My Top 10–5 Albums of 2022
This year has been a special one for me, not because of the abundance of music, nor because there has been a big development in the music industry — which is still waiting to happen — no, but because this year, for the first time, I felt the need not only to listen to music and think about it, but also to write about it (and publish it). For me, as a rather shy person who is least convinced of myself, it is still difficult to click the “Publish” button.
What will people think of me?
What if I misunderstood the lyrics?
Do I sound like someone who wants to impose their opinion on the readers from above?
And even more questions circle incessantly through my head.
Moreover, I have only recently decided to make a “Top 10” at all, on the one hand because I don’t usually think much of such lists, and on the other hand because in my last text I separated myself relatively clearly from the position of the critic. After a longer period of reflection, however, it became clear to me that a top list is not a fully developed critique, but rather an opinion constituted from the outset as subjective. And that is exactly how the following list should be understood — as a subjective list that does not follow and does not want to follow any objective criteria. That’s why there are some surprises in the following, but also a lot that, to put it exaggeratedly, belongs to the consensus of this year.
10. Joji — SMITHEREENS
For many, it may not seem reasonable to start with a provocation of this magnitude. I can already see the first readers who will stop reading this article in a rage, perhaps one or two will also leave an angry comment or think they can see my unqualification in it. And I have to make one thing clear right away: This album does not owe its position to the fact that I like it or have listened to it up and down, rather the opposite. Nor is it my intention to “protect” Joji in any way or to let him “get away with the bare minimum”. I also couldn’t care less how this album came about. And precisely because that is the case, it triggered a philosophical rapture in me. What if Baudrillard is right, and modern art really only exists to cancel itself out? Here he deliberately refers to Hegel and his reflection on the word “aufheben” (roughly: pick up), which has three meanings in German. You can pick up (aufheben) a thing from the ground, you can pick up (aufheben) a law by breaking it, for example, and you can pick up (aufheben) something for later, for another time.
My whole analysis of Joji’s album can be found here:
9. Arctic Monkeys — The Car
I can understand the criticism about the monotony of this album, but I don’t see anything negative in it. Instead, I perceived the sameness of the individual songs and the title “The Car” as a precise social analysis. We live in a time when the machine will inevitably replace us, maybe not completely, maybe only on the physical level, but humanity will be overtaken. But precisely therein might also lie our chance to find our way back to it. In other words: What if the moment we lose humanity is also the moment a new humanity emerges? And if we follow this line of reasoning, then we also realize why many criticize this album. They criticize it not because it is bad, but because it reveals itself to us only when we are already no longer human, but all the more human for it.
My whole review can be found here:
https://rateyourmusic.com/music-review/Robin_Krause/arctic-monkeys/the-car/183478242
8. Beyoncé — RENAISSANCE
Probably the consensus album of the year, which is why I’m not going to say too much about it here, as there are plenty of others who have written about it before me. It’s a good album, but just not really my cup of tea. I like it, and some tracks stand out and make you think, while others make you want to forget them as soon as possible.
7. Disarstar — Rolex für Alle (“Rolex for Everybody")
A rapper who is probably rather unknown even in Germany, who I only came across this year through an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, which reached my timeline by chance, and fascinated me straight away. It said that Disarstar was, among other things, “socially critical” and “biting”, but on closer listening, it quickly became clear to me that Disarstar can best be described with the word combination artistically-analytical, because much of what he says just feels like the truth. In Germany, 13.8 million people live below the subsistence level and the number is growing. It is therefore time, in my opinion, that art — and no other word fits better what Disarstar does — also reflects on this fact without becoming agitprop art, as was seen at this year’s documenta. Instead of rambling on, I will try to translate a few of his best lines of text as best I can (which is not much) in the following:
“Everything will work out, as long as I hear my music and the tears come
Standing on the roof outside the block, you see the light, I see concrete”
(IN MEINEN SCHUHEN Lyrics; translated by the author)
“Nothing for free, no gifts
They say, that’s how human beings are
And then they still grab your last torn shirt, hey”
(DAY TO DAY Lyrics; translated by the author)
“So it’s right, when your boss earns more with your hands than you do yourself
When they say there can’t be a better world, they’re lying
Theirs couldn’t be better
Ours can only get better”
(ROLEX FÜR ALLE Lyrics; translated by the author)
“For some fly into space and others collect pledges in the neighbourhood (Ey)
As if it were natural, as if humans were just like that”
(Ibid; translated by the author)
NOTE: In the EU, there is a deposit on bottles when you return them. In Germany, it is 25 cents per PET bottle. Many of the people forgotten by the system therefore collect bottles from rubbish bins to survive. That’s why deposits never belong in rubbish bins, so that these people can get their hands on the bottles without having to dig through the rubbish. That’s not even the least and still too much to ask.
“Light a cigarette and take a drag
Looking at the sky, but the stars remain unseen”
(MODE AUS PARIS; translated by me)
And finally, a video — which admittedly could be called agitprop, although I would reject such a simplification — showing a protest action by Disarstar, which reflects very well how neoliberalism treats the people it has previously expelled:
We are “not even doing the least” (as Disarstar puts it) by doing more than we are doing now. A crushing insight that leaves us drowning in truth.
6. Natalia Lafourcade — De Todas Las Flores
Another album that could be counted among the critics’ consensus. This album is convincing not only because of Natalia’s angelic voice, but also because of the enchanting lyrics, which lose none of their poetry even when translated into English.
“To this world I came alone
Alone I’m going to die”
(Vine solita Lyrics; translated by the author)
This is how the album begins, and I am already close to tears. Natalia proves my thesis that the strongest emotions are those that find their way directly from the intellect to the heart, where they are able to destroy an entire world and in the same breath raise it up again. An album best listened to in places where tears won’t attract attention.
5. Ezra Furman — All of Us Flames
The greatest praise I can give a work at this point is, I think, to let it stand uncommented. To say that in this particular case, the work really speaks for itself and doesn’t need my words at all, on the contrary, they would only classify, categorize and diminish it. All I can and will say about this album is that it has touched me on a very personal level and continues to do so. That is all. I can’t and won’t reduce it to the many things it has in common with me, because that simply wouldn’t do it justice. It is so much more, but above all else it is real art. Something that will remain despite our fast-moving times. It is, above all, something. Something that is still genuine, something that escapes the recursive loop of self-replicating reality and thus becomes something real (jouissance). This album is characterized by the fact that it is and does not pretend to be. It is a work of art in the age of its infinite reproducibility and at the same time it is distinguished by the fact that it does not reproduce anything, but becomes itself in us, becomes what it truly is and thus becomes more than it originally was, yes, than it could ever be on its own. It is.
Thanks to all who have made it this far.
Happy new year!
