The Beths Salt Lake City show warmed a pre-holiday crowd with a mix of power pop favorites. The Beths, featuring Liz Stokes, are touring on their hit August album Straight Line Was a Lie. Stokes and company are touring the U.S., Japan and Australia through next summer. And after four albums, The Beths shared an easy rapport with the packed house at Salt Lake City’s Metro Music Hall.
Keep reading for a touching moment in The Beths show
essential
2024
alternative
albums
I had two or three 2024 alternative albums in mind all year and I was SURE one of them was going to be my #1. But no! I ultimately surprised myself with my top choice this year. Still, I’ve never been more persuaded in my favorite record of 2024.
Every year it seems I can inevitably conjure just one or two records that I think will be worth writing about. Then I spend two weeks in rapturous review — oh that was so good! and wow that one was amazing! Canonizing my favorite 2024 alternative albums is really more for me than for you.
Keep reading for 20 super albums from 2024!
These 24 remarkable alternative songs from 2024 are a kind of a soundtrack of the year.
The songs range from post punk to dream pop to alternative country. I’ve been adding to this list of tunes all year from hundreds of album and song downloads. A few of the songs may be a teeny bit obscure. But all of them were written with infectious hooks. They are immediate and super easy to fall in love with.
A quick preface that these aren’t the biggest alternative singles of the year.
In fact, most come from records that WON’T make my Top 20 Albums list for 2024. So Pom Poko’s “Champion” isn’t on this list and none of the one billion songs on Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee are here. Those bands released records that are almost certain to be among my favorite albums. So I’m cherry picking songs that both easy to love but NOT on my favorite albums list. Although the albums list is still an undefined mental catalogue. STOP WITH ALL THE QUESTIONS.
Let’s start with the catchiest alternative songs from 2024. Ready?
Keep reading for 24 standout alternative songs from 2024!
No matter who you were hoping to see in the Kilby Block Party lineup for 2025, you were bound to find some terrific bands along with a few headscratchers. It’s the nature of booking music. Kilby isn’t curating a personal playlist for you. They’re trying to draw 30,000 people to the Utah State Fairgrounds next May 15-18. They’re also trying to turn a profit in the process.
Some of the down ballot candidates here are going to be the big hits for me. Headliners tend to have a Dad Rock appeal. Let’s have a look at the music planned for Kilby’s 2025 event and possibly a few of the bands you may have overlooked but shouldn’t! Let’s have a look.
Keep reading for the Kilby 2025 highlights
Would I have preferred to post my best indie albums 2023 list four or five weeks ago. Yes. Yes, I would. Am I losing sleep over it? No. It simply has low cultural relevance now.
I had most of these 20 records scratched onto a cute, pink “Mom’s To Do List” note pad at the end of the year. But one distraction lead to another and I didn’t sit down to start writing until February 1st. But get off my back already — this is the best 2023 album list you’ll read the entire month of February!
Keep reading for 20 albums from 2023 you need to buy!
I’ve been missing for a few…but I’m motivated tonight to tell you about 6 alternative songs in 2023 you need to jump on ASAP! Some of these from spring and summer will make my year-end list of favorite alternative songs in 2023. A few are just in my head and deserve a broader audience.
You can stream all of these tunes for free at Bandcamp. You can also buy them there or, even better, buy from the bands’ websites. Most have YouTube videos but I’m not into videos myself. Many also offer free streams at Soundcloud. Even a big dog like Teenage Fanclub is making its brand new album Nothing Lasts Forever available to stream at Soundcloud.
You can listen to ALL of the songs right from this page, and use the handy links to support the artists. Here we go.
Click to read about and listen to six fab songs from 2023!
The Kilby Block Party Saturday lineup promises a blowout before Sunday night’s lineup featuring Pavement. I’ve scouted out every Saturday band from renowned to obscure. You can hear samples of most of every band below.
The Kilby Block Party 2024 fired next year’s lineup announcement like a cannon shot.…
KEEP READING FOR 2024!Here are some quick expectations for the Kilby Block Party Saturday lineup:
Here is my recommended Saturday plan. Listen for all these bands below. As always, IMMV.
12:15 Kipper Snack
12:45 This looks like Break #1 for me
1:20 Tamino
1:55 Grace Ives
2:30 Tanukichan
3:25 Alex G (May cross over to see Wallice)
4:15 Break #2
5:15 Indigo De Souza
6:25 Weyes Blood
7:35 Run the Jewels
8:45 The Strokes
The wild gamut from Alex G to Weyes Blood to Run the Jewels is going to blow some minds. Let’s have a look at (my) headliners in order of appearance. We’ll start with Alex G’s afternoon performance.
It’s actually not the easiest thing in the world to find an image of Alex Giannascoli.
I think part of that is the Elliot Smith mythos, a mystery partially burst with recent network TV appearances. Alex G has become an increasingly influential part of the indie folk/lo fi rock scene for the larger part of a decade, particularly since Beach House (2015) and Rocket (2017).
The Pennsylvania native once again charmed critics with 2022’s God Save the Animals. I didn’t immediately buy it after listening last year, but I think I am basically alone on planet Earth on that take. Here is “Miracles,” which includes the touching lyrics:
“‘I have fears that I have not addressed,’ she says
Some things from my past make me feel powerless, well
Baby, I pray for the children and the sinners and the animals too
And I, I pray for you
Natalie Mering had been releasing music for nearly ten years before sinking the music industry on her iceberg with 2019’s Titanic Rising. She returned all the stronger in 2022 with And In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow. It’s a delicate throwback to pastoral soft 70’s – but punctuated with Weyes Bloods’ powerful emotion and earnestness. In her promotional material, she actually describes her heart as a glow stick.
A friend of mine in NYC, not easily impressed, was blown away by Weyes Bloods’ performance at Brooklyn Steel this spring. He noted particularly the lighting and set, with some in the audience “moved to tears” at the show’s end. I’m ready to have my cynical cold heart warmed in Mering’s ambience. And, joking aside, this is woman who knows how to write pure melody.
This is the opening track from her current album, “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody.”
I previously speculated we could get RTJ5 just in time for the Kilby Block Party Saturday lineup takes the stage. Bad news: That’s a No. Good news: Killer Mike is putting out his first solo release in a long time, Michael, on June 16. That’s pretty awesome!
Michael Render will be touring major metros with the Midnight Revival Choir starting in July. I have to believe we’ll be treated to Run the Jewel classics and previews of Michael when RTJ plays Saturday night.
Have you heard “Don’t Let the Devil?!” El-P guests along with thankugoodsir and it’s super good.
I feel it’s important to manage expectations with The Strokes.
Julian Casablancas and company have been touring for awhile now, to decidedly unenthusiastic and at best, mixed reviews of their commitment to entertainment. Which version of The Strokes will show up in Salt Lake City during the Kilby Block Party Saturday lineup? Hard to know.
I’ll go back and experiment with 2020’s The New Abnormal. Most of us, though, will be hoping for competent performances of Is This It and Room On Fire.
Part of the joy of this year’s KBP is not just the big name acts but the introduction we get to dozens of strong independent performers, many of whom I am hearing for the first time. If you’re similarly looking for an introduction, then read on.
I am absolutely wrecked hearing Tamino tonight for the first time.
When someone is out there creating music like this and it doesn’t cross my radar, I simply feel inadequate. He hasn’t exactly labored in obscurity – Tamino played several shows at SXSW in 2019. Although in my defense, the Belgian-Egyptian music scene is not super strong.
Tamino’s hypnotic vocals are unearthly. Cairo’s Nile FM (this is an actual radio station, at the evenly numbered MHz 104.2 FM) identifies him as the grandson of Egypt’s “legendary Muharram Fouad.” Last year he released the album Sahar but I want you to hear the song I just sampled, 2017’s “Habibi.”
You cannot NOT hear Jeff Buckley singing. I am dead.
I will absolutely be at the Utah Fairgrounds at 1:20pm to hear Tamino early in the Kilby Block Party Saturday lineup.
John Dwyer’s long time project Osees, aka Thee Oh Sees, have lived a dozen or more musical lives. From freakout to psych rock, I actually like his current thread which is closer to pure punk.
A Foul Form came out last August although I didn’t catch it then. This is pretty good! It’s on the tolerant side of the hardcore spectrum, which is about the sweet spot for a 50-something white guy like me.
Songs like the freaky surf of “Perm Act” and punk blasts of “Funeral Solution” and “Scum Show” could be a wild part of the Kilby Block Party Saturday lineup.
North Carolina’s Indigo De Souza is all rough edges and blunt, confessional lyrics. De Souza has a great sense of dreary melody, a bit like Dana Margolin of Porridge Radio. De Souza just released All of This Will End two weeks ago and I enjoyed the several tracks I’ve downloaded.
The artist profile on Bandcamp quotes De Souza saying, “I was finally able to trust myself fully.” I don’t really know what that means but it sounds good!
On “You Can Be Mean” she disses on a Luva like Taylor Swift would, but with 100x more venom.
I actually kind of liked parts of the song and video for Caroline Polachek’s “Welcome to my Island,” at least the images of her running through a construction site. (Hey that’s what Weyes Blood serving her coffee!) But its hard for me to take the former Chairlift singer too seriously, and I’m definitely not the target demographic.
Here’s “Welcome to My Island,” which I realize while listening and not watching, loses some interest without the construction video and throwing up blood or coffee.
Dreamer Isioma continues the suave Freak&B of 2021 debut Goodnight Dreamer on April’s Princess Forever.
Early single “Love & Rage” shows how Isioma deftly combines funk, Afrobeats and a rhythmic indie palette. Princess Forever is also a deep concept album – rarely a necessity – that envisions Isioma transcending an apocalyptic something-or-the-other in an alternate universe.
Best to focus on the Chicago native’s beats, as here on “Touch Your Soul.”
Behold the sardonic, self-deprecating indie pop of Wallice!
Just a single EP under her belt, last year’s cutting 90’s American Superstar, Wallice grimly mocks her career trajectory on “Rich Wallice.” The LA artist absolutely shreds on “John Wayne” (actually I don’t know if that’s her on guitar!?) and on the imagined end of her career arc on the EP’s narrative closer “Funeral.”
After a couple of pandemic hits, Wallice Hana Watanabe spent part of the year opening for The 1975 and I can totally hear it. For Rolling Stone AU, Wallice describes hours of added music and dance rehearsals to prepare for her big break.
I dig the way she shifts from 2nd to 5th gear about 1 minute into the EP’s opening cut, “Little League.”
Synth pop marvel Grace Ives is the author of last year’s Janky Star. Endlessly entertaining, Ives specializes in 2 minute pop gems that show off her breathy vibrato. Sometimes working in a dream pop space, other times breaking into a Cars twee power pop, Ives delivery always matches the material perfectly.
She soars on “Butterfly” from her 2019 debut 2nd.
You can hear the Cranberries influence on Tanukichan’s 2023 sophomore release GIZMO. I don’t know that the reference is good or bad, it’s just there. Particularly on songs like “Been Here Before” and “Take Care,” Hannah van Loon sounds like the late Dolores O’Riordan, minus the yodeling.
I appreciate Tanukichan’s crunchier dream pop to the poppier dream pop. Album opener “Escape” is more of a Lush soundscape.
Loving everything I’ve heard from Salt Lake City’s Kipper Snack, whose Insta says the band is half finished with “a real rock and roll album.” Last year Kipper released Pretty as a Flower, whose seven tracks look like an EP or mini album. Tracks fall somewhere between indie folk and high desert alt country.
Check out this impressive number, “Stick It With Me.”
Other standouts include “No Surprise” and “Mama.” Kipper is getting some well-deserved attention this year. Besides their opening slot for the Kilby Block Party Saturday lineup, they’ve played Soundwell, The Depot and Kilby Court. Kipper is a band to watch.
I’m also going to include a video. Readers of this site know I focus on audio. But I was so struck by the tenderness of this video shot during the pandemic. I hope whatever rock and roll Kipper releases soon includes this purity of spirit.
Also include the pedal steel, I want this young man to show off more pedal steel.
Anais Chantal released Where Do I Go?? just a couple of months ago. Salt Lake’s Chantal drops between soul and torchlit piano ballads. This is difficult territory to stand out! Chantal has the voice to pull it off, although not all of the melodies here cut through for me.
The opener “CLASSIC” captures Chantal’s presence and range perfectly.
Bright indie pop not wildly removed from The Killers, the Minneapolis veterans have been around since 2013. Hippo Campus last month released the Wasteland EP, from which the fan favorite seems to be “Yippie Ki Yay.”
I could have and maybe should have broken out The Moss and Josh Doss separately. Links provided for all.
Attention music lovers, the best possible news: The band Semiwestern is releasing a debut LP this year, with singles to come this spring!
In November 2022, like a delicate shot across the bow, California’s redoubtable Spirit Goth Records released “Velvet Sea.” I naturally believed this was new music. It was, in fact, a remix of a song recorded by Semiwestern’s members ten years earlier as The Vliets.
Before we go any further, listen to the updated “Velvet Sea” to understand how I swooned over this atmospheric, Luna-inflected recording. It was my #1 or #2 favorite song of the entire year. Since, then, I have listened to “Velvet Sea” approximately one billion times.
I’ll be honest, there’s not a ton of information on the world wide interwebs about either The Vliets or Semiwestern. But here’s what I can tell you.
A brief history of the world. The band Semiwestern emerged from Austin’s The Vliets (pronounced VLEETS), who were active about ten years ago. The Vliets, lead by singer Ty Bohrnstedt, released The Vliets EP in 2011 and God’s Drug EP in 2012. God’s Drug included the original “Velvet Sea.”
These early EP’s by The Vliets are more traditionally alternative. Here is “Pale Solar Stream” from 2012’s God’s Drug EP. You can hear just an echo of what Ty would mix in 2022.
In 2018, The Vliets released the Semiwestern EP, seemingly leading to the band’s current moniker. You can buy all three EP’s from The Vliets/Semiwestern Bandcamp page.
I was so smitten by the band Semiwestern’s remix of “Velvet Sea” that I inquired with both Spirit Goth and Semiwestern about a new album. Was I a wee bit stalker-y? Possibly, but not completely psycho.
Ty says “a full length album (is) coming. It’s finished but we have to shoot a few music videos and tie up a few loose ends before we set release dates. My best guess is we’ll start putting the singles out around April or so.”
That means we could be six weeks out from new Semiwestern material and I couldn’t be more excited. Will it be consistent with The Vliets indie-centric back catalogue? Or more of the California dream pop like “Velvet Sea?” We will find out!
One more platform for the single, here is the video for the updated “Velvet Sea.”
I made a deliberate decision to jump start 2023 by listening to the first great alternative songs new to January.
That’s what you’re going to hear below. While the first couple weeks of the year always seem to be catchup mode on Best Of lists for the year before, you will 100% fall in love with the new music already dropping in 2023.
Let’s have a listen!
Each of these songs shot out of the cannon in the first four weeks of the new year.
I haven’t finished listening to all the indie songs new to January, but these are the ones that caught my immediate attention. Each tune comes with a link to buy the song or album and support the artist. Make that a new year’s resolution in 2023! Support independent musicians by paying them for their art!
We were just four days into the new year when Yoodoo Park of Kyoto, Japan, released Dark Moon and its tasty title track. Park’s GRMLN has been at this for a decade and doesn’t find these dream pop guitar lines by accident. I didn’t hear an entire album of these hooks on Dark Moon but the title track is one of the promising alternative songs new to January 2023.
Listen to more of Dark Moon and buy a copy from GRMLN at Bandcamp.
You know who you don’t hear a lot about in the year 2023? REM drummer Billy Berry.
Bill’s been taking it easy – the royalty checks probably still clear. After a health scare in the 90’s, Berry has been hay farming outside Athens the last 25 years. A chance meeting with Mike Mantione lead to new band The Bad Ends and Berry’s return to music. Have a listen to “Mile Marker 29.”
Order your copy of The Power and the Glory from Bandcamp.
The Rills have a super dancy Franz Ferdinand thing happening.
It was especially clear on “Landslide,” which The Rills released last fall. Two weeks ago, they dropped “Falling Apart.” The Rills’ second EP, depending on where you get your info, will be available in February.
Get your copy of the After Taste EP here.
What I really dig about Boston’s fine. is this grade school choir sound they’ve perfected.
Bubblegum pop songs by Alice Kat and Liam James Marsh will wake you from your winter doldrums and get you dancing again. Although I’m including fine. in my January list of tunes…Love, Death, Dreams came out three days before Christmas, so sue me. Hit play and fall in love!
Buy Love, Death, Dreams and the Sleep Between from Subjangle.
The Murder Capital don’t care if search to find the melodies in Gigi’s Recovery. But the Dubliners are also so good at what they do, they can’t keep the hooks from bursting through the dissonance.
You’ll hear TMC winking at James Murphy’s masterpiece “All My Friends” in their drooping cacophony, “Ethel.” It’s a slow build, so don’t give up on this one.
They come to Kilby Court in April!
Get ready for The Murder Capital’s SLC show and buy Gigi’s Recovery.
Let me tell you what I know about The Spooky Boys, which is close to nothing. They’re billed as “Portland’s premier indie/surf rock group featuring jangly dripping wet guitars, relentless driving rhythm, and insatiable catchy melodies.” Admittedly I didn’t know “jangly wet guitars” was a thing, nor that The Spooky Boys were Portland’s exemplar.
I DO KNOW superior power pop when I hear it. So check out one of the best indie songs new to 2023, “Past Tense.”
Buy “Past Tense” at the Spooky Boys’ website.
If Priestgate look miserable, their single “White Shirt” is a delirious balance of pop sugar and darker 80’s Cure vibes. I’m looking forward to hearing Priestgate’s second EP due on March 3. I have to say I love the rhythm and vocal desperation of “White Shirt.”
Pre-order One Shade Darker at Bandcamp.
I get it, a band with a name and sound like Toronto’s FU is not going to appeal to everyone reading this post, and that’s a shame.
The arrangements and (honestly) melodies underneath Damian Abraham’s vocals are second to none. It is remarkable hardcore guitar rock. Hang with it for two minutes and think about what songs like “Huge New Her” would sound like with actual singing.
My FU collection goes back, if not to their origin, to their remarkable David Comes to Life. Abraham sang a bit more on David than on One Day. So, for context, a bonus track: “The Other Shoe” from 2011’s landmark David Comes to Life.
Here’s how to get F*cked Up (heh).
This year’s One Day is at Merge Records while 2014’s Glass Boys is at Matador Records. You can sample and buy dozens of other FU releases, including David Comes to Life, from Bandcamp.
On no planet was I going to suggest a batch of my favorite alternative songs new to January without some of the best Spanish-language indie pop (*makes note to subscribe to Rosetta Stone). “Cuchillos” is the fourth single from LISASINSON’s pending full length. I’ve already started following Elefant Records to make sure I don’t miss the album by the Valencia, Spain art students.
Buy “Cuchillos” or the upcoming album Un Año De Cambios from Elefant Records.
Let’s stick with the power pop sound. I bet Strange Neighbors are a fun show. Just look at them, having fun with a camera like good self-entertaining kids. The Party of None EP came out two weeks ago, and I recommend you download and inject one of the indie songs new to January that will get your party started.
Strange Neighbors’ Party of None awaits at Bandcamp.
This month Chicago singer-songwriter Maria Jacobson released her second album, Leaving. It’s sweeping acoustic folk with song titles like “Winter” and “God.” Those feel like difficult motifs to live up to. Much of this rests on Fran’s voice and lyrics, like Weyes Blood striped bare of the chamber orchestra.
Buy Leaving from Fran’s website.
Kelley Deal, Kim’s twin and most famous sister, delivers on R. Ring with partner Mike Montgomery.
Deal is involved in a ton of stuff in addition to R. Ring, including Breeders reboots and Protomartyr. I love Kelley’s comeback story, the Breeders’ icy cool baked into R. Ring and her indie rock confidence. Check out the payoff halfway through War Poems’ lead, “Still Life.”
Get War Poems, We Rested from Bandcamp. Buy some of Kelley’s scarves at her website.
I confess, another 2022 song but – come onnnn! — Denmark’s appleseeds! dropped this song on December 31. You were probably already asleep, so it’s officially one of the alternative songs new to January in my book. Too Good to be True Records indicates appleseeds! will release æblefrø on February 3.
Check out “Hungry Mouth” and get set for what promises to be an album of jangle pop perfection!.
“Hungry Mouth” is one of the top indie songs new to January and the album æblefrø will be full of them!.
Sabrina Teitelbaum is LA’s Blondshell, who writes about her toxic relationships with a candor that couldn’t care less. Dark indie rock echoing influences like PJ Harvey and Courtney Love. Some of it is sexualized, some of it is just dysfunctional emotion like “Sepsis.”
Blondshell comes out April 7. Pre-order your copy from Teitelbaum’s website.
Let’s finish this list with 90 seconds of fist-pumping guitar rock. England’s The Happy Somethings roll the rhythm from Bow Wow Wow’s “I Love Candy” under bubblegum guitar fuzz and twee Bangles vocals.
You’ll be singing “Anglepoise” all day, and you’re welcome.
Anglepoise was released January 1 and is still one of the catchiest alternative songs new to January and the New Year!
The 20 Best 2022
Alternative Albums
Selecting the best 2022 alternative albums was only complicated by the awesome scope of releases.
2022 was a wild and rewarding year of music! Alternative country was at the vanguard of experimental sound, female singer-songwriters dominated across genres and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were relevant again. Most notably, pandemic-delayed music continued to flood into record stores and music websites.
Kids, there is SO. MUCH. MUSIC.
So…a few rules of the road.
First, my basic measure of a great album. It isn’t influence or buzz. It’s a release that I can honestly say — YES — I’ll come back and listen to this record over and over in years to come. Second, I love albums that are full and cohesive musical statements. Those are weighted heavily on my list over simple collections of songs. Finally, I try my very best not to posture as Cooler Than Thou. Some of these bands you will know; some you may not have heard about; they all belong on my list because I genuinely love them. Nothing is here for show. In fact, some of it may be damning.
I like what I like.
I’ve tried to provide two songs for every album that you can stream straight from this page. Read, listen and disagree. And by all means, tell me what I missed!
It was harder choosing the order in the second half of this list than those at the top.
Only one of my top 10 (foreshadowing) wasn’t part of my mental list of “best 2022 alternative albums” for several months. However, it was a little harder to sequence from 11 to 20 for some reason. Any of these records could easily be another person’s favorite of the year, and all deserve your time.
I didn’t hear Weyes Blood’s 2021 Titanic Rising to compare to this year’s And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow. The first 5 or 6 tracks are magical, though I think Hearts Aglow lags a bit near the end. If she resisted the comparison at first, it really is hard not to hear Karen Carpenter in Natalie Mering’s vocals. Not a little Jeff Lynne happening here too!
What more can I say? Loved this indie pop band from Venezuela.
Band leader and song writer Ricardo Vergara now writes from Medellín, Columbia, known as the City of Eternal Spring. You’ll feel that kind of renewal in these songs that range from garage rock to a bit of psychedelic jangle. Pedals and indie hand claps included at no extra charge.
Check it!
What is it about me and South American jangle pop?!…
Keep reading
I deliberately place Hop Up here, not least of all because Orlando Weeks deserves it. Also because Weeks’ sincere family delight is anathema to jaded music critics, who cannot tolerate simple, unironic joy. The album pulses with late-Roxy Music vibes and a little XTC.
TBWTPN collaborate across Europe on sunny indie pop songs, Gonzalo Marcos in Spain and Andrew Taylor in Scotland. However most of the hooks have the lightest touch of sweet jangle somewhere between The Byrds and Teenage Fanclub. The Boys With the Perpetual Nervousness present musical elation of the highest order!
Mary Lou Lord guests on the sweet duet, “Isolation.”
There’s a Spiritualized formula AMIRIGHT? Like Guy Garvey basically has a formula for Elbow? The answer is yes, and I’m here for every second of it.
Tell me if there has been a greater payoff than the Brian Wilson swell at 2:25 on Spiritualized’s “Always Together With You?” Like, ever in the history of music? Possibly exaggeration, but it’s my damn list. I could have dropped Spiritualized in my Top 10 without an ounce of regret.
Listen to J Spaceman only if you want to experience total exhilaration.
It seems appropriate, if unintentional, putting Spacemen 3 alum side-by-side.
More Panda Bear than a Spacemen throwback, Noah Lennox (Panda Bear) and Peter Kember (Sonic Boom and Spacemen 3 founder) are nevertheless kindred spirits.
Lennox may never return to the sublime heights reached on Person Pitch. Still, Reset lives in a nearby gentrified zip code.
I made a deliberate decision to jump start 2023 by listening to the first great alternative songs new to January.…
Keep reading
Skinty Fia could have been a Top 5 album but for a couple of stinkers (“Bloomsday,” I’m looking at you). Irish brogue, pedals, driving backbeats combined with the rich ferocity of Catherine Wheel. A sure hit on any list of best 2022 alternative albums.
Naima Bock’s patient arrangements frequently echo soft 70’s (“Instrumental” could be a lost TV score). Bock is formerly of Goat Girl and I love her rounded, breathy voice.
Weyes Blood sounds like her emotive and high-maintenance younger sister. Aldous Harding is Bock’s spirit animal.
Stop and check out these jangle pop veterans from Richmond!
We’re getting dangerously close to my Top 10, and just about every one of these songs is pop perfection. Somewhere, God bless Pat Fish’s departed soul, The Jazz Butcher is listening to The Silent Boys with a smile.
Until July 15, 2022 I had never heard Arlo Mckinley’s name. His show in Salt Lake this year was my favorite by not a little. What do we have to do to get Arlo a date on Mountain Stage?!
Serious Lynyrd Skynyrd energy in the best, most unironic way.
I personally don’t think you can go wrong with any of these Top 10 releases. Each is choice from beginning to end, and a highlight from the best 2022 alternative albums for music lovers everywhere.
For the most part, the top 7 or 8 albums were swirling in my head as Best Album for much of the year. It wasn’t until late November or so that I changed my #1, which I thought for sure would hold all year. For whatever reason, I over-indexed on alt country in my Top 10, for which I make no apologies so stop interrogating me like a common criminal.
I have zero concern for damaging what little street cred I have by including in my Top 10 albums Norway’s Aurora, for whom I am clearly not the target demo. Get over yourself and listen to what Aurora has done!
Much of The Gods We Can Touch is ethereal and intimate, and then by turns challenging and defiant. And the gothic overtones give way to a couple of unapologetic synth pop bangers. Aurora channels the chamber pop and early confidence of Kate Bush.
And I feel it’s important to say this:
In the year 2023, when a 26-year-old woman is the President and Chief freaking Executive Officer of her personal brand, positively influencing hundreds of thousands of younger women — we need to honor that.
Alvvays’ Blue Rev might have more pop hooks per song than anything else I heard this year.
After their October show in Salt Lake, I remarked they felt like a band making a new leap of confidence. You can’t say enough about the cool stage presence of Molly Rankin and Alec O’Hanley and the perfect, desultory voice Rankin gives to songs like “Many Mirrors” and “Lottery Noises.”
Alvvays in Salt Lake City played a bang-up show Tuesday.…
Keep reading
Gleeful jangle that ranges from power pop to fuzzy garage – even a tasty bit of cow punk.
Nearly every song on Proclaimer of Things is a windows open-wide singalong. Hilarie Sidney of Elephant 6 collective and Apples in Stereo and husband Per Ole Bratset share songwriting and vocals. This may explain why shimmering chords alternate with sludgier guitars.
Among the best 2022 alternative albums, this record was absolutely bursting with singles.
We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong is an album of mini-epics, for which I am a sucker. Sharon Van Etten begins each song with the calmest of strums and finishes in tremendous crashing arrangements with giant, earned emotion. And she sings with such beautiful, deep tones.
This has been on repeat for me all year.
Black Country, New Road are doing something new under the sun. At one moment, they pervert Van Morrison on “Concorde.” In another they descend into free form jazz cacophony on “Snow Globes.”
Without their heat-seeking sensibilities of melody, BCNR would just be a discordant band only music critics love. But they deliver the hooks in another brilliant experiment. Just one example, the 14 second full stop inside “Mark’s Theme” that only elevates the resolve.
A triumphant sophomore album.
A bit more than a baker’s dozen, here are 22 alternative songs in 2022…
Keep reading
So many memorable, infectious songs on Warm Chris, each stamped with Aldous Harding’s eccentricity. Harding isn’t just a blithe oddball, she may also be music’s most elliptical lyricist.
Also can someone PLEASE help me with “Coming Round the Mountain?” I swear that keyboard samples a movie score that I just can’t place.
I ended the year where I began, Once Twice Melody by Beach House near the very top of my favorite albums list. Chapters I and II came out in late 2021…while III and IV completed the release by February of 2022.
Of any record I listened to this year, no question, Once Twice Melody touches the stars most often.
Spiritualized played a September show in The Caverns, the renowned venue in Grundy County, Tennessee. Can you even imagine hearing Beach House playing songs there like “Sunset?” I seriously might die.
It is difficult to understate the scope of what Big Thief has done on Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You. Because when we say, “what Big Thief has done,” we really mean “what Adrianne Lenker has done.” No matter how democratic Big Thief may be, Lenker is the center of their universe.
That Big Thief originally produced NEARLY 50 SONGS whittled down (with no little pain) to 20 songs, defies creative description. As we say in marketing, this is a mature brand. At the same time, Big Thief is still becoming something fearless and new.
Dragon New Warm Mountain toggles seamlessly between casual hootenanny, psych folk and esoteric indie hooks. Although not streamed here, the holiest moment may be the simple harmony between Lenker and bandmate/ex-husband Buck Meek on “12,000 Lines.”
I would like to personally nominate alt country 2022 as one of the recent best…
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For reasons I can’t exactly articulate, I was deeply affected by Big Time.
I was visiting my childhood home in West Virginia as I streamed Angel Olsen’s cathartic album. In that way, it will be inextricably tied to my return home, the way great music attaches itself to a place and moment in time.
“Go Home” has been voted Most Likely to Make You Cry in an Unguarded Moment. In it, Olsen sings:
I wanna go home,
Go back to small things.
I don’t belong here.
Nobody knows me.
I am the ghost now,
Walking those old scenes.
How can I go on?
Forget the old dream.
I got a new thing.
An album of aching beauty. Olsen’s voice is unrivaled, shouting down the mountains and, in turns, an intensely vulnerable, quaking vibrato.
What has become of me, that I herald a band called Jockstrap? Me, perpetual critic of stupid band names.
Jockstrap (I can’t believe I continue typing that word) are Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye, London art school students. Ellery is also violinist for Black Country, New Road. Her wild vocal range drives the arrangements of Jennifer B I Love You.
Let’s not forget that, at the end of the day, rock and roll should be fun. Or it should evoke equally deep emotions of despair, anxiety or elation. If you haven’t heard of Jockstrap, allow me to introduce you to Jennifer B.
Sprawling, decade-defining albums are one thing. It’s another to adroitly stitch 1,000 musical ideas inside a taut 40 minute statement, some which continue to reveal themselves on listens 6, 7…12.
Is it synth pop? Post-pop? Is that even a word? Does it matter?
EVERYTHING WORKS on Jennifer B.
Records that were really good but not quite in my top tier, wherein I try to impress you with my broad musical taste. I bought and listened to each of these. They are good stuff!
Before I post some favorite songs from 2022 or rank my top albums, let’s spend some time with the little-appreciated category of EP’s.…
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I started the year on kind of a tear, buying a few releases without sampling. We all do this, right? Like I’ll buy on faith about anything Elbow or Sloan put out. It’s a trust relationship.
I became a little too trusting this year and bought some CD’s (yes I mostly still buy physical media) that didn’t live up to reputation. And then a couple of stinkers just generally.
