Top 10 Albums of 2023
“Wish I was a song, your favorite one. You’d follow the dance to me at your prom.”
We don’t appreciate the “year in music” as often as we should. I mean, think about it. 2023 will forever be the only year in which we got new music from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones again. The only time we’ll get a second go with 1989 and Speak Now from Taylor Swift. And probably the only year we’ll ever have that had new music simultaneously released by Paul Simon, Sabrina Carpenter, Seth MacFarlane, and *NSYNC. The medium is such an eclectic one and Spotify has turned it even more segmented than ever before. Instead of fretting about indie artists with no following and pop stars with too much of a following, though, we should be celebrating all that the vast artform has to offer us. We should appreciate that there’s something for everyone and there’s a little bit of magic when it overlaps, too.
I mean, just think about the names I’ve already mentioned. There was a new Beatles song this year. And despite the fact that they broke up over fifty years ago and that it was aided by A.I., it was actually good. There was a new *NSYNC song this year! I mean, what? And sure the new Stones album wasn’t really all that great, but hey! It still exists! And I’d rather it exist than not.
Before we get into the list of the year’s best albums (and this is one of the better top tens I can recall), I think it’s important to qualify some things. For one, the new music I mentioned from Carpenter and MacFarlane (with Elizabeth Gillies) was holiday music! Christmas albums are always eligible, but this year’s crop (which also included Michael Bolton, Cher, and Dan + Shay) just didn’t quite crack the top ten.
On the other hand, the new albums from Swift (the “Taylor’s Versions” of the aforementioned albums from 2014 and 2010, respectively) are not eligible for my list because they would simply dominate. It’s not fair to everyone else for Swift to revisit and improve upon her past behemoths. Likewise, U2’s rerecorded record, Songs of Surrender, is a reinterpretation of some of their most iconic tunes. Didn’t feel right to compare it here either. Still, there is plenty of music left to delve into and I’ll tarry no further to do so!
Honorable Mentions: The Album by Jonas Brothers, Bewitched by Laufey, But Here We Are by Foo Fighters, Chemistry by Kelly Clarkson, First Two Pages of Frankenstein by The National, The Loveliest Time by Carly Rae Jepsen, Snow Angel by Reneé Rapp, Subtract (-) by Ed Sheeran, This Is Why by Paramore, Unreal Unearth by Hozier, With Love From by Aly & AJ
10. Good Riddance by Gracie Abrams
For me, Gracie Abrams’ breakout came when I heard her featured on the soundtrack for Dash & Lily. However, it’s hard to argue with the idea that 2023 was her fully “I have arrived” year. Not only did she release her Aaron Dessner-produced debut album, Good Riddance, last year, but she also joined Taylor Swift intermittently on The Eras Tour as one of the opening acts. My show had Owenn and Girl in Red, which was fun, but Gracie would’ve been super cool, too. Being able to hear some truly strong songs like, “This Is What the Drugs Are For,” “Difficult,” and “I Know It Won’t Work” live would’ve been too gluttonous, though. Our openers were great and the Eras Tour is also great, so to make things even greater would have been too much greatness. Even Tom Brady let a couple Super Bowls go by. Anyway, I’ve been in Abrams’ corner for a while now and I see so much potential and promise from this first album, which also stands so tall on its own already.
9. Queen of Me by Shania Twain
Trap, heavy metal, and country music have always been the genres impenetrable to my enjoyment, so I’m as surprised as you to see me including Shania Twain’s second album in over twenty years here, but hey. I recognize greatness in any variety. I’m not a country guy, but I’ve always enjoyed Shania Twain’s music, so I gave Queen of Me a chance when I heard that she was back in the studio. I liked it! Obviously, it’s never going to be wholly my thing, but there is plenty to love here. The ones that most prominently became earworms for me are “Last Day of Summer” and “Waking Up Dreaming,” which are just the most euphoric anthems to blare out the car window on a gorgeous summer day. Twain’s always been great at that and Queen of Me is no exception.
8. The Age of Pleasure by Janelle Monáe
Few Hollywood archetypes are as beloved by me as the multihyphenate who can release banger albums and also be the best parts of movies and television shows when they act. Hailee Steinfeld comes to mind, for example. In this instance, it’s time again to recognize Janelle Monáe, who dropped a killer Glass Onion performance and a reggae-soul fusion album as good as any genre contemporaries in the same six month period. Her 2018 album, Dirty Computer, also made my list back then, so it’s awesome to see that her musical prowess is as honed and powerful as ever. What is distinct about The Age of Pleasure is that its tones sort of blend together. I know this sounds oxymoronic, but usually, when songs sound too similar, it turns me off to an album. However, it is one of the great strengths of Monáe’s album because it all sort of sounds like one euphoric Afrobeat anthem. The transitions between tracks are cool and provocative to listen to; they serve to heighten the album’s sensuality and overwhelming (again, in a good way) soundscape-y-ness. “Black Sugar Beach” in between “Champagne Shit” and “Phenomenal” is a real stroke of excellence, for example. I also love the upbeat strings of a super-charged flirtation in “A Dry Red,” “Lipstick Lover,” “Water Slide.” It’s hard to find the distinctness between them all, but that’s what makes Monáe so distinctly brilliant here.
7. The Record by Boygenius
In 2018, Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus (three queens of the indie sad girl scene; they’re just missing Maggie Rogers) released an EP as a group named Boygenius. Soon after, each found great success working independently and some of their solo albums became some of my favorite music of the past couple years. Now, in 2023, they have reunited and formed the Traveling Wilburys of oversized hoodies. Their collaborations are predictably high-quality and unpredictably capable of oscillating between pulsing rock music and the (we knew it was coming) melancholia-scape. The trio does a good job on The Record of switching off songwriting and vocal duties, but their collaboration throughout the album is palpable no matter who is credited as being at the helm. From the Baker side of things, my favorites were “$20” and “Anti-Curse.” From Dacus, I really dug “True Blue.” From Bridgers (my favorite), “Emily I’m Sorry” was impeccable. And, like Fleetwood Mac and The Beatles and other genius musical groups, some of the best tracks were the ones they all worked on together, like “Cool About It” and “Not Strong Enough.” It’s always so welcome when people who are this talented can also collaborate so well.
6. The Maybe Man by AJR
“I try hard to write a cool song / So I start with something simple / Like trying to put my shoes on / Now something kinda clicked / ‘Cause you relate a bit / But no one’s gonna care about a shoe song.” So begins the bridge on one of the more specifically AJR-coded songs on the group’s 2023 record, The Maybe Man, “Steve’s Going to London.” The idea of a song about lost dreams and feeling “stuck” in life is not a novel one. Ask Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel about the theme and they’ll show you a compilation album built on it. However, the AJR spin on it is unlike any of their predecessors because who else would have a breakdown midway through the song that interpolates the feelings back on themselves and views their own “stuckness” in a meta lens of writing a song about not knowing what to write a song about. And that’s just the deeply layered conceptualization of one song on AJR’s most emotional album to date. You still get the bops, of course (“Maybe Man,” “I Won’t,” “Inertia,” “Touchy Feely Fool”), but in the wake of the loss of their father, “God Is Really Real” represents new territory for them to embark upon and we’re all the richer for it. Much love for the hard, creative 2023 they had.
5. Barbie the Album by Mark Ronson
For the first time since the Black Panther album in 2018, a soundtrack record has made it into my top five! And how could it not? The Mark Ronson-produced Barbie soundtrack for Greta Gerwig’s highest grossing movie of 2023 is made up of top-to-bottom jams and is a massive contributor to the glory of the Barbie phenomenon. Ronson helped compose the score for the movie with Andrew Wyatt (they did a good job here, even though I’ll always be curious about what Alexandre Desplat’s original score would’ve sounded like), but my favorite part of the soundtrack definitely comes in the form of the original songs, which have been curated by a smattering of pop stars and breakout singers. What makes the Barbie album so strong, though, is that it has a little bit of everything. It has songs that can exist in the background and set the tone for a scene (“Angel” by PinkPantheress, “Speed Drive” by Charli XCX, “Journey to the Real World” by Tame Impala). It has meta songs that exist within the world of Barbie and are heightened by the characters’ musical performances of them (“Pink” by Lizzo, “I’m Just Ken” by Ryan Gosling). It has songs that are phenomenal even removed from the context of the film and are more than just the ones you play over the credits for an Oscar nomination (“What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish, “Dance the Night” by Dua Lipa). It’s a remarkable addendum for a remarkable piece of art.
4. Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride by Jason Mraz
I will always stand proudly for you, Jason Mraz! In 2018, his album, Know., felt like a return to form for the music I always love the most from him. He’s long been one of my favorite musicians (definitely on my Mount Rushmore) and I love when he is in his element, as he was there. In 2020, he came back with Look for the Good, which did have some titular good in it, but was not my favorite of his output. Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride, however, does contain some of what I think Mraz does best and certainly feels like a more apt endeavor for him creatively. He moved away from reggae a bit and instead dipped his brain into the disco world while still being unafraid to embrace the pop elements of it all — pop, which he conducts so strongly. In a sense, by returning to more pop-influenced stylings, it felt like some deeply earnest Mraz work. Few albums are as good as deeply earnest Mraz albums. Plus, with his appearance on Dancing with the Stars this year, there were few better times for him to lean all the way into a dance record. Songs like “Disco Sun” and “I Feel Like Dancing” obviously achieve that. But for me, the real beauty of this album comes in the songs that can encourage you to dance without revolving around dance altogether. I’m thinking of “Lovesick Romeo,” which has instantly entered the Mraz canon for me, what with all of its soaring vocals and melodies, as well as its playfully allusory lyrics. I’m glad Mraz didn’t retire from music when he said he would. Let’s keep the good times rolling forever!
3. Guts by Olivia Rodrigo
For some unknown reason, many across the music landscape had chalked Olivia Rodrigo up as a one, maybe two, hit wonder. Sour was an impressive debut album, but Guts hardly flopped. I still vacillate back and forth between whether or not I think Sour or Guts is the better record, granting that it would be at all a meaningful exercise to compare or rank them in the first place. But still, for how much I loved Sour (it was my top album of 2021), it’s worth acknowledging how impressive it is that Rodrigo made something that can so readily go toe-to-toe with it in her sophomore album with just around a year and a half or so of dedicated writing and production time. On Guts, Rodrigo perpetuates the fleeting identity she has cultivated for herself by embracing the angsty (but in a punk pop way, rather than a heavy flannel in Seattle way) teenage girl visage even further. Songs like “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl” and “Making the Bed” seem to suggest the sorts of tunes that are at their most relatable when you still have to take biology courses and ask your parents for permission to use the car. Obviously, upon listening to the music, they are much deeper works than just cleaning a room or turning in homework, but Rodrigo makes no apologies for writing about the sort of life she knows. And a life at this stage of it is no less deep than a more mature, wizened life. Rodrigo recognizes this and utilizes it to bleed brilliance across the album, most prominently in “Love Is Embarrassing,” which has a shot to be my favorite Rodrigo song ever? And, of course, all of this and more is realized from the first instance of the album, which starts with just as much a rocket as she ever has.
2. The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
For a while, this album occupied the number one spot until the eventual number one blanketed my mind for months. Still, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We is just remarkable music-making and Mitski remains as majestic as ever. While a lot of what drew me to Mitski in her previous record, Laurel Hell, were her supercharged lovesick/lovestruck anthems, I appreciate her just as much in this lane of stripped down music that focuses solely on the raw emotions and the reflection of raw piano to accompany Mitski’s heart laid bare. At times, her patented brand of artsy, “sad time,” indie music seems to veer into more of a pop sphere. Other times, it puts on a ten-gallon hat of Americana and country nods. All the while, the album is fully Mitski and fully enthralling. I’m thinking most primarily of the album’s breakout song and third single, “My Love Mine All Mine,” which is my favorite. This finds the perfect balance struck between her lean towards Americana and her continued indie proclivity — while also embracing Mitski’s signature ability to communicate common feelings in unconventional dialects. Some other standouts for me include “I Don’t Like My Mind,” “The Deal,” and “I Love Me After You,” but really? The whole album is phenomenal. Only Mitski could toe so seamlessly between imagery that is warm and ghostly all at once.
1. Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever) by Noah Kahan
Considering a significant portion of the best songs from Stick Season were released in 2023, I’m counting it. Some musicians come into the industry fully formed and others cut their dues on long strips of aimless vinyl before they crack into the audiosphere. Noah Kahan seems somehow to be of both cloths. When my girlfriend informed me there were two songs she was obsessed with and just had to listen to while driving (“Stick Season” and the Post Malone collab of “Dial Drunk”), I humored her. The songs were definitely catchy, but over time, the more we listened to them, the more the melodies would stick with me. They weren’t just earworms, they were composed to perfection with all the fluidity of a jam session Kahan threw off the cuff. That sort of blithe technicality is hard to come by and it’s omnipresent throughout the entire album (which also invited musicians like Gracie Abrams, Hozier, and Kacey Musgraves to come play). The two aforementioned songs are exactly the ones you’d play for someone who is new to Noah Kahan. But then as you get deeper, it gets even more rewarding (when you still have those two bangers to revisit, as well). The aching wistfulness of “Paul Revere,” the folksy irreverence of “Call Your Mom,” the riding-a-skateboard-down-a-mountain vibes of “New Perspective,” the pulsing musicality of “Everywhere, Everything.” Each song from Kahan’s Stick Season redux has a new and original treat to discover. Some may contain the coziest melodies imaginable. Some may contain turns of phrase that manage to evoke Springsteenian frustration over wanderlust. Some may conjure all the most homey images of a New England winter within our minds. And for those of us who love and miss those winters every day, it’s Noah Kahan’s music that somehow feels the most like home.
What did you listen to in 2023?
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