#1 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — SAULT

Air, 11, AIIR, X (Angel) EP, Earth, Today & Tomorrow, and Untitled (God) by SAULT

Yes, my #1 album of 2022 is actually six albums and an EP. It’s my Top 31 and I do what I want. But also, if you heard any or all of these albums, you’d understand why I can’t pick just one¹.

SAULT are an enigma. They are a musical collective, made up of an unknown number of people, led by who smart people are 99% sure is producer Dean Josiah Cover, professionally known as Inflo, most famous for working with Bacon Review alum Michael Kiwanuka (#10 in 2019) and British rapper Little Simz². Nobody in the band has given an interview, presented a photo of themselves as part of SAULT, or created a single music video. They are nowhere, the anti-Beyoncé, an R&B, hip hop, house, and disco-fueled puzzle, and these 6.5 albums collectively represent the best the music industry had to offer in 2022.

Between 2019 and prior to 2022, SAULT had released five albums. (Their first two albums, 5 and 7 were jointly #7 in 2019. Their third and fourth albums, Untitled (Black Is) and Untitled (Rise) were jointly #5 in 2020. NINE was #26 in 2021, and if you recall, this album was only available for download / streaming for 99 days, and it is now frustratingly unavailable everywhere.) In April of 2022, the collective surprised the world by releasing a modern classical album, devoid of any vocals, called Air. On October 10, they put out an EP called _X_ that had a lone, 10-minute track on it. And then, on October 31, they posted this on Twitter and Instagram:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by SAULT (@saultglobal)

The next day, they provided a link to a password-protected WeTransfer page that allowed anyone who accessed it a free, high-quality download of five brand new albums, a total of 3 hours and 40 minutes of bliss.

I haven’t loved everything SAULT has created. Air, their all-orchestral classical album from early in 2022, was so jarring and out of left field, I couldn’t ever connect to it. But when they released “Angel,” the lone, 10-minute song on the _X_ EP, (and featured in the audio YouTube link above), I’d found a new obsession. It is their best track, period. It has three parts to it, starts off in reggae, leads through a gospel choral arrangement, and ends in a gentle acoustic realm. It is pure magic.

The five albums released on November 1 are strewn with fantastic, genre-spanning music. My favorites are “Morning Sun” and “Together” from 11; “The Return” and “Above the Sky” from Today & Tomorrow; “The Lords With Me” and “God Is In Control” from Earth; the disco-tinged “Faith” from Untitled (God). They did claim these five albums were “an offering to god,” and yes there’s a lot of theology within, but music is my church of choice, and this is the most eclectic religion you’ll ever encounter.

SAULT’s mystery may soon be vanquished. On November 19, the collective posted to their Twitter and Instagram, asking “If we were to do a live show…………which songs would you want to hear?” Nothing more has come of the posts, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see SAULT show up on a festival lineup sometime this summer. Nobody has any idea what they’ll do on stage. Maybe they’ll pull a Daft Punk and hide their faces. Or maybe they’ll put up a scrim and perform behind it, broadcasting cartoon versions of themselves onto it, a la Gorillaz. Or maybe they’ll be the next holographic Tupac. I’m on the edge of my seat waiting to find out.

SAULT’s full repertoire isn’t for everyone — I’d even make the case that the entirety of it is most definitely not for anyone. But there is something in here for each of us to love. The amount of music they produced in 2022 alone, and the musical span of what they released, is unmatched by any other artists. Seek out what you can, and then join me in the scavenger hunt for the rest. Who the hell knows where they’re going next.

<sup>1. Additionally, it’s become common practice around these parts to award an artist for every album they put out, collectively, that year.↩
2. Little Simz released another Inflo-produced album, her third, titled No Thank You, on December 19, 2022. With Inflo the main person in SAULT, and Little Simz having appeared numerous times in across their albums (including the wonderful “Free” on Untitled (God)), I considered including that album as part of this #1 parade. ↩</sup>

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2. RENAISSANCE by Beyoncé
3. This Is a Photograph by Kevin Morby
4. Lucifer On the Sofa by Spoon
5. Palomino by First Aid Kit
6. We've Been Going About This All Wrong by Sharon Van Etten
7. SOS by SZA
8. Wet Leg by Wet Leg
9. Chloë and the Next 20th Century by Father John Misty
10. Big Time by Angel Olsen
11. Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road
12. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio
13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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#2 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Beyoncé

RENAISSANCE by Beyoncé

There are megastar pop stars, and then there is Beyoncé. Of the pile of the musicians you could claim are “on top of the world,” from Kendrick Lamar to Taylor Swift, Queen Bey is standing atop that pile with her flag firmly planted. She has won 28 Grammys from 88 nominations across her 25 year career, making her the most honored singer ever (across both of the outdated male and female categories). As a solo artist and as part of the groundbreaking Destiny’s Child, her albums have sold a combined 260,000,000 times worldwide. That is nearly enough sales so that every American, from your 100-year-old grandma to that newborn who was just born yesterday, could have their own Beyoncé record.

She’s achieved this level of fame and glory not by following the path of those who came before — Madonna, Janet Jackson — but rather, defining the path for those to follow. Beyond her pace-setting music, she is a vocal advocate for Black Lives Matter, going so far as to appear at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show with back up dancers dressed up as Black Panther Party representatives. She has put her excessive cultural weight behind other groups as well, such as when she spoke out against those (including our 45th president) who would remove the rights of transgender youth throughout public schools.

RENAISSANCE, her seventh — and best — album, marries all of the above into a tour de force unlike no other. Simultaneously a “dazzling tribute to underground and under-appreciated Black culture” and “the sound of a once-in-a-generation superstar performing at her peak” (according to critics Kate Solomon from i and Vernon Ayiku from Exclaim! respectively), RENAISSANCE is the strong dose of dance-infused medicine our Covid-19 stricken society needed. This isn’t Lemonade part 2 (#6 in 2016) – there are no genre-hopping scorned lovers on this record. As Julianne Escobedo Shepherd from Pitchfork said:

“Renaissance is inherently about bodies undulating in the dark, under strobes; sexual agency; and the Black queer and trans women who are both politicized and the most endangered people among us.”

Despite oozing sex appeal throughout her career, this album is Beyoncé at her most carnal. Shepherd goes on to say “Beyoncé has never been this horny in public,” and I concur. Nor has Beyoncé ever been this vulgar. I have a staunch “no clean versions” policy in the music I listen to. My children have grown up in a house that revels in all language, from Macklemore to Run the Jewels to Lizzo. But all those are tame when placed next to RENAISSANCE, to the point that I gave pause a couple times when putting the album on. The album opens with a quickly repeated “Please, motherfuckers ain’t stopping mе.” “Might I suggest you don’t fuck with my sis” is heard prominently shortly thereafter. “We getting fucked up tonight. We gon’ fuck up the night” is the repeated chorus just a couple songs later. And we’ve only made it four songs into the 16-song, hour-long set. It’s gloriously raunchy.

At its heart, this is a dance album from the drop. Songs blend from one to the next, as if a DJ was eloquently spinning one hit after another together at the best dance night you’ve ever been to. But these aren’t existing songs — these are expertly assembled, sampled, historically-, culturally-, and musically-significant artists pulled together to represent a whole that is a million times greater than its individual parts. Grace Jones next to Skrillex, trans black television personality Ts Madison up against Right Said Fred — the whole album is a true marvel. What sounds like a glorified Girl Talk album on paper is something completely different. Just listen to “CUFF IT” blend into “ENERGY” and then bleed into the album’s first single, “BREAK MY SOUL”¹. Be sure to check out the video above — Beyoncé’s team pulled it together for when RENAISSANCE was certified platinum. The video is a quick-cut collection of TikTok and other fan-made videos of people of all shapes and sizes, genders and sexuality dancing to “BREAK MY SOUL,” and it’s so damn empowering, you’ll find yourself fighting back happy tears.

RENAISSANCE is a phenomenal record. If you’ve not heard it yet, I command you to do so. Nobody can deny the greatness of it. It’ll be surprising to my wife (and potentially others) that it’s not my #1 album this year, given how much we played it in our house. Any artist able to beat Queen Bey this year had to go to extraordinary lengths, and indeed, the artist at #1 did. You’ll read exactly how tomorrow. For now, put RENAISSANCE on repeat, crank the volume, and I’ll see you tomorrow, sweaty and exhausted.

^{1. This is the first downfall I’ve seen when it comes to YouTube Music – each of these three videos has a disclaimer at the beginning regarding the dangers of flashing lights for some people. It’s a few-seconds pause at the beginning of the song, thereby preventing the listener from going seamlessly between the tracks of this album. This is a fairly significant downside, given how this album is meant to be heard as one can’t stop, won’t stop, non-stop beat.↩}

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3. This Is a Photograph by Kevin Morby
4. Lucifer On the Sofa by Spoon
5. Palomino by First Aid Kit
6. We've Been Going About This All Wrong by Sharon Van Etten
7. SOS by SZA
8. Wet Leg by Wet Leg
9. Chloë and the Next 20th Century by Father John Misty
10. Big Time by Angel Olsen
11. Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road
12. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio
13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

There are many ways to listen to the 2022 Bacon Top 31. Subscribe now and enjoy the new albums / songs as they are revealed on the countdown!

Full Album
All albums in their entirety.

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Radio Station
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#3 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Kevin Morby

This Is a Photograph by Kevin Morby

I’ve had an unconscious aversion to Kevin Morby throughout his career. Despite him having released, over the past 23 years, seven studio albums under his own name, and an additional five as a member of two other bands (The Babies and Woods, the latter of which appeared on the Top 31 after Morby’s departure, at #31 in 2014), this is the first time Kevin Morby has appeared on the Top 31, ever. And what an appearance he’s made.

The album taking Morby from zero to hero¹ is the astoundingly good This is a Photograph. Starting off with the best song on the album, the title song is one that’s sure to get any listener up out of there seat. What starts off slow, just Morby and his guitar, singing about a photograph he found of his dad with his shirt off, holding Morby as a newborn and Morby’s sister at their side, standing in their front yard beneath the West Texas sun. In the photo, Morby’s dad is the age that the younger Morby is today, and he vocalizes what he imagines his dad is thinking the moment the photo is taken, “This is what I’ll miss after I’ll die, and this is what I’ll miss about being alive: my body, my girls, my boy, the sun.”

It‘s an existential, midlife crisis-like reflection. Morby sounds like he’s questioning his own place in the world. The song builds on that same refrain, talking about the concept of time giving up, then about his mother in Kentucky, then even about himself in Tennessee, ready to take the world on, but still thinking of the things we’ll all miss after we die, the things we’ll miss about being alive. It moves you deeply and gets you to move, deeply.

Once it hits that plateau, the rest of the album just coasts there across the top. Through The War on Drugs-esque songs like “A Random Act of Kindness,” slowing down for “Bittersweet, TN,” a gorgeous country duet with folk pop singer Erin Rae, over to somewhat silly rockers like “Rockbottom” (with a video starring the great Tim Heidecker no less). It’s got a little something for everyone.

Morby didn’t really hit my radar until the pandemic started in 2020. I wrote about he and his partner Katie Crutchfield (the one and only Waxahatchee) in my review of her #1 album, Saint Cloud:

A week before the release of the album (on March 27, 2020), just as the lockdown was beginning, she and her boyfriend Kevin Morby … began hosting weekly Thursday-night Instagram livestreams, where they performed both Waxahatchee and Kevin Morby originals and numerous covers, and had guest stars dial in, such as Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes and Crutchfield’s musical twin sister, Allison. They produced a Tiny Desk Concert From Home for NPR, and Waxahatchee was the headliner for the virtual KEXPY Awards from KEXP this past December. These were poor substitutes for an in-person live performance, but having her hold our virtual hands through the darkness that was 2020 was so much better than having nothing at all.

I fell in love with Crutchfield’s music despite of, or maybe because of, the pandemic lockdown, but I wasn’t yet convinced that Kevin Morby was for me. His sixth album, Sundowner, came out later that same year. I listened to it maybe twice. And earlier this year, the world seemed to be conspiring against me getting into Photograph, too. The album came out on May 13, 2022, the same day as Kendrick Lamar (#16)and The Smile (#15), and just a week after Sharon Van Etten (#6). That’s a crazy week for music, a lot of big name, repeat Top 31 performers. And it didn’t take me long to declare Photograph the best of all of those. A day after the full album was released, I put out a photo on social media showing all of those albums ganged up, declaring “Don’t miss out on [Kevin Morby]. It is the best one of all.” Such was the power of this album.

I got to see Morby perform at the Showbox in November, and of course he started the set with “This is a Photograph” — the song is one of the best opening tracks ever. In addition to playing all of the songs I wanted to hear from the album (including “Stop Before I Cry,” his paean to Crutchfield), he played a few songs from his vast back catalog, songs I didn’t know by heart. And I loved them, too. “City Music,” from his 2017 fourth album of the same name, was my favorite of the bunch. Hearing it again just now, I can confidently say that Morby’s music hasn’t really changed in a way that finally landed in a spot for me to like it, but rather it is I who have changed, finally ready to hear everything Morby has to offer. Over this year, I’ll be diving into his past albums (and the lovely soundtrack to the film “Montana Story” that he just put out last week). Join me on this venture, won’t you?

^{1. That’s not quite fair of me to say. I’ve only barely listened to Morby’s past work.↩}

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4. Lucifer On the Sofa by Spoon
5. Palomino by First Aid Kit
6. We've Been Going About This All Wrong by Sharon Van Etten
7. SOS by SZA
8. Wet Leg by Wet Leg
9. Chloë and the Next 20th Century by Father John Misty
10. Big Time by Angel Olsen
11. Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road
12. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio
13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

There are many ways to listen to the 2022 Bacon Top 31. Subscribe now and enjoy the new albums / songs as they are revealed on the countdown!

Full Album
All albums in their entirety.

• Apple Music Full Album Playlist
• Spotify Full Album Playlist
• YouTube Music Full Album Playlist

Radio Station
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• Apple Music Radio Playlist
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View all previous Bacon Top 31s

#4 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Spoon

Lucifer On the Sofa by Spoon

After 30 years as a band, I can finally say Spoon is a Rock N’ Roll band with a capital N’. With nine albums of decidedly great indie rock under their belt, much of it classified as lowercase rock n’ roll, Spoon decided to crank their volume to 11 on Lucifer On the Sofa. Hit play on “Wild” above — listen to that heavy beat, those guitars and keyboards. You can just picture a dude in too-tight jeans strutting around a stage, playfully fondling a mic stand while twirling around the mic at the end of its tether. After that, put on “The Hardest Cut,” (fair warning: this is a rather disturbing music video — proceed with caution or just hit play and move the window off screen) and you can hear the band turning all the knobs to the right, giving the listener a visceral, guttural response that makes you bite your lower lip and thrust your hips.

Spoon, from Austin, Texas, have had two consistent members in their three decades: drummer Jim Eno, and principle songwriter and lead singer Britt Daniel. There have been 11 other guys that have slotted between those two in that span. The current lineup features keyboardist Alex Fischer (who was featured on their 2017 album Hot Thoughts — #7 in 2017), Gerardo Larios on backing guitar and vocals (joined in 2019), and Ben Trokan on bass, who only joined in 2021. It’s odd to think the band that recorded They Want My Soul back in 2014 (#3 that year) is out aside from Britt and Jim. It’s even more amazing when you consider how consistent the band has been in their 30 years. From their stellar debut, Telephono, in 1996 to now, every single one of Spoon’s album has been top notch.

So it’s all the more surprising to hear the band throw off the “indie” part of their sound and go full-on rawk. To commemorate their ascent to the top of Mt. Rock N’ Roll (not really, but go with me here), and prior to the release of Lucifer, the band released two Tom Petty covers they recorded in studio: “Breakdown” and “A Face in the Crowd.” Alex and Jim were masked up behind Britt because this was the height of the pandemic. Britt’s voice does some serious cracking, probably because he hasn’t been on a stage for a few years by this point. They also released a Bowie cover, “I Can’t Give Everything Away,” from Blackstar (#20 in 2016), to mark what would have been his 76th birthday in early January 2023.

All in all, Lucifer took most of the five years between it and Hot Thoughts to write and record. The band entered the pandemic in early 2020 with what they thought was a nearly completed album. And then Covid-19 changed things, as it did for everyone. Thankfully for us, it all changed for the even better. Check out the track “My Babe” for some less rocking, more traditional Spoon fare.

The band recorded some commentary for the three single they’ve released from the album: “My Babe behind the song,” “The Hardest Cut behind the song,” and “Wild behind the song.” All three videos show the trio – Britt, Jim, and Alex, giving us some insight into how the songs and the album came about. On top of that, the band collaborated with hit dub music producer Adrian Sherwood to release a track-by-track “reconstruction” of the album, called Lucifer on the Moon. And they released one video, for “On the Radio (Adrian Sherwood Reconstruction)” (funny enough).

In my review of Hot Thoughts in 2017, I started it by saying “Consistently good.” I might now add another adverb at the front of that statement, “Crazily, consistently good.” It truly is a wonder. Daniel and Eno (no relation to Brian or Roger) have proven themselves as master songwriters and performers. This past summer, the band went out with Interpol (#21 in 2014) on a double-headliner tour, and I got to see them play the Paramount here in Seattle. Unsure if it was like this at every stop, but in Seattle, Spoon opened for Interpol. It was a sweaty, bouncy, rocking affair — I exhausted my aging body and lost my voice, all before Interpol came on stage. And when they did, I nearly fell asleep. It was truly Interpol’s “night” to Spoon’s “day.” If you are a popular band, and are asked to co-headline a tour with Spoon, I think you should turn down the offer. You will not able to match the brilliance that is a Spoon show. On top of that, you‘d be hard-pressed to find any band who has been as good as Spoon has for so long. Pick up Lucifer, or any of their albums, and judge for yourself.

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5. Palomino by First Aid Kit
6. We've Been Going About This All Wrong by Sharon Van Etten
7. SOS by SZA
8. Wet Leg by Wet Leg
9. Chloë and the Next 20th Century by Father John Misty
10. Big Time by Angel Olsen
11. Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road
12. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio
13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

There are many ways to listen to the 2022 Bacon Top 31. Subscribe now and enjoy the new albums / songs as they are revealed on the countdown!

Full Album
All albums in their entirety.

• Apple Music Full Album Playlist
• Spotify Full Album Playlist
• YouTube Music Full Album Playlist

Radio Station
A single song selection pulled from each album.

• Apple Music Radio Playlist
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View all previous Bacon Top 31s

#5 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — First Aid Kit

Palomino by First Aid Kit

With three albums scattered across the last 12 years (Lion’s Roar at #4 in 2012, Stay Gold at #16 in 2014, and Ruins at #10 in 2018, and now their fantastic Palomino here at #5, First Aid Kit match Sharon Van Etten yesterday at four albums each that have appeared on the Top 31. And like Van Etten, they are also the exception that proves the rule of this site having been male-band-centric for far too long. Unlike Van Etten, I’ve managed to hear and include every album First Aid Kit have released.

As my appreciation of non-white-male artists has matured, so has First Aid Kit. Johanna and Klara Söderberg, Swedish sisters, have been performing together as First Aid Kit since 2007. The 15 years have been good to the sisters and their sound – what was already really good has transcended into something else entirely: another level, another decade. Palomino wouldn’t be out of place on a mix of 70s female-led classic rock, a la Fleetwood Mac and Heart. They’ve brought in a new backing band, Swedish brothers Johannes and Gabriel Runemark on drums and guitar, and Freja Drakenberg (“Freja the Dragon” – how can you no wrong with that nickname?) on keyboards. That backing band, combined with the Söderberg sister’s penchant for perfect harmonies and choruses you want to sing at the top of your lungs, First Aid Kit have reinvented rock n’ roll for the 2020s.

The band has put out a handful of videos to accompany the singles released from the album. In addition to the upbeat and rocking “Out of my Head” featured above, you can watch “A Feeling That Never Came,” “Palomino,” “Turning Onto You,” and “Angel.” That last one is probably my second favorite track on the album. When they hit the bridge, which in First Aid Kit fashion tends to be a nearly a cappella chorus, and Klara’s voice cracks — heart melting. The LP is full of hidden little gems like that.

In May, we get to enjoy First Aid Kit live on stage. It’ll be only the 2nd time I’m seen them. Back in 2012 the sisters came through town and played the Crocodile. This time around, they’re playing the 3,000+ capacity Paramount. Hearing their voices fill the cavernous room will be divine. Listen to the album, then pick yourself up a ticket (or, better yet, hit me up and I can help you get Club tickets). I hope to see you there.

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6. We've Been Going About This All Wrong by Sharon Van Etten
7. SOS by SZA
8. Wet Leg by Wet Leg
9. Chloë and the Next 20th Century by Father John Misty
10. Big Time by Angel Olsen
11. Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road
12. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio
13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

There are many ways to listen to the 2022 Bacon Top 31. Subscribe now and enjoy the new albums / songs as they are revealed on the countdown!

Full Album
All albums in their entirety.

• Apple Music Full Album Playlist
• Spotify Full Album Playlist
• YouTube Music Full Album Playlist

Radio Station
A single song selection pulled from each album.

• Apple Music Radio Playlist
• Spotify Radio Playlist
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View all previous Bacon Top 31s

#7 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — SZA

SOS by SZA

You won’t find the amazing album at #7 on my list on any other Top Albums of 2022 lists, but not because you’ve not heard of it. It’s because it came out on December 9, right when all the prominent music magazines and blogs were already publishing their best-of lists. This album likely won’t appear on any of those lists at the end of 2023, either, because it would be strange to feature an album that came out in 2022 in a Best of 2023 list. It took me a few years of compiling my own Top 31 lists to figure it out: if your album comes out in December, or really even in November, it will be hard or impossible to rank it in any meaningful way. So compilers of lists are left with either making a wild assumption (“I’ve heard this album for a day, it’s definitely better than X number of albums already considered the best this year”), a flat out guess (“Two songs have been released from this album that is supposed to come out in the next week. It will be better than these X albums”), or simply not listing them at all. That’s the only option for any reputable publication.

Or you can do what I do: wait until the year is, you know, complete before ranking the albums from the full year. Or maybe just call your list “The Top 50 albums from the first 11 months of 2022.” Delaying like I do is still not perfect — an artist releases an album on December 30, chances are I’m not going to hear it or be able to include it in my Top 31. I’m not sure what drove the decision to release the long-awaited SZA album on December 9, but I have to believe it was a calculated business decision. So much business is wrapped up in a SZA release, there are lots of players, weighing lots of options, and I suppose making it onto the Best Of lists is not how the money is made. I just checked, and this album has been #1 on the Billboard charts (meaning it has sold more than any other album) for the last five weeks (that’s the last 2 weeks of December, and the first 3 of 2023).

So, clearly people are finding SOS, SZA’s 2nd full-length album, and first since her 2017 debut, Ctrl, despite it not appearing on any end-of-year lists. But at least it’s appearing on my list. I can feel confident in the exceedingly modest number of streams I’ll have been personally responsible for for the megastar. At just over an hour long, this album is jam packed with 23 amazing songs spread across numerous genres, from R&B to hip hop, pop to grunge. Rather than feeling like the work of a single artist, it plays more like a really good Top 40 yet commercial-free radio station, cycling through the hits of the day¹.

SZA, whose full name is Solána Imani Rowe, was born in St. Louis. Despite having only two full length records to her name, she is an international pop sensation who has been making popular music for the last 10+ years. She connected early with the likes of Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar, and while I’m confident her songwriting prowess and phenomenal voice would have propelled her to stardom eventually, having the door opened by those two can‘t hurt. My first taste of SZA came on the Black Panther soundtrack (#21 in 2018). The duet she sings with Lamar, “All My Stars,” is the best song on that album, in no small part because of the powerful chorus led by SZA. I didn’t listen to Ctrl, although I wish I had.

The best comparison I can make for this SZA release is to Frank Ocean’s Blonde (#4 in 2016). Like SOS, Blonde bounces all over the place, has strange digital artifacts thrown in throughout, and is a fantastic hip hop / R&B-based album. If you loved that album like I do, you will love SOS like I do.

Rumors and announcements about the release of SOS came out as early as 2019. A mix of pandemic buying patterns, production shifts, and a massive outpouring of talent from SZA herself no doubt slowed up the release all the way to nearly missing 2022 entirely. A few singles had been released well before the album came out. “Good Days,” was the first to be released, in 2020, a great song whose video features SZA as a dancing mushroom² (I’m not sure what business decisions forced the single that preceded this one, the great “Hit Different,” was not included on the SOS release.) The next single, “I Hate U,” came out in December 2021, just over a year prior to the release of the album, and with a video starring LaKeith Stanfield. The official version of her song “Shirt,” was released as a single just over a month prior to the album release. The video stars SZA alongside LaKeith Stanfield, in a bloody shoot-em-up video, a la Quentin Tarantino. On January 6, SZA released the single for my favorite song on the album, “Nobody Gets Me,” which is eerily reminiscent of Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You,” and probably why I like it so much. And finally, SZA released the single for “Kill Bill,” on January 10, 2023. The video is amazing in its ability to recreate key scenes from the pair of movies, recast with SZA in the seminal Uma Thurman role.

My favorite non-single from the album is “Ghost in the Machine,” on which Bacon Review favorite Phoebe Bridgers (#3 in 2020) sings along with SZA. Bridgers and SZA are similar in a couple key aspect: they’re not shy about guest starring on someone else’s song; and they make any song they appear on better. I will (and have) go out of my way to track down “with SZA” or ”…Bridgers” songs, and am continually rewarded for doing so. As long as they keep producing their own songs, I’m all for them spreading the love around.

I’ve written more than enough about this album. If you’re not convinced by now, there’s nothing else I can say that will sway you. Listen to this album, all 67 minutes of it. You’ll see.

<sup>1. There is exactly one song I cannot stand on the album. I’m such a dedicated fan of the form, I don’t usually single out any one song and say “this is not for me, I’m skipping it.” The song in question is the lone rock pop song, “F2F,” which SZA wrote with Bacon Review favorite Lizzo (#1 in 2019). Check it out for yourself, but you’ve been warned.↩
2. As I write this, we’re two episodes into the great new HBO series The Last of Us, and seeing SZA as a mushroom here gives me entirely different feelings than it would have two weeks ago.↩</sup>

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8. Wet Leg by Wet Leg
9. Chloë and the Next 20th Century by Father John Misty
10. Big Time by Angel Olsen
11. Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road
12. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio
13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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#8 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Wet Leg

Wet Leg by Wet Leg

Some years have its “indie darling,” a new-to-the-scene band who far exceeds its station. The kind of band that gets booked for the smaller stage at the summer festival and when the festival rolls around a few months later the band has acquired an audience overloads area the band is playing in. Idles in 2018 is a prime example. Or the Fleet Foxes in 2008, even. For 2022, that band is Wet Leg, with their self-titled debut album. And oh, what an album it is.

Wet Leg are an indie-rock duo from the Isle of Wight, Great Britain. Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers, who met while attending the island’s Platform One College of Music, have been performing together as Wet Leg since 2019. Their album bounces seamlessly between different sub-genres of indie pop, from slacker rock (“Angelica”) to surf rock (“Wet Dream” and “Ur Mum”) to glam rock (“Oh No”) and punk pop (“Too Late Now”), with their post-punk anthem “Chaise Longue” the best of the bunch (featured in the video above).

I got to see Wet Leg at THING, the annual PNW music festival held at Fort Warden in Port Townsend, in the middle of the first day with an amped up, crammed in crowd. They duo have a full backing band providing the rhythm section to the antics of the two charismatic leads. It must be fun to be in your first year of existence and already have the audience shout-singing your lyrics back at you. It sure is fun for the audience.

Wet Leg have started something big. Well crafted pop rock is a fine place for any band to make their start — it’ll be interesting to see how they continue to pique our collective interest. For now, I’ll continue to enjoy Wet Leg, the album. And I know you will, too.

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9. Chloë and the Next 20th Century by Father John Misty
10. Big Time by Angel Olsen
11. Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road
12. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio
13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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#9 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Father John Misty

Chloë and the Next 20th Century by Father John Misty

Josh Tillman is back on track. I suppose it’s hard to say he was ever off track, as all four of his Father John Misty albums have appeared on the Top 31 (#14 in 2012, #6 in 2015, #15 in 2017, and #26 in 2019). But as you can see in that string of great albums, the quality of his output and his placement in the Top 31 had been declining since his high point, I Love You, Honeybear, in 2015. I’m happy to report that Chloë and the Next 20th Century, Tillman’s fifth album as Father John Misty, is as good if not better than Honeybear.

This album has Tillman’s FJM crooner firing on all cylinders. Backed by full orchestration, including horns and strings, he takes us to an era that predates indie rock, and really any kind of rock, back to the 50s, Chet Baker bid band era. This is exactly where Father John Misty should have been all along.

I had the immense pleasure of seeing FJM at THING, the annual Pacific Northwest music festival held at Fort Worden in Port Townsend, WA. There were a lot of high points at the festival, but FJM was the highest. He played on the medium-sized stage on the first night. Unlike most festival acts, he had risers and props that made his stage presence match the lounge-act songs he was going to perform. He must have had ten or so guys on stage with him, horns and keyboards and a stand-up bass. And he moved eloquently about the stage between and around the other players, playfully eyeing the crowd and engaging in humorous banter.

Up to that point, I hadn’t loved Chloë. I can safely say because of that performance, my opinion of the album changed for the positive. My wife claims this album to be boring and sleepy, to which I retort “You didn’t see him live at Thing.” The influence a live performance can have on the listener’s opinions – both positive and negative – is a real phenomenon, and my love of FJM is testament to that experience.

Per usual, Tillman loves the visual side of music. Take a look at the above video, for the more upbeat song “Goodbye Mr. Blue.” Other Chloë songs that have been made into videos include:

• “Kiss Me (I Loved You)”
• “Buddy’s Rendezvous,” along with a non-album version of the same song sung by Lana Del Ray
• “Q4” as the credits to a fictional movie from the 50s of the same name
• “Funny Girl”

If you’ve liked FJM in the past, now is not the time to pull away. Tillman has brought us back into the fold with Chloë, and I hope he finds a way to keep us there long term.

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10. Big Time by Angel Olsen
11. Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road
12. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio
13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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#10 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Angel Olsen

Big Time by Angel Olsen

When you have the voice of an angel, it can’t hurt to be given the literal name “Angelina” when you are born. Angel Olsen, born in St. Louis and now residing in Asheville, North Carolina, released her angelic sixth record, Big Time, on June 3, 2022. Except for a couple mid-tempo spots, it is a slow-burning, belly-warming album full of twang. On the sliding scale of “rock” to “country”, this album is just a hair to the right of early 90s band Mazzy Star’s She Hangs Brightly, and is every bit as good as that seminal 120 Minutes hit.

Olsen jumpstarted her career in the early 10s by touring with her friend Will Oldham, aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy, (#30 in 2009¹) as a backup vocalist and occasional duettist². Oldham has worked with nearly anyone who’s anyone, and there are a billion worse ways to get your start than to be his #2. Since then, the five albums prior to Big Time have floated around the periphery of my musical world, but haven’t hit me in the same way that this one has.

Adopted at three, Olsen’s retired parents fostered her and her seven siblings while she grew up. 31 years later, Olsen came out as queer via Instagram to her fans and directly to her parents, and introduced her new partner, days before her dad passed away. Her mother died just a few weeks later. It is this short passage of time in April and May 2021 that fueled what became Big Time. “I felt a little bit more at ease with talking about love and how I fell in love,” she told The Guardian as the album was being released. “I think after losing my parents, that brought everything to the forefront. Who cares about these other troubles in my life? It made me feel quiet. I’m older, too. I’m 35. I’m getting used to the fact that things get more complicated as we get older. You can either feel sorry for yourself or learn how to laugh deeper.” This candor is broadcast throughout the album.

She co-produced Big Time herself with producer and Laurel Canyon celebrity Johnathon Wilson, who has worked on many Bacon Top 31 albums (most notably all the Father John Misty albums that have been featured over the years). The song featured above, “All the Good Times,” is great, and as the first song on the album, it gets a little more in your face once it hits its stride. The title song has been released twice, first as the cut from the album, and then as a non-album duet with indie country star Sturgill Simpson.The second to last track on the album, a slow burner called “Through the Fires,” is gorgeous.

Olsen also released a between-albums single, “Like I Used To,” a duet with Bacon Review favorite Sharon Van Etten (#13 in 2012, #4 in 2014, #5 in 2019). It’s only now, in writing this review, I realize what a confluence of events taking place in Olsen’s life at the time this song was released. Lyrics like “change address and draw a line, show my friends the silver lines, call my family just to know they’re there” take on all new meaning.

Big Time is a wonderful, Neko Case, kd lang-esque album, and love and loss and all things worthy of singing about. Angel Olsen may have been making music for a long while, but she’s only now hitting her stride. I can’t wait to hear what comes next.

<sup>1. Here’s a bit of quaintness for you: in my 2009 review of his album, Beware, I call attention to how unusual it is for Oldham to have a wikipedia page dedicated solely to his discography. My how times have changed.↩
2. Wow this session blew me away. And here’s a tour video of them as well. listen to her take the lead on that clip of her performing on the Bonnie “Prince” Billy tune “You Want That Picture” from 2011. I just melt when she hits that subtle yodel at 0:42.↩</sup>

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11. Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road
12. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio
13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

There are many ways to listen to the 2022 Bacon Top 31. Subscribe now and enjoy the new albums / songs as they are revealed on the countdown!

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#11 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Black Country, New Road

Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road

My guess is that this may be the last surprise of the 2022 Top 31. Sure, you might be surprised by the order in which I place my Top 10, or you might be surprised to find your particular favorite wasn’t one of mine. But I would be surprised if you don’t read the Top 10 as they’re revealed over the next ten days, nod your head at each one, and think “yep, ok, I can see that.”

Not so for Black Country, New Road, here at #11, which you’ve likely not ever heard of, despite some modest level of critical acclaim. And if you have heard of them, then you no doubt know why I’m placing them way up in my top albums of 2022. Known as BC,NR because, well, it’s a lot easier to write and it’s also awesome to have a comma in an abbreviation, the band met in Cambridgeshire, England, in 2018. They named themselves after the subject found at a click of the “random article” button in Wikipedia: Black Country New Road, a street in the West Midlands. Ants From Up There is their second album, recorded with seven members: Tyler Hyde (bass), Lewis Evans (flute, saxophone), May Kershaw (keyboards), Georgia Ellery (violin), Charlie Wayne (drums), Luke Mark (guitar), all of whom played their instruments deftly while singing backup to frontman, guitarist, and principal lyricist Isaac Wood.

Wood’s voice is low, with a vibrato that makes your subs shake — not quite as low as Ian Curtis, not quite as smooth as Justin Vernon, but every bit engaging. His lyrics have a literary lilt to them that don’t quite paint a story, but lead you to the next word, verse, and chorus as if compelled by tendrils of sound. And much to everyone detriment, there will be no more BC,NR albums with Wood at the helm. Four days before the release of Ants, Wood and the band announced on Instagram that he would be stepping away from the band, from the limelight, permanently. His mental health had been suffering greatly, and he needed to take care of himself.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Black Country, New Road (@blackcountrynewroad)

I first heard the album probably a week or so after it debuted on February 4, 2022. It filled me with such excitement, when I first started trying to learn more about the band I was devastated to find the post above and learn I’d never be able to experience the excitement Wood brings to the stage. I listened more and more to Ants over the coming months, and hit a point where I couldn’t put the album down. Pulling from the same influences as Beirut, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Decemberists, Slint, Noah and the Whale, BC,NR bring together heavy orchestration, ivy league intelligence, and prog-rock turns that leave you breathless. This is the album you need to fill the Arcade Fire-sized void left behind because of Win Butler’s sexual misconduct.

You’ll recognize violinist Georgia Ellery’s name, as she is one-half of Jockstrap, featured at #21 just 11 days ago. I’m pretty sure that’s the first time an artist has been an integral part of two separate bands featured on a single Top 31. When Wood announced his departure on January 31, the band had to cancel their upcoming tour and weren’t sure where this would lead them. A few months later, they had picked themselves back up and were touring again, now as a six-piece, with Hyde, Kershaw, Evans, and Wayne taking turns on lead vocals. I have not been able to see this incarnation of the band, but the strength of these songs and these musicians makes me believe it’s still every bit as strong.

Ants came out a year after those original seven band members released their debut, For The First Time, in February, 2021. I missed their debut, and based on how much I love Ants, a fairly sizable oversight on my part. I’m curious to see where the band will go next. I enjoy the Wood incarnation of the band, and am patiently waiting to see what the band will put together next. “Concord,” shown in the video above, is probably my favorite song on the album. But if you like it, I encourage you to explore the rest of the album.

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12. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio
13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

There are many ways to listen to the 2022 Bacon Top 31. Subscribe now and enjoy the new albums / songs as they are revealed on the countdown!

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#12 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Porridge Radio

Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio

When I moved to Seattle in 1997, I was introduced to a a few things in quick succession that opened my eyes to the world of music. First came “public radio:” kexp.org. Prior to then, I had no idea there could be radio without commercials screaming at you. Next came “club shows.” I’d been to a few concerts, some even in smaller venues (Tori Amos in the 250 person Sooner Theatre in 1992 being my first ever concert), but the idea that a venue existed where different bands performed multiple times a week was entirely foreign to me prior to moving to Seattle. And finally, “local music.” Of course I knew a band or two locally in Oklahoma, but the idea that a city could sustain multiple bands playing multiple venues around town regularly and only rarely escape the city limits was beyond my comprehension.

It was there, in those formative, new-to-Seattle days that my love of indie rock solidified. Sky Cries Mary, Death Cab for Cutie, Built to Spill, Damien Jurado, Modest Mouse — these bands were all essentially in my back yard, any one of them playing a show nearby on any given weekend, along with countless other, less well-known but still equally as-good bands.

Into this miasma of fuzz is where my hearing-deprived brain wants to throw the band who occupies the #12 spot on the 2022 Top 31, despite the band being from nowhere near Seattle, and with over 20 years separating me from those formative days of my youth. Porridge Radio, from Brighton, England, are a throwback to an era not too far away in spirit, but far enough away to be able to legally drink in the US.

Led by the dynamic singer / songwriter / lead guitarist Dana Margolin, Porridge Radio brings a heavy amount of spite and angst to their songs that feels urgent and unbridled. Behind her is Georgie Stott on keyboards, Maddie Ryall on bass, and drummer Sam Yardley. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky is the band’s third LP since forming in 2015. Their last album, the critically acclaimed Every Bad, came out March 13, 2020, exactly six days before I packed up my desk and told my boss “I have to worry about my family, I’m going to work from home for the next couple weeks.” According to Pitchfork, Margolin had already started writing “Back to the Radio,” featured in the video above, when Every Bad came out.

Go ahead and hit play on the video above. It has all the things I love about indie rock – fuzzed out, strong guitars; heavy drums that start out low and build; and a dynamic, charismatic hero/heroin at the fore, giving it their all. Multiple songs on the album convey this same feeling. Together, the album is a real triumph. I haven’t yet heard Every Bad, but a few months ago I did get to see Porridge Radio live on an actual stage. Barboza was packed, with its low ceiling and narrow build, and Margolin filled it out wonderfully. I can’t wait to experience it again. Prepare yourself as well – listen to the album, and then go with me the next time they come through town.

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13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

There are many ways to listen to the 2022 Bacon Top 31. Subscribe now and enjoy the new albums / songs as they are revealed on the countdown!

Full Album
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Radio Station
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#13 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Plains

I Walked with You a Ways by Plains

When you want a new Waxahatchee (#1 in 2020) album but can’t have a new Waxahatchee album, having an album that Waxahatchee, aka Katie Crutchfield, sings beautiful duets with another lovely voice, that of Jess Williamson, is more than enough to tide you over. Together, Crutchfield and Williamson become Plains, a couple of southern belles with hearts of gold, setting aside their indie-rock roots to dive deeper into their countryfied pasts.

Plains harkens back to those halcyon days of popular country music. Long before mainstream country found their post-9/11 conservative and nationalist voice, the mass, approachable appeal of 90s country reigned high. My own countryfied past is eating it up. I grew up in Oklahoma, and while my family listened to classic rock in my younger days, when I started finding my own musical tastes, I was heavily influenced by the juke box at my local Pizza Hut. The Cure next to Garth Brooks. Guns N Roses alongside Mary Chapin Carpenter. Boys II Men paired with Dwight Yoakam. It was a magical, cross-genre landscape (with a distinct lack of hip hop) that introduced me to much more music than I would have heard in my little KMOD 97.5 FM bubble. There are lots of things I’d rather not remember from my Oklahoma past. Singing Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, and Reba McEntire songs loudly while driving the backroads of suburban Tulsa in my beater Chevy is not something I’ll ever forget.

The video for “Hurricane,” shown above, brings back the Glamour-shot visuals of those days as well. It is truly a joy to listen to as well as watch. Two other videos have been put out by the duo, one for the unbelievably catchy “Abilene,” and another for the equally great “Problem With It.”

Earlier in 2022, Katie Crutchfield gave us a hint of where she was heading with Plains before we even knew that Plains existed: she performed a duet with one of her idols, Wynonna Judd, one-half of one of the most successful country acts of all time, The Judds. Judd and Crutchfield wrote and performed a new song together, “Other Side,” and its probably a little too country for my current tastes. But Crutchfield’s voice… sigh.

This isn’t the last country-ish album that will be featured on the 2022 Bacon Top 31, but it’s the most country of them all. Crutchfield and Williamson gave us something we didn’t know we needed, and it is perfect.

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14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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#14 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Odesza

The Last Goodbye by Odesza

One of the many reasons I like running my Top 31 in January rather than December is that it allows me to see where everyone else stands on their favorites of the year before settling on my own. It also gives me the chance to make sure I didn’t make any glaring errors (despite getting in my own way occasionally). Such is the case with Odesza, whose album The Last Goodbye made it all the way up at #14 this year. When I reviewed the KEXP Top 90.3 of 2022¹, and I saw that Odesza was #6, my first thought was “there’s a new Odesza album?”

The Last Goodbye, Odessa’s fourth album, and first in five years, came out in July 22, 2022, but I didn’t know that until I read about it on December 18. So I put it on, and didn’t really turn it off for quite a few days. It’s so good. The duo out of Bellingham, Washington, whose third album A Moment Apart was #31 in 2017, are predictable in their sound and predictably good with their output. Their reputation has started to precede them, as more and more stars appear to be flocking to their side to guest vocal their songs. Bettye LaVette, soul icon, sings on the title song. The Knocks perform with Odesza on “Love Letter” and Ólafur Arnalds features on the lovely “Light of Day,” shown above. (The video for “Light of Day” is gorgeous – don’t leave this page without having watched it).

Odesza are two men who met just before graduating from Western Washington University in 2012: Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight, whom I’ve just learned on wikipedia are known individually as “Catacombkid” and “BeachesBeaches”. Huh. Together, they make straight-up dance-beat techno that makes you want to move. Low lows, massive crescendos, and nothing but fun from end to end. The Last Goodbye is their best album so far, and I doubt it’ll be their last.

^{1. The KEXP Top 90.3 of the year is often a troublesome list because it is the result of thousands of people voting on their Top 10 albums of the year without ranking. Meaning the #1 album is merely determined by how many people put that album somewhere in their Top 10. If 15,000 people think an album is not their #1 album of the year, but it’s just barely good enough to make their Top 10, then that album still has a strong chance to land at #1 because everyone included it in their voting. Ah, democracy.↩})

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15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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#15 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — The Smile

A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile

The album at #15 this year presents an interesting conundrum. “If it walks like a Radiohead album, and talks like a Radiohead album, then it most certainly has to be a Radiohead album.” (Radiohead: #26 and #7 in 2011, #3 in 2016) But no, the fantastic A Light for Attracting Attention is not a new Radiohead album. It’s the debut album of a project called The Smile, featuring Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood (the two principal songwriters from Radiohead), along with drummer Tom Skinner. No Colin Greenwood, Ed O’Brien, or Philip Selway anywhere to be seen on this album. But longtime Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich is here, making every sound hum with that unique Radiohead tone.

There’s not much I can say about the songs. You know what Radiohead songs sound like, and you know whether you like them or not. There is no new ground being broken here. Fantastic, syncopated rhythms from Skinner, Jonny’s excellent finger picking, and Thom’s haunting falsetto make you forget the outside world for 13 songs stretched across 53 minutes and 18 seconds.

Perhaps you knew that Thom and Jonny had a side project. They’ve done a ton of promotion around the album, starting with a surprise 32-minute performance video created a year into Covid, in May 2021 and streamed as part of the Glastonbury Festival. They performed eight entirely new songs, and nobody was sure quite what was going on. Then, early in 2022 they performed in front of audiences at three separate shows in London, which were also live-streamed worldwide. The album then finally came out on May 13th, 2022 and the trio set off on an international tour that just concluded on December 22.

Along the way, the band stopped in at a couple of my favorite radio programs to record some in-studio sessions. First came the band’s Tiny Desk Concert on NPR’s All Songs Considered, hosted by Bob Boilen. The band only played three songs there (with a fourth that was recorded but ultimately scrapped thanks to band veto), all stripped-down and quiet. Shortly after that came the KEXP live session, an intimate performance by the band the day before playing their sold-out show in Seattle. They played five songs in that set, demonstrating their live chops in a small, slightly chaotic room. The band have released three videos as well, including Pana-vision above (starring the one and only Cillian Murphy), “Thin Thing,” and “Free in the Knowledge”.

That’s about all I can say. A Light for Attracting Attention by Radiohead The Smile is wonderful. Pick it up if you’re only hearing about it for the first time.

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16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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#16 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Kendrick Lamar

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar

Despite it being called the best album of 2015 by Rolling Stone, Billboard, Pitchfork, and almost every other popular-music–ranking service, Kendrick Lamar’s How to Pimp a Butterfly barely made the Bacon Top 31, sneaking in at #29 that year. I ended my review of the album saying “I can’t say I love it, and I doubt I’ll listen to it a lot going forward.” Oh how very wrong I was.

What I didn’t understand then was that my taste in music was still maturing, still growing. I wasn’t ready for Kendrick Lamar in 2015, but it laid the groundwork for my love of Frank Ocean’s Blonde, (#4 in 2016). I still couldn’t find the right groove for Lamar’s next album, 2017’s DAMN. which came in at #22 that year, but he opened the door wide with his stellar Black Panther: The Album. My love for the form continued to grow in 2020 with Run the Jewels (#6 in 2020). And that’s how we get to today, with my and Kendrick’s relationship in much better shape.

I listened to Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers more than I have to any other Kendrick Lamar album, and I would have listened even more if it didn’t conflict with my family’s musical tastes. (There has to be a limit somewhere on the amount of cursing I can tolerate around my five year old, right?) The double album, 1 hour and 19 minutes in length, is fantastic. But that doesn’t mean the music is free of difficulty and controversy. For instance, “We Cry Together,” towards the end of the first half, is an abrasive, spoken-word, emotionally violent duet between Lamar and actress Taylour Paige. The couple in the song is arguing angrily, devolving into a yelled chorus: “fuck you n****, nah, fuck you bitch” back and forth. It’s brutal to listen to, but the video (NSFW at the very end) is highly compelling to watch because it is extremely well acted by the two.

Don’t miss the video for “The Heart Part 5” shown above. While Lamar lip-syncs the rap while standing in front of a deep-red background, the one-take video uses deepfake technology from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s studio Deep Voodoo to transform him into six other famous black men: O. J. Simpson, Kanye West, Jussie Smollett, Will Smith, Kobe Bryant, and Nipsey Hussle. The overall effect is mesmerizing. Each verse of the song as sung by the alter egos is written from their perspective, adding an additional meta layer to the song. “Heart” is technically not from Morale, but instead was released just prior to the album coming out as a teaser. It is included here because why the hell not.

There have been other videos from the album released: “N95,” “Rich Spirit,” and “Count Me Out,” (which features Helen Mirren, of all people). Lamar’s video output proves he’s a master of both sound and visuals. He took his myriad talents to the top of the mountain back on on October 1, when he performed three songs from the album on Saturday Night Live. He managed to pull off a feat I don’t know that I’ve seen before on SNL – he made the live performances have an element of music-video-ness to them. See the fantastic shadow-play in “Rich Spirit + N95 - live on SNL,” and watch the walls literally move in on him in “Father Time (feat. Sampha) - live on SNL.”

The steady progression of Lamar-produced albums moving up in the ranks of the Top 31 is more an expression of my changing musical tastes than his changing production. I don’t see myself leaving behind the usual dad-rock and indie-pop albums and artists I enjoy. It just makes for a more diverse list, a wider variety of music to tap into when the mood strikes. It also makes me more excited to hear what comes next.

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17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

There are many ways to listen to the 2022 Bacon Top 31. Subscribe now and enjoy the new albums / songs as they are revealed on the countdown!

Full Album
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#17 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Andrew Bird

Inside Problems by Andrew Bird

My love for the artist at #17 this year comes in waves. Andrew Bird, the venerable singer/songwriter with the melodic voice and vibrato-laden whistle, has been releasing music under his own name for 27 years. According to wikipedia, Inside Problems is his 18th release, with and without his backing band “Bowl of Fire” (disbanded in 2003).

Bird has been on my radar since his sixth album, The Mysterious Production of Eggs. The handful of albums immediately following that were a bit all over the place while he worked on defining where he wanted to land. (Noble Beast his eighth album, was #22 in 2009) Thankfully, over the last decade he’s been settling into the “consistently great” phase of his career. Inside Problems is Bird’s fifth appearance on the Top 31 (#5 in 2016, #17 in 2019, and #21 last year).

Bird works an easy-going humor into his lyrics, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes blatant. Equally adept at playing the violin with a bow and plucking it like a ukulele, Bird is a virtuoso sonically but also physically. He’s gotten so comfortable in front of the camera, he’s started acting. He had a recurring role as a troubled father in season 4 of Fargo back in 2020. I could watch him eat a peanut butter & jelly sandwich with rapt attention.

His music videos reflect that same ease in control. In the video for “Make a Picture,” he’s singing directly into the camera, animatedly bouncing through the lyrics while he attempts to photograph cats of all sizes in a bare studio. There’s another video for the same song, a take on a lyric video, and rather than Bird being the animated one, the lyrics from the song, broken across many different languages, move a flow around the stoic, slightly confused Bird, still walking around that bare studio. Be sure to also check out the video for “Atomized” shown above, also from the studio. Bird must have spent the full day, maybe more, in that studio. In addition to the three videos mentioned above, he also released a 20-minute meditation that illuminates the deeper meaning behind the album’s title.

In addition to releasing the excellent Inside Problems in June, Bird put out a non-album single called “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain.” He and Phoebe Bridgers (#3 in 2020) trade off throughout the song, creating a gorgeously haunting duet, singing the Emily Dickinson poem of the same name. “I came across this Emily Dickinson poem and found it to be the most vivid description of an inner world I’ve ever encountered. It became an inspiration for the songs on Inside Problems. Who better to sing it with than Phoebe Bridgers? I sent her a demo, and so here we are. Thanks to Ms. Dickinson’s publisher at Harvard University Press for allowing us to use this poem. As I understand, her poems weren’t published as she intended them until the 1950s — that is, without the heavy hand of her male editors.” If it were on the album, this song would be my favorite on it. I’m so glad he didn’t wait until the next album to release it.

If you’ve not been able to get into Andrew Bird up to now, there’s no time like the present. Inside Problems isn’t his best (see 2016’s Are You Serious for that), but it’s likely his most approachable, without a bad track on it. Enjoy.

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18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

There are many ways to listen to the 2022 Bacon Top 31. Subscribe now and enjoy the new albums / songs as they are revealed on the countdown!

Full Album
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#18 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Mitski

Laurel Hell by Mitski

Mitski Miyawaki, who writes and performs under her first name, Mitski, quit music in 2019. Shortly after her critically-acclaimed fifth album Be The Cowboy entered the mainstream, at the final show of her tour supporting that album, she announced to the crowd that it would be her last show indefinitely, and she meant it. “I was thinking this was the last show I would perform ever, and then I would quit and find another life,” she told Rolling Stone when looking back at that time in the build up to the February 2022 release of her wonderful sixth album, Lauren Hell. Her triumphant return, in more ways than one.

Lauren Hell was not a return to form or an unexpected surprise to me — it was the catalyst to finally understanding Mitski and her music. Despite placing her fourth album, Puberty 2, at #24 in 2016, I’ve never really connected with Mitski before. Her fifth album, the one that got her so much popularity that she had to sever all ties from the music world “indefinitely” barely hit my radar in 2018. I think I probably listened to it only once, maybe twice, never to be heard again. Even in the build up to this year’s list, with Lauren Hell, — similar to Big Thief at #24 this year — I knew I should like it, and I tried a few times but it just didn’t click.

Then I compiled the 2022 list towards the end of the year, as I do every year. I took a stab at where things would likely land, and this album was somewhere in the upper 20s. But in the day or two before I was to write about it, like I do every album on the list, I played the album a few times back to back to back. This time, the light bulb turned on. This was not a bottom-of-the-list album, it was better than that. So I shuffled things around. I didn’t push it too far up – I’m not crazy enough to think it’s better than 17 other albums from 2022 – but where each album is placed is meaningful to me, and having this album fall in the middle of the list is saying something. This album is great.

The songs of Lauren Hell are predictable in the best way possible. They start off quieter, they swell to a crescendo in the middle, and then they fall slowly at the end. They’re approachable, and impeccably crafted indie pop. She carries the torch first lit by Kate Bush, carried forward by Tori Amos, and most recently hoisted up by St. Vincent (2009 #24, 2012 #15 with David Byrne,2017 #27).

Mitski conveys a little bit of “off-kilter” similar to those artists in her videos as well. Watch “Love Me More” above, as well as “Working for the Knife” and “Stay Soft,” and you’ll find a performer fully invested in themselves and without shame. She continually puts herself in strange and unusual positions that are fantastic to watch while listening to her beautiful constructions. I didn’t sit with them to try and sort out the deeper meaning, but I’m convinced it’s there. Let me know if you find it. I’ll be over here listening to the album and trying to sort out what’s taken me so long to get to where the rest of you have been all along.

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19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

There are many ways to listen to the 2022 Bacon Top 31. Subscribe now and enjoy the new albums / songs as they are revealed on the countdown!

Full Album
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View all previous Bacon Top 31s

#19 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Phosphorescent

The Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent

The only artist to have ever taken the #1 slot twice (and #20 in 2010) in Bacon Review history slots in way back at #19 in the 2022 Top 31. Matthew Houck, the driving force behind Phosphorescent, did something a little different with his 2022 release. Called The Full Moon Project, Houck recorded and released a new single for every full moon through out the year, resulting in more of a “slow-building playlist” rather than a formally-released, purchasable album.

Each song on the project is a cover. Randy Newman, Nick Lowe, Nina Simone, Lucinda Williams, Fleetwood Mac, and Bob Dylan (x2) songs all make the cut. It’s not Houck’s first foray into an album full of covers – see his 2008 album To Willie, an homage to the great Willie Nelson. And he’s done a handful of covers in the interim, the hands down best being “Ya Hey,” which he did live at KCRW back in 2013. You wouldn’t know it by listening to the Vampire Weekend original, from their album Modern Vampires of the City (#3 in 2013), but Houck proves those fantastic Ezra Koenig lyrics weren’t meant to be in a Phosphorescent song.

Houck has an unmistakable drawl, a purposeful laziness in his delivery that forces you to slow your pace, close your eyes and lean in. He conveys the warmth of burning embers in your headphones. On The Full Moon Project, he makes each song his own. Sometimes, like the lovely “Like A Rolling Stone” shown above, it’s not too much of a stretch from the original (I never considered how much Houck could sound like the elder Dylan until now). But other times, such as in his cover of “To Love Somebody,” the Nina Simone song from her 1969 album of the same name, his take on the song makes it seem as if the original never existed.

It’s not clear whether the project is now complete, or just on hiatus. He didn’t release a song on the January 2023 full moon (which occurred back on January 6). But the post with his last Full Moon song, Dylan’s “Tryin’ To Get To Heaven,” released on December 7, 2022, Houck said “I may have to put [the project] on hold for next year, as I gotta make the next proper Phossy record, and man this stuff takes a lotta time! But maybe not too. We'll see what happens come next full moon…” I’ll be sure to update this post if he does record some more Full Moon songs. In the mean time, this current collection of songs and his nine unbelievably great albums that led up to it will tide me over until we get “the next proper Phossy record.”

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20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

There are many ways to listen to the 2022 Bacon Top 31. Subscribe now and enjoy the new albums / songs as they are revealed on the countdown!

Full Album
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#20 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Fontaines D.C.

Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.

The band just barely making the Top 20 of 2022 should be known to avid readers of the Bacon Review. Fontaines D.C., five Irishmen now living in London, have been on the Top 31 for their entire history — their debut, Dogrel, was #26 in 2019, and their stellar second album, A Hero’s Death, was #12 in 2020. Now they’re back, at (what we hope is) the tail end of the Covid pandemic, with a brutal album that is so perfect for right now.

Whereas in 2019 I was quick to compare the band to English post-punk outfit (and KEXP darlings) Idles (who were #16 in 2018 and #24 in 2020), Fontaines has pushed further and further from the sound that they burst onto the scene with back in 2019. The band still has the same core members (Carlos O'Connell and Conor Curley on guitar, Tom Coll on drums, Conor Deegan III on bass, and Grian Chatten, principle lyric writer and singer). But they’ve found a new version of themselves that will no doubt put a lot of previous listeners off. Chatten, who barely sings as it is, seems to magically take his voice an octave lower – more haunting, more droning. I love it.

The album name, Skinty Fia, is an arcane Irish slur that translates to “damnation of the deer.” In the interim between their 2020 2nd album and this one, the band left their native Ireland for London, in from what I read was more like an act of rebellion against the status quo. And yet the amount of Irish and Dublin-related elements of the album belie the fact that the band clearly miss home.

Listen to the song in the video above, “I Love You.” It starts off well enough, a paean to the home they left. But then it goes on, a near-shouted list of shame about Dublin that settles into a groove not unlike the best Underworld lyrics (substitute “lager, lager, lager” for “echo, echo, echo”). But London can be hard for the Irish, as demonstrated in the opening song, “In ár gCroíthe go deo” which is an Irish phrase that translates to “in our hearts forever”. Back in 2020, a recently departed Irish woman’s family had wanted to put that phrase on her gravestone but were forbidden to do so by the Church of England unless the family also put the English translation on there as well. That’s a level of cultural control bestowed by the state that is hard for me to even fathom, and well worthy of a song to commemorate it.

If you enjoyed “I Love You,” there are four other videos the band has produced from the album:

• “Roman Holiday”
• “Skinty Fia”
• “Jackie Down the Line”
• “The Couple Across the Way”

I know I can’t make you like everything I like. What a boring world that would be. But I hope you give this one a chance, even if it’s not resonating with you at first. After a few listens it sinks into your pores. With the torrential downpours the western side of the US has been getting these past few days, I can’t imagine something better to be listening to.

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21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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#21 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Jockstrap

I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap

What sort of music do you hear in your head when you learn a band is named “Jockstrap?” Well, you’re wrong. Jockstrap is the brainchild of English duo Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye, and they sound pretty much exactly the opposite of what you’d expect with that name.

Their sound is a bit tough to pin down. Ellery sings, and plays a mix of guitar and string in various places across the album. Her vocals are beautifully breathy, clear as day, as if she’s lying next to you in the grass, singing directly into your ear while the sun dances across your faces. Then Skye’s electronics come screaming in, all heavy beats, unapproachable melodies, and playfully tweaked samples. At least that’s what the first three songs sound like. But much like the weather of my native Oklahoma, if you don’t like what you’ve got, just stick around because it’s fixin’ to change. Pitchfork said of their chaotic soundscape that the band “is still rummaging through a trunk of masks.” Feels apropos.

Ellery and Skye met as students of the vaunted Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. After putting out a handful of well-regarded EPs from 2018-2020, they were able to gel long enough to assemble a full LP, their debut I Love You Jennifer B. “Glasgow,” featured in the video above, with its easy listening guitar and strings playfully dancing together throughout is likely the most universally approachable song on the album. Of the song, Skye said it “is our coming of age, moving forward, long-distance, traveling, beautiful bosk, wonderful thicket song.” “Concrete Over Water” (click for video) is another personal favorite, and so, so loverly.

If those are too “normal” for you, check out the video for “Greatest Hits,” which feels like a throwback to the 90s. The video, which features a fictional trial between two aging musicians, is quite fitting with its Night Court vibes. And then there’s the fourth video from the album, for their song “50/50” — an industrial sounding, dance-beat driven song better suited for the tweaker kids on the dance floor.

Jockstrap’s sound is all over the place, but that doesn’t mean it’s poorly done. This is a stellar debut, front to back, and I encourage you to not give up on it if you don’t find what you’re looking for at first. The payoff is worth it.

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22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

There are many ways to listen to the 2022 Bacon Top 31. Subscribe now and enjoy the new albums / songs as they are revealed on the countdown!

Full Album
All albums in their entirety.

• Apple Music Full Album Playlist
• Spotify Full Album Playlist
• YouTube Music Full Album Playlist

Radio Station
A single song selection pulled from each album.

• Apple Music Radio Playlist
• Spotify Radio Playlist
• YouTube Music Radio Playlist

View all previous Bacon Top 31s