My Music Replay For 2022

Ok, I know I haven’t been super active on my website last year. And I am going to use this as my excuse. You see, for every minute not writing stuff up, I was listening to music. Does that sound plausible? Because I think it is. I think it’s a perfectly valid excuse. Or reason. It’s a perfectly valid reason. Let’s go with that.

Ok, so now we have the reason, we of course need some evidence to back up this position. And let’s just say that I have been listening to a lot of music this year. Like a lot a lot. Like I think this is the most music I have listened to in one year since I was a teenager. Kinda. But we’re both in luck. I have stats. All the stats. Ok maybe not all, but the good ones at least. And let’s see how much music I listened to this year…

Thirty-one thousand minutes. Five hundred and twenty-one hours. Twenty-one days. Let’s assume eight hours of sleep a night, and we’re getting up to 29 days of constant music while awake. From eyes open to eyes closed. Thats like the whole of February without any silence! Now do you believe me?

Now we get to the good stuff – the breakdown. Which artists, albums and songs made up these five hundred plus hours? Thanks to Apple Music actually getting its act together and providing a cute competitor to Spotify Wrapped, we have most of the stats we can dream of.

Top Songs

This year I discovered Feuerschwanz thanks to their fantastic cover of Ghost’s Square Hammer. They managed to take a Ghost song and actually make it good. Now that takes talent! Can you tell I am not a fan of Ghost?

After discovering this cover, thanks to Apple Music’s New Music Mix, I promptly added them to my library, and have been enjoying them ever since. Clearly not as much as this one song, but hey, maybe this will be their year!

Feuerschwanz was created as a comedic counterpart to the German medieval rock/metal scene that, according to the band, was taking itself too seriously. They started off playing medieval folk, but gradually integrated more rock and metal influences into their sound over time. So, in other words, right up my ally!

And here are the rest of my top songs. Orbit Culture’s EP is only five songs, so it’s easy enough to put on repeat. Limp Bizkit’s Autotunage is a great song that became my February earworm and Confession’s of a Traitor’s Peacekeeper is some of the best metalcore to come out in 2022.

Top Artist

By now I am sure you have read my music review where I gush about Machine Head‘s latest album. So it comes as no surpise that after their lastest offering, I went back to their disography and listened to how they evolved over time.

I maintain that this band has struck gold – first The Blackening, then Unto The Locust, and now Of Kingdom and Crown. This band has managed to push themselves way more than a typical metal band.

Do yourself a favour and listen to this band. Start with their earliest album and let it take you on a journey as the band evolves and grows. You wont regret it.

And for the rest of my top artists. This is quite a funny mix. Machine Head dominated, but Orbit Culture’s EP was also incredible and came out of nowhere. They are so good, I even did one of last year’s few music reviews on them. Then of course we have good ole Limp Bizkit – because everyone needs a Snacky Poo in their lives. Rammstein also had a great release with Zeit in April which found itself on repeat very quickly. And Korn. I love Korn. They are just getting better and better with every album after they stumbled with The Path of Totality.

Top Album

I mean, this should be no surprise. I did call this album the album of the 2020’s. When we look back on the decades in metal, Of Kingdom and Crown is going to be THE album of this one.

Like I don’t have much to add to this. I wrote an entire blog about this album before it even came out and I focused on just one song! Listen to this album. Be blown away!

In my opinion, this album surpasses The Blackening on every front.

Me – 2022

But we can’t harp on about this one ablum forever, so what other albums stuck with me this year? Taking the number 2 slot – Limp Bizkit’s Gold Cobra! Who would have thought? I often overlooked this album, but this year I really got into it. It just made me feel like a teenager again. Wearing my cap backwards and saying the F word for the first time. Rammstein’s Zeit is an incredible album and definitely a high point for the band. Then Orbit Culture’s Shaman EP which is melt-your-face-off incredible and probably some of the heaviest modern metal I have heard this past year. And lastly (for this wrap up at least) – We Came As Roman’s Darkbloom. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but this album is going to have a Sort-Of Music Review done on it this year. It’s just pure post-punk metalcore and some of the best I have ever heard.

I must make a sidetrack here quickly – album number 10. This is the OST for a game – Anno 2205. This album was put on repeat while I had covid. And it was great. The perfect music to lose a week of your life to.

And with that 2022 comes to a close. A lot of time spent listening to some amazing music and some great releases all helped me forget about keeping this site up to date. I can recommend any artist, album or song on these lists.

One last sneaky bunch of stats which I found super interesting as well, just as a way to prove something to someone who is not me that I get out and do things with my ears…
Two hundred and five different albums spanning one thousand, three hundred and twenty-nine unique artists that wrote four thousand, one hundred and sixty-four songs…

If you want to see the whole list, and not just the top 10, well here is the full seven-hour playlist, just for you.