As we unearth new tunes from artists around the globe, we love to shine the high beams of our Local Spotlight series on the beautiful noise emerging from Northeast Florida. This year, our team reviewed more than five dozen releases from Jacksonville artists. (That’s more than one new song per week!) Before we close out 2022, we wanted to make …
Toni Smailagic’s Favorite Albums of 2022
As we spin the final grooves of 2022, JME Contributors are recapping their favorite music of the year. Just when I thought I had my list of favorite albums set in stone, SZA dropped perhaps the best record of the year with the release of her sobering sophomore effort in December. Don’t get me wrong, RENAISSANCE is by far my …
Rain Henderson’s Favorite Albums of 2022
As we spin the final grooves of 2022, JME Contributors are recapping their favorite music of the year. My listening habits tend to be littered with repetition. I’ll find one song or one album and let that sucker play over and over (and over) for days, sometimes weeks. If a sound clicks with me in a moment of time, it …
Daniel A. Brown’s Favorite Albums of 2022
As we spin the final grooves of 2022, JME Contributors are recapping their favorite music of the year. In 2002, the music world, like the overall planet, continued to dust off the feared-eschatological wipeout of the Covid pandemic. For millions, collective trauma and survivors’ relief were parlayed into music consumption. Bandcamp Friday continued to make the rest of the week …
Matthew Shaw’s Favorite Albums of 2022
As we spin the final grooves of 2022, JME Contributors are recapping their favorite music of the year. My approach to music listening reminds me of the way former Daily Show host Jon Stewart used the action of a youth soccer match as an analogy for the short-attention span of cable news. In essence, the entire rosters of both teams …
Al Pete’s Favorite Albums of 2022
As we spin the final grooves of 2022, JME Contributors are recapping their favorite music of the year. Let me begin with two recurring thoughts. 1) I kept saying to myself “A lot of albums came out this year,” and 2) R&B, or what some may classify as alternative R&B was a constant in my 2022 rotation. Music had special …
Carissa Marques’ Favorite Albums of 2022
As we spin the final grooves of 2022, JME Contributors are recapping their favorite music of the year. Each year feels like a marathon trying to keep up with the newest music and catching up with the hits I missed from the year prior. This year, I found myself listening to albums as a way to try and grow closer …
The Best Roots Music of 2022
In 2022, artists working within the orbit of the unstable category “roots music” got personal even as they explored complex cultural lineages and continued to challenge the rules of established scenes and forms. Before any tradition is solidified, it travels from hand to hand, heart to heart. Whether pushing the boundaries of mainstream country, demanding an expanded vision of traditional …
The 10 Best Classical Albums of 2022
As many Americans step out and reconnect to a version of what their musical lives were before the pandemic, I remain, stubbornly, at home. No, I don’t have “cave syndrome,” but I’ve not had COVID and I want to keep it that way. My last concert was March 8, 2020, when I gleefully let the sounds of Third Coast Percussion …
The 20 Best R&B Albums of 2022
In Washington, D.C., locals convene at Songbyrd Music House to discuss the merits of Tevin Campbell and Raphael Saadiq during R&B club, a monthly gathering for some of the genre’s devotees, taking deep dives into its rich history. The event was created by a few enthusiastic music people to wrangle and rally the supporters for a thing often wrongly presumed …