Just in time for the end of 2022, it’s time to complete our countdown of Undertone’s top songs of the year.
20.Got Weird
from Hot Mess by dodie (pop)
I’m wary of giving in to bias on this one. dodie was here last year with I Kissed Someone (It Wasn’t You), and the year before with Cool Girl, and was also responsible for one of my favourite gigs of all time, even if I find her music often a little saccharine and lacking in a certain oompf. But this song, I insist, deserves some attention. After years of making do with flawed-but-fun In the Middle, July’s Got Weird at last ended the wait for a genuinely danceable dodie song with a strong backbeat. The production is meticulous (new tiny elements of percussion and little vocal interjections are revealed with every repeat listen) and the chorus hook is one of her strongest to date. dodie’s development as an artist is showing no sign of slowing, and whilst Got Weird isn’t quite top ten material, there’s no denying she’s getting closer.
Also listen: Hot Mess
19.Wishbone
from Incantation by Emma Rawicz (jazz)
20-year-old jazz newcomer Emma Rawicz didn’t pick up a tenor saxophone until she was 16. Listening to her assertive solo in the bold and brilliant Wishbone – a jazz fusion number that proudly announced herself onto the UK jazz stage in May – that fact seems beyond belief. The song’s agile but catchy head is delivered by Rawicz (and, importantly, a crisp electric guitar) with all the confidence and panache of someone twice her age. A concise solo packs an even more impressive punch, Rawicz’s tone enjoyably blunt-edged and vibrato-free. By far the most impressive aspect of Wishbone, however, is the quality of the composition. Shifting chords sit naturally with a busy drum part, and Rawicz’s engaging melody ties it all together very nicely. A gripping drum solo at the end also makes for a satisfyingly no-nonsense finale of her debut album. With a starting point as great as Wishbone, big things seem to be ahead for 2022’s brightest rising star in British jazz.
Also listen: Voodoo
18.Esperanza
by Hermanos Gutiérrez (latin, ambient)
Like many of the more obscure artists I’ve discovered over the past year, the Gutiérrez brothers found me in an unexpected place – specifically an independent coffe shop in Ullapool (that is, their music through a speaker, not the Swiss-Ecuadorian musicians themselves, who I would assume are infrequent visitors to the far north of Scotland). It turned out to be a good place to discover Esperanza, a hypnotic, strangely affecting guitar duet that would serve as a quite magnificent soundtrack to the scenic car journeys through remote Scotland in the days to come. The song possesses all the beauty and tranquility of a long, pleasantly uneventful drive through endless hills or, as María Medem’s companion animation vividly portrays, a surreally sparse desert. The musical chemistry of the two brothers is a big part of the song’s success. It’s often difficult to pick out one guitar from another, and the intricacy of the plucking ensures there’s plenty to listen to even as the final, haunting refrain settles into its many meditative repeats. Whether on a physical road trip or not, to listen to Hermanos Gutiérrez is to be taken on a powerfully visceral musical journey. I’ve never heard anything like it.
Also listen: Tres Hermanos is the highlight from the duo’s strong recent album El Bueno Y El Malo, which continues in much the same vain as Esperanza.
17.Victory Dance
from Where I’m Meant To Be by Ezra Collective (latin jazz)
UK jazz frontrunners Ezra Collective have been flirting with latin jazz for a while, but they took the plunge spectacularly earlier this year with raucous samba track Victory Dance. Beyond Ife Ogunjobi’s radiant trumpet solo, it’s pianist Joe Armon-Jones who steals the show by providing one of the performances of his career, charging up and down the keys with characteristically spiky cluster chords. It culminates, as all good piano solos should, with multiple glissandos and passages so mind-blowingly rapid at one point the solo threatens to unravel completely. Armon-Jones just about stays on top of it all in time for a nut-tight horns hook to see the song out. Ezra Collective remain at the peak of their powers no matter what genre that have a crack at (2020’s hip hop-styled Dark Side Riddim was equally brilliant), and as a contemporary British jazz keyboardist, Armon-Jones is virtually unmatched.
Also listen: Ego Killah, Siesta
16.Dream Girl Evil
from Dance Fever by Florence + The Machine (rock)
Choosing a song from Florence Welch’s sixth and quite possibly best album was one of the harder decisions I’ve had to make for this list. For now, I’ll go for brooding Fleetwood Mac stomper Dream Girl Evil. Here, Welch’s sheer power both as a vocalist and lyricist are at their clearest. “At least you’ll sanctify me when I’m dead,” she wails to cue an army of female backing singers that contribute to the song’s snowballing menace. The formidable “I am nobody’s moral centre!” – accompanied a magnificent bass fill – is perhaps the most spine-tingling ten seconds of the whole album.
Also listen: subtle opener King concludes with musical fireworks; instant dance-pop classic My Love always seemed destined to be Dance Fever‘s biggest commmercial hit, and rightly so.
15.Concrete Over Water
from I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap (electronic)
Duo Jockstrap achieved the most uncategorisable album of the year with the dauntingly multifaceted I Love You Jennifer B, a feverish collection of bizarre musical beasts that delivered a sonic gut punch when I saw them live on a memorable autumn night. Concrete Over Water is as good a representative as any for the work, and exposes why even a label as vague as ‘electronic’ doesn’t quite fit here: a lo-fi acoustic piano bridge is intensely personal and Georgia Ellery’s impressionistic lyrics are some of the most strikingly beautiful I’ve heard all year. It culminates in a strange stomp of stuttering snares and Taylor Skye’s ethereal synth arpeggios, soon joined by an equally extraterrestrial violin melody. In the end, it’s nigh on impossible to distill everything that makes Concrete Over Water so brilliantly unique into a handful of sentences. Like the rest of this terrific debut album, this is a song that must be heard to be believed.
Also listen: Greatest Hits and What’s It All About could so easily be good, simple pop and folk songs respectively, but instead Jockstrap’s idiosyncratic electronic manipulations lift them to a higher artistic level. Hellish Debra and 50/50 are only for those familiar with what they’re letting themselves in for.
14.Just a Game
from Lucky Me by Phoebe Green (pop)
It’s been a big year for indie pop upstart Phoebe Green, who’s daringly original debut album Lucky Me earned deserved critical acclaim. In the middle of it all, Just A Game crashes into gear with a thump of cymbals and cowbell, and continues with much the same conviction. The two-part vocal harmonies are effortlessly pulled off and Green is just as on the money in spoken, confessional interludes. Just A Game manages to sound both deeply personal yet expansive and inescapably moving. “I don’t want to be in love until I know it’s worth my time,” Green tells us amongst a swirl of soaring synths. It’s this flash self-confidence – by no means abundant in the rest of the album – that helps Just A Game shine higher than anything else Green has produced to date.
Also listen: Crying in the Club
13.Blame It on the Water
from Sir Woman by Sir Woman (pop, soul)
Everything about Sir Woman’s Blame It on the Water oozes quality modern soul music, from the tasteful backing vocals to the squirty synths and deliciously funky bass. Kelsey Wilson may have just transitioned away from the world of folk and county as part of Glorietta, but she seems to have no qualms leading the charge for a large and varied band on this number. Underpinning it all is, of course, faultless songwriting, plus a titular hook so intuitive you can practically sing it as soon as you’ve read the song name. A piano-led breakdown in the bridge ensures Sir Woman sticks the landing.
Also listen: Party City is similarly easy to love.
12.This Is Why
by Paramore (rock, post punk)
The return of much-loved, now rather nostalgic pop punk favourites Paramore was always bound to be a much talked-about event, but the sheer quality of this comeback single, This Is Why, triggered giddy mania amongst the many thousands of Paramore superfans around the world. Delightfully, the sound of This Is Why is quite clearly distinct from the band’s previous hits. Gone is the now dated pop punk (essentially anthemic pop songs but faster and louder) in favour of the trendier post punk: slinky, minimalist grooves and smarter, sharper choruses. This Is Why‘s chorus in particular packs one hell of a punch, with Hayley Williams’ gang vocals slotting in between a choppy guitar riff like a jigaw piece. There’s a few signs of the Paramore of old: a playful synth shimmer towards the end harks back to Hard Times, and Williams impassioned vocals are no less potent than on old classics such as Misery Business or Still into You. But make no mistake, this is not the Paramore of the 2000s. The big hits may be great, but what lies on the horizon for Paramore may be even better.
Also listen: The News
11.Angel
from Palomino by First Aid Kit (folk rock)
First Aid Kit was one of the many bands I discovered whilst glued to my TV on a glorious Glastonbury weekend. It was good timing ahead of their fifth album, which wasn’t short of highlights: the anthemic bliss of Out of My Head, the unmissable narrative three-chord country romp A Feeling That Never Came; charming folk chugger Turning Onto You. It was lead single Angel, that resonated with me the most. Featuring a gorgeous melody perfect for sunset drives home across the countryside, in Angel Swedish sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg solidified themselves as queens of the two-part vocal harmony, their voices blending with an ease only siblings can pull off. The song comes off as a bittersweet but ultimately liberating admission of unrequieted love. “I love you, even if you don’t love me,” Johanna sings plaintively before a quite glorious trumpet solo takes over. There’s a strong undercurrent of melancholy throughout Angel but in the end this song is an unavoidably joyful piece of self-expression.
Also listen: A Feeling That Never Came, Out of My Head, Turning Onto You
10.CUFF IT
from RENAISSANCE by Beyoncé (pop, soul)
As the album of the year lists keep coming its becoming increasingly difficult to find something new to say about Beyoncé’s seventh high-budget, chart-storming studio album. It was arguably the biggest cultural moment in pop this year, and the name recognition of Beyoncé wasn’t the only reason behind the clamour this album generated. A bold change in direction towards the world of dance music in all its forms, RENAISSANCE‘s tracks wove into one another brilliantly, Beyoncé serving up EDM, house and even hyperpop with equal mastery. Exhilarating hit CUFF IT was the album’s soul offering and had my hairs standing on end with excitement when I heard it on a first listen through of the album on a long, jet-lagged night in Bangkok last summer. Principally CUFF IT is home to a glut of superb funk bass lines which only grow more emphatic as the song develops. Beyoncé’s vocals – as world class as ever – ensure momentum is never lost, and every little addition (sublime group backing vocals, a gleeful horns section, a squelchy rhythm guitar) is mixed in with the precision of an artist of unmatched pop pedigree. A perfectly good chorus is ditched after just two outings, but the riveting funk jam that arrives in its place makes such reckless regard to traditional pop song structure more than excusable. CUFF IT, along with it’s eye-watering 300 million streams, has repositioned Beyoncé at the very top of modern pop. She’s never sounded funkier.
Also listen: PLASTIC OFF THE SOFA, VIRGO’S GROOVE, BREAK MY SOUL
9.Still Feeling You
from COUCH by Couch (pop)
If writing a good pop song was a box ticking exercise, then Couch have all their bases covered with Still Feeling You. The band are fresh out of various music colleges across the US, and it’s a song that has all the hallmarks of being written by an enthusiastic, very capable student of music. There’s a contrasting pre-chorus, trendy anti-chorus, clever harmonic shifts and even a strikingly knotty big band-led bridge. The ingredients of success are all there, but Tema Siegel still holds nothing back vocally, in particular by belting out a phenomenal high note after the bridge that still sounds spine-tingling on the hundredth listen. It’s a challenge to find anything to fault here. Still Feeling You is ambitious in its relative complexity, but the execution couldn’t have been more nailed.
Also listen: Saturday
8.Leader of the Pack
from Cub by Wunderhorse (rock)
Within five seconds of hearing Wunderhorse’s Leader of the Pack last October I knew I had a top ten contender on my hands. The song opens with the grittiest guitar hook I’ve heard all year; the sort of hook so simple yet brilliant it makes you wonder why no one has written it before. Newquay-based Jacob Slater gets stuck in with an growling, distorted vocal performance good enough to launch his career towards the mainstream. Slater can’t resist the temptation to throw in a screaming, old school classic rock guitar solo towards the end, and the end result is a spectacular piece of loud, dirty, crowd-pleasing rock ‘n’ roll.
Also listen: Teal
7.When You Know You Know
from Expert In A Dying Field by The Beths (rock)
Standing in front of the Beths in a underfilled Brudenell Social Club in Leeds, I heard their soon-to-be-released A Real Thing and got worried. It was their first big misfire in a while, including an ungainly, awkwardly choppy chorus that simply didn’t work. As a first taste of an upcoming third album, it was disappointing. By the time September had rolled around, however, a Kiwi indie rock miracle was upon us. With A Real Thing apparently ditched from the tracklist, Expert In A Dying Field was unquestionably the best album the Beths have released to date: packed with cracking singalong choruses, versatile and hooky songwriting and more face-melting guitar solos than you could shake a Brudenell homemade pasty at. Pleasingly straightforward hit When You Know You Know was my pick with its clever melodies often accompanied by silky backing vocals. Jonathan Pearce’s concise guitar solo is also a joy before Elizabeth Stokes charges another rollicking chorus. Almost right under our noses – and annoyingly right after I saw their middling live show – the Beths have reinvented themselves. My tickets for their next UK tour have already been bought, and with material as strong as When You Know You Know now at their disposal they are bound to tear the roof off.
Also listen: thrashing A Passing Rain has the Beths’ punkiest chorus to date; Knees Deep, Head In The Clouds, Your Side and I Told You That I Was Afraid all feature Stokes at the peak of her songwriting powers.
6.The Loneliest Time
from The Loneliest Time by Carly Rae Jepsen feat. Rufus Wainwright (pop, disco)
While Carly Rae Jepsen has never been doubted by the critics, a long time have passed since genuinely iconic hit Call Me Maybe, her first and arguably only global hit. That finally changed in 2022 with the pitch perfect disco track The Loneliest Time. The magic’s in the sprightly strings parts (incidentally arranged by former Cory Wong collaborator Cody Fry), as well as the irrestible vocal chemistry between Jepsen and fellow Canadian Rufus Wainwright. That’s not to mention the TikTok viral bridge, which is enormous fun and will no doubt be screamed by the superfans (myself included) when Jepsen rocks up to Leeds Academy in a little over a month. “And in the morning sun hits the water / Is this nirvana?” they sing in harmony to mark a stunningly beautiful coda. Carly Rae Jepsen’s latest pop smash may not amount to spiritual enlightenment, but it’s not far off.
Also listen: Talking to Yourself, Beach House
5.FAMILY VAN
from BUMMER by cleopatrick (rock)
FAMILY VAN is a rock song not for the faint of heart. Heard in its natural habitat from a sweaty mosh pit in Leeds last March, it sounded apocalyptic. Genius production has a big part to play here: there’s only one guitar, but the deafening bridge sounds like an army of rockstars, and Ian Fraser’s kick drum is never anything but chest-poundingly explosive. Frontman Luke Gruntz channels his rage through heavy vocal distortion, at one point his vocals so angry he can hardly finish an expletive ridden sentence before the cacophony engulfs him. FAMILY VAN isn’t just raw noise either. Gruntz’s lurching opening riff is nicely repurposed throughout, most effectively in an awesomely triumphant finale. Fraser is shrewd behind the drum kit, saving his earth-shattering fills for the big moments and delivering an impressive whirlwind of cymbals in that remarkable bridge. Music can be a vessel for all emotions, and FAMILY VAN is unequivocal about which one it attempts to recreate: this is pure, unadulterated fury, delivered in its most potent form.
Also listen: GOOD GRIEF, OK
4.They Gave Me A Lamp
from Every Valley by Public Service Broadcasting feat. Haiku Salut (art rock)
I was lucky enough to come across intriguing Derbyshire ambient trio Haiku Salut at a small venue in York last May, and since then I’ve been hooked on the delightful They Gave Me A Lamp. It’s a song helmed by Public Service Broadcasting, a band that have made a name for themselves by setting evocative historial soundbites to music. Fascinating album Every Valley covers the rise and fall of the Welsh mining industry, and They Gave Me A Lamp specifically looks at the issue from a feminist slant, following one woman who describes being undervalued in the jobs she is assigned. It’s an incredibly niche premise for a song, but even if you let the moving interview recordings wash over you, there’s something unmistakbly powerful about the musical accompaniment. Trumpets, guitars and glockenspiel weave around one another, rising and falling in sync before a chugging bass guitar heralds an inspiring fanfare finale. With the endearing vocals on top of it all, They Gave Me A Lamp makes for a spellbinging artistic package.
Also listen: All Out covers the miners’ strikes, and sounds about as brutal and earthy as you could hope for.
3.I’m Happy You’re Here
by Ugly (alt rock)
Coming in at just over eight minutes, I’m Happy You’re Here is a song that rewards patience. For the most part, tension is built slowly and carefully. Samuel Goater’s vocals are nervy and introspective, and over an unsettled chord progression and ghostly backing vocals his baritone is a commanding presence. “I’ve come a long way to destroy you,” he warbles at one point like an anime character preparing for the final boss as electric guitars threaten to cut loose. The set up is exquisite, but the payoff is even more so: an electrifying new hook, rapid, stuttering drums and an unbelievable saxophone solo that tails off into the stratosphere.
Fresh Cambridge alt rock outfit Ugly have only just embarked on their careers, but I’m Happy You’re Here is an inimitable piece of art and a quite staggering achievement for a band that only have an EP of jangly punk three-minuters to their name. The song provides an instrumental depth that’s not supposed to come from a ragtag-looking bunch of university students whose gigging tours are yet to head much further north than Bedford. The verses are imbued with all sorts of sonic wonders: an eery, distant honky tonk piano, an unnervingly sudden intake of breath, a wispy high-frequency synth, some sort of exotic bird call. In the end it’s all pulled together in a denoument that evokes a grand Shakespearean tragedy. Like Hamlet, I’m Happy You’re Here may takes its time to reach a conclusion, but embrace the undercurrent of strangeness and stick with it. I promise the final act makes it all worthwhile.
Also listen: spiritual followup single Sha is a much less experimental chamber rock track, but just as effective in getting its hook lodged in your head.
2.Hold Me Closer
by Cornelia Jakobs (pop)
Cornelia Jakobs may have finished a disappointing fourth in the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest, but her song deserved so much more. Hold Me Closer is a devastating reflection on doomed love, with Jakob’s pained, smoky vocals an ideal match for lines as heartbreaking as “I found the right one at the wrong time, but until the sunrise, hold tight”. Critics at the time said Hold Me Closer was too much a typical Swedish pop entry, lacking in any ambition to extend beyond the familiar constraints of the commercial middle-of-the-road crowdpleaser. Sure, Hold Me Closer is not lacking in traditional pop tropes, but every single one is executed with undeniable perfection. Synths may fill out the choruses, but they sound not tacky but propulsive, creating a swell of emotion behind Jakobs. The bridge is concise enough to comply with the ESC’s three minute constraints, but still provides a precipituous crescendo to get the confetti cannons firing in earnest. On paper the lyrics are trite and saccharine, but sung with the passion and heartbreak that exudes Jakobs, every word is crushingly believable. I have no qualms saying Hold Me Closer musically trumps Ukraine’s victorious Stefania and even the UK’s high-scoring Space Man in virtually every category, but alas Cornelia didn’t quite land the biggest crown in European music. Perhaps inevitably, it seems a case of the right song at the wrong time.
Also listen: Fine is a just as emotional but more intimate and intiguing ballad; Late Night Stories was the best I could find from Jakobs’ back catalogue.
1.Concorde
from Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road (chamber rock)
“I was made to love you, can’t you tell?!” Isaac Wood begs at one point during Concorde. It’s a lyric that neatly sums up Black Country, New Road‘s masterpiece in Ants From Up There, an album that runs like a contemporary Tennyson’s Maud as an analysis of one man’s doomed and completely unreciprocated obsession with a woman, all told from the perspective of the unreliable narrator. The February release has since become my very own obsession. Not one song on Ants From Up There from the Cambridge septet fails to pack a punch, and the outstanding musicianship (Lewis Evans and Georgia Ellery make for a memorable partnership on saxophone and violin respectively) plus Wood’s deeply personal and often bizarre lyrical style had me returning to Ants From Up There again and again and again throughout the year. For this list the difficulty was not in whether a song from Ants From Up There would be a winner, but which one.
I’ve settled for Concorde, which seems as good a representative as any for the album, with the title one of the album’s most memorable recurring metaphors. Concorde is an ever-shifting composition, with Luke Mark’s reassuring guitar riff leading the way. The choruses build and fall and build again like waves, coloured by a plucking mandolin and Evans’ evocative rising saxophone melody. The final build into an extraordinary instrumental section – starting with the hum of Tyler Skye’s lone bass guitar – is as stupendous as they get. “Concorde and I die free this time!” Wood yells with deluded triumph, rounding off a lyric sheet that would quite easily be dived into and mined for nuggets of metaphorical insight by any enthusiastic student of literature. Now in the knowledge of Wood’s abrupt departure from the band in the days before the album’s release, it’s a line that makes for uneasy, but gripping, listening. Perhaps Wood simply put too much of himself into his music. Perhaps such frank and poetic outpouring of emotion became too much for him. With a song as formidable as this one, who could blame him?
Also listen: Good Will Hunting is almost a normal rock song (and one of the few songs barely under five minutes), and a brilliant rock song at that; beautiful, lilting The Place Where He Inserted the Blade also deserved top spot; mind-blowing art rock epic Basketball Shoes‘ reputation preceeds itself – whatever you do, cherish that first listen.