The 40 Best Albums of 2022
The gallery on this page contains Metacritic's list of the 40 best-reviewed albums of 2022, ranked by Metascore. This list only includes new albums receiving at least 7 reviews from professional critics.
Otherwise, all full-length studio albums (or mixtapes) released between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022 are eligible, though reissues, live albums, box sets and other compilations are excluded. (Those excluded titles are included in a separate list at the end of the gallery.) Albums are ranked by Metascore prior to rounding based on scores as of December 19, 2022.
(#14) Abel Tesfaye's fifth studio album is not only his best-reviewed release to date; it is one of his most commercially successful records as well, though Tesfaye's decision to boycott the Grammy awards (after a recent snub) means that it didn't get a bump from any nominations. Dawn FM features '80s-inspired dance- and synth-pop with collaborators including Tyler the Creator, Quincy Jones, Oneohtrix Point Never, Max Martin, and Jim Carrey (yes, that Jim Carrey).
“2020s pop music so brilliantly crafted that it causes you to realise how much other 2020s pop music is makeweight.” —The Guardian