Melisma Magazine’s 2022 Songs of the Year
You probably didn’t ask, but we answered anyway: Here are Melisma’s top songs of 2022, courtesy of staff writers.
Beabadoobee - “Talk”
By Liliana Boekhout ‘25
The song of the year (in my extremely arrogant indie opinion) is “Talk” by Beabadoobee, a single from Bea’s new album, Beatopia, which was released during the summer. While the album could be in the running for album of the year, “Talk” is by far one of the best songs featured in Beatopia.
Beabadoobee is most famously known as the voice behind the viral and catchy “I’ll make a cup of coffee for your head…” song released in 2017. While her general audience was more centered around aesthetic & dreamcore inspired individuals, her music has since changed to be more appealing to grungy, alternative, bubblegum pop enjoyers.
Beatopia was written amidst the peak of the pandemic. Subsequently, Bea described its creation as a means of escaping, much like she used the titular imagined fairytale world to escape as a child. Beatopia initially gained a substantial amount of traction from the song “the perfect pair” going viral on TikTok, and the track’s fairy-like vibe is a good representation of the rest of the album; this is most definitely a nod to the Fairytopia franchise (which is the best Barbie movie).
But “Talk” differs from many of the other songs on the album by having a more alternative 90s influence present in the song. When one of my friends introduced me to “Talk” this year, I immediately said it sounded like it would be in an old Barbie or PollyPocket movie. It has a very punk rock and riot-grrrl-esque sound, like many of the songs featured in those classic childhood films. Nostalgia for the early 2000s and Y2K has been on the rise in many different industries, so it is not surprising that new music has mirrored this. In fact, Bea incorporated a similar main riff to the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Maps”, which was released in 2003; this direct incorporation of early 2000s music helps build an extremely nostalgic and adolescent vibe that fittingly mirrors the lyrics.
To add to my argument of why “Talk” is THE song of the year: the lyrics are a fun poke at the college and adolescent lifestyle. The target audience is obviously older Gen Z kids, with a nod to early 2000s music and impulsive adolescent decisions. Bea talks (get it? like the song!) about how Tuesday is the best day to go out and party due to the lack of chaos and popularity, but also experiencing “that unavoidable feeling” you get when you know something is wrong for you but you do it anyway. She goes on to portray a messy, “fuck it, it’s not that deep” kind of message in the chorus. The combination of youthful, angsty lyrics and early 2000s punk rock influence creates a fantastic song to add to a “getting ready to go out” hype playlist for the esteemed ‘club Tuesday’. There’s nothing more appealing than a punk-rock jam that reminds us of all of the ‘good times’ before we had declining mental health and simultaneously enables the college party culture that we all know and love. Who doesn’t love music that reinforces one’s bad habits?
Tirzah - “Ribs”
By Jack Brownlee ‘26
Few musicians I have ever listened to are capable of building soundscapes as intimate as Tirzah’s. Her 2018 debut album Devotion is a landmark experimental release, painting a simultaneously sparse and vivid mural of introverted love and passion best compared to Björk’s Vespertine. May 2022 saw the release of “Ribs,” a single that serves as a further development of the sound the British singer had explored and expanded on her preceding releases. Reuniting with frequent collaborators and experimental renaissance people Mica Levi and Coby Sey, on “Ribs” Tirzah builds a slow burner that stretches a cozy, unrushed groove across nearly five minutes.
“Ribs” can be unfriendly at first. Its minimalist, off-kilter instrumentation might initially sound amateurish, but as Tirzah’s wispy vocals enter the mix, the song comes together. While she leans more toward ad-libs and improvisations, Tirzah’s sparse lyrics further cover themes first presented on Devotion—love, affection, and commitment. These motifs are central to the track, but the way she sings is more telling than the words themselves; rarely does her voice rise above a whisper. The vocal delivery throughout “Ribs” is part of what gives it such a gentle, intimate nature—it forces the listener to either metaphorically lean in and pay attention or risk missing out on what Tirzah has to say.
Much of my fascination with Tirzah’s music comes from its deconstruction of one of the most familiar concepts in music: the love song. On paper, “Ribs” seems like a conventional track—keyboard, drums, guitar, bass, and lyrics about love are all familiar musical concepts—but Tirzah casts aside any conventionality by way of how she constructs her music. Each instrument plods along, as though they were all recorded independent of one another, but when they converge, “Ribs” bares itself as a song as warm and sweet as anything I have heard this year. Whether it’s soundtracking a lethargic Sunday morning spent in bed, a relaxed weekday afternoon with some friends, or any moment when I need to slow down and breathe, Tirzah’s “Ribs” is always a source of comfort.
Khruangbin and Leon Bridges - “Mariella”
By Daniel Cece ‘26
It’s hard to write about “Mariella” in the current 19° weather, since it’s such a perfect summer song. It embodies the feeling of a warm August night, hanging out with friends or just being alone with your thoughts. I found it this summer and it’s been on repeat ever since.
Before this year, I only knew Khruangbin from their relatively popular song “Texas Sun,” also with Leon Bridges. “Texas Sun” has a similar sound to “Mariella,” but an entirely different feeling. While “Texas Sun” gives off a bright energy, “Mariella” would be the perfect song for a late night drive. It makes sense that the two songs have such opposite feelings attached to them, since one is from Khruangbin’s “Texas Sun” EP, and the other from their “Texas Moon” EP. Although I’d classify myself as a morning person, the somber guitar and smooth vocals of “Mariella” hit me much harder than its daytime counterpart.
In his lyrics, Bridges gives us a vivid description of Mariella, comparing her black hair to the midnight sky and calling her “something wild” as if she were from the jungle. The chorus is simply Mariella’s name repeated over and over again. Right from the beginning, “Mariella” draws you in with its guitar melody and slow tempo. It’s a song you could simply melt into and stay there for its whole duration. It gives me a warm feeling, as if I was down in Texas, sitting on a porch and contemplating my relationship with Mariella herself.
2022 was a turbulent year for me and many others. During the summer, I worked an eight and a half hour shift at the YMCA every weekday, the most draining job I’ve ever had. I was exhausted every day and I often felt myself in need of music to match my tired state. It was comforting to know that if I ever needed a moment of peace, I could just turn on “Mariella.” I’m very grateful that this song exists, and I’m excited to play it on many more summer nights in the future.
Yung Lean, FKA Twigs - “Bliss”
By Annika Crawford ‘26
Arriving in the starkness of early April, “Bliss” was already my song of the summer. Or maybe, of all the summers I’d spent in this town from elementary school through high school, which I was finally at the peak of: my senior year. From its hammering bass intro, “Bliss” sounds like a night at the carnival with your friends: multicolored lights of rides spinning across your eyes, laughing over fried oreos and street corn, attraction and nausea tumbling together like clothes in a washing machine. Yung Lean is laid-back and sexy throughout the verses, mumbling about SeaWorld and sword cuts—words that don’t really make sense, but that doesn’t matter because they sound right. And in the jumbled up night—a clip of gossip overheard, a dropped bracelet, a face you haven’t seen in years—everything reaches full clarity in FKA Twigs’ pleading chorus, “I pray to God you're good for me / I want your bliss on bliss, a little company,” taking the track to unprecedented and exhilarating heights. Impeccable.
Oh, I’m already nostalgic.
Beach House - “Superstar”
By Isaac Dame ‘25
Beach House, the dream pop duo of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally, had nothing left to prove. After 18 years and 7 critically acclaimed albums, there was no real exterior pressure upon them. They have a deep discography that has left a lasting impact on a generation of indie musicians. They’ve crossed over into mainstream consciousness through various samples and the now-iconic “Space Song.” And yet, in 2022, they released their very best song yet.
First, you’re eased into “Superstar” with floating, eerie synths that barely peek out from the quiet that surrounds them. Then some background, similarly floating “aah-aahs” join them and help to fill the sound, along with a steady, driving drum line that gradually gets louder and louder until the snare kicks in, dropping you into the main groove of the song right as Legrand starts singing. Soon, the low end is filled out by bass, and sparkling keys and gorgeous violins elevate the song to near perfection. You feel wrapped up by the song, drawn into its world. Hearing each instrument on its own and feeling how each one completes the soundscape makes you more sensitive to their every move.
The lyrics are fairly simple, using the imagery of shooting stars falling out of the sky to represent a relationship coming to an end. The beauty of this past relationship and the sadness of seeing it fall apart are tied together in this metaphor and reflected in Legrand’s soft and straightforward delivery. The lyrics are also directed at the listener, for example “When you were mine/We fell across the sky.” This adds another layer to the song, as it sounds uplifting despite the tragedy of the breakup. You, as the subject of the song, are a “Superstar/Shining far.”
The song crescendos smoothly, dropping all the noise to focus on a simple, touching line that concludes the song’s story, and then surging back to fill the space. An overwhelmingly beautiful keyboard solo carries you to the end, and you’re left with a few seconds of silence at the end of the track to process the last 6 minutes.
“Superstar” isn't impressive because it attempts something unique from Beach House’s style, but because it is a perfection of that style. To reach these heights so deep into a prolific career, to create something so pure and touching, is a feat worth celebrating.
Soccer Mommy - “Shotgun”
By Ethan Lam MS ‘23
In 2022, the “Sad Girl” archetype was laid to rest. The eternally overused descriptor is now little more than a buzzy marketing term that intentionally flattens the nuance and complexity of the artists – such as Mitski, Snail Mail, and Phoebe Bridgers – who have been pushed under its umbrella.
Soccer Mommy, the project of Nashville’s Sophie Allison, is one such act. To be fair, it’s hard to contend that the woman who penned the lyric “I wanna kill myself, I wanna go to hell” in 2017 wasn’t at least a little sad. But on “Shotgun,” Allison fully emerges from the dark and brings her more hopeful, innocent, and excitable side to light. While much of Allison’s past work has dealt with romances-gone-wrong—think the visceral comparison of a lover who only used her to “an animal… with bloody teeth” on “Still Clean”—“Shotgun” finds her submitting (at least for now) to the endless possibilities of love, irrespective of where it might go wrong.
While Allison maintains her restrained and slightly disaffected coo, “Shotgun” is perhaps the most upbeat that she has ever sounded: this song is built on a magnetically grungy bassline, which blossoms into a lush, vivid, blissfully layered wall of sound. “Whenever you want me I'll be around / I'm a bullet in a shotgun waiting to sound,” Allison sings, as a simple yet unbearably cool electric guitar riff cuts through the fuzz like a finely-tuned laser just moments later. “Soccer Mommy on an Oneohtrix Point Never-produced track with shoegaze influences” sounds like it could only come from an indie-music madlib, but it’s impossible to argue with the result on “Shotgun.”
STAYC - “Poppy”
By Andrés López ‘24
“STAYC girls, it’s going down!” In just two years, the six-member girl group has made their signature tagline one of the clearest indicators that you are in for an incredible song. “POPPY,” their latest release, is no exception. The song sees them embrace the bright bubblegum aesthetics of J-pop for their first Japanese language release. Bursting with vibrant synths and a bouncy bass, the instrumental is the perfect soundscape for the girls to do their thing. On the vocal side of things, everyone brings their A-game. Sumin and Seeun provide great contributions throughout with their smooth voices while J comes through with a stellar rap and some singing on the bridge as well. Sieun sets the tone at the beginning of the track and also takes care of the front half of the earworm choruses among other parts with her incredibly consistent and satisfying vocals. Isa definitely fits the concept of the song the best though, as her naturally high-pitched and cutesy voice goes perfectly with the instrumental. However, it is Yoon who really steals the show. Her powerful voice stands out, demands attention, and ultimately makes the post-chorus the focal point of the song in spite of the insanely catchy chorus. Also, her high note at the end of the bridge is an impressive and explosive segue into the final chorus and outro. There really wasn’t anything this catchy and feel-good that was released this year, and pairing it with a fun and easy-to-learn dance made it destined for virality. Definitely keep your eyes on STAYC–despite their iconic tagline, their trajectory is going anywhere but down.
Courting - “Jumper”
By Lucy Millman ‘24
“And though I really hate the ending/I’ve always loved the start.” These lyrics made Courting’s “Jumper,” off their debut album “Guitar Music,” my song of the year. The first time I heard “Jumper” was in the WMFO studio (shocking, I know), and I was instantly hooked. It’s an undeniably fun song with a lot of post-punk elements that I enjoy while also just being super energetic. It’s upbeat and noisy, and easily lends itself to being played repeatedly. If you tried, you could pick out each instrument, but it’s one of those songs where everything blends together seamlessly, and the changes in the melody perfectly echo whatever transitions occur in the story told by the lyrics. The melody alone would have made it a convincing pick for song of the year, but as someone easily won over by lyrics, this song gets me every single time.
The lyrics tell a story of a romance between the lead singer and a girl, addressing her directly, almost exclusively as “You”. The subject matter obviously isn’t anything new, but the lyrics are funny, earnest, and self-aware, making them genuinely relatable, rather than manufactured and artificial. One of my favorites is the opening line, “I love her like Charli loves cars,” which, given how much Charli XCX loves cars, is a pretty big sentiment. Also of note is “Spent a fiver on a drink I didn’t like / Just to impress you” which feels like a pretty universal experience, along with the lovingly sincere line “And maybe we could get a mortgage someday / And maybe that would be alright / I always thought that sounded boring to me / But I don't mind.”
It was “And though I really hate the ending / I’ve always loved the start” that really got me though, as someone who avoids “goodbyes” in favor of “see-you-laters” and has a hard time with things that feel final. This song hasn’t magically changed that, but for me I think it’s partly just a reminder to enjoy beginnings, whether they’re fresh or moments in the past to reminisce over. They’re scary but exciting, and I’ve always hated endings too, but maybe they don’t always have to feel so final, especially if you take time to appreciate the way they began and how lucky you are for it to have begun at all. On a completely unrelated note, I’m studying abroad this semester…
Hemlocke Springs - “gimme all ur luv”
By Georgia Moore ‘23
It’s only appropriate for the year 2022 that I pick a song TikTok put me on to. In the era of songs blowing up overnight from a random post, occasionally you see the local wannabe bedroom pop artist making video after video promoting their own song in hopes of catching the algorithm just right - and there’s no shame in that, it’s the 2020s version of handing out CDs of your mixtape on street corners. As has always been the case with the long history of slightly awkward self-promotion, most one-off encounters with TikTok musicians don’t exactly encourage further listening, and the few tracks that do take off are products of their time in the worst possible way - meticulously manufactured, slowed and reverbed in all the right places for 15-second soundbites. Fortunately, the same cannot be said for Hemlocke Springs. Posting bedroom pop from her real-life bedroom, her art-pop tendencies and Grimes-inspired production combines effortlessly with the medium of snippet-making that doesn’t compromise the complexity of the surrounding song. An instant earworm from the first note, “gimme all ur luv” is pure pop fun; funny and obsessive as well as spacey and vast, something that can mean as much to the lonely hearts out there as the perhaps slightly over-zealous lover. “gimme all ur luv,” has since been surpassed by her November release “girlfriend,” racking up 14 million Spotify streams in addition to TikTok virality and a write up from Pitchfork. “gimme all ur luv” came into my life as a glimpse into the mind of an exciting new artist, but ended the year as a salve for broken hearts. The chorus of “I just want love/ I’ll take anyone” is reminiscent of Mitski’s “Nobody” (“I just need someone to kiss/Give me one good honest kiss and I’ll feel alright”), another favorite of mine. In a world that is increasingly artificially connected, how can we find real love, and how do we define loneliness? How do the borders of love and loneliness overlap? More importantly, in “gimme all ur luv” and “girlfriend” Hemlocke Springs delivers demands to the audience, the listener, the lover on the other end of the line: give me all your love! Unapologetic in their desires, both song and artist walk the line between desire and desperation, masked in a web of drum machines, synth-y Garageband loops, and a sense of humor in the lyrics, performance, and production that punctuates the song with a final lingering laugh. I’m looking forward to seeing a longer project from Hemlocke Springs in the coming year, and even if we don’t see a PinkPantheress-level of a swift exponential rise to the mainstream, she is an artist to watch out for.
Black Country, New Road - “Snow Globes”
By James Morse ‘23
One day, Sisyphus will fall and his great boulder will tumble. It will be a cloudy day. The trees will be crushed like soda cans and the ground will shake. The sky will turn red. The boulder will run down the mountain and rumble into town. It will rummage through the shops without remembering to close the door. It will roll for days. It will be impossible to itemize all the damage. It will roll until the sky starts to weep. It will split the other rocks in half. It will roll through the wildfire and it will raze the perfect little clearings with the perfect little ferns. It will destroy everything we know, but it will stop. It will find its way into the very bottom of the very lowest valley, and it will stay still.
The world will cry.
But when Sisyphus comes back down and starts pushing again, he will have a perfectly cleared path for him to climb. It is something like that, the way it happens. We push forward with great pain, working to climb upwards. It is hard, but we move forward. And then just when things start to make sense, they all tumble again. Our boulder rolls down the hill and destroys what had grown from our effort. But when the boulder has returned to the bottom, when it has made its way all the way down the mountain, then we have not lost everything. The path back up is cleared. We know how to climb. Not all is lost.
So I will not cry.
Isaac Wood once sung. He has stopped now. His eyes used to bulge through his eyelashes with his face painted in sweat. There was a fear in watching him sing. You could see the boulder tumble down the hill. You could hear the drums cascade and tremble like belts and coins balls cowering from the sides of a washing machine. You could hear his voice shake everything around it. He has stopped now. But before he did, he sang a song about snow globes. He sang about shrines and he sang about Henry and he sang about clamps and weather gods. He sang a song about how we all tumble down the hill, rolling and shaking and tumbling and destroying our path, in chaos and pain, rolling and bumping until we come to peace. And before he left, he left a hope. He left a hope of how to climb.
Rachika Nayar - “Heaven Come Crashing (feat. maria bc)
By River Smith ‘24
Let me be perfectly honest: if I was writing about my objective song of the year, this song would not be my pick. But one of the best parts about a category like “Song of the Year” is that you can interpret it however you want, and I don’t want to write about what I think the best song this year was, but rather the song that encapsulated my 2022. For me, that song was Rachika Nayar’s “Heaven Come Crashing”: a song that starts with Nayar’s guitar, stretched and refracted beyond the point of comprehension, and echoing guest vocals courtesy of maria bc. The resulting soundscape is vast and expansive, and it builds to the jawdroppingly ethereal 2nd minute, where the guitar and vocals come to a head and for a second you’re floating in an endless space, untethered to anything material or corporeal.
And then the Amen break hits, and when it hits, I swear to God it feels like your soul has been ripped from your body and you’re careening through a tunnel of kaleidoscopic sound, and for that minute and 30 seconds, when Nayar comes over the noise to deliver perhaps the most cathartic and achingly beautiful guitar solo of this year, it feels like some far-away star is shining its divine light on you from the heavens above, illuminating you in its holiness. It’s that life-changing. And this song came to me at a time where I needed that change; that extra oomph to leave it all behind and start anew. With “Heaven Come Crashing”, Rachika Nayar gave me the permission to do so: whether on the dancefloor or in the privacy of my own room, this song served (and will continue to serve) as a reminder that I can reincarnate myself however and whenever I want. Isn’t that something?