The 50 Best Songs of 2022
Written & Designed by Nathan Evans
In 2022, artists struggled to even show themselves to their fans. Touring live became an untenable prospect for even the most acclaimed artists with die-hard fanbases thanks to the immoral practises that the Ticketmaster monopoly has railroaded the industry to go along with. Through it all, they managed to have fun and provide us with their precious insight. KEYMAG celebrates the best songs of 2022, from demolishing club tracks and neoperreo heaters to head-twirling R&B and unforeseen sonic inventions.
50: Bree Runway - FWMM
Manages to merge Daft Punk synths with the way D’Angelo’s ‘Untitled (How Does It Feel)’ paints the climax of intimacy.
49: Leon Vynehall - Endless (I)
A cacophonous bass house grinder.
48: Vince Staples & Mustard - MAGIC
Staples and Mustard capture the feeling of no worries with slow-funking mobb music.
47: Benny the Butcher & J Cole - Johnny P’s Caddy
Two top-tier sets of 24 that document and substantiate their rise.
46: Joy Orbison & Overmono ft. ABRA - Blind Date
A chunky wedge of techno with ethereal vocals from ABRA.
45: Yendry - KIKI
Yendry brings an infectious assuredness over hot-footed Dominican dembow.
44: SBTRKT - Miss the Days
Wispy jungle with longing soul vocals. SBTRKT is making a comeback!
43: Cakes Da Killa ft. Sevndeep - Sip of My Sip
Steadfast bars served with glitz and glam.
42: Björk ft. Kasimyn - Atopos
Only Björk could return with an atonal dembow gabber banger with bass clarinets.
41: Calvin Harris ft. Dua Lipa & Young Thug - Potion
The four-count transition from intro guitars to chorus is the summoning of summer personified.
40: Earl Sweatshirt ft. Armand Hammer - Tabula Rasa
“Kofi Annan in the booth” is one of the lyrics of the year.
39: Ravyn Lenae ft. Steve Lacy - Skin Tight
Leathery, under-covers soul music about keeping it casual. Pree the time signature!
38: Melody’s Echo Chamber - Where the Water Clears the Illusion
Sounds like a track from 90s dream pop band Lush eclipsed by a radiant glow.
37: Kaycyy - THE SUN
A soul-bearing mould of alternative R&B and Jean-Michel Jarre-like synths.
36: Roc Marciano & The Alchemist - Quantum Leap
Calculated raps with detective movie-smokiness.
35: Aya Nakamura - Mechante
A quickstep fusion of Afrobeats and reggaeton in the peak of the sun.
34: Flo Milli - Conceited
The first verse is the definitive Flo Milli verse.
33: Hagop Tchaparian - Right to Riot
One of the biggest face-melters of the year was made from a strobing zurna horn sample.
32: Sault - Air
Sault flourish with wondrous horns and strings, stemming from warm synth-soul.
31: Koffee - Pull Up
Light, breezy Afrobeats about racing around blithely in tuner cars.
30: Conway the Machine - So Much More
An almost filmic scene where the Griselda rapper recognises his special worth.
29: benomorph - B4 I Die
Few deep house cuts of this tempo will escalate as high as the racing vocal sample here.
28: Rema - Calm Down
Desert-dry guitar, mellotron-like strings and a sharp bounce makes Rema’s vocals glide. “Another banga!”
27: Danger Mouse & Black Thought ft. Michael Kiwanuka - Aquamarine
Black Thought somehow links the history of human evolution to his own genius in what could be one of his best performances ever.
26: Merely & Malibu - Idle Citi
A soul-cradling new age trance passage with the levity of a Sigur Rós track.
25: Mura Masa, Pa Salieu & Skillibeng - Blessing Me
If you want proof that Mura Masa’s latest record Demon Time made fun the prerogative, look to ‘Blessing Me’. The versatile producer coaxes casually cold flows from Pa Salieu and Skillibeng over a spangled hit of Afroswing, while jokester horns and dancehall sirens scribble over it like graffiti tags on a wall, dousing it in personality and colour.
24: Lil Silva ft. Sampha - Backwards
Electro-soul darling Sampha and UK funky producer Lil Silva have long been in cahoots with each other, and on ‘Backwards’, everything they do is in perfect tandem. The song’s descending hook matches the song’s theme excellently; “it’s backwards how you cyclone me / sink hole, black hole, control me”. Laid over a buoyant rhythm and Radiohead-like piano, the pair create vivid imagery.
23: Syd & Kehlani - Out Loud
A highlight in Syd’s love-to-heartbreak song cycle Broken Hearts Club, ‘Out Loud’ channels Musiq Soulchild’s cutting chords and conversational lyrics. Syd yearns for more commitment from her lover, sick of being treated as a secret side piece, and Kehlani walks in wrapped in a feather boa to provide the perfect counterbalance.
22: salute - Sternenhimmel
Manchester producer salute continues his years-long string of speed garage scorchers overflowing with energy and pristine production. ‘Sternenhimmel’ introduces a glinting sample featuring Aaliyah-like coos. In a few short bars, he winds up momentum to create a sprinkler-activating, wet-eyed burst that chops and twists the sample into a multitude of micro-hooks. The track’s title is German for ‘Starry Sky’; the track gazes at exactly that before lifting off to be amongst it.
21: George Riley - Sacrifice
George Riley wills you into listening to her confessions on ‘Sacrifice’. Here, the British singer is hooked up to humming microwave synth chords and withering strings as she admits she feels she has to choose between love life and a career. She explains a previous relationship that “it left me open / I don’t know if I can do that again” with aching beauty. By the end of the track, you see the full extent of her wounds.
20: Stormzy - Mel Made Me Do It
A flex that will tower over UK hip-hop history, Stormzy brings a 7-minute statement of intent complete with a music video that brings Black British cultural icons together in triumph. “Real n*ggas knows it’s all positioning”, he raps amongst a cornucopia of unwasted lines, knowing that he’s just extinguished any equivocal doubt of his legend status.
19: Shygirl - Coochie (A Bedtime Story)
Shygirl’s ‘Coochie (A Bedtime Story)’ is a lullaby about the great sexual epicentre of the world, and it shines with simple, adorable and juvenile brilliance. She and Mura Masa ricochet pillow-soft synth notes off of a beat that bounces like Kirby, while Shygirl lays down a rhyme scheme so basic, it can only be done with her tongue poking out.
18: Pinkpantheress & Sam Gellaitry - Picture In My Mind
Two of British dance-pop’s most resourceful artists combine to make a stripped but punchy wormhole. ‘Pictures In My Mind’ is a nu-disco duet about skipping through a relationship in turmoil through golden house piano stabs. Each hit of the chorus surrounds your head, much like the burning pieces of the connection engulfing Pinkpantheress and Gellaitry.
17: Jim Legxacy - DJ
Jim Legxacy has mastered the art of bringing Midwestern emo guitar and songwriting into Afropop. ‘Dj’ is a lovesick post-heartbreak song that switches into a Afrobeats/Jersey club hybrid with pirate radio samples. You’ll never forget the way the South London artist uses his tender Tracy Chapman-like voice to ball over never being able to learn how to spin decks with his ex.
16: JID - Kody Blu 31
‘Kody Blu 31’ begins with an excerpt of a family church sermon, thick with manufactured noise as if it's an old home video. It percurses JID, whose vocal ability was unbeknownst to us before, sings like a seasoned gospel singer. Tapping into his inner Mavis Staples, the run he hits on ‘just keep on swanging onnnnn…” is something you’d sooner expect to hear from Maxwell. The track itself is equally as revelatory and inspirational, revelling in the power in simply carrying on reaching for success despite “swastikas and the police”, and encouraging your brothers and sisters to do the same. “Death is waiting on our flesh and bones”, JID proclaims, almost elated at the fact he’s cheated mortality.
15: Steve Lacy - Mercury
It’s surreal but unsurprising to see Steve Lacy become one of the biggest artists in the world this year. His modus operandi is to always appear effortless, no matter how many obscure influences he weaves in. ‘Mercury’ is the key takeaway from Gemini Rights, though, with its stirring bossa nova soul and, for once, a genuine use of one’s star sign as a confident self-character study.
14: Beach House - ESP
‘ESP’ has a chord sequence that came down from the stars to trigger a peaceful spirit. It’s only strengthened by the sedative bridge and the way “not everybody knows…” stretches into the ether. As Beach House’s Victoria Legrand sings, “Is it someplace you won't go? / Somewhere you could get faded / Some way to keep you close”, you realise she’s already made that place.
13: Kendrick Lamar - United In Grief
As he makes aware in the opening lines of his new album, Kendrick Lamar has been gone for 5 years and knew he needed to get us up to speed. ‘United in Grief’ is a track that switches scenes and changes as fast as his mind can go in this album-wide therapy session. Through a ream of panicked flows, free falling drums and piano chords that could have been lifted from Johnny Greenwood, he manages to parse through 1855 days and come out rapping better than ever. “I grieve different!”, he cries as he captures the madness of asking questions you can’t answer.
12: Maylee Todd - Show Me
On ‘Show Me’, the standout track from Maylee Todd’s future-soul album Maloo, the soul experimenter rolls out a soft rug of synth tones to croon placatingly atop. ‘Show me your heart,” she croons, backed by elongated harmonies and a gooey bassline. It’s like a vintage quiet storm track recreated digitally with new-age technology, but the heart is still there.
11: Toro y Moi - The Loop
From the sliding bassline that spins into place, the immense layering Toro y Moi builds on ‘The Loop’ is a fitting instrumental for a song about tiring of keeping atop of what’s happening in the world. His hooky vocal performance strikes a perfect balance between lackadaisical and swaggering, almost glazing over the world passing him by. By the second half, he relinquishes it all with an air-gliding jam between guitars, rhodes keys and the effects board. It’s assured, freeing and altogether, cool as fuck.
10: Yeule - Bites On My Neck
The chiptune ecstasy that Yeule whisks you up in on ‘Bites on My Neck’ belies the violent actions they took towards their love interest. An ode to an amour they loved – and swiftly killed – with their “bare hands”, it’s the masochistic apex of their confessional new album Glitch Princess.
Yeule anchors the track with an innocent synth melody, and describes an seemingly on-edge relationship that was dangerously passionate. Love bites double up as grieving pains, and Yeule’s self-destructive actions mask the song in a thin but sinister undercurrent. The track’s EDM-like breakdown is exclamation-pointed with a shrill scream and jagged guitar line, and reaches a breakdown that mixes the sweetness of romance with bloodlust. It’s a fine line that Yeule makes a spectacle out of.
9: The Smile - The Smoke
The great thing about a side project is the pressure that’s relieved, but ‘the Smoke’ from Radiohead spin-off The Smile is one of the most at-ease tracks in their extended discography. Like Fela Kuti’s ghost appearing in the dead of night, a steady drum pattern, delicious descending bassline and trombone peps swan in one by one to form an art rock interpretation of Afro-funk.
Frontman Thom Yorke doesn’t even begin until a minute in with knowingly condescending “easy, easy”. His vocal presence isn’t huge, but as Ryan Dombal said, “it’s the sexiest thing he’s ever set to tape.” The hair-standing bridge is where the track gleams, as Yorke circles around a repeating line that rolls in and out of two grooves - “wakes me from my sleep, smoke wakes me from”. Instruments from all angles creep in like they’re trying to wake you from a dream. Quickly they dissipate, and you’re free to go back to your own foggy world.
8: Pusha T - Just So You Remember
On ‘Just So You Remember’, Pusha T delivers a performance masterclass. On this stark solo track, his performance is like a villain telling you his plot when the hero is captured - cocky, venomous and with a devilish smile plastered across his face. The atmosphere is thick with darkness, as if the Virginia rapper is cooking underground. You can practically hear leaking water dripping from the ceiling.
An intermittent Colonel Bagshot sample sets the scene of each verse, which sees Push roll off some of his best raps ever. “Seeing you rappers apply for the stimulus / Living a lie but die for your images” is the most devastating blow of the year, and he goes on to jab a one-two: “Flew your bitch to Cuba for the thrill of it / but I ain’t go to show you what you should’ve did”. Capping off each verse, the way he prods at your chest rapping, “Just so you remember who you dealing with” with more grimace each utterance is a level of nuance few rappers can claim to know. Never mind the fact that the entire track rhymes, ‘Just So You Remember’ is a fantastic audition tape for Push’s future acting career.
7: Action Bronson ft. Hologram - Estaciones
From the beat alone, you can tell Action Bronson is very well-travelled, distinguished gentlemen, which makes it all the more enthralling when he asserts to tap into vintage WWE movesets and “Razor’s Edge a motherfucker off the bridge / take him to where Satan lives”.
For ‘Estaciones’, Bronson taps another classic production from the Alchemist, who whisks you away to the top of a boutique Paris hotel where a personal chef prepares food and you’re in distant earshot of an accordion busker serenading passers-by.
What sends this track over the edge of debauched luxury is the feature verse from New York rapper Hologram. After an inexplicable false start where Bronson interrupts his verse and apologises on record, Hologram goes all-in on grimey brags about his own line of clothing, ripping the spine out of his opps and selling weed to girls you couldn’t dream of. Each line is almost poetic in the way each punchline hooks round slowly but , particularly the frankly hilarious “She my little fuck thang, I eat the pussy like a Mukbang, let my nuts hang”. ‘Estaciones’ exemplifies Action’s straight-face humour and wonderment to luxury, while Hologram matches his energy without ever leaving the head of his armchair.
6: FKA twigs ft. Rema - Jealousy
The special thing that makes people call FKA twigs a genius is how she merges graceful, high-brow sounds with bleeding-edge electronic ideas. Though her new mixtape CAPRISONGS travels to the world of mainstream pop, songs like ‘Jealousy’ continue that with a novel twisting of diasporic London.
Starring Nigerian wonderkid Rema (who had his own fantastic year in 2022), ‘Jealousy’ is an Afrobeats earworm with lavish production. Making African drums and harp flutters seem like kindred spirits, she and Rema flow through the track’s bounce like water. Rema’s straightforward cadence and measured vocal runs carry the first section, while twigs lifts her voice to the heavens in verse two to add that trademark poignancy. On the track, she is fed up with being whipped by her jealousy-prone lover on a night out and wants to be carefree. It’s only right the infesting hook bends in tandem with a gunge-y bass made for the dancehall.
5: Jockstrap - Concrete Over Water
Awash with abstract lyrics and unthinkable segues, Jockstrap’s ‘Concrete Over Water’ sees the progressive pop band transports you across worlds like the Tardis. The song’s structure is similar to FKA twigs’ ‘Home With You’ in the way it scales from the tiniest, bulb-lit ballad to a grand electronic blockbuster and back again.
Vocalist Georgia Ellery sings like a carol singer as she describes how city life brings a natural sense of anxiety (“I live in the city / The tower's blue and the sky is black / I feel the night / I sit, it's on my back”). There’s a healing melancholy about finding and going to a spot where no one else knows in the city, and to Ellery, it’s a bridge where she has butterflies over the phone with a lover. One of the best moments in music this year is the gripping high note she reaches as she gasps, “it’s you, maybe it’s you”.
However, the breakdown is like cracking and falling through ice, as machine-gun synths pelt all over the scale. Extra details like how the second verse sheds its skin to reveal the raw demo cut in a weird fourth-wall break, or the nods to gender fluidity in the lyrics (“I’m glad you take me as I am / whatever shape with woman, man”) make ‘Concrete Over Water’ an artefact.
4: Rosalia - SAOKO
The first sprint of Rosalia’s new album MOTOMAMI, ‘SAOKO’ is a hardline neoperreo racer with freeform jazz breaks. That combination runs the danger of sounding like a hypothesis, but her flawless execution rubbishes that.
The core of the track is a growling bass that sounds like a gang of motorcyclists coming after you, and that feeling of menacing urgency carries through to Rosalia’s verses, each coming in a quick relay to maintain a watertight flow.
Rapped in Spanish, Rosalia focuses her words on sudden, significant metamorphosis that reshapes the way people think of something. “Yo me transformo”, she flaunts in the hook, and throughout ‘SAOKO’, she lists changes from all walks of life that capture her imagination, from the Lego logo, to a peacock’s feather to a street lighting up during the Christmas season. The most telling one of all is the fabled trojan horse, acting as a warning that Rosalia is using the same tactic.
3: KH - Looking At Your Pager
That Kieran Hebden, aka Four Tet, came from post-rock, jazz and downtempo beginnings and has only just started to lean into his role as a cult club music figure rightly shows that he is still an elite mover of bodies and minds. Dusting off his KH moniker, which spawned a long-lost Nelly Furtado remix in ‘Only Human’ in 2019, ‘Looking At Your Pager’ is leaps and bounds above even that corker. The sheer surprises in the twists and turns of ‘Looking At Your Pager’ made it one of the most beguiling rushes to nestle into so many DJ sets this year.
KH flips another 2000s R&B gem in 3LW’s ‘No More (Baby I’ma Do Right)’, turning its opening 8-bar verse into a hypnotic tuneful chatter laid atop a tight breakstep rhythm. Then, the moment comes - a shredding bass erupts like a work of voodoo magic that commands a visceral reaction. Not only is it a perfect example of how the dubstep wub-wub came back tastefully this year, but no track this year has elicited such hard-nosed joy.
Hebden finds a way to pull it into Four Tet’s world. A cloud of million-lumen synths enters after the first breakdown, completely switching the mood of 3LW chirping “I’m getting a little tired of your broken promises, promises” from righteous to yearning. He teleports to polar feelings as if it’s easy, and both hemispheres combine to make something that stormed the world.
2: The Weeknd - Out of Time
So this is what they mean when they call it pop perfection, right?
Japanese city pop’s internet popularity secured its eventual adoption by a huge artist, but be thankful it was the Weeknd who did it. ‘Out of Time’ faithfully uses city pop to create a wishful dream sequence in which he is a karaoke idol, and it may be his finest role yet. The original sample of ‘Midnight Pretenders’ by Tomoko Aran carries an incredible amount of weight - its crystal key glissando, rimed new wave drums and synth shimmers that sound like the howling wind is looped in the same way as a hip-hop producer.
Once the Weeknd writes around it, it turns into a universal ballad about missing your chance at love. He adds to the song’s cool essence without taking a drop of it away, and the mini-explosion of keys that hit on the chorus is an all-time gut-clenching karaoke moment. The way he rhymes “if he mess up just a little / if you don’t trust him a little / give me once chance just a little” in the second verse is a desperate plea that still has a burlesque charisma. No notes.
Jim Carrey’s outro wakes the track up from the fantasy with a radio advert, bringing you down to Earth from something too good to be true.
1: Denzel Curry - Walkin
When he was plotting the assembly of hip-hop’s greatest all-star team, Wu-Tang Clan founder RZA had a three-month period where he would walk around Staten Island, New York just like his favourite monk, Bodhidharma. He did this not to temporarily escape the dire conditions he was born and kept under - he did it to free himself from it permanently.
As Will Ashon points out in his incredible book about the Wu, Chamber Music: walk long enough and you become a bystander to your own self. Similar to how practisers describe meditation, it allows you to step away from your mind and look at it from the outside like a metaphysical nomad. Assess your current situation. Dwell on past wounds without the claustrophobia of walls. Walk for longer still and you can meticulously create a plan of action as to how to change it.
Denzel Curry is no stranger to praise from KEYMAG, topping the Best Songs of 2020 list alongside JPEGMAFIA and appearing again in 2021. But ‘Walkin’ is the sort of song that illuminates an artist’s path in both directions.
His album Melt My Eyez See Your Future maps a journey of personal betterment as a hero’s journey that crosses Neo with Luke Skywalker and Zatoichi, and there’s a lot of benefit in this presentation. Rappers are characterised often by their boldness and determination, but rarely for long-term mental fulfilment. Here, walking is framed as the method of working through the internal and external issues that lay dormant in Curry’s mind.
The track’s first beat lifts into the air with soul guitar and enchanted vocalising that soothes the brain like a desert mirage. Rapping like Q-Tip over boom-bap drums, Curry comes in flexing his headstrong independence (“Me against the world, it’s me myself and I like De La”), while also bearing witness to the all-too-familiar system that keeps black people killing each other - “the same old story in a whole different era” - as well as the reactions to those affected by it - “I’m watching massacres turn to running mascara”. Lines like this cast such a wide lens in a single bar, but highlight trauma that instils fear and pain into his everyday life.
As the beat changes gears with trap percussion, Curry launches into a full bark, flowing as nimble as Kendrick Lamar. After puffing weed to escape and not liking what he finds in his head, he uses therapy to take time and navigate it. As he spits, “I been runnin’ all my life, that’s way before my life begun”, you realise that walking can be an act of slowing down as well as speeding up.
The song itself matches this next-levelism, as Curry brims with the feeling of bursting out of the dark. The way he snarls at “in this dirty, filthy rotten nasty little world we call our home” is said in such a way as to look on at the world as almost doomed to fail but chooses to fight anyway as though duty-bound. ‘Walkin’ is the epitome of that action, grafting to get to a different place and pushing yourself forward. Clear a path, and clear your mind.