Welcome to Joshua Tree Music’s 5th-annual list of our favorite albums — a small, but carefully considered time capsule of the music that meant the most to us last year. We’re excited to continue our journey of music discovery in 2023!
Renaissance – Beyoncé
It’s hard to imagine a living legend whose career started more than 25 years ago surprising us at this stage, but that’s exactly what Beyoncé manages to do with her most recent LP. The aptly titled Renaissance finds her departing sonically, thematically, and experientially from Lemonade. Whereas Lemonade recounts a deeply personal journey through her husband’s infidelity, Renaissance is joyous, celebratory, and escapist. Whereas Lemonade uses a musical palette that interpolates rock, folk, and blues music, Renaissance draws inspiration from 1980s+ black and queer dance music. Whereas Lemonade carves out distinct chapters from track to track, Renaissance does the opposite, beatmatching all songs for a seamlessly-flowing, 62-minute danceathon. While there are no miscues or skips to be found, the four-song series between “Alien Superstar” and “Break My Soul” shifts the album to an even higher gear. At a time when the world finally appears to be returning to some semblance of pre-pandemic normalcy, Renaissance became the perfect soundtrack to the best of our 2022 moments. – Jack
Blue Rev – Alvvays
On Blue Rev, Alvvays fine-tunes its signature sound — pristine indie pop harmonies, warmed by layers of buzzing guitars and synths. It’s a perfect sonic palette for the band’s third album, which looks back at its members’ teenage years in rural Canada. Artfully mixing melody and noise, the music reflects the ecstatic highs and crushing lows of adolescence, seen through a thickening haze of nostalgia. – Josh
Motomami – Rosalía
I would be lying if I claimed to have enough fluency in Spanish to fully understand the lyrics of Rosalia’s Motomami at first listen (or second or third), but that has not prevented me from appreciating the boundary-pushing musical genius of the record. Blending more traditional Latin styles like flamenco and bolero with modern hip-hop, reggaetón, and electronic pop, Motomami is a bridge between English-speaking and Latin cultures as well as between past and present. Indeed, there are few moments on the album where Rosalía could be seen as treading familiar ground. “Saoko” starts as a reggaetón-based track, only to mix things up with an avante-garde jazz interlude. “La Fama” takes traditional bachata and recontextualizes it under an electro-pop framework and a modern discourse on fame. While many artists attempt to merge disparate sounds together in their work, doing so with such cohesiveness and consistency in quality is a rarity. Rosalía continues to be one of the most interesting artists to have emerged in recent years. – Jack
Being Funny in a Foreign Language – The 1975
The 1975’s recent records have evoked the experience of scrolling through a social media feed, with a cacophonous mix of different musical styles, biting commentary on social issues, and frontman Matty Healy’s sardonic jokes and insults. Being Funny in a Foreign Language is a welcome shift for the band, a tighter, more cohesive album that focuses on love and relationships, and zooms out to explore related cultural debates over masculinity. While the 1975 hasn’t abandoned all of their hyper-modern tendencies — multiple songs allude to “being canceled” — the album’s strongest musical touchstones are the anthemic ballads of ‘80s rock stars like Peter Gabriel and U2. – Josh
Midnights – Taylor Swift
“I only see daylight” – so concluded a certain mega pop star on her last true pop album in 2019.
Three years later, with the release of Midnights, we now know that statement to be laughably off the mark. On her 10th studio effort, Taylor Swift finds herself, for perhaps the first time in her career, looking back instead of looking forward. With longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff (who has now produced on six consecutive TS album releases – eight including re-recordings), Swift largely eschews the acoustic folk sounds of Folklore and Evermore and returns to the 80s synth pop that defined her discography in the mid-to-late 2010s – all the way down to that trademark catchy lead single with speak-sung bridge (“Anti-Hero”, following in the footsteps of “Look What You Made Me Do”, “Shake It Off”, and “We Are Never Getting Back Together”).
With each subsequent listen, the album holds more emotional weight than its glittery pop veneer would suggest. Songs like “You’re On Your Own Kid”, “Midnight Rain”, and “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” find her in a deeply contemplative mood. Indeed, if Swift is indeed “the problem” as she claims, these songs show that she is certainly on way to some answers. At its core, Midnights is an at times profoundly honest portrait of all the would’ves, could’ves, and should’ves across her storied career. – Jack
dust – The Rubs
It’s a shame that The Rubs remains a deeply obscure musical project — this brawny, indulgent power-pop probably could have topped the charts in another decade. “dust”, the first Rubs album since 2017, is full of memorable hooks and is perfectly paced, with eight uptempo songs to get your head banging, separated by three slow and “dreamy” tracks (“Here in My Dream”, “Sleepin’” and “When I Dream About You”) that make you feel like you’re floating away on a cloud. –Josh
If you like The Rubs, I also recommend Joey Rubbish’s other band, the Whiffs, which is releasing a new album, “Scratch and Sniff”, on March 1.
Dance Fever – Florence + The Machine
Had it not been for a certain other megastar discussed earlier, an alternate album title for Florence + The Machine’s latest project could certainly have been “Renaissance”. On Dance Fever, Florence + The Machine return to their baroque pop roots on a record laden with mythological, religious, and historical richness as Florence Welch explores her relationship with music itself. From recounting her struggles to balance a touring career and family in thumping lead single “King”, to losing her way in the early stages of the pandemic in “My Love”, to finding her saving grace through music and sobriety in “Morning Elvis”, Florence is as honest and vulnerable as she has ever been. – Jack
Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You – Big Thief
The members of Big Thief recorded this sprawling, 20-track double album together in small studios across the United States, often giving it the intimate sound of a campfire jam session. But Dragon… is most thrilling when the band gets experimental and turns up the volume, on tracks like the sensual, shoegaze-inspired “Flower of Blood”; the mesmerizing sci-fi storytelling of “Simulation Swarm”, and “Little Things”, a roaring, lustful jam reminiscent of the Dave Matthews Band. Lead vocalist Adrienne Lenker’s mystical contemplations on the wonders of nature, the unknowability of death, and the pleasures of life give listeners plenty to ponder. – Josh
***
Here’s a playlist of some of our favorite music from 2022, including a bunch from albums that didn’t make our shortlist.
Joshua Tree Music 