Another year has come and gone, and another reason for me to write a post for this blog. I mentioned my plans for 2023 with regards to creative projects over on my publisher web site, eposic.com. I also wrote about my battle with vertigo this past year on my author web site, mkeidson.com. I’ll link to both those posts at the end of this one. On this site, which is basically a free-for-all topic-wise, it’s time for another post about the music I spent the most time listening to over the past year.
You can see from the above graphic which artists I played the most in 2022. I was a bit surprised, and pleasantly so, to see Lake Street Dive in the #1 top spot, due to their fall 2022 release of their EP, Fun Machine: The Sequel, featuring six cover tracks, including Automatic, my fifth-most played track for the year.
The other five tracks from Fun Machine: The Sequel occupied positions 7 through 11 on my top 20 list of most-played tracks for 2022, making the EP my #1 album for 2022. I also listened to other Lake Street Dive albums in 2022, and the totality of plays pushed them into the top spot on my most-played artists list for the year.
At #2 on my artists list for 2022 is Hey Violet. Their EP, Bloom, with three tracks, came out in spring 2022. I have a Hey Violet playlist on Tidal, and added those three tracks, after which I proceeded to play the whole playlist a number of times, playing a bunch of their songs from as far back as 2017, when they released their one and only full-length album to date, From the Outside. Hey Violet had released another EP, Deep End, back in the fall of 2021, and I was still listening to it a lot in 2022 in addition to listening to my Hey Violet playlist, making Deep End my #6 album for 2022. Coming in at #14 on my track list for the year, my top Hey Violet track was from Deep End, the track Sway.
Seems so many of my favorite tracks don’t get full-fledged videos made of them. My tastes aren’t mainstream enough, eh.
My #3 top artist for 2022 was… what the hell? Billy Idol? How did that happen? Did he come out with new music in 2022? Um, yeah, he did, releasing the EP, The Cage, in the fall. I’ve always been a Billy Idol fan, and I could hardly believe what I was hearing… classic Billy Idol, still vibrant and rocking hard. It blew my mind… and I loved it. I played the lead track, Cage, on repeat, and then played the whole EP on repeat a bunch of times as well when it was later released. Of course, I then had to dig up all the older Billy Idol tracks and play them a few times too. Billy’s version of Mony, Mony is still my favorite. I used to have a VHS tape of Billy Idol music videos, back in the day. It saddened me to part with it, but I’m not the kind of person to keep hunting for refurbished VHS players to buy or to get them fixed up when they break.
When the year ended, Billy Idol’s new EP, The Cage, was my #2 album for the year, and the lead single, Cage, was my #3 track.
My #4 artist for 2022 was Fefe Dobson, who also happens to be my most played artist since I started tracking my listens on Last.fm. I’ll listen to her tracks any time, and especially adore her album Sunday Love, which almost wasn’t released, but finally was… in digital. In 2022, Fefe released a couple of tracks, FCKN IN LOVE and Recharge My Heart. The former one got an official video, while the second one hasn’t yet, and of course I prefer the second one.
Recharge My Heart was my #4 track and my #14 ‘album’ for 2022, even though the ‘album’ consisted of only the one track. I played the song on repeat for a while when it was first released. I’m really hoping Fefe releases a full album in the near future (2023 would be nice). She’s going to be busy with an acting role, from what I’ve heard, but I also read somewhere she’s working on another album, too. I’m a fan forever, regardless.
At #5 on my 2022 top artist list is Max Gumdrop. For those who don’t know, I’m a founding member of the act, and so the fact I listened a lot to our music in 2022 isn’t surprising. The new tracks I listened to aren’t available to the public yet as MP3s or on any streaming services, but we did release the music video for one of the tracks on YouTube. It’s very avant-garde. Call it weird if you want. The art used in the video is all AI-generated, and some of it is pretty weird.
I took a break from writing this post to make that video…. So it was a bit rushed, and this post is being published a bit later than I’d planned…. But I wanted to include a video for one of the new tracks in this post, so there you go. Our upcoming EP, Robotic Dreamers, is still too much in the works to know when it will be released, but we’re hoping for a 2023 release. We’re also working on a digital country album, featuring songs written by my cousin, Dave Eidson. We’re hoping for a 2023 release of that album, too. I’m keeping busy….
My #6 artist for 2022 is Kimbra, in part because I never tire listening to many of her older tracks. But one of her new tracks, Save Me, was my #6 track for the year. Her upcoming album, A Reckoning, features the tracks Save Me and replay! as it’s first two tracks, and I listened to those two tracks enough to push the as-yet-unreleased A Reckoning into the #10 position on my top albums list for 2022.
I love the special effects in the video, but Kimbra’s haunting vocal in this track is the real draw for me. She is so creative and such a musical genius, I’m eager to hear her new, full album coming out towards the end of January, 2023. She demonstrates such a wide range of characters and emotions in her songs and videos… the combination of sound and visuals are surreal, and a huge reason I’m such a fan.
Mandy Moore, at #7 on my list, is a perennial favorite of mine. In 2022, she released the album In Real Life. While none of the individual tracks on the album pushed their way into my top 50 tracks for the year, the album in its totality is a jewel, and came in at #24 on my albums list.
Mandy Moore’s Silver Landings, from 2020, also saw a lot of play for me in 2022, as did her 2007 album, Wild Hope, for that matter.
Hitting my top-plays list for 2022 at #8 is… Elton John. What can I say? He did release a new song, in collaboration with Britney Spears, in 2022, called Hold Me Closer, a retake on Tiny Dancer. I mostly heard that track on the radio. But I got a hankering to listen to classic Elton, and put together a playlist of my 37 favorite tracks, which I listened to a few times. My most-played Elton John track in 2022 was… well, it was actually a tie between Bennie and the Jets and Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting).
The above video came out some time after the song was released, but if you haven’t watched it, do yourself a favor and watch it now. It’s amazing. When they introduce the dancers by name, pay attention to which one is Jet.
My #9 top artist for 2022 was a duo from California, from the band machineheart, the lead singer of which I’ve been a fan of since her reality TV days. Stevie Scott is trained in opera, and as part of The Yves lends her amazing soprano voice to pop ballads. Her voice can send literal chills down my spine. The Yves released a four-track EP, Sleeping In, in 2022, and had released another four-track EP, The Blvd, in late 2021. I listened to them both a good deal in 2022, enough to make The Blvd my #9 album and Sleeping In my #16 album for the year.
My top track from the Yves in 2022 was Say You’re in Love, at #27 on my list. The song is truly a showcase for Stevie’s amazing voice. She’s one of the most underrated singers of this century.
Sneaking into my top ten artists for 2022 at #10 is Charli XCX. Her album, Crash, was released in spring 2022, and I couldn’t get enough of it, sending Crash to the #3 spot on my top albums list. I was especially fond of the single she released just a couple weeks before the album was released, playing the track on repeat for maybe a couple days. It’s just so damn catchy.
Baby by Charli XCX was my #1 most-listened-to track for 2022. Took me by surprise, too, but that’s why I like tracking my listens on Last.fm.
Before 2022, I’d never heard of my #11 artist for the year, Geoff Castellucci. Oh… My…. God. If you’ve never heard this guy sing… I almost envy you, in that you get to experience him for the very first time. If Stevie Scott blows me away with her high soprano voice, Geoff Castellucci blows me away with a voice that goes in the extreme opposite direction… one of the lowest bass voices I’ve ever heard, if not the lowest. And he can hold the notes. And he can sing in the tenor range, too.
Three of Geoff’s songs—Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold, Ghost Riders in the Sky, and Ain’t No Sunshine—landed in my top 50 tracks for 2022. His tracks were all released as singles, so I’ve no album title to mention, but I did create a playlist of my favorites of his songs, and it saw a good amount of plays once I discovered him.
Rounding out my most-played 20 artists for 2022 were:
#12: Stevie Wonder – Because I just love his music and I do listen to a good number of the classics. Innervisions was my top Stevie Wonder album and Higher Ground my top Stevie Wonder track.
#13: Demi Lovato – Her 2022 album, HOLY FVCK, was my #8 album for the year, while one of the tracks from the album, SKIN OF MY TEETH, ranked as my #25 track.
#14: Carly Rae Jepsen – The 2022 album release of hers, The Loneliest Time, was my #22 album for the year. I played a bunch of her songs from other albums, too, like Dedicated and Kiss, because I just really like them. The title track from The Loneliest Time, featuring Rufus Wainwright, is a great duet, and they both shine in it, their voices complementing each other perfectly. The video for the track keeps me smiling all the way through.
#15: Lana Del Rey – She released some singles in 2022, but I was still listening to Blue Banisters, a late 2021 album release, which ranked at #23 on my top albums list for the year.
#16: Meg Myers – Meg also released some singles in 2022, but I love listening to all her music, and do so quite frequently. I simply adore her 2015 album, Sorry, and especially one of its tracks, Lemon Eyes, which I just can’t get enough of. The music video for Lemon Eyes is one of my favorite videos, and I watch it often, enthralled by Meg’s facial expressions and body movements and the seeming rawness of her emotions. My plays on YouTube are tracked on Last.fm along with the tracks I stream on Tidal or play in my media player on my laptop, and when everything was tallied, Lemon Eyes came in at #2 on my list of most-played tracks for 2022. Yeah, I still like it that much. Just in case you’ve not watched the video yet (shame on you), I’m including it here.
#17: Upsahl – Only around for the past three years or so, Upsahl has delivered some very catchy sounds. I listened to her album, Lady Jesus, released in late 2021, off and on throughout 2022. But her 5-track EP, Sagittarius, released in December, 2022, really grabbed my attention and got enough listens from me to propel the EP into the #12 spot on my albums list. My top track from the album was Antsy, #28 for the year. And, yes, that’s all from listening in December.
#18: Jewel – Her 2022 album, Freewheelin’ Woman, received a fair amount of plays from me during the year, especially the track, Dancing Slow, featuring Train, and the album came in at #46. I love listening to Jewel’s earlier albums, too, so much so that her 2001 album, This Way, was my #31 most-listened-to album in 2022.
#19: ZZ Ward – Her only 2022 release was the single, Tin Cups, with Aloe Blacc, which I played on repeat some, but not enough to move it into my top 50 tracks. Her older albums, Till the Casket Drops from 2012 and The Storm from 2017, received more plays from me during the year, and pushed her into my top 20 artists.
#20: Dragonette – It had been a while since a new full-length album was released by Dragonette, and I was wondering if they’d ever release another one. They released a couple of singles in late 2022, New Suit and Seasick, raising my hopes for a new full-length album. And they delivered with Twennies, which became my #28 album for 2022. Dragonette’s songs are always so danceable. Not that I stand up and dance to them, but they do get my body moving in my chair.
Well, there’s my top twenty list of most-played artists in 2022, a mix of the old and the new, with my top albums and tracks woven in. I hope if you’ve not heard of some of these artists or some of their tracks, you’ll give them a try.
To catch up on my publishing plans for 2023, head over to my publisher website, and in particular my latest post there, Our Latest Additions and Plans for 2023. For a look at my personal struggles in 2022, head over to my author website, and the post My Battle With Vertigo. Here’s wishing everyone the best in 2023.