When I consider all the music I have listened to over that period, I cannot help but think how lucky my generation are to have been there literally from the start of modern pop/rock music – and that the generations following have kept it all going for our continued entertainment.
So welcome to my Album of the Year 2022 blog, my sixtieth – now there’s something I would never have imagined all the way back in 1963 that I would write, but yes sixtieth – wander through the year’s results from the many taps of my long-suffering debit card.
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Late-discovery of an album does not just involve the previous year – some escape notice for decades! And I guess, with 2021 still somewhat disrupted by Covid, especially the continued lack of much live music, it was only natural to search more content on streaming services and the like, opening up avenues of exploration that the busyness of ‘normal life’ would not normally allow. Hence some of the albums up for mention here are from the last century.
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I guess you find, when you have written about music for as long as I have, that you hear ever more echoes from the past – whether they are influences on new artists or samples from old hits. This year, I found myself both concentrating on a vast array of new music, as well as on my Classic Albums section, which has featured a number of albums that celebrated their 50th anniversary this year, the majority of which still sound as fresh today as they did all that time ago.
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Regular readers will already be aware of my ‘ One that Got Away ‘ feature most years, mentioning albums discovered too late for inclusion previously. These often arrive as a Christmas surprise from one of my offspring or the subject of emails from regulars where a sentence commences with the words: ‘I’m surprised that you missed ….’ But those can usually be counted on the fingers of one hand, and have normally had their first listening well before the end of January. This year’s crop, however, are now well into double-figures, and have kept on coming through the early months of this year – so many that the regular slot for them would potentially take over this year’s blog. So, halfway through 2021, here is a roundup plus a top ten of all those albums that got away last year.
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