Last Updated on January 12, 2023, 11:58 AM | Published: December 27, 2022
2022 was a giant year for music in Oklahoma City.
I know that’s what every music writer in practically every city in America will say in the endless flood of “year in review” pieces for their local scenes, but this year seriously was something special for music in this city.
- The punk and hardcore scene saw new venues, loads of new bands, and a renewed respect on the national touring circuit with places like The Sanctuary leading the way.
- The folk and alt-country scenes saw a new level of love and praise from critics and tastemakers with Jason Scott and the High Heat making major waves.
- The OKC rap game saw a near-constant stream of thoughtful, heavy-hitting releases that have started to create a real identity and character for our hip-hop game like never before.
- The legendary Blue Note got a long-needed overhaul both in its construction and in its caliber and breadth of artists, reclaiming its place among the city’s best venues.
- And of course, the local metal scene produced one of the biggest breakouts we’ve seen in years, from possibly one of the very last acts that anyone would have expected.
I don’t know how to narrow down this year’s incredible collection of artists, albums, or songs into a list of “bests” or “favorites.” There is just too much to love, and I would only end up feeling bad for leaving out too many massive talents.
So instead, allow me to tell you about my very favorite moments in OKC music from this year, be them album releases, single performances or even continuing moments in time.
This was 2022.
Chat Pile Explodes
Right out of the gate, surely the single biggest development in Oklahoman music this year was the gigantic, international explosion of one of our very own, homegrown bands.
But seriously, Chat Pile?!
Of all the bands floating around all the scenes in OKC, I doubt that anyone expected this brutal, noisy, and decidedly irreverent metal outfit to be the one that suddenly popped.
But to me, it couldn’t possibly be more deserved.
It already feels like a hundred years ago that I got an email from a local weirdo metal band asking me to check out their upcoming album.
I loved it immediately, with all of its stylistic adventurousness and refusal to be precious with the genre. The almost impossibly natural combination of social consciousness, outright nihilism, and surrealist humor made it one of the most creative records I’d heard in a while.
But it also made it feel so singular and strange that I would never have pegged it to become such an urgent and timely smash hit, showing up on Rolling Stone, Spin, and even Jeff Tweedy’s list of favorites.
At a time when subtlety has died, homelessness has become an epidemic, and political gaps are swallowing us all whole, someone simply demanding an answer to “why do people have to live outside?” sent a necessary shockwave around the world.
Nia Moné at the opening night of Beer City Music Hall
People talk about OKC metal, OKC rap, OKC punk, and even OKC jazz, but we need way more people talking about the soul and R&B coming out of this city.
When the Tower/Ponyboy team finally launched the long-awaited, much-needed mid-level addition to their venue collection, Beer City Music Hall, they decided that the first act on the stage would be one of their own.
Nia Moné had been a staff member with the team, working box office or helping with logistics and whatnot, but that night, during that surprise performance, she was a superstar.
Backed up by a masterfully tight and effortlessly grooving band (including Sarafina Byrd, herself another of OKC’s standout soul stars) Moné tore the brand new roof off the place in front of a packed opening night crowd.
The entire night’s surprise lineup was fantastic, but it was Nia Moné’s performance that announced to everyone just how Beer City was going to change the way that people saw the OKC music scene.
Less than a year on, it’s already happening.
Big Questions = Big Results for OKC Rappers
This one is more of an ongoing cultural moment than a single event or release, but it’s been one of my favorite developments in the city’s music this year.
OKC’s rap game has been a force to be reckoned with for a while, but in 2022, it was all about getting real and asking some pretty heavy, soul-searching questions.
- Josh Sallee asked how someone can go on after some serious failure and disillusionment on his album “Flamingo.”
- Mars Deli asked how you go on after a crushing breakup on “Pink Palace.”
- Rodrick Malone asked how you go on after dealing with death in some of the most devastating and personal ways on “Grandma’s Boy.”
Truthfully, all three of those releases would be in the running for my favorite local albums this year. Each one examines its question in such a unique and artist-specific way, and each comes across beautifully and personally in a way that you honestly just don’t get from hip-hop often enough.
And then to put a perfect bow on this “big questions” trend within the city’s rap game, reigning king Jabee dropped his multi-EP project “Am I Good Enough?”, four mini-releases examining questions of identity and ability in the fallout of COVID and massive social upheaval.
These are all landmark releases for OKC’s rap scene, and every one of them is worth your time to dig into.
Here’s hoping that this trend of earnest, bones-and-all introspection continues for awhile. We all need to be asking those big questions right now.
True Prog Revival
This is a short one, and maybe just a personal one for me, but I can’t express how much I love seeing real, classic-style prog rock coming out of OKC.
2022 saw two huge releases for any diehard of genre legends like Rush, Yes, King Crimson, and ELP.
First, Local Man Ruins Everything dropped their self-titled effort early in the year, zeroing in on the exact combo of head-spinning musicianship and unexpectedly effective melody that the best prog acts always nailed.
Then, shortly after, Shift dropped the album “Timelines,” and somehow mashed together 70’s prog classical virtuosity and 80’s prog cerebral weirdness into one of the year’s absolute best and most confident local releases.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor at Tower Theatre
In a year full of unexpected musical moments for this city, nothing came as quite as big of a shock as the world’s most sprawling, mysterious, and beloved post-rock collective finally playing in Oklahoma.
Legend goes that the famously anti-authoritarian and openly anarchistic Godspeed had an unfortunate and wholly undue run-in with Oklahoma law many years ago that resulted in the band vowing to never perform in the state.
On November 1st this year, they broke that vow in one of the best Tower gigs I’ve ever seen.
The sound was perfect. The audience was quiet, respectful, and rapt. The energy from the band was crushing and powerful.
Kudos to the Tower team for pulling it off, and here’s hoping that it’s not the only time we get to see them in the state.
Sisteria “Dark Matter” release show at Ponyboy
Sisteria are my friends. This much is true.
It’s also true that they are one of the tightest, most intense, and most exciting bands on the scene today.
Believe me when I tell you that’s not bias or nepotism. It’s absolute love for their darkly witchy brand of folk-tinged doom metal and for their ability to absolutely destroy on stage.
We even aimed to showcase that live power here when we partnered with Trifecta Communications earlier this year to shoot 360-degree video of their performance at Festival of the Arts.
But it was the official release show for their debut album “Dark Matter” that sticks out most from this year.
The energy crammed into the room upstairs at Ponyboy was electric and palpable and even visible when the stomping grooves would kick in and send the entire capacity crowd into unison head-nodding.
That was the night that it became crystal clear to everyone that Sisteria is a behemoth of a band, and will be one to keep a close eye on in the next year.
Special mention goes to the moment where everyone realized the band was transforming their cover of Alanis Morrisette’s “Uninvited” seamlessly into Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” in one of the best musical surprises of the year.
Moriah Bailey
Honestly, just Moriah Bailey.
Her album “i tried words” is some kind of masterpiece of delicate sparseness and defiantly honest emotion, but I also saw her perform live for the first time this year, and it was at a whole different level.
Her command of dynamics, atmosphere, and pure, naked vulnerability using nothing but her voice and an affected harp is seriously staggering.
She’s already slated to showcase those abilities as an official performer at South by Southwest in 2023, proving once again that the most unexpected and uniquely creative art can actually be the stuff that deservedly breaks out and surprises us all.
Who knows what surprises we’ll see next year?
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
