50 Best Albums of 2022

In so many ways, Fontaines D.C. continue to defy the odds. In an era when critics routinely declare rock to be dead, Grian Chatten and co. have revitalised the genre, with their inventive take on post-punk and indie capturing the imagination of audiences internationally. Their third album, Skinty Fia, is their crowning moment to date: another brilliant evocation of modern urban life with a uniquely Irish slant, it topped the charts both at home and in the UK, and received the now customary critical garlands.

Meantime, the lads have been busy with more landmark moments and sellout shows – including a triumphant three-night festive stand at Vicar Street – all accomplished in a manner that keeps rock at the centre of the cultural conversation. Long may they reign.

Other Irish artists making the top 10 include country popster CMAT with If My Wife New I’d Be Dead; indie stars Pillow Queens with Leave The Light On; and Jessie Buckley, whose collaboration with ex-Suede guitar hero Bernard Butler yielded the wonderful For All Our Days That Tear The Heart. There’s no doubt that CMAT now boasts the kind of momentum that often presages an artist’s ascension to the major league, while Buckley’s vocal prowess has left listeners curious as to her next musical step – if she can fit it in amidst that wildly successful acting career, of course!

Pillow Queens, meanwhile, are simply one of the country’s most dynamic and exciting acts, whose live shows also continue to go from strength to strength.

The No. 2 position in our list is taken by Kendrick Lamar, whose Mr Morale And The Big Steppers was the latest in a run of classic albums that also includes To Pimp A Butterfly and DAMN. For good measure, a wildly successful run of live shows also included stop-offs at Dublin 3Arena and Glastonbury, the latter concluding with the crowd chanting Lamar’s name to tune of ‘Five Nation Army’. It’s the kind of thing that happens when you’re an era-defining star and bona fide pop cultural icon.

Elsewhere in a stacked top 10, there are pop masterclasses courtesy of Wet Leg’s self-titled debut and Charli XCX’s Crash; an indie-pop epic in The 1975’s Being Funny In A Foreign Language; a folk-rock classic in Big Thief’s Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You; and confessional torch-songs on Taylor Swift’s stunning Midnights.

All in all, the kind of eclectic treasure trove we’ve come to expect from HP’s Album of the Year poll...

1. Fontaines D.C. – Skinty Fia
Partisan Records

"...Tom Coll’s hip-hop inflected drumbeats, first unleashed on ‘You Said’ from A Hero’s Death, here reign supreme, much of the record rolling on his swing. Across Skinty Fia, the pulsing bass and drum patterns astonishingly evoke Roni’s Size & Reprazent’s New Forms or The Chemical Brothers’ Exit Planet Dust. ‘Nabokov’ contains flashes of the ’60s garage sound the band once possessed, that evokes The La’s, but is now doused in a Death In Vegas-style wash.

"The phantom of Girl Band still creeps about, guitarists O’Connell and Curley parrying their way through the chaotic abyss, executing the Blixa Bargeld role in Einstürzende Neubauten, and recalling the fashion in which Roland S. Howard wrenched back control of The Birthday Party.

"A compound forms in Fontaines’ music – like a shadow guitarist manifesting in their sound: an ethereal being, evoking the Irish elk, that symbol of lost Ireland which looms over Skinty Fia.

"Joyce reckoned that the shortest way to Tara, the ancient centre of Celtic civilisation, is through Holyhead. Fontaines D.C. seem to grasp that riddle, and as Joycean scholar Declan Kiberd ruminated, remain sincere not to a single self, but authentic to several. They are dignified amidst the grotesque. Mighty stuff."

– (Full review here)

2. Kendrick Lamar –Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers
Universal

"...Arriving over five years after its predecessor, DAMN., the LP offered an unprecedented, revealing look at the man behind the music – not defined by neighbourhood, or friends, or proximity to violence, as in 2012’s good kid, m.A.A.d city, but by his own flaws and ultimate growth, as he faces up to, and works through, decades of generational and personal trauma..."

– (Full live report here)

3. CMAT – If My Wife New I’d Be Dead
AWAL

"...While it might have been her comedic flair that first caught our attention, it’s her groundbreaking interpretation of pop that’s worth sticking around for, as her debut album, If My Wife New I’d Be Dead, attests. She confidently walks the line between defiant messer and profound talent – but as with any larger-than-life personality, there’s a flip-side, with vulnerabilities to be excavated via a careful balance of both tenderness and irreverence. It’s these moments that provoke the most remarkable lyrics: “I feel bad, ‘cause I couldn’t cry when someone I grew up with died, but I break down everytime I’m on the scales…”

The influences are wide-ranging but never scattered, from touches of Italo-disco and Kate Bush on ‘No More Virgos’, to raw folk roots on ‘Geography Teacher’. In many respects, her music feels like the next natural evolution of outlaw country – despite an evidently deep respect for the legends of the genre, there’s a healthy disregard for the more traditionalist country music establishment too..."

(Full review here)

4. Wet Leg – Wet Leg
Domino Records

"...Invading the UK from across the Solent, the Isle of Wight duo are possessed of a provocative, piercing, idiosyncratic bent which ensures that they are not part of any genre or style other than their own.

"Which is? Mix a Throwing Muses flavour, the mischief of Pixies, a droll Pavement-style delivery and a Minutemen-type precision for a start. And, what the hell – throw in elements of the lo-fi energy of the Modern Lovers; the wry observation of Self Esteem; the dance-rock of CSS; a Viagra Boys scuzz; a Buffalo Springfield dreamscape (check ‘Loving You’); and a Ronson-cast riff (‘I Don’t Want To Go Out’) – and you’re nearly there..."

(Full review here)

5. The 1975 –Being Funny In A Foreign Language
Dirty Hit

"...Lyrically, few artists tap into the tone of their generation quite like Matty Healy. His observationalist, devastatingly self-aware lines about the state of the world and the people in it have become notably more nuanced with age: “Am I ironically woke?/ The butt of my joke?” But there’s also a feeling that the band have less to prove this time around, and this combination of nonchalance and unapologetic earnestness shapes a considerable chunk of the album. As such, Being Funny… offers the closest thing you’ll find to a definitive snapshot of The 1975: multifaceted, self-analytical, occasionally hyperactive, but through it all, disarmingly sincere."

(Full review here)

6. Taylor Swift – Midnights
Universal

"...Midnights remains a lyrical and musical delight, with the infectious pop banger ‘Karma’ another standout.

"Overall, Midnights sees Swift comfortably retain her status as one of modern pop’s most fascinating and compelling artists."

(Full review here)

7. Charli XCX – Crash
Warner

"How I’m Feeling Now was a dark arrow aimed at her cult fanbase. With Crash she’s shooting, with a bang and a wallop, for the higher echelons of the charts..."

(Full review here)

8. Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You
4AD

"...When the mood takes them, Big Thief deliver confessional alt-pop/rock with the potential to become the natural heirs to Automatic-era REM. The opening ‘Change’ is a perfect example. Beautiful and immediately arresting, it almost requires you to stop whatever you’re doing, and really listen to this disarmingly simple, pared-back arrangement and achingly gorgeous vocal. Also fitting into this category are the country-tinged ‘Certainty’; the rich and warm ‘Sparrow’; the quietly insistent ‘Wake Me Up To Drive’; and the tender ‘Promise Is A Pendulum’..."

(Full review here)

9. Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler – For All Our Days That Tear The Heart
Universal

10. Pillow Queens – Leave The Light On
Royal Mountain Records

"...The duality of Pillow Queens is ever-present in their enthralling lyricism. Somehow, they capture the need to fearlessly sing the words aloud at a gig - an exorcism of your worries - while also offering songs to shut the world out with.

"Ascending to dizzying heights as an Irish export, Leave The Light On makes us want to cling onto them as a cherished, pure homegrown talent for a minute longer before releasing them to the outside world..."

(Full review here)

11. SOAK - If I Never Know You Like This Again (Rough Trade Records)

12. Junior Brother - The Great Irish Famine (Strange Brew)

13. Kae Tempest - The Line Is A Curve (Republic Records)

14. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cool It Down (Secretly Canadian)

15. Rokia Kone and Jacknife Lee - Bamanan (Real World Records)

16. Harry Styles - Harry’s House (Sony)

17. Ye Vagabonds - Nine Waves (River Lea Recordings)

18. Julia Jacklin - Pre Pleasure (Transgressive Records)

19. Arcade Fire - WE (Sony)

20. Imarhan - Aboogi (City Clang)

21. Mitski - Laurel Hell (Dead Oceans)

22. Sharon Van Etten - We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong (Jagjaguwar)

23. Vieux Farka Touré & Khruangbin - Ali (Dead Oceans)

24. beabadoobee - beatopia (Dirty Hit)

25. Paolo Nutini - Last Night In The Bittersweet (Warner)

26. THUMPER - Delusions Of Grandeur (Reckless Records)

27. Just Mustard - Heart Under (Partisan Records)

28. Hot Chip - Freakout/Release (Domino Records)

29. James Vincent McMorrow - The Less I Knew (Faction Records)

30. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Unlimited Love (Warner Records)

31. Horace Andy - Midnight Rocker (On-U Sound)

32. Maggie Rogers - Surrender (Capitol Records)

33. Beyoncé - Renaissance (Columbia Records)

34. Alex G - God Save The Animals (Domino Records)

35. Benjamin Clementine - And I Have Been (Preserver Artists)

36. Dermot Kennedy – Sonder (Universal)

37. Florence & The Machine - Dance Fever (Universal)

38. The Coronas - Time Stopped (So Far So Good)

39. Jack White - Fear Of The Dawn (Third Man Records)

40. Wallis Bird - Hands (Mount Silver Records)

41. Selló - SellóTape (Warner)

42. Angel Olsen - Big Time (Jagjaguwar)

43. Hurray For The Riff Raff - Life On Earth (Nonesuch Records)

44. Sorcha Richardson - Smiling Like An Idiot (Faction Records)

45. Pixies - Doggerel (BMG)

46. Róisín O – Courageous (self-released)

47. Hudson Taylor - Searching For The Answers (Rubyworks)

48. Gilla Band - Most Normal (Rough Trade Records)

49. Soccer Mommy - Sometimes, Forever (Loma Vista)

50. Lizzy McAlpine - five seconds flat (AWAL)