The Best of 2022 Year-End Poll is Now Open!
My favorite post of the year, every year. It never fails that, now even a decade after starting to do these year-end polls, I always go back and can find something new. Or a band comes up and it turns out they’d been included in someone’s list all along. Or even just watching the votes come in throughout the month of December. This is raw fun, as far as I’m concerned. I hope for you too. What’s the point otherwise?
Take however many of your favorite releases of the year you want (up to 20, sorry; gotta draw the line somewhere) and list them below. Careful of spelling, etc. All results are tallied and will be posted on Jan. 2 with everyone’s list. It’s going to be a blast. This has been a great year for music in a wide variety of styles.
That said, whatever you want to include is welcome. Doesn’t have to be heavy, or rock, or whatever. It’s all welcome, and thank you. I can’t wait to see the results.
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Thanks for reading and taking part. Please share the link if you can.
Same rules as always: Anything from Jan. 2022 to whatever’s coming out between now and Dec. 31 is eligible. If something is out digitally now and physical later and you want to include it, do so. Two lists are tabulated; one of the raw votes, and one in which a 1-4 ranking is worth five points, 5-8 worth four, 9-12 worth three, 13-16 worth two and 17-20 worth one.
If you’re not sure what counts or what to include, please know that the intent here is to be as open as possible. In all things, when you can, err on the side of inclusion. If you’re the only person who votes for a thing, so much the better to turn other people onto it.
Persistent, deep gratitude to Slevin — as always — for his efforts setting this up every year. I don’t have a lot of friends. Dude is a treasure, a scholar, and someone I love dearly.
Poll runs until Dec. 31, 2022. Results go up Monday, Jan. 2, 2023, along with all the individual lists.
Tags: Readers Poll, The Obelisk, The Obelisk The Top 20 of 2022 Year-End Poll, The Top 20 of 2022 Year-End Poll
Pleased as I am to see the Poll go up, I also have to ask the question where on earth did that year go.
Yo yo! First time contributor to this poll. I’ve always been intrigued by the obscurity of the overall list over the years. Excited to see what comes of it this year. Is there a confirmation that it has bene received? I clicked submit and nothing happened.
Hey Chris, I’m sorry but I’m not seeing your list in my list of the submissions. If you want to send me yours directly I’ll make sure it gets in. My email is jj (atsign) theobelisk (dot) net.
Every year, I use the final list to pick up some good releases I may have missed. Looking forward to it!
Kinda decided I wouldn’t do a list this year as I didn’t keep up with this year’s albums at all (and I find myself listening ever less to stoner, doom and the likes). But now that the form is up, I’m getting a little restless. Might put one together after all.
Ugh – i went to hit shift to capitalize – and i accidentally hit ‘return’ which submitted my list. I have 1 possibly 2 that are technically releasing in 2023. Also I had only filled out about 25% of the album titles. nuts.
i have a best of 40 list so i was tense anyways… trimming it down
I can delete your list and you can resubmit, if you’d like?
First time contributing, excited to see the results! *fingers crossed for Elder in the top spot, but also eager to discover little/known artists and check them out
So I put the last Apostle of Solitude album on my Top 20, not remembering that it came out at the end of 2021. But I stand by my choice, its a good album!
i love doing polls, while listening to so many fantastic music that came out this year for hours. Filling out your poll did really show me again how good this year was.
Hard to make a decision for 20 and impossible to get them in a proper order. It depends do much on the current mood.
However, now it’s done. Really excited seeing the results. Always nice things to discover there. Impossible to find every gem throughout the year, so these lists really help.
Thank you for your time and fantastic work.
Just found a Spotify playlist from the 2013 end of year list I made. Always love seeing the results and checking out stuff I missed or would have never given a chance. Thanks as always
Hey JJ,
Just wanted to add my thanks for all that you do. The Obelisk is my daily go to for news and maybe a new band or album.
How you find the time and continued enthusiasm I do not know. I often feel swamped just with what I get in from PR’s and Labels for our show, I can’t imagine how your in-box looks.
Pleased to see Fostermother make the Honorable mentions, The Ocean has so much depth to it and is more than a simple doom album.
Already 2023 is shaping up to be stellar with Lord Mountain finally issuing their debut and the small matter of Hail the Void’s second. I look forward to following it on the site.
Peace and goodwill to you and your family.
Mike aka Demoffola
Hey JJ, Ted here from sunny South Africa. Took a chance with All Them Witches – and their monthly release of singles; sort of hoping that it counts as one lovely long ‘album’…
Cheers & thanks.
I really enjoy reading the lists. As stated above it gives me direction to check out records I may have missed and revisit ones that got lost in the melee that was ’22.
There is no wrong answer……
As it seems is an annual tradition, I feel excellent about my top 5, pretty good about 6-11, and 12-50 could have been almost anything. It is shocking to have a year so stacked that King Buffalo, Wo Fat, Valley of the Sun, Elder, and others didn’t make my list but here we are.
As usual I suspect several of my picks will be unique to me; that being said, I am really looking forward to seeing everyone else’s thoughts and lists.
Thank you for all your hard work and for running this lovely little corner of the internet. I appreciate it a ton.
My anxiety prevents me from submitting mine until the last minute and even still I was shuffling the order. …ugh… Not a best of list, but a list of my favorite albums of 2022, which I think I’ll still be listening to in the years to come. I look back a previous years and have forgotten some albums, so my approach was different this year.
Bands who put out albums I also enjoyed this year…
Panzenfaust (thank you), Telekinetic Yeti, Wo Fat, Obiat, No/Mas, Vermin Womb, Temple of Void, Gaerea (again, thanks), Ufomammut, Sonic Flower and Corpsessed.
I spent the first few months of 2022 just catching up on albums from 2021 based on all the year end lists.
Good (riff) god, if’n this doesn’t get more nerve-wracking every year! Luckily there are no losers in this completely arbitrary tomfoolery – if you’re riffin’, we’re winnin’. Looking forward to the results, as ever, and thanks JJ and Slevin, as ever, for all of this.