End of Month List: January 2022

January was packed, personally and musically. I had a lot to do in my personal life, hence the lack of reviews as of late. There was a lot of music released in the month, much more than I could cover. I wrote as much as I could, but that was still a limited amount.

Despite a growing sense of global uncertainty at times, releases were especially sharp across Asia, perhaps to avoid the Chinese New Year. Sometimes, releases grabbed on this sense of uncertainty over the future, while others provided relief from the questions over the future. My top 5 are strong, from a variety of nations and languages. It would also do me good to mention several late 2021 tracks counted for 2022 but not for January that would make the top 5 easily, especially Ninety One's fantastic Darn.

My top five is all-round quite solid, however, it lacks true end-of-the-year material. I am quite sure that none, if only a few, of the songs, would make it into the top five. However, this was quite a consistent month.

Honorable Mentions:

ANSIFLE - D to Alive

Black Country, New Road - Concorde

Black Iris - Head Shot

Boyu - Embers of our Innocence

Charli XCX - Beg For You Ft. Rina Sawayama

deLULU - Music Saved My Soul

H1-Key - Athletic Girl

Hikaru Utada - Bad Mode

Iri - Skyscraper

Johnny's West - Dawn

Kimura Takuya - I'll Be There

Milet - Wake Me Up

Miyavi - Strike it Out

Ninety One - Jurek

ONEWE - Universe

OnlyOneOf - Skinz

P1Harmony - Follow Me

Pentagon - One Shot

SixTONES - Louder

The Rampage - Ray of Light

The Weeknd - Sacrifice, Out of Time

Victon - Chronograph

WJSN Chocome - Supper Yuppers

Woo!Ah! - Catch the Stars

Woozi - Ruby

Yena - Smiley Ft. Bibi

5. Astro (Jinjin & Rocky) - Just Breath

4. The Rampage - Jump

3. Max Changmin - Maniac

2. Mitski - Love Me More

1. Official Hige Dandism - Anarchy

Albums of the Month

Jinjin & Rock - Restore

Reol - The Sixth Sense

The Rampage - Ray of Light

The Weeknd - Dawn FM

Yena - Smiley

Hikaru Utada - Bad Mode

Music Video of the Month

Max Changmin - Maniac

Mitski - Love Me More

Image Source: Wikimedia