There are many, many great books released this year - Variety introduces its list of the best music books released in 2022. "Bono writes beautifully about his relationship with his parents and his wife... Tom Breihan’s new book looks at how 20 top tracks affected the culture, and/or changed the game, musically and sociologically... Stunning 'The Byrds: 1964-67', a comprehensive oral history and a gorgeous coffee-table photo book all in one...  In his first book, the ace New York Times reporter Coscarelli puts a microscope on the thriving and enormously influential Atlanta hip-hop scene".

Only one of the top ten most-searched songs of the year on Google came from a Western artist,  the search engine's trending searches of 2022 show. The list features several Indonesian and Japanese singers, a reggaeton-inspired Pakistani track, and one from Nigerian singer-songwriter Burna Boy. The top spot is taken by 'Tak Ingin Usai' ('Don’t Want to End'), by Indonesian singer Keisya Levronka. The only Western artist on the list is Harry Styles with 'As It Was' at number seven.

"This has proved a fantastic year for extreme music and metal, and the new wave is masterfully progressing" - PopMatters points out about the year 2022 in metal. They selected 20 albums with technical death metal band Aeviterne's 'The Ailing Facade' on top. Stereogum selects 10 albums - Blut Aus Nord's 'Lovecraftian Echoes' takes the top spot. Treblezine expanded its list from 25 to 30 albums, with grindcore band Cloud Rat taking the No. 1 spot with 'Threshold'. Loudwire is the most generous - they selected the 50 best rock and metal albums.

"From show-stopping set design and performances in videos by Björk and Rosalía to stirring documentaries on Phil Elverum, Sinéad O’Connor, and Poly Styrene, music-focused visual media helped to flesh out the stories and aesthetics of great artists past and present" - Pitchfork introduces its selection of the best music videos, movies and TV of 2022.

"Electronic music may have its problems and peculiarities... but one thing the genre doesn’t suffer from is a lack of quality music" - First Floor introduces its list of best dance electronic music of 2022. Three albums "that resonated the most this year" are: Hudson Mohawke's 'Cry Sugar' - "a manic album in which elements of happy hardcore, stadium rap, emotive R&B, swaggering EDM and kaleidoscopic bass contortions all live side by side"; Moin's 'Paste', a "guitar-driven post-hardcore album... made like a techno record"; The Range's 'Mercury' which melds "elements of electronic music, hip-hop, soul and R&B into remarkably potent little pop packages".

The Complex UK team (and extended family) chooses the best of what they have been reading and rating in 2022. There's a New York Times article about the exhibition on how grime transformed British music. LA Mag's piece about the killing of Drakeo the Ruler, Dazed & Confused's article on West London musician Dréya Mac, Miccheque's piece on best UK rap albums of all time, and plenty more. Check them all out here.

usic books released recently. Among them are 'Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music' by Ann Powers - "an ambitious and brilliant examination of US pop that puts sex front and centre in the importance of music", as well as 'Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm' by Dan Charnas, the "rare biography that explains the how and why of the music".

"Vigorous, explorative and righteously angry, nothing struck quite so profound a chord with us in 2022 as this extraordinary record from Baltimore’s Infinity Knives and Brian Ennals" - Loud And Quiet argues in favor of their choice of the album of 2022. Their top 10 are:

10. They Hate Change: 'Finally, New'

9. Dry Cleaning: 'Stumpwork'

8. Katie Alice Greer: 'Barbarism'

7. Kendrick Lamar: 'Mr Morale and the Big Steppers'

6. Thank: 'Thoughtless Cruelty'

5. Caroline: 'Caroline'

4. Charlie XCX: 'Cream'

3. Kai Whiston: 'Quiet As Kept, F.O.G.'

2. Jockstrap: 'I Love You Jennifer B'

1. Infinity Knives and Brian Ennals: 'King Cobra'

Quietus' writers have assembled a wide list of best albums of 2022. It looks into the art, alternative, metal, classic, alt-pop and other scenes. Plenty to listen to there. The top 10 are:

• 1: Jockstrap – 'I Love You Jennifer B'
• 2: Diamanda Galás – 'Broken Gargoyles'
• 3: caroline – 'caroline'
• 4: Richard Dawson – 'The Ruby Cord'
• 5: Decius – 'Decius Vol. I'
• 6: Sea Power – 'Everything Was Forever'
• 7: Kendrick Lamar – 'Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers'
• 8: The Ephemeron Loop – 'Psychonautic Escapism'
• 9: Emeka Ogboh – '6°30'33.372"N 3°22'.66"E'
• 10: Oren Ambarchi – 'Shebang'

"2022 was the year of the comeback. As the music industry stumbled out of its pandemic fog, many artists finally delivered long delayed, highly anticipated, and sonically experimental albums that met some of the expectations built up for them" - Pitchfork introduces its Top 50 albums of 2022 list. The top 10 are:

10. Alex G: 'God Save the Animals'

9. Yaya Bey: 'Remember Your North Star'

8. Lucrecia Dalt: '¡Ay!'

7. Big Thief: 'Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You'

6. Rosalía: 'Motomami'

5. Bad Bunny: 'Un Verano Sin Ti'

4. Special Interest: 'Endure'

3. Alvvays: 'Blue Rev'

2. Sudan Archives: 'Natural Brown Prom Queen'

1. Beyoncé: 'Renaissance'

"Alvvays' 'Belinda Says' (is) a heartbreaking sketch of an unexpected pregnancy that’s also a modern power-pop classic" - Pitchfork argues in favor of their No. 1 song of 2022. Their list of Top 100 songs of 2022 is out now. Consequence's song of 2022 is Paramore's 'This Is Why' because it "carries the weight and emotions of the last several years of simply surviving".

The Forty-Five collective of female-led journalists has selected 45 best albums of the year, which "attempt to make sense of the troubled times we live in, that capture the zeitgeist or just provide an hour of much-needed escapism". The top 10 albums are:

10. Sampa the Great: 'As Above, so Below'

9. Weyes Blood: 'And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow'

8. Taylor Swift: 'Midnights'

7. Rosalia: 'Motomami'

6. Beyonce: 'Renaissance'

5. Sudan Archives: 'Natural Brown Porm Queen'

4. Mitski: 'Laurel Hell'

3. Shygirl: 'Nymph'

2. Wet Leg: 'Wet Leg'

1. Jockstrap: 'I Love You Jennifer B'

"It was a very big year for very big albums... a year in music we have a feeling we’ll be thinking about (and dancing to) for a long time to come" - Rolling Stone writes introducing its list of best 100 albums of 2022. Their top 10 are:

10. Wet Leg, ‘Wet Leg’

9. J-Hope, ‘Jack in the Box’

8. FKA Twigs, ‘Caprisongs’

7. King Princess, ‘Hold on Baby’

6. Pusha T, ‘It’s Almost Dry’

5. Harry Styles, ‘Harry’s House’

4. Rosalía, ‘Motomami’

3. Taylor Swift, ‘Midnights’

2. Bad Bunny, ‘Un Verano Sin Ti’

1. Beyonce, ‘Renaissance’

All About Jazz writer Chris Vella made a collection of songs that allows you to get lost and "have it transport you to a state of bliss. Like the diamonds of the music, no matter the era or style, they just shine... They're not splashy or overly complicated... You can just hang inside the groove like it's in some kind of snow globe heaven".

The best music books this year kept it personal" - Pitchfork points out introducing the best 15 books of 2022. Among them are "affable, conversational, and always funny, with surprising insights and ear-catching phrasings gliding in from every direction" book 'The Number Ones' by Tom Breihan about American No. 1 pop hits, as well as "an astoundingly intimate book-length conversation on art and grief" with Nick Cave by Sean O'Hagan. and 'Queer Country' by Shana Goldin-Perschbacher who draws "a vivid portrait of a movement at a point of breakthrough".

A nice list - Stereogum chooses 40 musicians who have done "something... in the past year that makes us feel like they’ve reached or are about to reach their full potential". It's not really a global list - the vast majority is American, and a few come from the UK or Australia - but still, it's quite colorful. The full list: Age Of Apocalypse, Anxious, Blackbraid, Caroline, Chat Pile, Dazy, Dijon, Doechii, DOMi & JD Beck, Dummy, Dust Star, Ethel Cain, Fugitive, Glorilla, High Vis, Jane Inc, Jane Remover, Jockstrap, King Hannah, Knifeplay, LF System, Lowertown, Maria BC, Mess Esque, MSPAINT, Naima Bock, Pool Kids, Rachika, Nayar, Rat Tally, Ripped To Shreds, Romero, RXK Nephew, Saucy Santana, Scowl, They Are Gutting A Body Of Water, Trapland Pat, Undeath, Why Bonnie, Zoh Amba, and ZORA.

Pitchfork is looking back 30 years - they selected "150 albums that... shaped the way music would sound in the decades to come", and "250 songs that would make up Pitchfork’s ultimate ’90s mixtape". Here are the 10 best albums:

Nirvana: Nevermind

A Tribe Called Quest: 'The Low End Theory'

Hole: 'Live Through This'

Janet Jackson: 'The Velvet Rope'

Björk: 'Homogenic'

Wu-Tang Clan: 'Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)'

Liz Phair: 'Exile in Guyville'

Radiohead: 'OK Computer'

Lauryn Hill: 'The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill'

My Bloody Valentine: 'Loveless'

To celebrate their first 15 years, Consequence is releasing a list of their 75 favorite albums of the last decade and a half. Plenty of various albums between Lorde's 'Melodrama' and Kendrick Lamar' 'To Pimp a Butterfly'. Check out the full list.

Consequence made a list of 100 best albums of all-time, It's a list that "assessed the mercurial value attached to art, from perceptions at the moment of creation, to retrospective consideration, to the impact on ever-evolving fashions". Check out what lies between Janes Addiction's 'Nothing's Shocking', and Pr

"From dazzling Taiwanese math rock to Y2K-inspired R&B", Pitchfork had rounded up "a list of generally overlooked recent releases that deserve some more attention", which were released in 2022. Defcee is there, as well as mediopicky, Naima Bock and others. Check out the list below - https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/great-records-you-may-have-missed-spring-summer-2022/.

Pitchfork this year adds a new list - a mid-June rundown of favorite albums of the first half of the year. This one is alphabetical and not ranked, and consists of personal picks rather than the results of a vote. The list includes some big pop names like the Weeknd, and Bad Bunny, some indie darlings like Animal Collective, and Angel Olsen, and a few underground names, like Astrid Sonne, Undeath, and Soul Glo.

Plenty of musicians on Time's list of 100 most influential people for 2022: Adele, Jazmine Sullivan, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner, Jon Batiste, Mary J. Blige, and Miranda Lambert. Check out the full list here.

"The best punk movies are stories that tap into the spirit of the time through imagined characters and invented situations. A biopic can’t help treating its protagonists as exceptional figures—stars commanding the stage of History—in a way that undercuts the iconoclastic, 'no more heroes' spirit of punk" - the Simon Reynolds writes introducing his best punk movies list, which goes from "the first punk movie" 'Jubilee' to 'We Are the Best!' by Lukas Moodysson.

Experimental music newsletter Tone Glow selects 31 albums and songs from the first quarter of 2022. An interesting selection of albums by ASP Doze, Voivod, Toshimaru Nakamura, Bengt Berger, Matches and others. Check the full list here!

A nice little blog post by Medium about movie titles inspired by songs. The top spot is taken by Inner Circle's 'Bad Boys' - a song "about teenage life and becoming semi-aggressive as you start growing up... it’s about troubled kids who have problems at home”. The song was picked up in 1995 by the 'Bad Boys' action comedy franchise, which stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as two Miami narcotics detectives.

Very interesting facts in Rolling Stone's article about last year's highest-paid musicians. The world’s 10 highest-paid musicians of 2021 made in a combined $2.3 billion, which is more than double what they were making annually in the years before Covid-19. Only Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Taylor Swift made the top 10 without a massive catalog sale, the others like Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, and Red Hot Chili Peppers made a majority of their income by selling their catalogs.

Kelefa Sanneh made a selection of top 10 books of "writers documenting single-minded scenes with obsessive passion". There's, among others, 'Deep Down in the Ghetto' by Roger D Abrahams about hip-hop written a decade before it existed, 'I’m With the Band' by Pamela Des Barres about groupies, 'Lords of Chaos' by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind about the dark side of black metal.

Tone Glow assembled a list of their favourite albums of 2021 (not the best). An interesting list of experimental music:

Michael Pisaro-Liu - 'Revolution Shuffle'

Yvette Janine Jackson - 'Freedom'

Wild Up - 'Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine'

DJ Sprinkles - 'Gayest Tits & Greyest Shits: 1998-2017 12-Inches & One-Offs'

Éliane Radigue - 'Occam Ocean 3'

Jana Rush - 'Painful Enlightenment'

Dean Blunt - 'Black Metal 2'

Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt - 'Made Out of Sound'

Haptic - 'Weird Undying Annihilation'

Injury Reserve - 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix'

L’Rain - 'Fatigue'

Lucy Liyou - 'Practice'

Juçara Marçal - 'Delta Estácio Blues'

MIKE - 'Disco!'

Lucia Nimcová & Sholto Dobie - 'DILO'

William Parker – 'Migration of Silence into and Out of the Tone World (Volumes 1–10)'

RP Boo - 'Established!'

ThouxanBanFauni - 'Time of My Life'

Richard Youngs - 'CXXI'

RXK Nephew - 'Slitherman Activated'

"The curse of being a music hound is that you’ll never be able to hear everything; the blessing is that there’ll always be something new to discover" - Boston Globe writer points out in the article about musical discoveries from this year. It's actually all well-known names, but not for everybody, some had the luck of finding out excitement in something all else knew.

"This year, many of the books we loved most used music as a lens through which to examine broader issues of politics, history, and identity — whether it was the story of capitalist circulation as heard by Joshua Clover in the Modern Lovers’ 'Roadrunner', Hanif Abdurraqib riffing on everything from 'Soul Train' to 1920s dance crazes in his panoramic 'A Little Devil in America', or Eric Harvey exploring depictions of African American life in Eighties pop culture" - Rolling Stone starts the introduction to their selection of the best 22 music books released this year.