In 2022, reveals and concert events lastly polka-dotted our calendars once more, and we returned to our common weekend crate digs. And whereas we had been standing within the glow of the stage lights at our favourite venues once more (BS staffers had been regulars on the Georgia Theatre and Tipitina’s) and pawing round at our native report shops (you’ll hear from just a few of the store house owners right here, too), the artists behind our favourite albums emerged from the previous two years in new lights and with new sounds, too.
Anchored in dichotomies of tension and religion, nostalgia and momentum, so many of those information symbolize reimagined futures — an artist shapeshifting genres, a younger musician reinterpreting references past their years, a bunch attempting to make sense of our period’s senselessness, or an unsung singer-songwriter heard a long time later. Their origins vary from a South Georgia barn to the West Texas desert, storied studios to small cities, a Peabody Resort room to the Sahara, New Orleans golf equipment to Nineteen Sixties Peru, however all of them conjure new views from the previous.
Nonetheless a lot of that uncertainty we felt two years in the past stays, particularly because the South confronted turning level elections. Hope doesn’t simply occur; it requires motion and vitality with no assure it is going to be returned. Though many of those albums these ever-relevant information remind us to strive — to search for the sweetness even in ugly circumstances, have a look at the acquainted or taken-for-granted from a distinct angle, give into pleasure regardless of how short-lived, and to simply get on the market and dance.
Possibly a gap verse from our favourite album of 2022 says all of it: “The world is altering / You’ll be able to’t reverse it / The reality is with you / You’ll be able to’t rehearse it / Fake to comprehend it /
It is time to reside it / That is the way you present it / Child, we’re in it.”
We’re in it with you, too.
The Bitter Southerner Crew
