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Kendrick Lamar - "Mr.
Morales & The Big Steppers«
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Kendrik Lamar
Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers
Label: Interscope
Label: Interscope
approx. €15.99
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Yes, it was a tough year, we all know why: the war, the gas crisis, inflation, the ongoing corona hangover, the climate.
Pop music didn't bring instant salvation in 2022 either, the year was characterized by complex, often sprawling, packed and often multiply loaded albums.
The most rebellious appeared in May: "Mr.
Morale & The Big Steppers", the fifth work by US superstar and Pulitzer Prize winner Kendrick Lamar, published after a long writer's block, stayed with over 70 minutes of playing time and intricate, tormenting text passages about the therapy of his "daddy issues" and other problems with masculinity stodgy.
Live, too, the performance of the exceptional rapper's new suffering and attempts at self-discovery suffered from dramaturgical weaknesses, even if many critics thought
to have seen the best concert of the year.
At the end of the year, »Mr.
Morale«, the late »difficult« album, one of the best.
The contradictory force of the central piece "We Cry Together" alone, in which Lamar and his fictional relationship sparring partner Taylor Page don't cry together, but instead bark at each other with the worst N and B word tirades, is a Hollywood-ready staging and ruthless analysis of anything that is toxic.
This album, full of moral baby steps, draws its lasting strength from the imperfect, the admission that despite all the painstakingly worked out mindfulness, you still haven't found peace for a long time.
The contradictory force of the central piece "We Cry Together" alone, in which Lamar and his fictional relationship sparring partner Taylor Page don't cry together, but instead bark at each other with the worst N and B word tirades, is a Hollywood-ready staging and ruthless analysis of anything that is toxic.
This album, full of moral baby steps, draws its lasting strength from the imperfect, the admission that, despite all the hard-earned mindfulness, you still haven't found peace for a long time.
The contradictory force of the central piece "We Cry Together" alone, in which Lamar and his fictional relationship sparring partner Taylor Page don't cry together, but instead bark at each other with the worst N and B word tirades, is a Hollywood-ready staging and ruthless analysis of anything that is toxic.
This album, full of moral baby steps, draws its lasting strength from the imperfect, the admission that despite all the painstakingly worked out mindfulness, you still haven't found peace for a long time.
Read our original review here.
Bjork - »Fossora«
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Bjork
Fossora
Label: One Little Independent
Label: One Little Independent
approx. €14.99
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After weaving her breakup with Matthew Barney with two cosmically unbounded albums, Icelandic sound and vocal artist Björk returned to earth this year with one of her most amazing albums.
no,
in
the earth: In the mushroom mycelia of a »Fungal City« she digs as a miner of feelings (»Fossora« means »the digger«) for the possibilities of a new love, letting gabber techno from Indonesia and a whole squad of bass clarinets rattle and roar to break up the hardened emotional crumb.
Several very touching pieces are also dedicated to her recently deceased mother - and Björk's own role as the mother of two adult children.
Pop in the actual sense is what the 57-year-old creates compositionally, long since, but amazingly happy music art that resonates deep inside in any case.
Read our original review here.
Big Thief - »Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You«
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Big Thief
Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You
Label: 4ad/Beggars Group / Indigo
Label: 4ad/Beggars Group / Indigo
approx. €15.32
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Six years after their album entitled »Masterpiece«, the American indie rock collective Big Thief actually released their masterpiece in February: 20 songs in 80 minutes that stretch far into hippie esotericism, space and cosmic paths, none of which is too much or not at all seems boring.
You can see singer and frontwoman Adrienne Lenker, together with her long-time fellow musicians Buck Meek, Max Oleartchi and James Krivchenia, as free spins as only bands that have conspired against all external adversities and mutual comfort and redemption in their music can do donate.
How nice to be a part of it!
There are sweet folk melodies ("Change") as well as ravishingly chaotic avant-garde stunts like "Time Escaping," which are always about transcendence in the face of finitude,
death and loss.
By far the most liberating and liberating alternative album of the year.
Read our original review here.
Wet Leg - »Wet Leg«
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wet leg
Label: GoodToGo
Label: GoodToGo
approx. €12.99
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What is this one-trick pony doing among the best records of the year?
This could be the objection of all those who think that the newcomer duo from the Isle of Wight have already landed the biggest hit in 2021 with their stunning debut single »Chaise Longue«.
Sure, there were more sophisticated, more concise and more elaborate albums from the new, now very broad British post-punk scene in 2022, at least Black Midi, Black Country, New Road and Dry Cleaning have to be named here.
But Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers, two snarky young women who unashamedly throw lots of gang of four, bangles, riot grrrls and glam rock into their bloodthirsty, foul-mouthed songs about getting revenge on ignorant ex-boyfriends, still managed to enthrall with their brash debut ,
not least through impetuous, very amusing live performances.
"Wet Leg" is an old-fashioned pop album that casually throws in a few other radio and party hits like "Wet Dream", "Ur Mom" or "Oh No" and is otherwise carefree about too much profundity.
Sometimes, as has always been the case, the originality of pop simply lies in the disarming charm of its debutantes.
Read our original review here.
Playlist: Top Songs 2022 D/A/CH
Expand area places 1 – 5
1. Tom Liwa:
February Again (feat. Carolin Hennig)
2. Stella Sommer:
In My Darkness
3. Non-Seattle:
The idea
4. The nerves:
Europe
5. Christin Nichols:
Malibu
To the Apple Music playlist
To the Spotify playlist
Expand area places 6 – 25
6. Brockhoff:
Sharks
7. Painting:
Maybe It's Like Riding in a Little Jeep
8. Chris Imler:
Disappoint Me
9. Cary:
dialogue
10. Team Dolphin:
Simple questions
11. Paula Hartmann:
Never in love
12. Schmyt:
Love lost
13. Nina Chuba:
Velor track suit
14. Nashi44:
Suck On My Spring Roll
15. Ebow:
Arabah
16. Eli Preiss & Tschickgott:
LVL UP
17. Jens Friebe:
Not being able to do it anymore
18. Pogentrolem:
wealth tax
19. Sugar:
Fuck you hard
20. Knarf Rellom Akestra:
Odysseus, Faust, Ahab and Quasimodo
21. Local Suicide:
Jam Bounce Release (feat. Theus Mago)
22. Guido Möbius:
Abayanga
23. Evin:
Devotion
24. Sophia Blenda:
How loud it was
25. Tocotronic:
Never Again War
Sudan Archives – »Natural Brown Prom Queen«
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Sudan Archives
Natural Brown Prom Queen
Label: Pias/Stones Throw
Label: Pias/Stones Throw
approx. €13.32
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At this point one might expect the new album from R&B superstar Beyoncé.
»Queen Bey« sat on a glass horse for the cover of »Renaissance« as if she were Lady Godiva or Bianca Jagger at Studio 54 – and with hypermodern dance tracks, she empowered herself with the queer house and vogueing culture with which she , sorry, actually never really had much to do.
Well, still a great record, of course excellently produced, including the super hit »Break My Soul« (thanks to Robyn-S-Sample), but maybe not the great emancipatory hit that many critics saw in it.
This year it came from a violin-playing Beyoncé competitor from Cincinnati, Ohio, who has already positioned herself in recent years - and now with her second album has impressively demonstrated what she can do.
»I'm not average« postulates Brittney Parks alias Sudan Archives in the title track.
She just wants to show off her above-average skills: »I just wanna hang my titties out, titties out, titties out«.
The music on their album is a wild but also very cool mix of R&B, hip-hop, West African influences, electronic sounds, jazz moods and whipping percussion over and over again.
All of this is held together by a biographical narrative derived from high school humiliations and early, also racist, setbacks.
At the center of this form finding is the sleekly marching hairstyle manifesto »Selfish Soul«, in which Parks declares her independence from the male-sexualized gaze as well as other hairiness from her past.
To close the circle:
Natural Brown Prom Queen is to Sudan Archives what Lemonade was to Beyoncé.
And you can dance to it, too.
Read our original review here.
Tara Nome Doyle – »Vaermin«
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Tara Nome Doyle
Vaermin
Label: Modern Recordings
Label: Modern Recordings
approx. €16.99
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Stella Sommer, the perennial favorite in this category, may I forgive you for only marginally mentioning her outstanding new album »Silence Wore A Silver Coat« – in favor of another Berliner-by-choice and songwriter.
In the end it's ten records and hard decisions every year.
“Kill your darlings”, as Tara Nome Doyle sings in the song “Caterpillar” on her second album – and tingles and crawls like a centipede into every emotional and consciousness opening of a lover.
Using all sorts of vermin, Doyle explores the depths and depths of goosebumps, sometimes in a whisper, sometimes in full Kate Bush fury: the delighted shudder and the horrified shaking.
Her album, which was released in January, is captivatingly beautiful, an artistic,
Piano chamber pop that makes itself self-sufficient from trends and styles with big, voluptuous melodies and careful, sensitive gestures, searching for common ground in the shadows and abysses of interpersonal relationships.
One is drawn back again and again to this at the same time raw and very delicate music like the moth to the light, which of course also belongs in Tara Nome Doyle's case of creeping and swearing.
Read our original review here.
The nerves – »The nerves«
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The nerves
Label: Glitterhouse / Indigo
Label: Glitterhouse / Indigo
approx. €14.99
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»Und ich dachte irgendwie, in Europa stirbt man nie«, lange vor dem Krieg in der Ukraine geschrieben, war die deutsche Songzeile, die in diesem Jahr wohl am tiefsten unter die Haut ging. Die Nerven, seit nunmehr zehn Jahren aus Sänger, Gitarrist und Produzent Max Rieger, Bassist Julian Knoth und Schlagzeuger Kevin Kuhn bestehend, bewiesen sich auf ihrem fünften Album einmal mehr als die kompromisslosesten Nervösmacher des deutschen Indierocks. Wie ihre älteren Kollegen von Tocotronic auf dem ebenfalls sehr guten Album »Nie wieder Krieg« , beschäftigen sich auch die Nerven 2022 mit dem Individuum am größten Stress- und Zerreißpunkt seiner Existenz – aber sie tun es härter, lauter, erbarmungsloser. Sinister-hymnische Songs wie »Europa«, »Ich sterbe jeden Tag in Deutschland«, »Keine Bewegung« oder »15 Sekunden« rissen zum Herbstbeginn mit klirrender Kälte und Brutalität den weichen Teppich gefühlter Gewissheiten unter den Füßen der Nation weg. Kathartischer wurde der gesamtdeutsche Zustand der allgemeinen Erschöpfung und Lähmung, des Haderns und Zweifelns in diesem Jahr nicht in Gitarrenmusik übersetzt.
Unsere Originalrezension lesen Sie hier.
Playlist: Top Songs International
BereichPlätze 1 – 5aufklappen
1. Harry Styles: As It Was
2. Phoenix: Alpha Zulu
3. Rosalía: Saoko
4. Kendrick Lamar: We Cry Together
5. Sudan Archives: NBPQ (Topless)
Zur Apple-Music-Playlist
Zur Spotify-Playlist
BereichPlätze 6 – 25aufklappen
6. Beyoncé: Break My Soul
7. Biig Piig: Kerosene
8. Eliza: Dripping
9. Kae Tempest: Salt Coast
10. Caroline Polachek: Billions
11. 070 Shake: Wine & Spirits
12. Arctic Monkeys: There’d Better Be A Mirrorball
13. Weyes Blood: It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody
14. Björk: Atopos (feat. Kasimyn)
15. Bug Thief: Time Escaping
16. Black Lips: No Rave
17. Wet Leg: Wet Dream
18. Dry Cleaning: Hot Penny Day
19. Taylor Swift: Vigilante Shit
20. Vince Staples: When Sparks Fly
21. Pusha T: Diet Coke
22. Oliver Sim: Hideous (feat. Jimmy Somerville)
23. Lucrecia Dalt: Atemporal
24. Sault: Reality
25. Makaya McCraven: In These Times
Nichtseattle – »Kommunistenlibido«
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Nichtseattle
Kommunistenlibido
Label: Staatsakt
Label: Staatsakt
ca. 22,99 €
Preisabfragezeitpunkt
26.12.2022 18.10 Uhr
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Es gibt Songs, die brauchen ein bisschen Zeit. Sie klingen erstmal zu sperrig und spröde, werden dann aber immer geschmeidiger, nisten sich ein, berühren tief und wachsen ans Herz. »Die Idee« von Nichtseattle ist so ein Lied. Es handelt von dem niederschmetternden, diffusen Gefühl, das irgendwas grundsätzlich falsch läuft, im Kapitalismus, in Deutschland, im sprachlosen Gegeneinander, das doch eigentlich ein Miteinander sein soll. Oder? Katharina Kollmann, eine junge Frau aus dem Osten Berlins mit Wendevergangenheit singt über die Sehnsucht nach Gerechtigkeit und Solidarität, Nähe und Geborgenheit, die vielleicht eher in der nur vordergründig tristen Plattenbau-Utopie zu finden war, die auch ihr Album-Cover ziert, als in den Altbau-Festungen der reichen Innenstädte. Kollmann ist eine Songwriterin, die es schafft, viel beschriebene Gefühlsmechaniken mit ungewohntem Duktus, großartigen Sprachbildern und melancholisch nacherzählten Polaroid-Erinnerungen aus dem Klischee zu hebeln. Als Instrument dient ihr dabei ihre E-Gitarre, die nicht einfach nur begleitet, sondern sich mit den langen Sätzen und Silben der Texte verzahnt, sie in mäandernde, dann plötzlich hymnenhafte Songs gegen die innere und äußere Einsamkeit formt. Die Entdeckung des Jahres.
Read our original review here.
Lucrecia Dalt - »¡Ay!«
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Lucrecia Dalt
¡ay!
Publisher: Rvng Intl.
Publisher: Rvng Intl.
approx. €15.99
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Die Musik Latein- und Südamerikas bleibt ein Dauerbrenner in den Pop-Charts. Aber nicht nur dort: Auch die in Berlin lebende Kolumbianerin Lucrecia Dalt, eine feste Größe in der experimentellen Elektronik-Szene, widmete sich auf ihrem neuen Album den Klängen und Rhythmen ihrer Kindheit und Jugend: Bolero, Son, Merengue, Mambo – und entdeckte sie durch die Ohren und Gefühlssensoren einer auf der Erde gelandeten Alien-Frau namens Preta noch einmal auf sensationelle Weise neu. Eine analog spielende Band, die Congas und Bongos, Trompeten und Klarinetten, Standbass und Leierkasten bedient, erzeugte im Studio einen warmen Resonanzraum für die kühl tastenden Synthesizer- und Elektronik-Sounds Dalts. Das Ergebnis ist ein träge-melancholischer, aber übersinnlich mitreißender Jazz-Groove, der Nostalgie und Traditionen versöhnlich in die Zukunft tanzen lässt.
Read our original review here.
Rosalía – »Motomami«
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Rosalia
moto mommy
Label: Epic International (Sony Music)
Label: Epic International (Sony Music)
approx. €14.99
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Ein wichtiges Thema des Jahres war die Debatte über unrechtmäßige kulturelle Appropriation in der Kunst und im Pop, manchmal auf plakattaugliche Fragen heruntergebrochen, ob Weiße denn nun noch Dreadlocks tragen dürfen oder nicht (besser nicht). Die spanische Musikerin Rosalía hat mit Appropriations-Vorwürfen schon zu kämpfen, seit sie als Katalanin aus Barcelona einst anfing, traditionell andalusischen Flamenco in modernen, wenn nicht futuristischen Pop zu verwandeln. Auf ihrem dritten Album »Motomami« erweitert die 30-Jährige die Kampfzone nun furchtlos auf lateinamerikanische Stile wie Champeta, Bachata und natürlich Reggaeton, aber auch auf Jazz und allerlei japanische Einflüsse, Anime-, Manga- und Hentai-Kultur. Die klanglich immer wieder herausfordernde, extrem experimentelle Musik, an Latinx-Produzenten wie Arca geschult, hämmert der Kritik all das lustvoll um die Ohren – und um sie ruhigzustellen, veröffentlichte Rosalía zu ihrer Platte auch eine Playlist mit den Original-Künstlern und -Künstlerinnen, die sie inspiriert haben. So, könnte man argumentieren, funktioniert »gute« Appropriation, denn auf diese Weise wird der Ursprungskünstler nicht nur gebührend gewürdigt, er könnte durch die Entdeckung durch neues Publikum sogar profitieren. Dass es im Pop nicht ohne Appropriation geht, ist eh klar, die Aneignung von Stilen und Einflüssen ist von jeher ihr Grundprinzip. Rosalía, das ist spätestens seit diesem Jahr klar, ist eine der bestimmenden Pop-Künstlerinnen der kommenden Zeit, und »Motomami« ist ein Musterbeispiel dafür, wie aufregend Pop sein kann, der aus Traditionen Neues herausschüttelt und -bricht. Album des Jahres.
Read our original review here.
