2022×12: My Favourite New Songs This Year

Posted on December 19, 2022July 1, 2023 by Ewan Spence

The end of the year approaches, and with it there are countless top lists in print and online looking back over the last twelve months. In the days running up to the end of 2022, I’m going to work through my own top list of new music. I’ll add a song to this post every day until we have my favourite new songs of the year. Are they the biggest songs of the year? No, they’re the songs that have stuck in my head that I keep coming back to.

Here’s the YouTube playlist for 2022×12, and I’ll keep it up to date as I reveal my twelve songs…

‘Snap‘, by Rosa Linn.

I’m very fond of saying that there are many ways to win the Eurovision Song Contest. Armenia’s Rosa Linn shows that perfectly.

She took her country through to the Saturday night Grand Final for the first time since 2017, which for the broadcaster could be seen as a success. Finishing in twentieth place on the night may have felt like a loss, but what happened next to ‘Snap‘ was a huge victory. So many milestones happened to this song, I’ll just pick out its 358 million streams as the headline item.

Lots of songs are successes, but this list is about the songs that have connected with me, and ‘Snap‘ really connected. From the strong bassline, through the community of voices that create an emotional fabric behind Linn, to the stop-and-start style in the song punctuated by yet another memorable way of counting, it keeps reinventing itself over its three minutes of story.

It sounds like a safe song, but all these elements need to be blended together for it to really work.

And it really works for me.

‘Colours Of You‘, by Nina Nesbitt.

I still think there is something special about the album.

In a digital world where acts have to keep feeding new single releases into the system, hoping to get that one ‘overnight sensation’ appearance on a mega-corporations playlist (think ‘New Release Friday, ‘Magic Moment Mondays’, ‘The Viral Hits Your Friends Are Listening To,’ and so on), balancing the business of music against the art of an album is critical.

This brings me to Nina Nesbitt’s third album, Alskar, the first in three years. During 2022 Nesbitt played the single release game with four tracks spaced out over the year. They do appear on the album – as a little run of four tracks – but they feel like album tracks first that weave many stories about love (the titular Alskar reflecting Nesbitt’s Swedish side).

‘Colours Of You‘ feels like the pivot point of the album. It opens with a lonely piano that showcases Nesbitt’s ability to delicately dance around the idea of love before the confidence cuts through to enjoy the ideas and dream of the ideal. Its stripped-bare sound of strings supporting a solitary piano highlights why it doesn’t take much to love yourself.

‘Tiny Riot‘, by Sam Ryder.

Yes, it’s Sam Ryder. No, it’s not that one.

When Ryder’s name started circling around the usual Eurovision circles, naturally I headed to the back catalogue for a listen. ‘Spaceman‘ is incredibly sweet, which reflects Ryder’s easy-going best friend attitude whenever and wherever I see him. Yet I made a stronger connection to ‘Tiny Riot‘.

I think it comes down to the latter having just a little bit more… grit in the oyster. It showcases strong emotions that I’ve not heard since Ryder became a bona-fide national treasure. ‘Tiny Riot‘ has conflict built into it, and there’s a liberated, almost unrestrained feeling to the whole package as the raw vocals attack the lyrics.

Sam Ryder found success with ‘Spaceman‘ and it should be obvious why he would continue down that musical road. ‘Tiny Riot‘ was the signpost pointing in another direction. A very nice direction, and one that I would love to see him return to in later years.

‘Nothing Shines Unless It Burns‘, by Belladonna.

I first heard Belladonna in 2005. It’s a testament to the power of music that even then calling themselves the first ‘Italian Rock Noir’ band was underplaying the art of Luana Caraffa and Dani Macchi.

I love Italian music. I love Rock music. I love Noir. I love Belladonna.

Their signature sound is wonderfully haunting. There’s a lot of progressive rock in here, with symphonic guitars wrapped around the vocals. The lyrics are intricate and demand multiple listenings and like all art, you have to find your own emotions. For me, Belladonna has a weariness of experience that I have embraced over the years, and each new release adds more layers to a long-distance musical relationship

‘Nothing Shines Unless It Burns‘ is classic Belladonna. No second in its eight minutes is wasted as Caraffa and Macchi find the beauty inherent in the notion of time as a primal and symmetrical force. It’s both surprising and not surprising that noted theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli is the guest vocalist, adding another layer of complexity and beauty to the music.

‘Beatmaker‘, by Emma Noble.

‘What We Do In The Shadows‘ had a wonderfully playful musical moment this year with Matt Berry’s character idly playing on a piano by playing one of his own songs, namely ‘Take My Hand‘, his theme tune to ‘Toast of London‘. A playful easter egg in that show, but with ‘Toast of London‘ becoming ‘Toast of Tinsletown‘ in 2022, a new theme tune was needed. That tune, sung by Emma Noble, is ‘Beatmaker‘.

Berry is no stranger to mashing up styles and conventions in his music (2021’s ‘Blue Elephant‘ is a prime example) and ‘Beatmaker‘ fuses soul and psychedelia over a relatively deep-cut Swedish jazz track by Doris recorded in 1970; a vinyl that I have no doubt is in Berry’s personal collection.

It’s not a deep track, it’s not looking to change the world, it’s just looking to have fun. 2022 has certainly been an improvement over previous years, but it’s still been rather dark. This playful slice of music was just what I needed in January.

‘Heaven‘, by Robocobra Quartet.

Three saxophones, some drums, and strictly no guitars. Belfast’s Robocobra Quartet can be loosely described as post-punk jazz; politically tinged lyrics, intricate compositions, and a challenging first listen when you first encounter them. But the depth they have is mighty.

I first encountered the band on the streets of Austin in 2017, and it was one of those gigs full of chaos and sound and not quite knowing what was going on… which made it very memorable.

Their third album was released this year, and ‘Heaven’ reminds me of that rambunctious gig at BD Rileys, but now with added confidence. There’s more focus in the spoken word, more improvisation in the jazz, more subtly in the structure, and basically more of what I love about the Quartet (which used up to fourteen different musicians on the album).

‘I Just Want You‘, by Chez Kane.

Welcome not just to the eighties but to a specific flavour of the eighties; sleazy yet melodic rock packed full of power chords, leather and lace, insane riffs, and a video that you can play ‘spot the influences’ in almost every single frame.

‘I Just Want You‘ is the lead track from Kane’s second album ‘Powerzone‘, and the whole thing is just straightforward in an exciting way. That’s not an easy trick to pull off. It’s a bombastic kitchen sink of a track. I can pick out the artists that Kane reminds me of, I can hear the phrases that remind me of times when life was easier, and I can feel the energy in the vocals.

This is my comfy leather jacket of the year.

‘Hold me Closer‘, by Cornelia Jakobs.

Cornelia Jakobs has taken one of my favourite approaches here, and that’s to tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. I love music which doesn’t finish in the same place it starts. While the motifs are present throughout the whole song, the emotion does not.

It’s a song about love, but it’s not a simple song about love. It’s modern and messy, honest, raw, and not at all sugar-coated. If your mantra is “who does it hurt, that’s who the story is about”, then the hurt and the story is all on Jakobs.

And she carries it off to perfection.

That’s why I prefer the live version from Sweden’s Melodifestivalen. There’s a touch more vulnerability compared to the studio version, and that lifts everything up – I’ll pick out the rising confidence as Jakobs climbs out of the bridge as my high point of the three minutes, but it only works because everything else around it works.

It takes a lot of skill to make something sound this simple.

‘Fuck Me It’s All Gone Wrong‘, by Dirt Box Disco.

Strong bass line. Addictive lyrics. Red hot fury. This is the perfect mic drop for 2022.

Mission accomplished, Dirt Box Disco. Mission accomplished.

‘Apri Tutte Le Porte‘, by Gianni Morandi.

Hold on Ewan, there’s nothing Italian on the list yet…

And with that, 2022×12 finally reaches the Sanremo Music Festival. Sanremo has many traditions. One of them is tapping into its heritage and bringing back the legends to mix in the same Contest as the newer acts, offering them both a huge amount of respect.

The appearance of Gianni Morandi at this year’s Sanremo fitted that brief perfectly. Italy’s representative at Eurovision 1970 – in the year that Turn was hosting Eurovision – was a nod back to Italian music heritage. This was going to be a contemplative reminder of a rich history of Italian ballads and emotive love songs…

…a thought that lasted until the first blast of trumpets from the live orchestra, and Morandi took to the stage with all the power of a boy band and all the presence of a legend at the top of their game. This was the sort of energy that Morandi had in the late 60s but it was now paired up with the skills of a 78-year-old who has never stopped performing.

As for ‘Apri Tutte Le Porte‘, it’s bright and vivacious, full of energy and life. It never fails to put a smile on my face, it’s insanely catchy and manages to look back and look forward at the same time.

It’s very much ‘il potere di allora’.

‘Ciao Ciao‘, by La Rappresentante Di Lista.

I was hoping for great things from La Rappresentante Di Lista’s entry to Sanremo, following previous fabulous moments. I’d hyped this up so much in my head that they couldn’t possibly deliver.

They delivered. And then delivered some more. Oh my.

Like any good epic, everything is presented in the first few seconds; the vocal dum-dah dah-dah offers the melody, the complementary bass line sneaks in, and the whole song is teased before the music snaps into audio focus.

What’s impressive is how operatic ‘Ciao Ciao‘ feels. You have an overture, you have the playful arias of the verses, the swell of the brass and backing bands in the ‘wall of sound’ styled chorus, and the almost recitative bridge… and I’m a sucker for lyrics in Italian that twist delightfully around my head.

It’s even got a signature dance move to hide your emotions behind an almost salute.

Bellissimo.

‘Lo Che Non Vivo (Senza Te) / You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me‘, by Jack Savoretti.

For sixteen days in February ‘Ciao Ciao‘ was “the one”; the song that would rule the last twelve months and anchor 2022×12. And if you want a strict reading of the rules, perhaps it still is. But there’s one more to go, and it is perhaps the greatest song of all time.

It started in 1965, with Pino Donaggio singing ‘Lo Che Non Vivo (Senza Te)‘ at Sanremo. Also in the competition that year, with a different song, was the great Dusty Springfield… who loved Donaggio’s song so much she managed to grab an acetate recording to bring back to the UK, eventually reworking it as ‘You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me‘.

And in February, Jack Savoretti recorded his version, with the first half being the Italian version and the second half the English version.

On the Italian side, is it Pino Donaggio levels? No. Frankly, that version is seared into my memory and I don’t think it will ever leave me. On the English side Is it Dusty Springfield levels? No. Frankly, nobody can touch Dusty’s version from the NME Poll Winners Party in 1966.

But smashing Italian and English together? Connecting two different masterpieces with unique energy? Savoretti absolutely nails it.