It’s that time of the year again, the season of best-of lists, vinyl dreams, and musical reflection. List season is officially underway after the annual Rough Trade Shops countdown has been unveiled, and it’s a heady blend of noise, nuance, and pure brilliance.
Then there’s that wild card of a wild card that is Jack White, out with his Fear Of The Dawn, a record that crackles with garage rock’s raw energy and gets sent haywire by the mind of White. It’s an apt winner, the kind of bold, strange movie that’s unforgettable in every way.
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The Top 10, curated by the red-hot, passionate writers at the inimitable Rough Trade and voted for by all the endless beautiful shop teams globally, reads like a genre-hopping joyride through the best music available to humanity in 2022. Radiohead offshoot The Smile take silver with their intricate, haunting A Light For Attracting Attention, while Mercury Prize favourites Yard Act deliver the bronze with the sharp-tongued The Overload.
Ebbing and flowing throughout the list are post-punk Fontaines DC’s broody Skinty Fia and Black Country, New Road’s emotive Ants From Up There. Rina Sawayama’s polished, genre-spanning Hold The Girl shines at No. 5, and yeule’s heavenly glitch-pop opus Glitch Princess serves as a reminder that digital beauty can be skin-shiveringly, hair-raisingly visceral.
Rounding out the 10? The unpredictable chaos of black midi’s Hellfire, the viral cool of Wet Leg’s self-titled debut, and the politically charged grooves of The Lounge Society’s Tired of Liberty.
Whether you’re digging through the crates for presents or just reacquainting yourself with this year’s most essential records, Rough Trade’s list is more than a guide but a celebration of the albums that pushed us, that swept us away, and that refused to be forgotten.
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