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Tony Breed writesCHIRP Radio’s Best of 2022: Tony Breed
Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2022. Our next list is from DJ and Board Member Emeritus Tony Breed.
Single of the year: Spoon / I Can’t Give Everything Away At the beginning of the year, Spoon released this excellent cover of this song from David Bowie’s last album. It is gorgeous and arresting and was the song most likely to make me cry back in January
Runner Up: Jinkx Monsoon / Looking at the Lights The song most likely to make me cry this December is this sweet song about managing when things get difficult during the holidays. We knew that Jinkx Monsoon was a very versatile drag queen; here she proves herself here to be a talented singer and songwriter.
#1 OCUPAÇÃO by Fado Bicha (self-released)
I never told me grandmother I was gay… how could I explain that to a deeply Catholic octogenarian from Portugal? But Portugal is different today; it’s a country where tradition and modernity sit side by side.
Fado Bicha Blends the two artfully. The duo roots their music in fado, the traditional Portuguese music of lamentation, often compared to the blues—but the blues were never co-opted and sanitized by a dictatorship the was fado was.
Fado Bicha returns fado to its gritty roots and infuses it with queer themes, singing about sex, dysphoria, and being queer and transgender. (My grandmother would be scandalized.)
#2 The Aluminum Group by The Aluminum Group (self-released)
Every comeback album should be this good! Returning after a 12-year hiatus with their 8th full-length album, the longtime Chicago group (now relocated to Detroit) croons wry observations (“drag queens, as a rule, are worse than children getting ready for school”), painting little scenes of a life slightly more exciting than yours.
#3 Chlöe and the Next 20th Century by Father John Misty (Sub Pop)
Father John Misty’s latest album finds him less cynical, lyrically, while he explores popular music styles of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s. It is gorgeous and jazzy and folky and it just gets under my skin… it’s good music for a quiet afternoon.
In one standout track, “Mr. Blue”, he sings about a dying cat as a way of talking about a dying relationship in style reminiscent of Harry Nilsson’s “Everybody’s Talking”
#4 Passenger by Alec Harryhausen (self-released)
This solo outing from Dream Version’s lead singer and songwriter is a revelation. Harryhausen steps outside of the angry post punk of Dream Version to make something quiet and layered and complex.
The three long tracks are more like three movements in the same musical piece, each itself divided into three sections.
#5 The Overload by Yard Act (Zen F.C.)
Yard Act is doing a thing: loud, sarcastic, political, spoken-vocal post punk you can dance to. This is not new, coming out of the UK, but Yard Act just does it better.
This is an album you expect to like, but then you love it… and then you get to track 9, “Tall Poppies”, the story of the ordinary life of a handsome man who “never left the village,” whose life takes a tragic turn, and then unexpectedly you are almost crying at the gym in between chest presses. “He wasn’t perfect, but he was one of us.” Good stuff.
#6 Au Suisse by Au Suisse (City Slang)
This first release from the duo of Morgan Geist and Kelley Polar bring together Kelley Polar lush, cool, and layered atmosphere with the Geist’s propulsive beats. You get lost in it—it’s good headphones music—and when the dance tracks come on you just have to move.
#7 I May Rail and I May Whine by Dane Terry (self-released)
In his latest album, Dane Terry revisits the past, putting together new recordings of music he wrote when he was just starting out. I’d never heard them before—I don’t know that there are recordings anywhere—but I hear Terry’s experienced hand giving these old songs the production values they deserve.
Terry has a sweet, expressive voice and is a virtuoso musician and clever lyricist, and here he has put together a really solid album.
#8 Electricity by Ibibio Sound Machine (Merge)
This year Ibibio Sound Machine returned with an album produced by Hot Chip, and it’s a match made in heaven. The solid funk dance beats are there, paired with a kind of aggressiveness—this is dance music that grabs you by the collar and makes you pay attention.
#9 Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C. (Partisan)
Fontaines D.C. makes tuneful indie rock with a dark edge… it’s got real late-80s-college-rock vibes. They’ve got hooks that you find yourself singing later to yourself. It’s an album I keep finding myself going back to.
#10 Sun’s Signature by Sun’s Signature (Partisan)
It so good to hear Elizabeth Frasier’s voice again, and it has lost none of its beauty. In Sun’s Signature she collaborates with her partner Damon Reece to create lush and ethereal songs that are just gorgeous.
Honorable Mentions
Runners up, also great music:
Bev Rage & The Drinks / Exes & Hexes / self-released
Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul / Topical Dancer / The Curls / Smothered & Covered / DEEWEE/Because
daddy’s boy / GREAT NEWS! / self-released
The Folk Implosion / Feel It If You Feel It / Inundation
Hercules and Love Affair / In Amber / BMG
The Linda Lindas / Growing Up / Epitaph
Panda Bear & Sonic Boom / Reset / Domino
Tears for Fears / The Tipping Point / Concord
Viagra Boys / Cave World / Year 0001
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