During a long walk around a rainy Manchester this year, The 1975’s Matty Healy told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe that part of what drew him to dance music as a teenager was its sense of escape. Like, here’s this gloomy, post-industrial city in Northern England where it feels like no sun could ever shine—why not push against all that grey and make something beautiful? “What I’m saying is, musically, we went optimistic,” he said. “We need to get out of this.” Check out “Part of the Band”, which mixed a slyly experimental string arrangement with the kind of bird’s-eye-view reflections you’d find in a great Paul Simon song. Or the way “I’m in Love With You” carried the lightness of ’80s adult contemporary pop into the funny, self-excoriating mind of the modern millennial in a way that might’ve made you feel a little less neurotic—or at least reminded you that you had company there. Being Funny in a Foreign Language wasn’t just another step in the band’s evolution, it was a bellwether in a year when it felt like a lot of the best indie and alternative music embraced a sense of brightness and hope, whether deep and sincere or spontaneous and fun. With that, here are some of ALT CTRL’s highlights for 2022.