rosalía’s sly humor, sweetly potent voice, and outrageous beat radar. She’s the most exciting fusionist in the game, period. —W.H.

Farewell to the Folklore and Evermore era. On Midnights, Taylor Swift got out of the woods and went indoors — to a chamber decorated with the finest wood-paneled walls and mustard couches — for an ode to insomnia as only she could capture it. Synth-sparkling gems like “Maroon” and “Question…?” sound like distant cousins of 1989, except this is the kind of family member who loves to reminisce about the cocaine-fueled Seventies by playing Fleetwood Mac songs on their dusty Wurlitzer. It’s a record that sounds best from start to finish. But if you’re short on time, just focus on the three-song run of “Vigilante Shit,” “Bejeweled,” and “Labyrinth” that makes for a euphoric streak higher than nearly anything released this year. Checkmate, you couldn’t lose. —A.M.

Bad Bunny’s sunlit ode to Puerto Rican summers is the superstar’s most carefree project yet, but there’s a weightiness to the way it’s broken record after record: The LP became the most-streamed album on Spotify when it first came out; it spent more time at Number One on the Billboard 200 than any other album this year; and it made history as the first all-Spanish-language album to be nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammys. Songs like “Titi Me Pregunto” defined 2022, while other strokes of brilliance — “Ojitos Lindos,” “Otro Atardecer” — found Bad Bunny diving into glowing indie waters and resurfacing with gorgeous discoveries. —J.L.

Beyoncé’s stunning solo return on Renaissance was the musical highlight of the year. It was a moment when universal critical acclaim for her work aligned with a major Number One solo hit — her first in over a decade — with the rapturously triumphant piano house of “Break My Soul.” The album finds her unabashedly celebrating Black pleasure in all its multitudes and illustrates that theme with dozens of sampled voices and sounds, esteemed guests (Grace Jones!), and echoes to global club styles past and present. As is customary for her, she layers the album with enough totems to fuel a million think pieces and dissertations. Yet it’s also possible to simply dance and vibe to the music. This is Beyoncé at her joyous peak, and you won’t get it unless you pull the “plastic off the sofa,” “drop it like a thottie,” and enjoy Queen Bey at her thrilling best. —M.R.