With our recent countdown of Albumism’s overall 100 Best Albums of 2022 complete, it’s now time to celebrate the mighty fine albums that our talented team of writers’ have deemed their personal favorites of the year. Even the most cursory scan of our staff’s selections below reveals just how unique and varied our musical tastes are, which certainly shines through all of our articles throughout the year.

Check out our personal picks and let us know what your favorite albums of 2022 are in the comments below!

#1 | Robert Glasper | Black Radio III

It’s one thing to leverage your industry connections—and more importantly, your peers’ undying respect—to build as impressive of a guest list as the creative workhorse Robert Glasper has done across all three Black Radio installments to date. But it’s an entirely whole other level of professionalism, savvy and genius to maximize those artists’ unique musical gifts to create songs as nuanced and inspired as those that comprise the collections.

Throughout the expanse of Black Radio III, Glasper and his kindred musical spirits adeptly circumvent any artistic complacency that one might understandably expect from a franchise that’s now three editions deep. Instead, the pianist-composer and his ensemble of collaborators not only sustain the quality of symbiotic songcraft heard in the first two volumes, they arguably transcend it.

Highlights are plentiful from beginning to end, but upon listening to the record countless times, the supreme standouts for me have emerged in the form of “Black Superhero” (featuring Big K.R.I.T., BJ The Chicago Kid & Killer Mike), “Over” (featuring Yebba), “Better Than I Imagined” (featuring H.E.R. & Meshell Ndegeocello), “Everybody Love” (featuring Musiq Soulchild and De La Soul’s Posdnuos) and “Why We Speak” (featuring Esperanza Spalding & Q-Tip).

Vibrant, vivacious and vital, the soul-affirming Black Radio III is the epitome of required listening.

#1 | India Shawn | BEFORE WE GO (DEEPER)

When you hear an EP as satisfying as India Shawn’s BEFORE WE GO (2021), all you wish for is another round just like it. The Los Angeles native granted this wish by fleshing it out in the full 14-track album BEFORE WE GO (DEEPER). Primarily produced by D’Mile (H.E.R., Silk Sonic, Lucky Daye), this guided R&B meditation is sensual, introspective, and musically rich, with new favorites presenting themselves with each listen.

The hypnotic and repeatable “Cali Love” grabbed my ear first with its warm chords, melancholy lyrics, and aquatic textures. “Caught in the Middle” sounds as if Brandy did a tribute to vintage Al Green and Dusty Springfield. And it’s impossible to resist the hedonist apex of the record, a D’Angelous slow jam called “Exchange.”

Beyoncé may be withholding visuals for Renaissance, but India Shawn has videos for nine of her album’s tracks. She turns into a disco bodhisattva on the groovy “Don’t Play With My Heart,” and the infectious “Movin’ On” gets a comical cameo from Anderson .Paak, who isn’t the only guest on BEFORE WE GO (DEEPER). There are also assists from Cory Henry and 6LACK among others. Projects this well constructed only come along once in a while, and this one might be the best thing you’ve never heard.

#1 | SAULT | Earth

Born of a freedom brought about by excellence and word of mouth success, SAULT delivered five albums in one day to a fanbase already used to a voluminous output. Earth was my favourite and it demonstrated the full range of their (super) powers across its nine tracks. Cleo Sol's always delightful vocals, Inflo's monumental basslines and a polyrhythmic, percussive power combined to add to their existing embarrassment of riches. But they added more textures than even they had produced before—the irresistible West African drums of "The Lord's With Me", the zephyr-light Latin undulations of "God Is In Control" and the addition of Chronixx's perfect tones to the loose, funky "Warrior" all shone in the November darkness. My favourite though is "Fields," an unsettling, belly crawling song that climaxes with an awkward, bluesy guitar solo that forms the perfect bridge to another of the five albums, Today & Tomorrow, in all its power trio glory.

The album proved beyond all doubt that SAULT are one of, if not the, most important band in the world. A solicitation via social media for fans to request songs for potential setlists means the intriguing prospect of seeing the shadowy collective in person is a distinct possibility. Sell a kidney, raffle your grandma or pan your local river for gold—just bust a gut to see them if it happens. This album alone is proof that it would be momentous.

#1 | Danger Mouse & Black Thought | Cheat Codes

As a solo artist, Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, the lead emcee for The Roots, is currently thriving, hitting his artistic stride nearly 30 years after he began his career. With three installments of his Stream of Thought series released in relatively rapid succession, Black Thought teamed with producer Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton to give us Cheat Codes. It’s the best non-Roots album of Thought’s career and one of Danger Mouse’s best hip-hop endeavors.

Cheat Codes builds on that initial chemistry the two built over 15 years ago when recording “Mad Nice” for the DANGERDOOM The Mouse and the Mask (2005) sessions. Behind the boards, Danger Mouse returns to the aesthetic of his earlier production days, making extensive use of sampled material, rather than relying on live instrumentation. The dusty style serves Thought well, as he conducts lyrical clinics on each track.

I honestly hope that moving forward, Black Thought develops a long-term emcee/producer relationship with Danger Mouse. As enjoyable as it is to see Black Thought demonstrate his chemistry with a myriad of different producers, I believe that Black Thought and Danger Mouse have created something special with Cheat Codes. The dynamic works well for this 40-minute endeavor, and it only seems to scratch the surface of their potential as a team.

#1 | Nerina Pallot | I Don’t Know What I’m Doing

Nerina Pallot has done it again with her seventh studio outing I Don't Know What I'm Doing. The album is another gorgeously cast collection of soulful pop that displays the British singer, songwriter, musician and producer's talents to the fullest of their potential and then some. One can only assume that Pallot's creative hot streak will continue given the strength of this effort.

#1 | Sudan Archives | Natural Brown Prom Queen

Brilliant multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Brittney Parks’ Sudan Archives delivers another spectacular album with Natural Brown Prom Queen. The single “Selfish Soul” is a joyful anthem nestled amongst a treasure trove of tracks, ranging from house to R&B. The production is bright with a pop sensibility, but layered and complex. Sudan’s signature violin is looped into hip-hop beats, adding a soulful folkiness, a lovely grounding complement to the deeply personal lyrics.

Along the way, Sudan tells a story of aggressive self-love in the face of adversity. And while the trope of learning to love one’s self has serious potential to turn into guidance counselor cringe, Sudan has a wry sense of humor and keen self-awareness to balance out any earnestness. Natural Brown Prom Queen is a glimpse into the luminous world of a confident young artist, already making her mark in the music landscape.

#1 | Zola Jesus | Arkhon

Thrilling with an inimitable, shiver-inducing voice to fill the void of the aching that persists inside, Zola Jesus is an unswervingly vivid aural force that restores like no other.

On Arkhon, her sixth LP composed during 2020-2021, Wisconsinite chanteuse Nika Roza Danilova brazenly faces the snarling solitary darkness haunting the psyche during humanity’s collective pandemic purgatory. Startingly unafraid to traverse her most cavernous emotions, Danilova tracks introspective lyrics against poignant piano and hypnotic tribalistic drumming, emerging with a bigger-than-life record that is once poetically triumphant and soulfully transcendent.

Delivering spiritual absolution in a compact 42 minutes, Arkhon is an absolute must-hear record —one that I’ve continuously craved since its release this past summer. I am incredibly thankful to have seen the greater part of Arkhon in LA and Vienna this year and am already aswoon anticipating the next performance of the one and only Zola Jesus.

#1 | Walter Martin | The Bear

Walter Martin has seen it all and still opts for naïveté. This decision, more than the beautiful singing or the golden-hour instrumentation or even the gorgeous art, is why I kept coming back to The Bear throughout the year. The record seems committed to proving that, even in the most chaotic and overwhelming moments, there is still a tenderness to life that makes it meaningful. Alternative music in general is typically so suspicious of a stance like this, and so when someone actually pulls it off, it’s a revelation.

The Bear is not all sunshine and rainbows; it’s an honest record about the futility of capturing a life into art, and the absolute necessity of trying anyway. Album closer “The Song Is Never Done” finds optimism in this dilemma. Martin knows that he’ll never write the perfect song, but he’ll still keep writing them, even if that means that he’ll never be fully known. That doesn’t mean that the moment, and the process doesn’t mean something. This sounds dumb and trite when you write it down and say it out loud, but when you hear him sing it, you just start to believe.

#1 | FKA twigs | CAPRISONGS

FKA twigs’s CAPRISONGS has been my constant companion since the beginning of the year. twigs’s LP1 (2014) was imbued with adulting. 2019’s Magdalene explored adult crises. Both of those albums share avant-garde DNA that cemented twigs as a respected and singular artist.

But CAPRISONGS was a real surprise on its first spin. It feels young, fresh and very much like a—gasp!—pop album with innovative sonics and tightly constructed songs that pinball between post-breakup hedonism (“ride the dragon”) and heart-wrenching personal excavation (“thank you song”).

R&B balladry, skittering hyperpop, Jamaican dancehall and Afrobeats propel the album’s intended loose mixtape vibe. But the audio snippets of twigs and her friends (and a fan) sprinkled throughout the album underpin this diverse collection with a relatable vulnerability as each vignette demonstrates the healing power (and humor) of personal connection.

After all the very traumatic and public relationship ordeals she’s endured over the last few years, it’s a very moving experience to hear twigs sound so free on this album. It brought me to tears. It made me dance in my kitchen. It introduced me to Shygirl. And once I heard twigs interpret lyrics from Olive’s “You’re Not Alone,” I knew I’d be hooked up with CAPRISONGS for the rest of the year.

#1 | Ethel Cain | Preacher’s Daughter

Ethel Cain’s debut Preacher’s Daughter is, in a word, stunning—there’s nothing quite like it. This Southern Gothic is both cinematic and literary in its narrative arc, and the individual songs are sprawling and spacious, yet also incredibly intricate in their conveyance of a specific feeling or the telling of a particular portion of the greater story. It’s not a perfect album—there are times when the gorgeous formula, the spacious landscape of a song, stretches out for too many miles —but it works far more often than it doesn’t. It’s a gutsy, ambitious, and brilliant debut.

Ethel Cain is the alter-ego and nom de plume of Hayden Anhedönia, a young 20-something transgender woman living in rural Alabama. After releasing a couple of EPs under the Ethel Cain moniker, Anhedönia conceived of Preacher’s Daughter as a telling of the life and death of Ethel Cain, a woman not wholly unlike herself, who grew up with deep-South religion but then abandons it for a life of adventure, flawed love, and the full spectrum of experience and emotion. Preacher’s Daughter meditates on Christianity, exploring its transcendence and terrors, and we’re left with the sense that it leads to Ethel’s downfall and salvation and downfall again. There’s nothing preachy about the album, however—it simply tells a story, and allows the listener to excavate Ethel’s psyche and the bones and guts of the deeper narrative.

Preacher’s Daughter navigates a vast soundscape, taking us on a journey that combines Anhedönia’s ethereal vocals with Bruce Springsteen-like guitar solos, Taylor Swift-esque radio pop, cool and slinky R&B, folk and Americana interludes, and dreamy, brooding slowcore. “A House In Nebraska,” heartbreaking and spare, is probably the song most representative of Ethel Cain’s signature sound, although the shimmering “American Teenager,” the steely “Gibson Girl,” the warm and sensual “Western Nights,” and the terrifying, buzzing “Ptolemaea” are also all standout tracks.