Listing.....

Thoughts on the music of 2022, in (mostly) text-free form

The list imperative keeps growing. This year, it seems there are more than ever, and the explosion of them makes you wonder: Does the abundance of rankings and listicles dilute the power/resonance/purpose of best-of lists, which are really just attempts at sorting massive amounts of creative activity into semi-organized form? Does a list need an accompanying playlist to be useful? Does it make sense to bother with an albums list in the era of TikTok? I’d argue it does, simply because artists from Beyonce on down continue to organize their work into albums or EPs.

Does it make sense to sort according to genre? I say no. As many musicians and thinkers have observed in writing about Grammy award categories and Year-in-Review lists, we’re living at a time when musical creativity defies — and, indeed, mocks — taxonomic classification. Even the easy calls are not easy calls anymore; is it accurate to tag Kendrick Lamar’s work as “hip-hop,” or to describe Domi and JD Beck, the improvising duo, as “jazz”? In both instances, the broad genre names are not equal to the task of describing the music.

And forget about rankings — that’s anti-music.

NEW RELEASES FROM 2022 (in no particular order):

Cecile McLorin Salvant: Ghost Song

Charles Lloyd: Sacred Thread

Black Midi: Hellfire

The Smile: A Light For Attracting Attention

Neil Young & Crazy Horse: World Record

Rosalia: Motomami

Sharon Van Etten: We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong

Elvis Costello: The Boy Named If

Layla McCalla: Breaking the Thermometer

The Weeknd: Dawn FM

Angel Olsen: Big Time

Khruangbin and Vieux Farka Touré: Ali

Daniel Villareal: Panama 77

Sylvan Esso: No Rules Sandy

Kendrick Lamar: Morale & The Big Steppers

VAULT DISCOVERIES/REISSUES

Joyce: Feminina

Creedence Clearwater Revival: At the Royal Albert Hall

The Beatles: Revolver Deluxe

Ahmad Jamal: Emerald City Nights

Elvin Jones: Revival (Live at Pookie’s Pub).

Valentina Gonchorova: Recordings 1987-1992 Vol. 2.

Super Djata Band: En Super Forme Vol. 1.

Agustin Pereyra Lucena: La Rana

Branko Mataja: Over Fields and Mountains

Frank Zappa: The Mothers ’71; Zappa/Erie; Zappa ’75: Zagreb/Ljubljana.

Garrett Saracho: En Medio

Jimi Hendrix Experience: Los Angeles Forum, April 26, 1969

Mal Waldron: Searching in Grenoble The 1978 Solo Piano Concert

The Beach Boys: Sail On Sailor 1972.

ECHO LOCATOR OMISSIONS (Titles that got overlooked)

Frank Sinatra: Watertown. 1970 concept album with songs written by Bob Gaudio (composer/producer of hits by the Four Seasons) and Jake Holmes, reissued this year with bonus tracks. A curiosity in the great singer’s discography.

The Beatles: Revolver Special Edition. I thought there was Fab Four Fatigue after the tremendous Get Back documentary, so I avoided diving into this set. Mistake! It’s a sonically vivid, carefully sequenced narrative about the making of a watershed album.

Michael Nesmith: Different Drum: The Lost RCA Victor Recordings. The country-leaning sessions Nesmith did for RCA in the early ‘70s contain more than a few great songs like the title track, a hit for Linda Ronstadt. This deserved wider attention.

Joe Strummer: 002: The Mescaleros Years. Clash legend Joe Strummer’s solo output hasn’t been properly reissued, and as a result scans as a footnote to a glorious career. This boxed set gathers the three intermittently brilliant releases from Strummer’s later band, augmented with a set of studio demos and alternate takes called Vibes Compass.