59 Fun Facts About 2022 Music

Which album won Album of the Year at the 65th Grammy Awards in February 2023?

Harry's House beat Renaissance, whose maker won four other Grammys that night but none of the four general categories; Styles also took Best Pop Vocal Album.

Which Lizzo single won Record of the Year at the 65th Grammy Awards?

About Damn Time reached number one in July 2022 after a viral TikTok dance, and made Lizzo the first Black woman to win Record of the Year since Whitney Houston in 1994.

Which veteran blues singer won Song of the Year for 'Just Like That' at the 65th Grammys?

Bonnie Raitt wrote 'Just Like That' alone, about a mother meeting the man who received her late son's heart, and was the first sole female songwriter to win since Amy Winehouse's 'Rehab' in 2008.

Which jazz singer won Best New Artist at the 65th Grammys, the first from the genre since Esperanza Spalding?

Samara Joy has said she knew nothing about jazz until she was 18 and studying at Purchase College; at 23 she beat nominees including Måneskin, Latto and Anitta.

Who passed Georg Solti in 2023 as the most-awarded artist in Grammy history, with 32 wins?

Beyoncé's 32nd Grammy, Best Dance/Electronic Music Album for Renaissance, took her past conductor Georg Solti's 31 after she had tied him earlier the same night.

Which US number-one single led the July 2022 album Renaissance?

Break My Soul topped the Hot 100 in August 2022; Robin S., whose 'Show Me Love' it samples, only learned of the song when her son rang to say she was trending.

Who is the featured guest on 'Snow on the Beach' from Taylor Swift's Midnights?

Lana Del Rey co-wrote 'Snow on the Beach' but sang mostly backing vocals, so after fans asked for more Swift released a second version in 2023 billed as featuring 'More Lana Del Rey'.

Which Midnights lead single was number one the week Taylor Swift filled the entire Hot 100 top 10?

Anti-Hero led the chart dated November 5, 2022, when Midnights songs filled the top ten; Drake had fallen one short in 2021, when 'Stay' by the Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber held on at number six.

Which company cancelled the general sale for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour after the 2022 presale overwhelmed its website?

Ticketmaster sold more than two million tickets in a day, a record for one artist, then called off the general sale; the fallout led to a US Senate hearing in January 2023.

Which Harry Styles single spent 15 weeks atop the Hot 100 in 2022?

As It Was led for 15 weeks, the longest run by a British act, yet finished only second on Billboard's 2022 year-end chart, behind a song that had been charting since January 2021.

Which British band's 'Heat Waves' took a record 59 weeks to reach the top of the Hot 100?

Glass Animals released 'Heat Waves' in 2020; it crept up the Hot 100 for more than a year as TikTok videos spread it, and finally reached number one in March 2022.

Which 1985 Kate Bush song hit UK number one in June 2022 after featuring in Stranger Things?

Running Up That Hill had peaked at number three in 1985; the Stranger Things boost took it to UK number one and to number three on the Hot 100, far above its original peak of 30.

Kate Bush became the oldest woman to top the UK singles chart in 2022, taking the record from which singer?

Cher was 52 when 'Believe' reached UK number one in 1998; Bush passed her at 63 after Stranger Things put her 1985 single in front of a new generation.

Which Encanto song topped the Hot 100 in 2022, only the second from a Disney animated film to do so?

We Don't Talk About Bruno followed 'A Whole New World' (1993) as only the second song from a Disney animated film to top the Hot 100; Disney had put up 'Dos Oruguitas' for the Oscar instead, and it lost.

Who wrote the eight original songs on the chart-topping Encanto soundtrack?

Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote all eight songs after joining the film's directors on a two-week research trip across Colombia in 2018; Germaine Franco composed the score.

Which 2022 album was Spotify's most-streamed album of the year?

Un Verano Sin Ti spent 13 weeks atop the Billboard 200; its track 'El Apagón' came with a 22-minute documentary on Puerto Rico's power cuts and residents priced out of their homes.

Which country won the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest in Turin with the song 'Stefania' by Kalush Orchestra?

Ukraine took a record 439 televote points; since the country could not safely host, the 2023 contest was staged in Liverpool on its behalf.

Which singer's 'Space Man' finished second for the UK at Eurovision 2022?

Sam Ryder had built his following posting covers on TikTok during lockdown; he won the jury vote a year after the UK's entry had finished last with no points at all.

Which rapper made a surprise appearance at the February 2022 Super Bowl halftime show?

50 Cent performed 'In da Club' hanging upside down; the show, the first halftime built around hip hop, also became the first to win a Primetime Emmy for a live variety special.

Which Foo Fighters drummer died in Bogotá in March 2022, hours before a festival show?

Taylor Hawkins, 50, had drummed for Alanis Morissette before joining the band in 1997; tribute concerts at Wembley and the Kia Forum followed in September 2022.

Which country legend initially declined her 2022 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nomination, then accepted?

Dolly Parton said she had not earned the honour, then accepted and was inducted in November 2022; she recorded the rock album Rockstar in 2023 to make good on it.

Nicki Minaj's August 2022 number-one single is built on a sample of which 1981 Rick James hit?

Super Freak also drives MC Hammer's 1990 hit 'U Can't Touch This', whose Best R&B Song win gave Rick James, credited as a co-writer, his only Grammy; Minaj's track was 'Super Freaky Girl'.

Which K-pop girl group became the first to top the Billboard 200 album chart, in 2022?

Blackpink did it with Born Pink; its single 'Shut Down' loops a violin line from Paganini's 'La Campanella', and the video restages scenes from the group's earlier videos.

Which guitarist of the band the Internet hit number one in 2022 with 'Bad Habit'?

Steve Lacy, who produced his early tracks on an iPhone, took 'Bad Habit' to number one in October 2022, the first song to top the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop and Hot Rock & Alternative charts at once.

Who won Album of the Year for We Are at the April 2022 Grammys, the first held in Las Vegas?

Jon Batiste, then bandleader on The Late Show, won five awards that night, the most of anyone; the ceremony had been postponed from January because of Omicron.

Silk Sonic won Record and Song of the Year in 2022 for which song?

Leave the Door Open took both awards; the duo then declined to enter their album for the next year's Grammys, Bruno Mars saying they would be 'crazy to ask for anything more'.

Who won Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards held in April 2022?

Olivia Rodrigo, 19, was nominated in all four top categories and won only this one, though she also took Best Pop Vocal Album for Sour and Best Pop Solo Performance for 'Drivers License'.

In which city has the virtual concert residency ABBA Voyage played in a purpose-built arena since May 2022?

London's ABBA Arena was built for the show; the four members, then in their seventies, performed every song for 160 cameras over five weeks so their avatars could look as they did in 1979.

Which visual-effects company created the digital 'ABBAtars' used in ABBA Voyage?

Industrial Light & Magic, the effects studio George Lucas founded for Star Wars, scanned the four members by motion capture, then blended their movements with those of younger body doubles.

Which pop star joined Elton John on the 2022 duet 'Hold Me Closer'?

Britney Spears's first release since her conservatorship ended was suggested by John's husband, David Furnish, and John hoped it would lift her confidence; it debuted at number six in the US.

Rihanna's 'Lift Me Up' was recorded for the soundtrack of which 2022 film?

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever's song was written as a tribute to Chadwick Boseman by Rihanna with Tems, Ludwig Göransson and Ryan Coogler, and was her first solo release in six years.

Which BTS member was the first to enlist for South Korean military service, in December 2022?

Jin, the oldest member, had deferred under a 2020 law that lets top pop artists wait until 30; he turned 30 that month and entered boot camp at Yeoncheon on December 13, 2022.

Which Spanish singer's album Motomami won Album of the Year at the 2022 Latin Grammys?

Rosalía's Motomami took the top prize two days after the main Grammys announced their own Album of the Year nominees and left it off the list.

Drake's surprise-released June 2022 album Honestly, Nevermind was a departure into which style?

House and dance grooves, made partly with South African DJ Black Coffee, replaced his usual rap; announced on Instagram hours before release, it nonetheless debuted at number one, his eleventh US chart-topper.

Kendrick Lamar's 2022 Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers ended a five-year gap since which album?

Damn came out in April 2017 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Music; Mr. Morale was his last album with Top Dawg Entertainment and his first under his own company, pgLang.

Which actor narrates the Weeknd's January 2022 album Dawn FM as the voice of its purgatory radio station?

Jim Carrey plays the DJ of a station the Weeknd imagined for the newly dead, stuck in traffic in a tunnel with the radio guiding them to the light; Quincy Jones and Josh Safdie also speak on it.

In June 2022 Justin Bieber postponed tour dates after which condition paralysed one side of his face?

Ramsay Hunt syndrome occurs when the chickenpox virus reactivates near the ear and attacks the facial nerve; Bieber played his last show at Rock in Rio that September and cancelled the rest of the tour.

Which Fleetwood Mac keyboardist, who wrote 'Songbird' and 'Little Lies', died in November 2022 aged 79?

Christine McVie, born Christine Perfect, wrote 'Songbird' in half an hour around midnight, then stayed awake all night so she would not forget it before she could record it.

Which country legend, subject of the 1980 film Coal Miner's Daughter, died in October 2022 aged 90?

Loretta Lynn, born Loretta Webb in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, picked Sissy Spacek to play her from a photograph, before seeing any of her films; Spacek won the Best Actress Oscar for the role.

Which 'Gangsta's Paradise' rapper died in Los Angeles in September 2022, aged 59?

Coolio built 'Gangsta's Paradise' on Stevie Wonder's 'Pastime Paradise', and Wonder approved it only after Coolio took the profanity out; it won the 1996 Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance.

Which Grease star, singer of 'Physical', died in California in August 2022 aged 73?

Olivia Newton-John had been treated for breast cancer three times over three decades and founded a cancer wellness and research centre in Melbourne.

Meat Loaf, who died in January 2022, played Eddie in which cult musical?

The Rocky Horror Picture Show cast Meat Loaf as Eddie in 1975; two years later Bat Out of Hell, turned down by one record label after another, became one of the best-selling albums ever.

Which member of Migos was shot and killed in Houston on November 1, 2022, aged 28?

Takeoff, the youngest of the trio and Quavo's nephew, was shot outside a Houston bowling alley after a private party; he had famously been left off Migos's first number one, 'Bad and Boujee'.

Which rock and roll pioneer nicknamed 'The Killer' died in October 2022 aged 87?

Jerry Lee Lewis, the last survivor of Sun Records' 'Million Dollar Quartet', was wrongly reported dead by TMZ two days before he actually died in Mississippi.

In 2022 Ed Sheeran won a UK copyright case over which hit, accused of copying the song 'Oh Why'?

Shape of You was cleared in the High Court, the judge finding Sheeran had 'neither deliberately nor subconsciously copied' Sami Chokri's 'Oh Why'; on the stand he sang 'Feeling Good' and 'No Diggity' to make his case.

Who replaced Ye when he dropped out of headlining Coachella 2022?

Swedish House Mafia and the Weeknd, who had released 'Moth to a Flame' together, were named co-headliners for both Sundays after Ye left organisers less than two weeks to fill the slot.

At which venue did Adele's postponed Las Vegas residency finally begin in November 2022?

The Colosseum at Caesars Palace hosted Weekends with Adele from November 18, 2022 until November 2024, after a January 2022 start was scrapped over production delays and COVID cases on her team.

Which Metallica song first reached the Hot 100 after Eddie Munson played it in Stranger Things' season-four finale?

Master of Puppets, the 1986 title track, entered the Hot 100 at number 40; Metallica said they were 'blown away', and bassist Robert Trujillo's 17-year-old son Tye recorded guitar parts for the scene.

For which single did Adele win Song of the Year at the 2022 Brit Awards?

Easy on Me won at the first Brits without separate male and female awards; collecting Artist of the Year, Adele said she understood the change but really loved being a female artist.

Jack Harlow's 2022 number one 'First Class' heavily samples which Fergie hit?

Glamorous came from Fergie's 2006 album The Dutchess and featured Ludacris; 'First Class' went viral on TikTok before its release, then debuted at number one, Harlow's first solo chart-topper.

Who won the 2022 Mercury Prize for Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, months after Best New Artist at the Brits?

Little Simz, born Simbiatu Ajikawo, hid her nickname in the album title, whose initials spell Simbi; she was named Best New Artist when it was already her fourth album.

Which sportswear giant ended its Yeezy partnership with Kanye West in October 2022?

Adidas was left with a stockpile of unsold Yeezy shoes that it later sold off, and Forbes said losing the deal cost West his billionaire status.

Which two guests joined Paul McCartney during his headline set at Glastonbury 2022?

Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen joined McCartney a week after his 80th birthday; in the same set he sang 'I've Got a Feeling' as a video duet with John Lennon.

Who became Glastonbury's youngest-ever solo headliner in June 2022?

Billie Eilish topped the Pyramid Stage bill at 20, three years after organisers moved her Glastonbury debut from a small tent to the Other Stage to cope with the crowds.

SZA's December 2022 album SOS closes with a guest verse from which Wu-Tang Clan rapper?

Ol' Dirty Bastard, who died in 2004, appears on the closing track 'Forgiveless'; the album also gave SZA her first Hot 100 chart-topper, 'Kill Bill'.

Which Puerto Rican superstar wrestled at WWE's 2022 Royal Rumble after debuting at WrestleMania 37?

Bad Bunny came in at number 27 as a surprise entrant, threw Dolph Ziggler over the top rope and lasted until Brock Lesnar eliminated him, nine months after his in-ring debut at WrestleMania 37.

Which singer joined Latto on the March 2022 remix of "Big Energy" that pushed it into the top three?

Mariah Carey's own 1995 hit 'Fantasy' and the original 'Big Energy' both draw on Tom Tom Club's 1981 track 'Genius of Love', which is why she fit the remix.

In September 2022 the NFL said Apple Music would replace which ten-year Super Bowl halftime sponsor?

Pepsi had sponsored the halftime show since 2013; days after the Apple Music deal was announced, the league named Rihanna as the first headliner of the new era.

Which band received the Global Icon Award at the 2022 MTV VMAs, presented by Cheech & Chong?

Red Hot Chili Peppers took the award in the year of Unlimited Love, their first album with guitarist John Frusciante since 2006, after he rejoined the band in 2019.