The last part of the Top 100, featuring our favourite 25 songs of 2022, looks like a tribute to the much-maligned recent World Cup, where we can find Australian newcomers; Argentinean rappers; American hardcore punks; Carioca funk; a touching collaboration between two hip-hop and electronica icons; UK hipsters; Belgium experimentalists; African-american violinists; the comeback of the year and a high profile, last minute remix from the artist who released our album of the year.
The third part of our favourite songs of 2022 recap has a London poet; Today’s two biggest Latin Music male stars in collaboration; inflamed political statements about the growing north-south divide; US indie folk meets shoegaze; the return of the weirdest, most unique voice in avant pop; the hottest hip-hop produceer right now; African playboys; Singaporean glitch pop; a new guise for the best rock band of the last few decades; classic and new rap stars and the most mysterious duo in British electronica.
Listen to the Top 100 Tracks of 2022 (poitions 50-26) here.
The time to recall our favourite songs of the year has come. Beginning, as it is tradition, with the symbolic 101 position, dedicated to a guilty pleasure of the last twelve months, left bubbling under our selected list. In this case, the catchy bubblegum glory of ‘Sunroof’ by newcomers Nicky Youre feat. Dazy, which showcases the growing power of TikTok as a music discovery provider for the young. The effects of the popular platform have been greatly noticed everywhere. In the charts it may be the main responsible for a fewer number of hits that last longer among the audience´s preferences. Also, its popular Throwback channels are bringing recurrent hits to the charts, from recent enduring ones as The Weeknd´s ‘Blinding Lights’ to all sort of 90s R&B and 00s dance blasts from the past. The sounds of UK garage and 90´s house have been a big influence in many of the year’s top pop hits. A good example is that at least half a dozen of them rescued the iconic sound of Robin S House classic ‘Show Me Love’. TikTok helped reinforced as well those tracks that were back into the spotlight thanks to TV series, the biggest of which has been Kate Bush, having the biggest hit of her career, again, with ‘Running Up That Hill,’ as it profusely featured in the latest season of ‘Strangest Things.’ All this phenomenon of young people looking back at the past, may or may not mean that Today´s pop music is not delivering enough thrills to engage them.
2022 mostly belonged to very few artists: Kendrick Lamar brough another hip-hop masterwork with a very personal, spiritual and therapeutic focus; Beyoncé dazzled everyone once more by collating the sounds of gay black music, from disco to house and ball culture; Big Thief expanded their alternative folk-rock songwriting; Alvvays made indie great again and Rosalía took her blend of flamenco, Latin music and electronica to new groundbreaking heights, controversally creating her own private musical vocabulary in the almost conceptual, strong female empowerment statement of ‘Motomami’ .
