The best albums of 2022 (so far)

The first half of 2022 is over – and, as usual here at CinePOP, we’ve already started publishing a few lists with the best film, TV and music productions from the past semester, helping you remember or know what’s left behind. .

In this new article, we list the ten best albums of the year so far – and we guarantee that, like film and television, the phonographic scene has also presented us with some gems worth hearing by music lovers.

From ROSALÍA’s magnum opus, which became one of the best albums of the century upon its release on streaming platforms, to the long-awaited return of names like Kendrick Lamar, Charli XCX and Florence + the Machine, making the list below was a complicated job. , but we try to do our best.

Check out our picks and let us know which was your favorite and which was left out:

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“Three years after he produced the famous ‘Fine Line’ – which became an immediate critical and commercial success, being part of Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest albums of all time – Harry makes a long-awaited return with a vibrant third iteration and titled ‘Harry’s House’, showing all of his artistic maturation as he stays true to the identity presented since he left the aforementioned group and found his own voice.And, despite the slips here and there, the result is sufficiently inspiring and profound to transport us on a romantic and immensely moving journey, enhanced by an explosive rhythmic and stylistic mix and a story-building process unlike anything we’ve seen before.” – Thiago Nola

9. CHLOË AND THE AFTER TWENTIETH CENTURY, Father John Misty

Father John Misty’s fifth studio album, under the stage name Josh Tillman, is his first original release since 2018. ‘Chloë and the Next 20th Century’ garnered immediate critical and audience acclaim thanks to flawlessly written verse and promoting a comeback. in the past, in compositions mixing jazz, folk and swing. More than that, Tillman is building a canon for his own artistry, carving out an enviable history of intimacy that relates on many levels to anyone who dares listen to one of the finest albums of his career.

8. POMPEII, Cate Le Bon

Cate Le Bon is probably a name you don’t know – and I confess that, until her latest compilation of Originals appeared on the Spotify tips, I had never heard a single song from her no more. The Scottish singer and producer released her sixth studio album in February 2022 and spawned a dizzying adventure in art pop, revealing her predilections for Japanese city pop and embellishing each composition with poignant synth-pop. With only nine tracks and less than 45 minutes, Le Bon has surprised everyone with an absolutely fantastic product that deserves to be enjoyed in its entirety.

“It’s not just the conceptualism that speaks loudest in this work – on the contrary, the movements led by FKA Twigs and a gigantic array of producers and composers create multi-directional ups and downs, ranging from progressions bold to market musings. In this way, ‘honda’ grabs our attention to stay true to the performer’s identity and to bring a more customary side, so to speak, allowing him to play with aspects such as the atabaque, the kissange and the gospel body. In addition, the partnership with the rapper Pa Salieu carries a categorical alchemy, reaffirmed by the fun and very rhythmic phrasing of each verse, which fled the obvious and engulfs us in a pleasant and complete adventure. – TN

“The pinnacle of creation comes from the motto the album uses – after all, the title itself is already a metalinguistic joke with radio stations and with the popularization of this resource in previous decades. To unite these pieces, we have the illustrious presence of Jim Carrey as the narrator and presenter of the “program,” transforming the playful game into an ethereal tale that invites listeners on a mystical journey through dusk and dawn. the work, in this way, reaffirms that ‘Dawn FM’ is not just a phonographic production, but a multimedia experience that extracts impeccable songs from one of the biggest names in music today” – NT

5. CRASH, Charli XCX

“The work is a huge jumble of diverse styles which, fused with a specific purpose, burst into magical results that only someone with the creative level of Charli and her countless collaborators could create – and I have to say that by signing all the songs, the singer is in complete control of what she wants to do. Overall, we are presented with a compendium of what the music industry has been able to do, from the intense title track, which opens without restrained, ode to 2000s electro-house and power-pop with “Used To Know Me,” borrowing elements from Steve Angello and Laidback Luke with the memorable “Show Me Love.”

“The album is not a simple artistic statement, but a biblical epic that travels through the history of humanity without getting carried away by the formulas to which we are accustomed. It is in this context that “Heathens”, whose title already demonstrates a promising narrative, functions as a transparent and coherent critique of the fact that, according to the omnipotent entities who created us, we are all sinners and “we live as pagans”. , repeating the verse countless times, sometimes as part of a journey of understanding and insight. Something similar happens in the menacing sensuality of ‘Artemis’, which is restrained and hides its true meanings by the sweetness of a familiar and magnetic performance. On “Everything Matters,” the collaboration between AURORA and French singer Pomme is a verbose and ethereal realization that what we do matters – if only for ourselves” – TN

3. DANCE FEVER, Florence + The Machine

“Analyzing an album by Florence, or, as we know, her musical number alongside Isabella Summers, Florence + the Machine, is never an easy task, as the songs don’t necessarily fit into a proper genre. defined. His latest foray, “High as Hope,” set foot in a synesthetic coming-of-age swept up in different sonic styles – and now, reaching a startling maturity, we return with an aggressive, cheering stylistic mix that begins with the powerful “King”, one of the album’s official singles. While the inalienable personality of previous productions gave way to intimate and individual reflections, the song in question rises in a hymn of empowerment and addresses, for almost five minutes, one of the main things that women continue to do face: the sacrifice of dreams for the obligatory role given to them from birth” – TN

Any Kendrick Lamar release is enough to make us stop whatever we’re doing and experience what this contemporary music icon has to offer. After all, Lamar is responsible for some of the greatest albums of all time, such as the memorable “To Pimp a Butterfly”; now, in 2022, he returns with another spectacular project, titled ‘Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers’, which continues the project of deconstructing musical imprints in a hip-hop narrative critique that imprints jazz, blues and rap, creating intrigues of social consciousness that engage us from the earliest times.

ROSALÍA debuted on the phonographic scene in 2017, with the release of ‘Los Ángeles’ and, since then, has built a phenomenal success that has put her in the spotlight. The singer-songwriter has become an icon for rescuing Latin culture and foraying out of the Anglo-Saxon mainstream, creating engaging and moving stories through a fusion of literature and music. And of course ‘MOTOMAMI’ would be no different: her third studio album is described as an anthemic personal, intimate and declamatory production, in which the singer dives headfirst into the feelings she has kept for the past three years, translating them into one of the best concept albums of all time. With no less than six official singles, the work is structured in the contrast of two types of energy that exist intrinsically in each other.

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