We begin the new year as we have so many times before, with our annual ranking of the best albums of the year. Below you’ll find the contributor best of 2022 list with blurbs written by the staff talking about why we loved these albums. Each album title links to a streaming page so you can make sure to check out anything you may have missed. There’s also a playlist featuring a song from every album on this list, and a few staff members have shared their individual lists and some commentary, and you can find those at the bottom of this post.

As always, thanks for spending 2022 with us, and I hope you find something new to check out and love.