As a sort of mid-year stocktake, our critics have picked their favourite pieces of pop culture from the first half of 2022.
took a long time reaching cinemas. Eventually, it arrived 36 years after the original, with Joseph Kosinski replacing the late Tony Scott as director. Tom Cruise, impossibly youthful as Maverick, was joined by a band of new era pilots headed by Goose’s son, Rooster, played by Miles Teller. If part of the appeal was nostalgia, the rest was the outstanding experience of aeronautical action.George Miller waited a while afterto make his next movie.
After a string of forward-thinking solo albums that found creative new ways to explore the Latin-trap and reggaeton sounds he’s helped bring to global streaming dominance, El Conejo Malo somehow delivered again with his latest . An all-inclusive love letter to the Caribbean subcultures that birthed the current Latin pop explosion, it’s a well of confident, anything goes creativity full of playful highlights, from Benito’s inventive slang to his inspired cross-genre segues .
Even at 28, Vince Staples raps with the world-weary cadence of someone who has seen some things. And, like a stoic elder, he kinda resents having to tell you about it. On, the ever-eccentric rapper interrogates his lost youth with aloof precision: the way Vince tells it, it’s not happy and it’s not sad, so it’s surprising the album’s so emotional. Complex beats and G-funk nostalgia lend an evocative setting, but it all rides on Staples’ incredibly singular perspective.