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Best pop albums of 2022

Our critic’s picks from the past year include the Arctic Monkeys, Kendrick Lamar, Angel Olsen and Sudan Archives, as well as a surprise entry with Richard Dawson

The Arctic Monkeys © Zackery Michael

A far cry from the mardy bums, kebab queues and Sheffield nightspots of the Arctic Monkeys’ origins, The Car’s luxuriant songs describe a decadent world of moated buildings and French Riviera dalliances, richly imagined and performed to a tee. Rock aristocracy never sounded so good.

Danger Mouse & Black Thought © Shervin Lainez

A cheat code for making retro-rap: take a dusty old sample, loop it, add a solid boombap beat, unleash the verbals. Except if it were that easy, Cheat Codes would be one of many — not one of the year’s best hip-hop records, a vintage display of quality from The Roots’ Black Thought and producer Danger Mouse.

Richard Dawson © Maria Jefferis/Redferns

Sometimes a need is answered that you never knew you had, such as Newcastle maverick Richard Dawson’s latest — a concept album about virtual reality featuring prog-folk vocals, stompy surrealist rock and a 41-minute opening track sung from the point of view of a hermit.

Kendrick Lamar © Scott Garfitt/AP

The first album in five years from Kendrick Lamar opens with the words: “I’ve been going through something.” What follows is 75 minutes of bold beats and virtuoso rapping about fallibility and redemption. It’s a big something.

Angel Olsen © Alamy Stock Photo

Big Time is a classy fantasy of sadness and love constructed around country-soul, 1960s orchestral pop and the handsome tremor of Angel Olsen’s voice. “You’ve always known how to get straight to my head,” she sings; her sixth album knows how to do the same.

From left: Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner © Alex Lake

Radiohead spin-off The Smile hit the ground running on their excellent debut album. Thom Yorke keens and moans. Jonny Greenwood dashes out jittery riffs. Tom Skinner of jazz group Sons of Kemet provides supple drumming. Radiohead fans beam.

Sudan Archives © Redferns

“I’m not average,” Brittney Parks sings on her second album as Sudan Archives. Eighteen tracks that shiftshape deftly through hip-hop, electronic music, funk and pop prove her point, a cosmopolitan set of songs that cohere around notions of identity and uniqueness.

Suede © Dean Chalkley

While Britpop readies itself for 30th-anniversary nostalgia, Suede are still making improbably strong records. Autofiction finds them tackling middle age with the same vim they once mustered for doomed youth, galloping into the maelstrom with a flamboyant yelp and all guitars blazing.

Weyes Blood © Neil Krug

Like Laurel Canyon prospectors back in the gold-rush days of the 1970s, Weyes Blood taps into a rich seam of singer-songwriterly music on her fifth album. Groove, melody and sophistication are united, a stereophonic balm for lyrical themes of aloneness.