Brett Eldredge has one of the best voices in modern country music, and his big, warm growl is so influenced by old school pop and soul crooners that 2 of his 7 albums are Christmas records, which is kind of unusual for someone who's not a huge superstar. I was pleasantly surprised by how good his 2015 album Illinois and his 2017 self-titled album were, but at this point I should just expect him to make great albums, and Songs About You may be his best, despite being so far his least commercially successful record. There are big horn-driven songs like "Where Do I Sign" and beautiful acoustic songs like "Hideaway," and Eldredge's voice suits them all perfectly. Dave Cobb, who produced a lot of the most acclaimed neo-traditionalist country albums of the last decade (Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson) did one track on Songs About You, "Holy Water," but the whole album deserves a listen. Here's my 2022 albums Spotify playlist that has most of these albums in it. 

I interviewed Infinity Knives for Spin two years ago, and I interviewed Brian Ennals for Baltimore City Paper almost 10 years ago, I really like both of these guys individually. But I have a newer piece about their new collaborative album coming out soon, keep an eye out for that, I think these guys are both individually brilliant but they're better together and that King Cobra is the best thing either of them have done. 

I really dig how confident this album is, it goes from the big hooky guitar-driven pop/rock of "Heavy Heart" to the dancey grooves of "Cosigns" to the weird muddy lo-fi of "We Were Only Close For Like Two Weeks" and "Hennessy," dude is just showing off his voice and his smart, frank lyrics in a really flashy, charming way. 

Jimmie Allen grew up in Milton, Delaware, about 20 minutes from where I spent most of my adolescence, so I've always rooted for him (and I recently learned that one of the other most successful musicians from Delaware, pop/R&B songwriter Starrah, is his cousin). And his third and best album comes on the heels of his third country radio #1, last year's "Freedom Was A Highway." Tulip Drive has a clubby track with T-Pain and Cee-Lo, "Peso," and a duet with J.Lo on a new version of "On My Way" from Marry Me, and while Allen's singing style is pop enough that those songs sound good, I prefer his more country material, especially when he talks about returning to Sussex County on "Settle On Back." 

I like Mack Scott, he's probably the only Baltimore rapper who gives me heavy UGK, 8Ball & MJG, '90s southern rap vibes, he has a great ear for beats and a real dry sense of humor, excellent project. 

I really enjoyed the New Jersey punk-jazz ensemble Joy On Fire's two 2021 albums, and they've continued their recent prolific streak with States of America, which has more vocals than some of their other releases and, as you might guess from the title, has a bit more of a political bent to it. I think my favorite part of this record is the middle section of the 7-minute "Shortages." 

I've never been a big fan of Drake's singing voice -- "the 4th-best singer in a boy band" is how I usually describe it -- so I'm a little surprised that one of my favorite albums of his to date is one where he mostly sings. But the surprise release of a new album 9 months after Certified Lover Boy with a somewhat new musical direction, with house music and other dance sounds on almost every track, is refreshing in the context of a catalog that has always washed over me with an overwhelming sameness and homogeneity. I particularly like the tracks like "Current" and "Sticky" where Gordo aka Carnage uses Baltimore club kick drum patterns, although it's unfortunate that Rye Rye hasn't gotten credit for her voice being sampled on the former. 

I wrote two pieces about Elvis, and I mostly liked it and appreciated its relative restraint as a Baz Luhrmann movie. The soundtrack album, however, is itself almost 2 hours long and kind of feels like they didn't hold anything back. You get the real Elvis Presley on some tracks and Austin Butler on others (and my inability to tell the difference most of the time is a real testament to his performance), and all sorts of contemporary artists covering, sampling and remixing Presley every which way. The Nardo Wick version of "In The Ghetto" that made me laugh when it played over the credits in the theater is still ridiculous, but otherwise, it's mostly pretty good. I particularly like the PNAU remix of "Suspicious Minds," and "Can't Help Falling In Love" covered by Kacey Musgraves, but even the Maneskin track works. 

I recently read Elvis Costello's memoir Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, and with his remarkable memory he was able to recall his first band's repertoire and performances in great detail. So it was cool to hear recently that Costello had reunited with his teenage friend Allan Mayes to finally record Rusty's repertoire. The 6-song EP includes a couple originals, and covers that including Neil Young (who was, a little surprisingly, a major early influence on Costello) and a couple Brinsley Schwarz songs by Costello's future producer Nick Lowe. Elvis Costello has spent most of his career tiptoeing around his stage name's link to Elvis Presley (he mentions in the book that most of his tours through the south have avoided shows in Memphis), so it's kind of funny that he put this out the same month as the biopic. 

After 3 massive multi-platinum albums, Post Malone seemed to deliberately slow down, step away from the spotlight a little, do some fun things that showcased his versatility (like a pretty decent charity webcast Nirvana covers set), and talk about how he didn't really care about making hits anymore. During his years of ubiquity I was pretty anti-Post Malone, but I grudgingly gave him respect for a few really catchy songs, so I wanted to keep an open mind to him starting a more interesting new chapter of his career. But Twelve Carat Toothache just sounds like his other stuff (even the Fleet Foxes collaboration), sometimes leaning into that annoying quavery vocal thing he does more than ever -- the synth country song "Lemon Tree" is one of the most unpleasant things I've heard in a long time. "Your heart's so big but that ass is huge" is a pretty funny line, I'll give him that. But mostly the album just sounds kind of cranky and defeated, like he's willingly handing his career to one of the album's guests, apparent successor The Kid Laroi. 

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