Our 100 favourite new Irish songs of the year. With a playlist on the last page after the countdown.
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2022 Best of | Best albums | Best songs | Irish albums | Irish songs | Best Of Podcasts | Guest lists | Best New Irish artists
100.
Rosie Carney
Dad
London-based Donegal artist Rosie Carney ‘s second album i wanna be happy interrogates personal mental health struggles against the backdrop of navigating a musical career in 2022.
Eschewing the more acoustic style heard on 2021 single ‘Party Dress’, ‘Dad’ finds Carney bringing buzzing guitar atmospherics to her sound on a slow-diving shoegazing song a marked contrast to 2019’s Bare and her covers album of Radiohead’s The Bends.
98.
Problem Patterns
YAW
Problem Patterns are just one of a few feminist punk bands from Belfast and they say “[we] are not limited by age or ability or binary identities. We don’t have a front person, swap instruments and roles to ensure that each member of the group has a voice.
‘YAW’ stands for “Yes All Women” and stands up for equality and respect for all women in the wake of the killings of Sarah Everard and Ashling Murphy.
97.
Melts
Maelstrom
From Dublin band Melts 2022 album Maelstrom, ‘Circular’ is the buzz-saw synth rock song that stood out to me on an early listen. I’m a sucker for a good rolling rock bassline. Also, you cannot be mad at comparisons to The Horrors’ Primary Colours era.
95.
Paddy Hanna
Yoko Ono
Paddy Hanna can be a purveyor of Scott Walker-esque songwriting or he can be found writing odd songs about cannibalism or Italian-American crooners.
‘Yoko Ono’ is one of the latter, a name-dropping trip of a song, about imposter syndrome and having an identity crisis, from the artist’s fourth album Imagine I’m Hoping.
“The song started as an improvised rap about Mike love from The Beach Boys, and over time it mutated into a cheerful bop about an identity crisis. There isn’t a day where I don’t feel like an imposter, so why not write a catchy tune about it,” says Paddy.
94.
April
54321
Kildare-born London-based April‘s ‘54321’ is a fresh sound for the artist, a more-underground-spun song with nods to Uk garage and drum’n’bass without losing sight of a pop hook.
‘54321’ was co-written with Matt Maltese and produced by Danny Casio (Joy Crookes, Griff), and takes inspiration from Pinkpantheress.
93.
Æ Mak
Sun God, I’ll Be Your Woman
Æ Mak’s ‘Sun God, I’ll Be Your Woman’ is an otherworldly sun dance of a song, “inspired by Tiamat, primordial goddess of the sea and personification of chaos.”
Described by Aoife McCann as “a bloopy bubble pagan ritual cartoon warrior song,” it also features a prominent kazoo.
“I bought a kazoo in the music shop in Dundalk with the intention of making a big bird kitsch dance tune. I’d been reading about Tiamat, the primordial goddess of chaos, and then got asked to make new work for Body&Soul festival’s Eriu (the Goddess of Ireland) series so it was lovely and serendipitous and I made this bloopy bubble pagan ritual cartoon warrior song.”
92.
Ellen Arthur Blyth
Young Ones
Dublin-based singer-songwriter Ellen Arthur Blyth released this gorgeous classic-sounding song this year on the debut album Nine.
The track has a jazzy Lana Del Rey pop vibe that yearns for better things.
91.
Telefís, Sean O’Hagan
Space Is Us
After the sad passing of Telefís’ Cathal Coughlan in May, news emerged that Coughlan and Jacknife Lee’s Telefís project had a second album, A Dó, coming, that was completed just before the musician died.
‘Space Is Us’ is from the album and features The High Lllama and and Microdisney co-founder Sean O’Hagan on vocals.
…”Cathal’s dying was always a part of these songs. Not literally, but his reflections and explorations of where he came from were examined from this perspective. After his death we could have waited to release the album, and we accepted that we might have to, but now we just want to celebrate Cathal. I want people to know that he was active and working up to the last few days of his life. We were working on more Telefís – writing and planning. There are many layers to Cathal Coughlan. The mischief, the tenderness, and the profound melancholy. It’s all here, and it’s some of his best work. Writing these songs during his illness knowing what lay ahead of him shows his commitment to words and ideas. It’s his life.”
Jacknife Lee
