SHAH ALAM - With just a few more days left to the new year, many have been sharing their list of favourites for 2022 including former United States President Barack Obama.
He first shared his list of movies and books he read this year on Friday and today, he followed up with his favourites songs for 2022.
The list included 25 songs with hits like Lizzo's "About Damn Time”, Beyoncé's "Break My Soul”, "The Heart Part 5” by Kendrick Lamar and "Shirt” by SZA.
"I always enjoy sharing my end of year music playlist with all of you — and this year we heard a lot of great songs.
"Here are some of my favourites,” he wrote on Twitter.
Obama's list includes some of the most popular songs of the year from many different genres, for example, Bad Bunny's "Titi Me Pregunto" is from the Latin music genre, and Zach Bryan's "Something in the Orange" is from the country genre.
Obama's choices and the top Grammy nominees do not have a lot in common but three of the nominees for record of the year were on Obama's list: Break My Soul, About Damn Time and The Heart Part 5.
Shirt by SZA was one of the top-rated songs on Obama's list for the year despite only being released in October.
He also chose "Tamagotchi" by Omar Apollo, the best new artist Grammy nominee.
Obama gave credit to Rosalia, a Latin music fan at the top of many critics' year-end lists, for the song "Saoko” - a song that many thought she’d be nominated for a Grammy but did not.
In the case of Ethel Cain and her song "American Teenager” from the artist's first album "Preacher's Daughter” that deals with heavy topics like religion and domestic violence.
As Cain did not make much of an impression this year, Obama's endorsement may help her in 2023.
Leyla McCalla, a Haitian-American, Our Native Daughters band member, can also be sure that her underrated solo album will get more attention as she makes it to the former president’s list.
"Home Maker" by Sudan Archives is also an odd choice, though her album was well-represented on critics' year-end lists even if it didn't do well on the charts.
"Problem With It" is also a surprising cut as it was made by the little-known duo, Jess Williamson and Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee.
Obama also puts out a summer playlist with both current songs and oldies, however, only six of the artists on his mid-year favourites list made it to his end-of-the-year favourites list.
On Friday he listed "The Woman King,” "Till,” Top Gun: Maverick,” "Everything Everywhere All At Once” and "TÁR" as his favourite 2022 films, which also included the Netflix documentary "Descendant”.
Obama even playfully noted that his pick was "biased” as his company Higher Ground – which he co-founded with former First Lady Michelle Obama in 2018 – produced Descendant.
As for books, his top favourite book - where he also stated that he was biased - was his wife Michelle's "The Light We Carry" and Charmaine Wilkerson’s "Black Cake.”