As I mentioned in my 2021 Product & Service Recommendations, I primarily use Plex + Plexamp for listening to music (and Marvis Pro on the go), and track listens in Last.fm. I listen to podcasts in Overcast.fm.

I’ll cover a little bit about my listening habits, then share top albums and top podcasts.

Music Overview

Here’s a rough map of my top genres over the year:

If none of those genres are of interest to you, you may just want to skip down to podcasts, otherwise you’re going to be scratching your head (or even recoiling) at a bunch of “weird music”.

And here were the top 20 artists:

Thanks to last.fm and tuneR, I can see that three bands were new to my top 20 this year: clipping., Silent Planet, and Joyhauser.

I got tuned in to clipping. via a friend on Bandcamp, but as I mentioned in my 2021 Watching recommendations, became a fan after watching their NPR (actually!) Tiny Desk Concert. If you start to watch the video and are like “wait, I know him”, then you’re probably right. Hamilton, Snowpiercer, and Central Park are just a few of Daveed Diggs’s major credits.

Silent Planet has been a fave of mine for a while, so I’m surprised this was the first time they broke the top 20. In addition to making great music, frontman Garrett Russell is a brilliant lyricist, delving passionately and intelligently into political and spiritual themes. (You may remember I’m slowly working on a readthrough of all the books referenced in just one of their tracks.)

Joyhauser is simply great thumping beats for when you need to focus or keep moving.

Albums

Unlike my other reviews, I restricted my specific album recommendations to ones that were released this year, so as to not have an overwhelming list.

On Bandcamp

• Aquilus - Bellum I: black metal, neo-folk
• Boys Noize - +/-: techno, industrial
• clipping. - Wriggle (Expanded): hip-hop, industrial hip-hop, horror
• Dave Quam - Greasemania Vol 3: experimental, electronic
• Dawn of Ashes - Blood of Titans (Remixes): industrial, aggrotech
• Drumcorps - For the Living: breakcore, experimental
• Faderhead - Years of the Serpent: industrial, ebm
• Gelassenheit - Gelassenheit: black metal, christian
• Gelassenheit - …Don Thyself in the Armor ov God: black metal, christian
• Hollywood Burns - The Age of Saucers: soundtrack (to nothing), synth
• Heliocentric - Ishmael: metalcore, djent
• Keygen Church - ░█░█░░█░█░█░: electronic, black metal
• Noise Unit - Deviator: ebm
• Spiritbox - Eternal Blue: metalcore, djent
• TesseracT - Portals: progressive metal, prog rock
• Thou - Hightower: sludge, doom
• Violence - Opus I: industrial, metal, crossover
• Virtual Terrorist - Gutter Mixes Vol 2: industrial, noise

Honorable Mentions that are not on Bandcamp (boo!)

• Between the Buried and Me - Colors II: progressive metal, jazz metal
  • Note: some of their music is on bandcamp, but not this album, yet. Likely a problem with their current label
• Bo Burnham - Inside: humor, satire
  • Note: I also referenced the special in my 2021 Watching Recommendations
• Demon Hunter - Songs of Death and Resurrection: non-metal-versions-of-their-metal-tracks
• For King & Country - Burn the Ships Deluxe Edition: gospel, pop
• Silent Planet - Iridescent: metalcore, homework core

Podcasts

• The Ezra Klein Show: deep conversations on topics of the political economy
• Just Plain Wrong: hilarious reviews of Amish fiction, from 3 Mennonite librarians
• The Peter Attia Drive: health science interviews and deep dives, I am a paid subscriber
• Risky Business: cybersecurity news
• Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!: a comedic game show about the week’s news