Songs, 2022

20. Willare/Datkiddmix/Spookjamie/Rihanna “Sex With Me” (Pluggnb Remix)
Elite vibes

19. Weyes Blood “Twin Flame”
Central park, one airpod in each of our ears, splitting sunset, a gentle winter breeze

18. Grace Ives “Lullaby”
“It’s not something to be sad about/it’s just something I’ve been thinking about”

17. Nilufer Yanya “Anotherlife”
Painless flirts with the jittery guitar rock of Bloc Party but I like its wistful closer the most. (“Try” is my second-favorite song on the record for the same reason I prefer all slow Stones songs to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”)

16. Jerry Paper “Just Say Play”
What the indie rock movement is doing right now is very inspiring

15. Nav/Bryson Tiller “Reset”
A malessoul post come to life

14. Hikaru Utada “Somewhere Near Marseilles”
A journey

13. Brent Faiyaz “Jackie Brown”
Guess i’m doing what i want

12. Dreezy/Jeremih “In Touch”
The world needs Dreezy and Jeremih

11. Rosalia “Bizcochito”
Motomami was the first album in 15 years giving Kala

10. Saint Mercator “She Said”
At the risk of gooping on ya grinch—

9. ZahSosaa “Stripper Anthem”
8. D Sturdy “Remember Me”
7. Asian Doll/Bandmanrill “Get Jumped”
I had a standoffish relationship with New York drill for reasons valid and not. First, “drill” to me will always mean Keef, Durk, Reese, Louie, Katie, etc. Second, there is a reason I don’t listen to grime. New York drill felt like scare-the-hoes music. And I’m a ho. The club-rap phenomenon of 2022 changed this. “Stripper Anthem” rides a Giveon hook as a lifeline, and that some of my favorite club rap songs use samples so blatantly reads as a throwback. I’m not so conservative I need this—I’m not trying to bring back the boom-bap. But it lets me key into the song’s core. “Remember Me” snakes a Jeremih sample around D Sturdy, who clocks that song’s DNA to sing a catchy, sweetly memorable hook. The breakout of this movement is Newark’s Bandmanrill, who wields his command of melody the sharpest and released a string of excellent singles before a full-length late in the year. I go back to Asian Doll’s Let’s Do a Drill from May. I didn’t have context for Bandmanrill yet but “Get Jumped” immediately struck me—I felt, not for the first or last time this year, I was listening to something new

6. Real Lies “Dream On”
I’m not an Anglophile except when I watch Peep Show

5. Bad Bunny “Titi Me Pregunto”
This record was so ubiquitous it became impossible to imagine any gathering of people without hearing one of its songs

4. Texas Boyz “Awwready”
The drums hit harder here than in any other song from 2022. Between this and Tisakorean it’s clear men from Houston would rather dance in dead-end residential streets at 60 fps than go to therapy

3. Alan Braxe/DJ Falcon/Panda Bear “Step by Step” (12” version)
There was everything before this song, and everything after

2. Grupo Diez 4tro “El Fantasma”
Inspired more feverish rap hands for me than any other song this year

1. Tisakorean “Backseat”
Tisakorean’s one-two punch of short records from last year (pResiLLy and mr.siLLyfLow) were revelations in small bites, proof Tisa is as much of a DIY phenomenon as his most apparent forefathers. 1st Round Pick is ten minutes of amazing music and right in the middle is “Backseat,” a short ballad that packs the horniness of a teenage love anthem into a nesting doll of synths, analog warmth, winsome bars, and a breezy indie-rock songwriting style. It absorbs everything and spits it back out carefully. Tisakorean is gifted at everything—singing, rapping, dancing, making videos, acting—a bottle of pure talent, someone the MacArthur Foundation should give $250,000 to because whatever watered-down academic take on his music and persona that is destined to come out of this fruitful Tisa era will no doubt be bastardized into something for museums or cynical and empty versions of this kind of vital Black virality and vision, completely missing that the best art sometimes doesn’t require much more than for you to nod your head and buy in.