Welcome to my list of what I loved 2022! It was a huge year for great releases and I’m so excited to share with you the things I loved the most. This is not presented as or meant to be a definitive “best of” list, the contributors who wished to send lists did so and we all made our own lists of what we love. All of them serve as personal snapshots into what we were listening to and loved rather than a definitive list as one monolith called “Full Time Aesthetic”. The lists are in alphabetical order and as such, aren’t ranked, it’s just about sharing what we love and care about the most aka “tell me a punk runs this blog without telling me a punk runs this blog.”
This blog truly is a sum of its parts and I feel that all of the lists reflect that so well and run a massively wide gamut of sounds, styles, and level of notoriety—from slick pop records by the world’s biggest stars recorded on million dollar budgets with famous producers down to lovingly self recorded/released DIY noise punk gems from the local NYC music community and beyond. Additionally, it was very important to me on my own list to make sure I was representing smaller releases that may not get much other attention on these types of lists and to shine a bit of a light on them. Some of these releases I’ve had more time with than others since some came out later than others, but no matter when they arrived, all of them were crucial in some way during my 2022 and will stick with me for many years to come.
I’m sure on this list in particular, you will see a good number of things you aren’t familiar with and you may also be surprised to see certain things not on it. I listened to far more music than what is represented here, a lot of it was fantastic and I loved it, but these are the releases that truly resonated most with me and I found myself going back to again and again, enthralled by what was contained within. I hope that if you see things you haven’t heard/heard of before, you’ll take the time to dig in and explore because I promise there are absolutely amazing releases front to back on this list (and the contributors lists as well). I founded this blog and continue to work really hard on it (and so do each and every one of the contributors) purely because I love sharing the gift and the joy of music with everyone I meet. It is a labor of love before it is anything else and I care deeply about every artist I personally cover, as does everyone who shares their time and talents with FTA, and by extension, all of our readers. Please enjoy this gift of amazing music from me to you.
If you missed our list last year, it has loads of heavy hitters from 2021 so be sure to check it out. Also be sure to check out the FTA contributors list of favorites from 2022 which you can find here. Both lists are PACKED with incredible releases from the past two years and have plenty to explore.
Read on and tell me what you think/loved in 2022!
ALBUMS
- ###– Nasilno (self released)
- 95 Bulls– Go Home (self released)
- The Antibuddies– that’s what i said (self released)
- Bad Breeding– Human Capital (One Little Independent)
- Bob Vylan– The Price of Life (Ghost Theatre)
- Brutus– Unison Life (Sargent House)
- Cardiel– El Armagedón Afterparty (self released)
- The Casual Dots– Sanguine Truth (Ixor Stix)
- Christeene– Midnight Fukk Train (Spaceflight)
- DITZ– The Great Regression (Alcopop!)
- Eat My Fear– New Era (Refuse/Emancypunx)
- F Emasculata– Hail Mulder (self released)
- Gloin– We Found This (Mothland)
- Hammered Hulls– Careening (Dischord)
- Ibeyi– Spell 31 (XL)
- Interpol– The Other Side Of Make-Believe (Matador)
- Lizzo– Special (Nice Life/Atlantic)
- The Loneliers– Enough Already (self released)
- Los Bitchos– Let The Festivities Begin! (City Slang)
- Lung– Let It Be Gone (Romanus)
- Meat Wave– Malign Hex (Swami)
- Middle Aged Queers– Shout at the Hetero (Say-10)
- Thee Oh Sees– A Foul Form (Castle Face)
- Otoboke Beaver– Super Champon (Damnably)
- Petrol Girls– Baby (Hassle)
- Plosivs– self titled (Swami)
- Sasami– Squeeze (Domino)
- Shilpa Ray– Portrait of a Lady (Northern Spy)
- Soccer Mommy– Sometimes, Forever (Loma Vista)
- Soul Glo– Diaspora Problems (Epitaph)
- Spite FuXXX– Find Out (Make Believe)
- Thick– Happy Now (Epitaph)
- T.S. Tadin– Pretty Boring (self released)
- Unsanitary Napkin– All Billionaires Are Bastards (Slimebag/AlwaysNeverFun/Limbless)
- USA Nails/Psychic Graveyard– Split (SKiN GRAFT)
- Wombo– Fairy Rust (Fire Talk)
EPs
- Faderdaze– Break! (section1)
- FLEXÏ– Nothing (self released)
- Frida Kill– EP1 (Insecurity Hits)
- Gel– Shock Therapy (Convulse)
- Grudge– Revenge Therapy (self released)
- Headcheese– Best Before 2022 Demo (Slow Death)
- Jobber– Hell In A Cell (Exploding In Sound)
- Julien Baker– B-Sides (Matador)
- Metz– Come On Down/Heaven’s Gate (Sub Pop)
- Panic Shack– Baby Shack (self released)
- Rat Chasm– Baby (self released)
- Rebelmatic– Mourning Dove (Coffee Grind Media)
- Snōōper– Town Topic (Electric Outlet)
- Weeping Icon– Ocelli (Fire Talk)
- Winter Wolf– Unwell (Academic Punk)