The Best Albums of 2023

Best Albums of 2023

Best. Music. Year. Ever.  It felt like we finally put the pandemic behind us even though it's, at best, endemic now.  Whatever psychological corner we turned seemed to unleash a surge of albums, live music, festivals, etc.  Bands that we hadn't heard from in years (Depeche Mode, Foo Fighters) released great albums.  Bands that had been quiet for a while put out two albums in one year (The National).  We got the first music in 20 years from noted musical genius / crank Charles Bissell formerly of the Wrens.  A rap supergroup with Snoop, E-40, Cube, and Too $hort put out a record.  We even got a new Beatles song!  So much great music this year that I decided a top 10 wouldn't suffice.  So we're turning this list up to 20 just for 2023.  It was also personally an incredible live music year for me so I'm introducing a new only-in-2023 list this year with.....

Top 5 Shows of 2023

5. B-52s at the Venetian

Even though they pulled the common trick of calling this their last show ever (until a new show in April 2024 was announced) and even though it was in the auditorium of a casino, they're still the best punk rock party band.  And it was the first (and last time) to see them.  Kate Pierson is somehow 80 years old and still pulls off Planet Claire.

4. Smashing Pumpkins at Jam Cellars Ballroom

This was a band that ruled my high school and college years.  I didn't have any money back then so never got a chance to see them.  Of course, now, they're only playing festivals and big venues.  So the chance to see them at a tiny club in Napa was too hard to pass up.  And they played everything I wanted to hear....except Disarm.  You can watch the whole thing here.

3. Postal Service at the Greek Theatre

And this was a band that defined my mid twenties.  I forgot just how good their one and only album is.  That album was the soundtrack to my dating life throughout my twenties. This concert was even better with Death Cab playing the Transatlanticism album as the opener.

2. Sunset Rubdown at the Crocodile

Sunset Rubdown has been on this list at least three times with Shut Up I Am Dreaming in 2006 and Dragonslayer in 2009.  It's just that this period coincided with me living in Ireland and they never swung by my neck of the woods.  They had disbanded by the time I moved back to the US.  So I had to jump when their mini reunion tour took them through Seattle.  They don't have a huge following but that meant that the show was intimate with just the true hard-core fans there.

1. The Walkmen at Webster Hall

Officially the band I've seen the most often.  From Minneapolis to Boston to Paris to London to Dublin to San Francisco.  They've provided a lot of the soundtrack to the last 20 years of my life.  From breaking up with girlfriends to business school to being a married mid-forties dude.  No other band can match pure technical ability with good old fashioned screaming.  They took a pause about 8 years ago to do other things and this series of shows in New York was their first since then.  Another small show with just the real, real, real fans there.  It was spiritual.

Top 20 Albums of 2023

I already touched on some of the themes that I found throughout my list.  Just a ton of good stuff this year (why I've got a top 20 instead of a top 10), we're living in a Golden Age of angsty 20-something women telling their shitty boyfriends to fuck off (T Swift, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, etc.), and a lot of new music from bands we thought were dead (The Beatles and the Stones had new music this year).  Lots to get to but first, as usual, I'd like to highlight some music that hasn't officially been released on an album this year but that you really have to check out.

First off, a real deep cut.  We went to see opening show from the San Francisco Ballet this year.  The SF Ballet is pretty avant garde and can do some pretty weird shit.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  But I love that they try.  This particular show included a new ballet about circus clowns from hell (I'm not joking) that was actually incredible.  Part of the experience was that the music for this ballet was incredible.  It turns out it was scored by a Swedish composer / rock and roller named Par Hagstrom who also happened to put out this single this year.  If you've read these lists from me in the past, you know how I feel about Swedish rock and pop.  Hoping this makes it to an album in 2024.

One of my absolute favorite tracks of the year comes from Mantra of the Cosmos, which is a supergroup of sorts composed of "the other guys" from Oasis, The Happy Mondays, and Ride.  They only released a handful of tracks this year which hopefully means an album in 2024, but it's all party music that's a throwback to 90's Madchester.  Gorilla Guerilla will get stuck in your head.

Next up is the Last Dinner Party.  If you happen to listen to indie rock radio, you did not escape this London-based art school girl group.  It's a little annoying but their debut album has had a sustained PR push with singles dribbled out and videos released with a ton of production.  Their record label clearly expects them to be the next big thing.  That said, the early singles are all pretty awesome.

Finally, what might be my favorite single of all of 2024 comes from Car Colors.  It's a terrible name for a band, but it's basically the moniker of Charles Bissell who is the creative genius behind the Wrens.  If you know me, you know that the Wrens 2004 album The Meadowlands is my favorite album of the last 30 years and that I have been waiting for the follow-up for the last 20 years.  Charles Bissell is a genius but, like most geniuses, he's also a bit of a crank.  He tinkered on this album so meticulously and for so long that the rest of the band dropped him in exasperation and released the singles that they had written as the band Aeon Station which promptly topped this list in 2021.  And now, two years AFTER THAT, we finally got three singles from Charles Bissell's part of that album.  And they are so, so good.  They are supposed to be the guts of an album coming out in 2024 but I'll believe it when I see it.  Until then, enjoy the handful of songs we got this year.

Top 20 Albums of 2023

20. Debby Friday - Good Luck

Sub Pop is the record label equivalent of the Moneyball Oakland A's.  They don't have the money to spend on the top talent but they find the talent that everyone else overlooks.  You have to really pay attention when they put out an album that isn't in their core grunge / indie rock demographic.  That was true when they put out Orville Peck's debut country album and goes here for Debby Friday's R&B / rap / downbeat soul album.  I don't know how to characterize it, but it's good, and that's what Sub Pop specializes in.

19. Sufjan Stevens - Javelin

Sufjan is kind of the male counterpart to Lana del Rey (more from her later).  His albums are meals.  These aren't driving or working out albums.  A lot of feels throughout both with some dense lyrics.  This particular album is dedicated to his late partner so don't expect bouncy tracks.  But what is here is typical Sufjan: amazing, heartfelt songwriting.

18. The Rolling Stones - Hackney Diamonds

This album got a lot of negative press for no other reason that I can tell beyond that there's nothing new here compared to the other however many records the Stones have.  To which I say that these guys are OCTOGENARIANS.  Why are you expecting anything new?  And, yes, there is nothing new here and some of the songs are a little lame.  But it very well might be the last Stones record we ever get and a fine Rolling Stones album is still better than almost anything else out there.

17. Depeche Mode - Memento Mori

Back to back old timers here.  I really didn't think Depeche Mode was even still active any more.  And, sadly, the band really is just Dave Gahan and Martin Gore now.  But, this album ends up one spot higher than the Stones because it feels a lot more fresh and a lot more modern.

16. Andre 3000 - New Blue Sun

I think it's safe to say that no ambient / modern jazz flute album has ever garnered as much press as this album has.  There are other ambient albums that are more accessible (and probably better) like Brian Eno's Music for Installations and you definitely have to be in the mood for meandering 13 minute long free jazz tracks but, here's the thing, Andre 3000 really pulls it off.  I absolutely love the fact that this guy that wrote arguably the best ever pop song could have gone in any direction and THIS is what he decided to do.  It's the most punk rock thing ever.

15. Earl Sweatshirt - Voir Dire

My hip hop tastes always skew a little more edgy but not too far away from the comfortable middle.  Busdriver is my sweet spot and obviously Kendrick topped this list last year and is the best rapper of all time.  Earl Sweatshirt is one of those guys who has just always been a little too out there for me.  This is the first album of his that I feel is a little less experimental and a little more mainstream.  He's one of the great indie rappers and I've always tried to get into his stuff but I feel like this is the first album that's more in my wheelhouse.

14. Paris Texas - Mid Air

Now, my real hip hop sweetspot is when you start mixing in live bands with a punk ethos.  Think of the Roots.  Paris Texas is more punk while the Roots are straight up hip hop.  No other album climbed up this list faster than these guys over the last month.  They also get extra points for breaking out the Jamiroquai moving floor in the Everybody's Safe Until video.

13. Ratboys - The Window

While everyone really seemed to love albums from Caroline Polachek and boygenius, I've got a different slate of girl rock bands on my list kicked off by Ratboys.  Country rock indie kids that have toiled for a decade but seemed to put it all together for this album.    Nothing ground breaking here, but fun Midwestern country rock with shades of Veruca Salt thrown in.

12. The National - Cherry Tree Vol. 5

I'm breaking all kinds of rules this year.  In addition to expanding the list to 20, I'm also tabbing the National's annual fan club record here.  The National put out two records this year, First Two Pages of Frankenstein and Laugh Track.  Both, individually, have some great tracks.  For my money, Frankenstein is the better album with classic National tracks like Eucalyptus and Tropic Morning News.  Laugh Track is notable for the collaborations including Weird Goodbyes with Bon Iver which was released as a single last year.  But the collective whole of both albums is a little unsatisfying.  That's where Cherry Tree Vol. 5 comes in.  It takes the best of both albums released this year as well as a couple of throwback live performances into one super album.

11. Bully - Lucky For You

The write-up for the Ratboys album mentioned how I just didn't really care for the boygenius album.  Generally speaking, I haven't gotten into much of Phoebe Bridgers' stuff with the exception of her collabs.  This year I found that all the Phoebe Bridgers songs I liked seemed to include Bully.  Bully has the "quiet - quiet - ROCK" sound that reminds me a lot of Tracy Bonham at her best.  The ROCK part seems to be what's always missing (to me) on the boygenius stuff.  This Bully album has plenty of rock to go around.

10. Dudu Tassa & Jonny Greenwood - Jarak Qaribak

It's not quite the left turn that Andre 3000's album is, but Radiohead instrumentation wizard and film scorer Jonny Greenwood partnered with Israeli musician Dudu Tassa to reimagine songs from across the Middle East.  This album coincided perfectly with a vacation we took this year to UAE and Jordan.  Popular music from these regions sounds really foreign to western ears but you start to hear the beauty in the voices and instrumentation when you're immersed in.  The genius of Jonny Greenwood is to not lose those elements but to augment it with western instrumentation.  Everything on Jarak Qaribak is 100% distinctly Middle Eastern but it sounds a lot more modern.

9. Stephen Sanchez - Angel Face

This album really cranked up the pre-launch buzz to Last Dinner Party levels and beyond.  Stephen Sanchez has been a known quantity in Nashville for a while and his label has been drumming up this debut album since they dropped Until I Found You last year.  And then they released the album with a live visual album replete with major corporate sponsors.  Which is all a bit much.  What's really weird, though, is that the album is kind of a concept album that revolves around a 1950s-ish romance featuring Sanchez as a character called "The Troubadour".  All that honestly feels like some annoying marketing douche at the record company coming up with this "really great idea" that leans into the types of songs that Sanchez sings and his legitimately incredible voice.  This album doesn't need all that marketing bullshit.  There is undeniably a 50s crooner vibe to the songs on this album but that's also a testament to his voice.  Last year you had Orville Peck's vocal performance on Let Me Drown.  This year you have Stephen Sanchez on Be More.

8. Margo Cilker - Valley of Heart's Delight

Two trends seem to explain the emergence of out and out country music on this list in recent years.  One, I'm getting a lot better about seeking out indie country.  Two, there is a real artist backlash against the pop country ideal that's held for the last 50 or so years that country music is about God, Republicans, and pick-up trucks.  I think you saw that backlash this year with Zach Bryan singing songs that sound more like Bruce Springsteen talking about the issues of the working class and Maren Morris outright telling the country music establishment to go fuck itself.  Now, both of those artists are still a little too country for me, but enter Margo Cilker's album which isn't political at all.  It's all everday life songs, drinking Shiner Bock with friends, etc. but they're songs that are all outlaw country which is a lot closer to punk rock than you might think.

7. Wednesday - Rat Saw God

This is the other album (with Paris Texas) that kept moving up my list the more I listened to it.  Take the country rock of Ratboys, mix it with Bully rocking out and screaming and you've got Wednesday.  And this is now the part of the list where albums really don't have a weak spot.  This album has been in heavy rotation for the last two months.  They also get bonus points for referencing Drive By Truckers.  

6. Billy Woods & Kenny Segal - Maps

This is the hip hop album that gets just as edgy as I want without going too far.  It's definitely not the album for you if you're looking for hooks.  This is like a much more listenable version of Black Star (who I still can't believe was an SNL musical guest last year - a testament to the pull Dave Chappelle has).  Think dense, smart lyrics but it's dropped over Kenny Segal's diverse beats ranging from jazz to lo-fi indie.  Honestly, it's Kenny Segal's beats that elevate this over every other rap record this year.  This is definitely not rhymes on top of break beats.

5. Slowdive - everything is alive

Slowdive's surprise reunion a few years back keeps getting better.  The shoegaze pioneers still deliver wave after wave of textured noise better than anyone since My Bloody Valentine.  Like a lot of the long-time acts on the list this year, this album feels like the band's best since their seminal years.  In this case, I think this is Slowdive's best album since Souvlaki.  It's Slowdive at their dreamy, wispy best but with a little bit more of the caution and reluctance that comes with being an adult.

4. Militarie Gun - Life Under the Gun

I am never not going to have a soft spot in my heart for indie punk done well.  Give me a four piece band with some basic chords and screaming done well and it will always make this list.  This is the music I grew up on and, at this point, I'm not going to grow out of it.  Of all the bands like that this year, Militarie Gun did it best.  These guys have been releasing singles since the pandemic but finally had enough material for a full length LP.  There's not a whole lot of range here, it's just angry, energetic pop punk.  The line from Very High that "I've been feeling pretty down so I get very high" pretty much sums it up.  But everything here is fun from Do It Faster to Will Logic to Very High.

3. Olivia Rodrigo - GUTS

I'm not even joking.  Every time I mention my absolute love of this Olivia Rodrigo album, people look at me like I'm a creeper.  Similarly, her upcoming tour which features The Breeders as openers is going to create some awkward demographics at those shows.  But in a lot of ways Olivia Rodrigo is a clear descendent of the Breeders.  This is 20-something female rage music, a lot more raw than anything T Swift or Billie Eilish have ever done.  My wife summed up the sound of Guts as "I'm pretty.  You think I'm pretty.  FUCK YOU I'M NOT PRETTY."  But beyond the barely contained rage on some of the tracks, this is a great document of the ups and downs of being a 20-something.  From dissing shitty boyfriends on Vampire to hooking back up with exes on Bad Idea Right? to the existential dread of life on Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl.  Obviously, it's been a long time since I've dealt with any of this stuff but I had the Breeders to help me through it all back then.

2. Lana del Rey - Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd

If we're just talking pure artistic merits, this would probably be my number one album of the year.  This album is incredible.  Just like Sufjan's Javelin, this is a meaty album that you're not going to listen to over and over again.  Incredibly personal, this album details her struggles with abandonment, loneliness, feelings of no self worth stemming from childhood abuse through a number of bad adult relationships.  It's powerful.  The lyrics are sometimes so stark that it's hard not to come to tears.  On the title track alone, she sings "I can't help but feel my body somehow marred my soul.  Handmade beauty sealed up by two manmade walls." and "Open me up, tell me you like it.  Fuck me to death, love me until I love myself."  Just....I mean.......

By the time you get to A&W which is about being a success and the different type of loneliness that comes with that, she sings "It's not about having someone to love me any more.  This is the experience of being an American whore."

On Kintsugi (the Japanese art of repairing broken objects), it's "I can't say I run when things get hard.  It's just that I don't trust myself with my heart.  But I've had to let it break a little more cause they say that's what it's for."

Candy Necklaces allows Lana to drop her music bona fides by referencing Tribe and Roc-a-fella but it's still about relationships not working with "Thought that we were cool and kickin' it like Tribe Called Quest.  You the best, but baby you've been bringing me down."

It's not just the lyrics.  This is a wonderfully composed album that works with the lyrics featuring a long list of collaborators including Jon Baptiste on Candy Necklaces, Father John Misty on Let the Light In, Bleachers shows up on Margaret, and Jack Antonoff is on a bunch of songs.  This is an epic.

1. Metallica - 72 Seasons

This is pretty much the spiritual opposite of Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.  There aren't any deep lyrics anywhere on 72 Seasons.  Instead, it's filled with the type of vaguely foreboding but ultimately meaningless lyrics that works so well for metal albums.  Things like "If darkness had a son, here I am.  Temptation is his father." and "What is gone is gone and done.  Look back, psychotic.  No chance before this life began."  One song, Lux Aeterna, even breaks out some rudimentary Latin for no real reason.  

But that's part of the charm.  You listen to Metallica because they are the most inherently visceral band of all time.  They've had 30 years of albums that are okay but don't have the power of And Justice for All or Master of Puppets.  This is, without a doubt, their best album since the Black album. And it's that power borne of the speed that they play at, Lars's drumming, Hetfield's voice, etc. that no one can match.  Just like the best Metallica albums, you turn this on in the car as loud as you can take and it somehow unleashes unbridled joy and anger simultaneously.  

This is the album I listened to the most this year and I love it every time I listen to it.  For 2023, which had a lot of musical joy built into it, it felt like this was the album to pick for number one this year.