In the beginning of the year, I created a playlist as a music journal to keep a record of songs that caught my ear. Each song carried a memory of how I discovered it, like finding “SMOKE SUM” by Earthgang on someone’s Instagram story, discovering a record like “Wild Child” by the Black Keys from WXPN, having a friend send me “Out of Time” by The Weeknd, paying attention to what’s coming from the local scene like “Ikyfm” by Balmour, or keeping tabs on my favorite artists like Big K.R.I.T.
I’ve been treating my music library like a kid from the 90s adding Pokémon cards to his binders. And now that we’re at the halfway mark of 2022, here’s a roundup of songs that have stood out to me so far within the first half of the year.