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WDIY's Top 10 Albums of December 2022

We did it! We made it to the end of 2022! Throughout the past year, WDIY has been beyond thankful to stand by our community with news, music, and more. But before we get too sentimental and get swept up in the new year, let's take a look at what was played the most on our airwaves at the end of 2022.

If you want to see your favorites on one of our top 10 charts in 2023, feel free to call WDIY's studio line with a request at 610-694-8100 x1 or leave your picks on our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram pages to tell us what songs and albums you want us to play.

#10
Andrew Bird
Inside Problems
Loma Vista Recordings
June 3, 2022

Where Bird addressed social upheaval on the 2019 record My Finest Work Yet, his newest album titled Inside Problems is entirely concerned with matters of the mind and heart. This multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter has kept himself very busy the past few years, which might be why his newest body of work feels more introspective than past works; following My Finest Work Yet, we were graced with a 2020’s holiday EP titled Hark!, a 2021 collaborative These 13, a recent acting credit on season 4 of Fargo, a Judd Apatow film score, and his first Grammy nod. Even as Bird continued to work, he faced moments of isolation, stillness, and silence, just like all of us, that inevitably influenced his work, just like many artists nowadays.

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#9
She & Him
Melt Away: A Tribute To Brian Wilson
Fantasy Records
July 22, 2022

Melt Away: A Tribute to Brian Wilson is the seventh studio album by American musical duo She & Him, a collaboration between Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward. It is a tribute to what the duo considered to be one of the greatest living American songwriters and singers Brian Wilson, co-founder of the Beach Boys. The record is composed covers of Beach Boys songs written by Wilson, in addition to featuring Brian Wilson on the track "Do It Again". Deschanel and Ward are diving deep into the legendary artist’s extensive songbook, offering fascinating and delectable new spins with their own unique musicality on time-honored classics and overlooked gems alike.

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#8
Belle and Sebastian
A Bit of Previous
Matador Records
May 6, 2022

Belle and Sebastian had originally planned to travel to Los Angeles to work on their first full-length album in seven years. However, the 2020 pandemic had different plans, and they instead stayed in their hometown of Glasgow and added another accolade to this album; this is also their first album recorded in their home city since the 2000s. They tackle personal connections, getting older, and ironically enough, a sense of togetherness in their 10th album to date. Belle And Sebastian also pledged all income from the single If They’re Shooting at You from Bandcamp to the Red Cross in Ukraine.

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#7
Tedeschi Trucks Band
I Am the Moon: I. Crescent
Swamp Family Music LLC
June 3, 2022

The fifth studio release by Tedeschi Trucks Band is considered by many to be the most ambitious and yet somehow intimate work that rock and roll big band has ever made. It embodies an old-world epic in size and scale; this series contains four albums and 24 original songs inspired by classical literature of days old and the drama, isolation, and pain of the modern pandemic era. In May 2020, two months after the band was forced off the road by lockdown, vocalist Mike Mattison sent an email to the rest of the band with some pandemic reading assignments. The poems and stories became the foundation of the lyricism for this record series.

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#6
The Sadies
Colder Streams
Yep Roc Records
July 22, 2022

The 11th full-length studio album for the Canadian alt-country band The Sadies was produced by Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry and was the final album with guitarist Dallas Good, who passed away in February 2022. With Dallas’ tragic passing earlier this year from heart complications, it was unclear if the band would ever record again. However, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Colder Streams is already being pegged as potentially the best album they’ve ever written. Sounding better than a live performance and lyrically profound, and acting as a goodbye letter to a paramount band member, this album will stand as a love letter to their friends from the dearly missed Dallas Good.

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#5
Soccer Mommy
Sometimes, Forever
Loma Vista Recordings
June 24, 2022

Even though this album gained in popularity at WDIY in the fall, Sometimes, Forever is the perfect anti-summer album; her third album is drowning in melancholy, introspection, and doubt that suffocates like hot, endless summer days. The Nashville-native Sophie Allison has channeled quintessential 1990s indie rock and blended it with modern internet-driven shoegaze similarly to how other twentysomething femme musicians have (think Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, but each with their own twist on it).

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#4
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
Endless Rooms
Sub Pop Records
May 6, 2022

Written amid the pandemic and the devastating Australian wildfires, this band’s newest album fixates on class disparities, environmental destruction, and other political statements. However, their musicality has not changed since their origins, so the statements are paired with the usual 1980’s college rock vibes. Most of the album was written in quarantine, but they quickly isolated themselves in a house in Melbourne and started recording as soon as it was deemed safe. While they may not step on the soapbox with this newest work, they do make a well-appreciated effort to make a statement while maintaining their sound.

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#3
Spoon
Lucifer on the Sofa
Matador Records
February 11, 2022

Lucifer on the Sofa is the 10th studio album by the Austin, Texas-based rock band Spoon, which started production in 2018 shortly after touring. Production continued until 2020, but resumed and resulted in a finished album by 2021. A huge reason as to why the band couldn’t finish the album in quarantine like a lot of bands did during the pandemic was how they were choosing to orchestrate it; they realized they prefer the sound of recording as a live band versus recording separately and made that the focus of the new album.

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#2
Shemekia Copeland
Done Come Too Far
Alligator Records
August 19, 2022

Finding a balance between rage and peace, Done Come Too Far continues Shemekia’s tried and true testimony about the issues that plague our world while celebrating the little things that keep hope alive. With her 10th studio album, she continues the story she began telling in 2019 with America’s Child and in 2020 with Grammy-nominated Uncivil War. She delivers to listeners hard-hitting musical truths through her eyes of a young American Black woman, a mother, and a wife. But she likes to have a good time too, and her music reflects that with her sense of humor also front and center.

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#1
Freedy Johnston
Back on the Road to You
Forty Below
September 9th, 2022

Freedy Johnston has been sharing his tales of sad, troubled souls in his plaintive way since 1989. However, in this newest album, he has moved away slightly from complicated characters and backstories and has stripped down his storytelling to something less intricate and more personal. Back on the Road to You is Johnston’s 9th album of new material and first since 2015’s Neon Repairman. This newest album started as a Kickstarter-financed project. It features Freedy Johnston backed by a four-piece band with added vocal support in key places from pals like Susan Cowsill, Aimee Mann, and Susanna Hoffs. As is his standard practice, Johnston wrote all ten of the tunes on his latest. They encompass and embody the same witty lyricism and genre-bending tunes and melodies that his other albums have, keeping it consistent within his body of work.

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