The 25 most disappointing albums of 2022

For a time, it seemed that Calvin Harris had no ceiling. He could make solo hits, be the producer on worldwide smashes, or be the man responsible for numerous superstar collaborations, and everything would be mega-platinum successful. His 2017 record Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1 was riddled with hits, briefly putting Katy Perry back on the pop charts and giving Frank Ocean some top-40 cred. After five years of waiting for a new edition in the series, we finally got Vol. 2 and were left with a simple question: What the hell happened?

Despite featuring an unbeatable roster of VIPs, this Funk Wav doesn't have a lot of bounce, as every single song is stuck in this summery mid-tempo groove. On the first volume, the vibes were immaculate, and the large array of sounds made for a breezy pop confection. Still, this new edition has grooves that bleed into each other, rendering every track anonymous and wasting the talent of many involved. Unexpectedly, Charlie Puth best understands the assignment, going full Michael McDonald on "Obsessed" with the help of Jamaican rapper Shenseea. It works for the vibe, but one single highlight does not a good album make. Unfortunately, Harris finally found his ceiling. 

When you're the biggest rapper in the world, it's hard for anything to bruise your image. While Pusha T landed some lyrical blows during the duo's frequent feuding in 2018, nothing seemed to bother Drake more than the reception to his 2021 record Certified Lover Boy. Sure, it was a global No. 1, and he occupied nine spots on the Billboard Hot 100 top 10 in an unprecedented feat (later bested by Taylor Swift), but the poor reception to the album got to Drake, who had something to prove. 

For 2022's Honestly, Nevermind, Drake kind of made a dance album with repeated lyrics, unevolved beats, and a frustrating tempo that hovered between mid and high but couldn't reconcile either. It received reviews that, to summarize charitably, called it overconfident and underbaked. While it did top the charts, it's clear that the response got him so upset that he had to resort to sending salty DMs to YouTube critic Anthony Fantano to save face. It backfired horrifically (why single out one critic when you spend most of your time ignoring them?), so Drake tried to save face with a collaborative album with 21 Savage just a few months later. Her Loss fared better than Honestly, Nevermind, but even with a more positive-to-mixed response from fans, it suddenly became clear to everyone that the biggest rapper in the world may no longer be at the peak of his powers. 

Matty Healy has never been afraid to wear his pretentiousness on his sleeve, and his bold admission to his absurdity has meant that the music of The 1975 is at times boundary-breaking and, at times, absolutely insufferable. While the group's fifth studio album, Being Funny in a Foreign Language, was meant to be a concise set of songs that shied away from past indulgences, their attempts to pare down their excesses resulted in a release that's surprisingly spineless. 

The ballads are shockingly generic. The surefire pop moments "Happiness" and "I'm In Love With You" are filled with hollow sentiments (but we won't lie, we've still played them several times over), and if we're being honest, we kind of miss the band's more indulgent side. Producer Jack Antonoff does sometimes challenge the group to defy type and form, resulting in a few brilliant tracks like the string-heavy "Part of the Band," but a few great songs do not a great album make, leaving us wondering why Healy and Co. are trying so hard to be funny if all it results is a record as self-serious as this.

The creation of 18 was born out of the boredom that guitar god Jeff Beck and embattled actor Johnny Depp were feeling during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The duo took to the studio to try out a series of covers and a few originals. While the album was dismissed mainly due to the increasing toxicity of Depp's trial involving ex-partner Amber Heard, the truth is that 18 is simply a dull record. 

While Beck can still fire off a blitzing guitar solo over a take on The Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs" like nobody else, Depp's dour and flat vocal takes sink any investment even a casual fan could have in this project. Depp has never earned his stripes as a musician, as the band he formed with Alice Cooper and Joe Perry, Hollywood Vampires, has always been mocked for being an unimaginative and generic boys club despite their pedigree. Beck comes out of 18 relatively unscathed, giving committed performances almost despite the circumstances. After all, this was his first studio record in six years. It may have started well-intentioned, but it's easy to see the disappointment on fans' faces when it became intrinsically tied to Depp's more notorious public moments.

On paper, the combined talents of The Shins' James Mercer and clever hip-hop-turned-rock producer Danger Mouse seem like it could result in some interesting music, but so far, their albums released under the band name Broken Bells haven't featured any significant bite. While the duo's 2010 debut sold well and appealed to some "mainstream indie rock" appetites, the band has never released music that feels essential. After disappearing for eight years, Broken Bells finally returned with Into the Blue, and fans didn't get the memo. Unlike the group's previous releases, which debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, this full-length failed even to chart. 

In listening to Into the Blue, it's easy to see why: produced so cleanly, it's deprived of any personality, Broken Bells seems content releasing songs that drift into anonymity, failing to make bold moves or any significant musical or lyrical risk worth mentioning. Every track has a more interesting counterpart elsewhere. The '70s AM radio throwback "Love On the Run"? Try a Young Gun Silver Fox record for some more sincerity. The dry acoustics and dusty drums of "Forgotten Boy"? Try, well, the first two Broken Bells records. This truly is in-one-ear-out-the-other music, and these two talented musicians somehow feel compelled to keep making it.

As one of the elder statesmen of rock and roll, Bruce Springsteen has permission to do whatever he wants. His late-era releases often receive unqualified praise from legacy print music publications like Rolling Stone, but in the case of his soul-covers album Only the Strong Survive, The Boss was not drowning in critical hosannas for once. 

Springsteen's love of classic Motown and Stax classics has long been evident in his songwriting, but as is always the case with a covers record, we have to ask what's being added to the table. While his grizzled voice and blue-collar spirit make sense for cuts like "Nightshift" by the Commodores, his renditions rarely feel essential. It can be seen as a fun vamp of a record, not unlike when Phil Collins makes his tourist runs through the great soul songbook, but Springsteen and producer Ron Aniello make everything shiny and muted. The pristine production sometimes leaves Springsteen's vocal performances as an unimpressive afterthought. Specifically, on tracks like "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)," the backing vocalists offer spirited performances that point to what could've been. Only the Strong Survive isn't a bad record, but for the first time in a good while, it feels like an inessential entry into The Boss' discography.

What is Liam Gallagher's musical identity? Three albums into his solo career, we're still not fully sure. Yes, the former Oasis singer indulges some good old-fashioned Britpop guitar stylings, but his records have had some strange dance-pop dalliances wherein pop and rock flirt but never fully make the connection. While his albums will always reliably top the charts in his native U.K., none of his records have had the same impact as Oasis or, if we're being honest, even his post-Noel side-project Beady Eye. 

While Liam has stuck with his collaborators of super-producer Greg Kurstin and songwriter Andrew Wyatt yet again for his third go-round, C'mon You Know, some of these tracks feel like fading photocopies of other Liam Gallagher albums. Lead single "Everything's Electric" rocks enough to earn some radio play but proves fairly unmemorable. Even the children's choir that opens up "More Power" can't escape the same staid Liam Gallagher song structures. 

So why is one of the album's best tracks — a fuzzed-out rocker (with lucid Chamberlin keyboards) called "Wave" — relegated to a mere Deluxe Edition add-on? Speaking bluntly about our public perception of him ("My brother don't like me / He's said it beforе / Who threw the first stone? / Yеah, and who's keeping score?"), it's as lurid as it is exciting and points out how much the rest of C'mon You Know lacks in drama and commitment. There's hope for Liam's solo career, but only if he bothers to invest in it.

On paper, it's brilliant. The film Minions: The Rise of Gru primarily takes place in the 1970s, so for the soundtrack, super-producer Jack Antonoff figured that rounding up a glut of contemporary stars to cover hits of the era would result in instant success. It's a good instinct, but something got fumbled so badly in the execution that all we can blame it on is meddling by the Minions themselves. 

Every track has some strange sabotage to it. St. Vincent's take on "Funkytown" is lost in its own vocal effects, and Antonoff's band, Bleachers, does a strangely shouty/lo-fi rendition of "Instant Karma!" The Grammycore professionalism of H.E.R.'s version of "Dance to the Music" features all the bells and whistles but no breathing room for fans to have fun organically. Strangely, rap collective Brockhampton's revisionist version of Kool & The Gang's "Hollywood Swinging" surprisingly retains the spirit of the original, but it's one of the few highlights in a candy-coated album full of nothing but empty nostalgic calories.

Already one of the world's biggest K-pop acts, it was clear that whatever Blackpink's big comeback single sounded like, it would be a massive success. While "Pink Venom" became a streaming sensation, the quartet of Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé, and Lisa probably weren't expecting a lot of fans to react to the new song by demanding they fire producer Teddy Park. While the musical mastermind behind the giant hits of legendary acts like 2NE1 and BIGBANG was also the chief architect of Blackpink's plant-conquering sound, "Pink Venom" felt off. It was atonal in a way that most self-serious songs of the Girl Crush movement were not. 

Follow-up single "Shut Down" ended up being a sea shanty, and by the time parent album Born Pink was released, many fans noted musical similarities between album cuts like "Typa Girl" to solo songs by member Lisa. Born Pink wasn't a disaster so much as it was a disappointment for their adoring fans, as solid throwback pop-rock numbers like "Yeah Yeah Yeah" got drowned out by the Teddy Park-ness of their lead singles. The girls will be successful no matter what they release, and given the response to Born Pink, maybe they should consider mixing things up a bit.

Having rapidly risen from indie-rock obscurity to Grammy- and chart-dominating popularity, Canadian stadium rockers Arcade Fire serve as a mirror (or reflektor?) that you can project a narrative onto. With 2017's disco-tastic Everything Now, it was about switching to a major label and selling out their sound for easy pop hits. For 2022's WE, their first new album in five years, it was about their return to form and how maybe indie rock is back after all. Some were ready to jump onto the bandwagon and relive the glory days of cathartic release via anthemic singalongs. In contrast, others had fully subscribed to the view that 2004's Funeral was Arcade Fire's only good record and nothing else they released mattered. 

In truth, WE evenly fits both positions, as it does lob off their pop excess in favor of time signature changes and elaborate, introspective production, but it's not the instant-classic knockout the band was hoping for. Then, in August 2022, multiple women accused frontman Win Butler of sexual misconduct, with another stepping forward in November. Butler apologized for certain behaviors while already-booked tour openers like Beck and Feist quickly hopped off the bills, suddenly leaving all talk about the band at year-end about anything but the record. While the music contained in WE may outlast the scandal, we don't see the band doing the same. 

The London-based collective that is Superorganism found instant success with their Fever Ray-by-way-of-The Go! Team-meets-Diplo sound that was excessive in all the best ways. Their choruses were over-caffeinated, their productions stuffed with too many details, and the vibe of their self-titled debut was one of beautifully chaotic indulgence. So for sophomore record World Wide Pop, the group decided to expand their formula and give us more of everything. Unfortunately, this was a grave miscalculation. 

While their debut was charming, World Wide Pop is straight-up annoying. Their verses are too excited to get to the chorus, so smash-cut vocals are tossed in at unexpected places to supposedly keep listeners engaged. Synths don't whir so much as screech, and every vocal effect you can imagine is used throughout the same song. We're not going to lie: World Wide Pop is a fascinating record because every artistic decision feels incorrect, and like an alt-pop car crash, we can't look away. Superorganism wanted to add excess to their excess, resulting in an indie-pop confection that's too rich for anyone's blood.

If you worked in legacy media, 2022 was the year to praise Japanese-British pop star Rina Sawayama. Already a favorite of the alternative-pop crowd after her 2020 debut album, it's understandable why anticipation for her sophomore release was fever-pitch. The New York Times called her "a genre-clashing, deep-thinking pop star," while Pitchfork gave her the title of "pop therapist." If you read the reviews of her new album Hold the Girl, you'd think that Sawayama was on equal critical and commercial keel with the likes of Robyn, but had anyone talked to actual Rina Sawayama fans, this new record doesn't hold a candle to her debut.

 Even with fan service references to Shania Twain and Britney Spears (both within the song "This Hell"), there's something off with Sawayama's overt pop gestures this time out. Is she going too pop? Is the Michelle Branch-esque strumming of "Catch Me in the Air" too painfully mid? Why sit down with a lush fatalistic torch song like "Forgiveness" when we have the new Weyes Blood full-length within arms reach? Hold the Girl is far from a bad album, but with everyone telling her she's the future of pop music, Sawayama may have started to believe the hype herself and, unfortunately, to her detriment. Hold the Girl still performed well enough, but we're hoping her next album sounds more like Rina Sawayama and less like what the music journalists want her to be.

While K-pop dominates Korean popular music, some rock bands have managed to insert themselves into the cultural conversation, with groups like Day6, F.T. Island, and CNBLUE finding some degree of notoriety in the past few years. Signed to JYP Entertainment (who already have Day6 on their roster), Xdinary Heroes premiered in late 2021 before dropping a pair of EPs in 2022. They had some success and won some awards, but when it came time for the label to give out the band's official fandom name, they went with "Villains," which confused the fans 'cos they didn't see themselves opposing the group whatsoever. This kind of head-scratching move pointed to the truth few dare say: Xdinary Heroes are not that good.

This band plays a very specific brand of amped-up, Vegas-residency rock music that's as ineffectual as it is inoffensive. While the band's songs are commendably made without outside input, this insular process means that no one can point out how hackneyed their riffs are, how unimaginative the chorus is to "Knock Down," and how annoying the hook to "Test Me" is. While K-pop has always made room for K-rock acts, few of them have truly thrived, and the introduction of Xdinary Heroes only makes us wish this trend continues.

The last time the Red Hot Chili Peppers put out a double album, it was with 2006's Stadium Arcadium, which felt like a beautiful culmination of the strengths of another John Frusciante era and featured huge hits like "Dani California" and "Snow (Hey Oh)." For 2022's Return of the Dream Canteen, this double album felt like ... a whole bunch of leftovers. In this instance, that's because they were: 75 minutes of material cut during the same sessions as their earlier 2022 record, Unlimited Love. 

Rick Rubin has produced all of the full-lengths so far mentioned, but his presence doesn't help rectify the fact that Dream Canteen doesn't have any of the power, pump, or luster of their 2006 peak. It's not that the record is soulless; there's nothing new to consume. Outside of some notably weird elements on closer "In the Snow," Dream Canteen feels born out of jam sessions: a funky time with friends wherein the end product has no polish or consideration. Even letting Frusciante run wild on their Eddie Van Halen tribute track isn't enough to lift our spirits. This Canteen should've been spiked with something a little stronger. 

Kentucky-born rapper Jack Harlow had been releasing singles for years before 2020's "What's Poppin" came out of nowhere to become one of that year's most unexpected rap hits, and following a memorable guest verse on Lil Nas X's 2021 chart-topper "Industry Baby," the stage was set for Jack Harlow to go supernova. While Fergie-sampling single "First Class" did occupy the Billboard Hot 100 penthouse, the release of Harlow's sophomore album was a stunning affair. Everyone saw all of the buzz around the would-be wunderkind die down within a few weeks. The truth is that Come Home the Kids Miss You is a straight-up bad record. 

Yes, the beats are remarkably bland across the board, but what hurts is the lyrics. Maybe it was spending too much time with Drake, but sometime after his Lil Nas X verse, Harlow was convinced he had to be taken seriously as a dramatic rapper. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the skills to execute this pivot, as his attempts to be shocking come off as grade-school sophomoric ("She a vegan, but she still try and eat ya boy," he spits on "Young Harleezy"). While his Saturday Night Live stint at least proved he wasn't a total charisma vacuum, this album felt like Harlow broke off his dopey and endearing personality to pursue platinum certifications. All this move did was derail his hype train.

Wilco is a band who are greatly helped by having a mythos. Born out of the ashes of alt-country figureheads Uncle Tupelo, Jeff Tweedy's group started doing their brand of country before increasingly dunking their heads in experimental waters, turning them into generational indie rock legends. It's no mistake that 2022 not only saw the overstuffed 20th-anniversary edition of their landmark record Yankee Hotel Foxtrot hit shelves but also a brand new double album called Cruel Country. While the latter did get some nice praise from critics, it also came and went without much fanfare. 

Recorded "on the floor" in the band's Chicago studio, there's a sweet earnestness to Tweedy's introspective return to country, but in recording this album with minimal overdubs, these 21 tracks have a bad tendency to bleed into each other without much effort made to distinguish them. The whole record rides a slightly below-midtempo pace, and the breathy presentation here proves underwhelming. While "Many Worlds" has a distinct icy coldness and the second single, "Tired of Taking It Out On You," shows there's still some pep in their step, Cruel Country is a genre experiment that is pleasant but far from essential. Cruel Country may share some DNA with their 1995 debut, A.M., but these two records share something else: they are the only Wilco studio records that failed to chart on the Billboard 200. Cruel, indeed.

Machine Gun Kelly is self-conscious of how he's perceived, but that doesn't automatically mean he's in on the joke. "I heard the feedback: I'm a poser / With a guitar and a choker / Hidin' under sunglasses / I made an album, they hate the tracklist," he sings on the title track to his latest pop-punk foray Mainstream Sellout , once again produced by Blink-182-drummer-turned-rock-revivalist-figurehead Travis Barker. Much like his 2020 record Tickets to My Downfall, Kelly tries his best to make a contemporary spin on that early 2000s Warped Tour scene, but his blunt singing voice and unimaginative songs leave so much to desire. "Write it in blood, and we both sign / Sid and Nancy in murder-suıcide," sings MGK in "Sid & Nancy," a song that wants to be fatalistically cool but can't get the history it's referencing right. People can criticize his music all they want, but Kelly is immune to feedback, as he's still topping the charts with his distinct brand of watered-down bad-boy posturing.

JVKE (Jacob Lawson) isn't the only "TikTok musician" out there in the world, but he does at least feel like one of the most significant. Having gone viral multiple times throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, with his clever mom-react videos to musical trends, he was eventually able to pivot to creating original songs, which led to collaborations with the likes of Charlie Puth and Galantis. This is what ____ feels like (Vol. 1-4) is a compilation of old and new tracks, with most of them going the full TikTok route by clocking in under three minutes.

There are some clever production tricks used on songs like "moon and back" and some great melodies to be found on singles like "this is what falling in love feels like," but as someone who's received nothing but praise on social media, no one's been around to point out just how godawful some of Lawson's lyrics are. "I know you double-crossed me / Girl, you're such a fake / What a shame / Guess my lover was a snake," goes one line, which is left simply begging for revision, especially after he repeats it six times ad nauseum. Make no mistake: there's a lot of promise to JVKE's musicality, but he has a long way to go as a songwriter before he's treated as a musician instead of a mere "TikTok crossover success."

The Game has always had a chip on his shoulder, but he also hasn't had a hit in years. Somehow convinced he's one of the greatest rappers, he was hoping his 30-track opus DRILLMATIC Heart Vs. Mind would prove to be the thing that puts him in the top-five rappers conversation, but in a cruel twist of fate, it's only put him in the lower rungs. 

The album's most successful cut was his Kanye West collaboration "Easy," which gained infamy for the music video's violent treatment of Pete Davidson. Then, his 10-minute diss track against Eminem ("The Black Slim Shady") arched a lot of eyebrows for being unnecessary and, at times, nonsensical ("Lost my taste and my smell / I got Omarion"). Perhaps most frustrating about this affair is that The Game sometimes feels inspired, like on "Voodoo," where he recounts growing up in poverty in grim but powerful detail. Yet with a nearly two-hour run time and a complete lack of focus,  DRILLMATIC is hard to swallow, and, even worse, it's harder to take seriously.

The truth that fans of Arctic Monkeys have to accept is that this English quartet is no longer a rock band. While frontman Alex Turner has always shown his penchant for orchestral pop, best evidenced by his long-running Last Shadow Puppets side-project with Miles Kane, the release of the Monkey's 2018's Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino showed that the group's trajectory was forever changed. The Car continues to indulge Turner's lounge-pop obsession, keeping rock guitars at bay in favor of boozy piano, retro keyboards, and many a string section. 

While some fans may understandably pine for the Monkey's wilder, rockier era, the problem with The Car is that even awash in Turner's heart-wrenching lyrics, the whole record rides a fairly maudlin tempo with little variation, causing all the songs to somewhat blur together. Turner seems to reference the group's turns on "Big Ideas," noting, "I had big ideas, the band were so excited / The kind you'd rather not share over the phone / But now, the orchestra's got us all surrounded / And I cannot for the life of me remember how they go." Sounds about right.

There's a certain sense of inevitability that came attached to Marcus Mumford's debut solo album, and quite frankly, it sounds exactly like you'd expect it to: quiet, hushed acoustic songs with the occasional break for Tom Petty-indebted mid-tempo rocker. Following Mumford & Sons' last album in 2018 and the dismissal of increasingly-right-wing banjoist Winston Marshall in 2021, it makes sense that Mumford himself would have some feelings to work through. Even with some sprightly and surprising arrangements, (self-titled) feels deeply ornamental. 

This is mainly due to Mumford's lyrics, which often dance around profundity but end up being so non-committal they come off as confusing ("Yeah, some hell's put a peace on me," he quixotically offers during "Better Off High"). It's a fine enough folk-rock album, but if intended as a lark/side project, he deserves some credit because that's exactly the vibe it gives off.

Before 2010, Chicago was home to a fantastic rock revivalist band called Smith Westerns. They had heaps of praise and buzz, but after three albums of punchy college radio staples, they called it a day. Out of the Marshall amp ashes, members Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek decided to form a new project in the form of Whitney, and the hushed, folk-pop sounds of debut album Light Upon the Lake made them immediate indie darlings. They carried on in this vein for their next few releases, but "Real Love," the single for new record SPARK, found the group leaning more heavily into electronics and digital production, which confused some die-hard fans. 

While SPARK features fewer acoustic guitars and naturalist instrumentation than their last records, it still sounds like a Whitney record, albeit one largely drained of the warmth and charm that helped launch them into prominence. Tracks like "Never Crossed My Mind" invoke the soulful stylings of playlists past, but with too many repetitive melodies, colorless production, and a lack of artistic inertia, this is one dull SPARK. 

London R&B songbird Ella Mai came out of nowhere with her 2018 single "Boo'd Up," going mega-platinum in no time. A prodigy under the great DJ Mustard, Mai ate up her moment, as follow-up single "Trip" was also hit, leading her to make guest turns on records by Ed Sheeran and Meek Mill. Yet waiting four years to follow up your debut can seem like an eternity in pop music, and when Heart on My Sleeve finally arrived in 2022, radio had largely moved on from Mai's brand of soulful heartbreak. This new record isn't bad, but it covers almost every sound, tone, and emotion featured in her self-titled debut. 

Even with rising talent like Latto and Roddy Ricch present, it's remarkable to hear how little Mai's sound has changed over four years. While it's understandable not to want to shake things up if the formula was already working, Heart on My Sleeve feels like it was designed to be a safe bet. Too safe, even.

Turn on the Bright Lights, Interpol's legendary brood of a debut album, turned 20 years old this year. The New York City-bred post-rock titans can hang their careers on that one incredible record, and sadly, as the decades pass, that is almost entirely what has happened. It's not that Interpol is a bad group or that there aren't some genuine bangers off of sophomore record Antics ("Evil" hive rise up), but with a debut album so lionized, each new full-length is judged against it — perhaps somewhat unfairly. It doesn't help that the band's sound has remained fairly consistent throughout their entire career. Despite the band cultivating an especially fervent Latin-American fanbase, The Other Side of Make-Believe, unfortunately, is "just another" Interpol album. The tempos are essentially the same, the guitars feature all the same grit, and vocalist Paul Banks sounds as Paul Banks-y as ever. It's serviceable rock music, but they still have difficulty getting out from under its shadow nearly two decades after their iconic debut.

Let's be clear: "That That," this year's new Psy song featuring Suga from BTS, is a dynamite dance-pop confection. An immediate smash that outperformed many of Psy's lead singles over the last several years showed that even after turning into a label head, the global K-pop superstar still has a golden touch. Unfortunately, that's where all the praise of his ninth studio album ends. 

The rest of this full-length has a cavalcade of incredible guests (Hwa Sa, Jessi) but beats that are either tired (the too-slow trap of "Ganji") or too schmaltzy ("Celeb," "Happier") to be effective. While Psy could usually pop off at least two decent lead singles for his records, Psy 9th is a painfully unimaginative full-length that just so happens to be buoyed by a new all-time classic. On a good day, we might have favorable things to say about his EDM pastiche "Everyday," but if you've heard "That That," you've heard all you need to. His "9th Symphony" this is not.