A Longer Thought: Every year I listen to a lot of music, and every year I try and reduce that music to a list of 50(ish) albums that scored that year. However, my restless spirit prevents me from just making the list the same way ever year. Of course, we have to have a top ten… what else would we bicker about? But beyond that, I figure anything goes. I’m no lover of genre as a means of separating music (or any medium really). In fact, my friend Scott and I have devised a system by which all music fits into 3 categories: Rips, Slaps, Doesn’t. That system would be too unwieldy for a list in which many of these albums have songs that rip, songs that slap, some songs that both (it’s a perfect, flawed system), and so instead, I’ve compartmentalized the year through the different styles of music that can faintly be heard escaping my headphones. I already feel a little guilty breaking up the list like this, but it is what it is for 2023. Next year will be different. How? Come back to me in a year. For now, hope this helps you remember an album you loved way back in January as it does for me, discover an album you hadn’t heard about or didn’t realize that artist dropped this year (tell me ones you think I maybe haven’t heard!), or want to squabble with me over an album you think should be on here (look, I liked the Olivia Rodrigo album, I really did! and I hope it is on your list if you loved it more than I did). Enough preamble, here you go…
Follow along with the accompanying playlist: here.
The Top Ten of 2023
1. Maps – billy woods, Kenny Segal
- A Brief Thought: For those of you following a long at home billy woods was also my number one of last year. So I mean it when I say woods is by far my favorite rapper currently releasing shit (that isn’t an ambient flute album (which I also liked a good deal!)) and this album, his second full-length collab with producer Kenny Segal, is his most personal out of a prolific catalog of dense, starkly rendered poetry. woods’ final verse on the album is the shortest but perhaps his most lasting, affecting image. As always, stunning work from the maestro of abstract hip hop.
- A Brief Thought: The production on Lahai is dense and abounding with delightful studio tricks, and yet this record is as light as air. Sampha writes prayers that sing and groove and transcend. Process, his first record, beautifully explored the grief of the loss of his parents, and six years later, this follow-up finds Sampha soaring after the birth of his daughter. Sampha renders joy with an equally gorgeous sonic palette as he does loss.
- A Brief Thought: Only Sufjan can make an album so heartbreaking feel as warm as Javelin does. “In every season pledge allegiance to my heart / Pledge allegiance to my burning heart,” he sings on lead single “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?” and that steadfast tenderness in the wake of a year that would absolutely break the spirits of most people is what makes Sufjan the enduring, endearing figure he is.
4. Scaring the Hoes – JPEGMafia, Danny Brown
- A Brief Thought: Chaos. From the name of the project, to the collaborators themselves, you can expect chaos, but Peggy and Danny are two of the best at making chaos sound so controlled. Wild production, hilarious one liners—”I’m a big dog like Marmaduke,” I mean come on—this record was a revelation on first listen and every listen exudes as much energy as the last.
5. Desire I Want to Turn into You – Caroline Polachek
- A Brief Thought: No one explores the different contours of their voice as thoroughly and as sublimely as Caroline Polachek, and Desire, dare I say it, is the best showcase of her incredible voice and songwriting. “Bunny Is a Rider” has been around for awhile, and is an absolute bop, but in the context of the always-shifting, euphoric songs on this record, it becomes makes a helluva statement. Caroline Polachek is a goddamn artpop diva, and we are all better off for having her music armdance to.
- A Brief Thought: Genre-bending is almost a meaningless signifier these days, but Taja Cheek really is adept at melting all manners of sounds and styles into the container of L’Rain. Her music has always had an element of fragmentation and experiment, but in an interview with Pitchfork, she described I Killed Your Dog as her “basic bitch” album. The experimentation remains, but it is woven with humor and more pop sensibilities that make this record such a rewarding album on first listen and to dig into over and over again.
7. Praise a Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) – Yves Tumor
- A Brief Thought: Sexy and sad and a little spiritual, this is the album for those of us whose rock tastes were shaped by Deftones. And lemme tell ya, Yves Tumor writes nothing but goddamn anthems. Even a more subdued song like album opener “God Is a Circle”… fucking anthem. Anthem after anthem. Yves Tumor’s music is expansive in that it makes you want to throw your arms out wide and embrace whatever beautiful or horrible thing is coming your way.
- A Brief Thought: Karly Hartzman can paint a damn scene. And the tunes on Rat Saw God color her bleak but beautiful southern landscapes with the perfect mixture of dissonance and jangly guitar melodies. If you get a chance to road trip through the cold, sunny emptiness of a southern winter, as I’ve just done this holiday break, cue this album up for the soundtrack. “Hot Rotten Grass Smell” is definitely the album opener of the year, and immediately gets this album where it belongs: nestled with the dirt under your fingernails.
- A Brief Thought: Dystopia never sounded so motivating. MSPAINT is punk for the far too plugged-in, cynical optimist. Vocalist Deedee shouts mantras of encouragement in between succinct depictions of our American capitalist hellscape while the bass-heavy, synth-laden compositions charge up the motherfucking pit.
10. When Horses Would Run – Being Dead
- A Brief Thought: Look, I review a lot of albums in everyday conversation with just repeated refrains of “I love this album,” but really, I love this album. Like love in the listening to it gives me butterflies and giddiness kind of way. Delight is infectious. Nostalgia is both delightful and haunting, and Being Dead captures both the glee and the misery of gazing into the past. This album is like watching those old cartoons you used to love and catching the hidden darkness in the jokes you were too young to understand.
RIYL = (recommend if you like)
Rap Shit
Voir Dire – Earl Sweatshirt, The Alchemist
- RIYL… heady bars and dizzying beats and I guess… NFTs
We Buy Diabetic Test Strips – Armand Hammer
- RIYL… two of the best abstract rappers at the top of their game
Beloved! Paradise! Jazz?! – McKinley Dixon
- RIYL… Toni Morrison, rapping as immaculate storytelling
- RIYL… wondering what XXX would sound like when Danny got older, wiser
- RIYL… your boom bap with a dose of communism
- A Brief Thought: this is the best memoir of the year. Just a gorgeous, intimate portrait of a family and a life.
Faith Is a Rock – MIKE, Wiki, The Alchemist
- RIYL… blazing up and throwing rocks at eric adams’ house
Sundial – Noname
- RIYL… book clubs and bars
Jazzy Shit
Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) – jaimie branch
- A Brief Thought: devastated to have found jaimie’s music after her passing, but what a gift to be able to go through her incredible catalog after listening to this record.
Black Classical Music – Yussef Dayes
- RIYL… masterclass, going on a fucking adventure
Bark Out Thunder Roar Out Lightning – Chief Adjuah
- RIYL… reading Braiding Sweetgrass while listening to free jazz
Protect Your Light – Irreversible Entanglements
- RIYL… burning shit down at the end of a life-affirming rally
- RIYL… jamming with your talented friends that listen to everything
Heavy Shit
- RIYL… blast beats fading into soul samples
- A Brief Thought: The band’s last album ULTRAPOP got all the hype and love, and this one kinda fell under the radar. But the songs are still incredible, and The Armed remain one of my favorite hardcore-adjacent bands.
Spiritual Cramp – Spiritual Cramp
- RIYL… having a blast and an anxiety attack simultaneously
Life Under the Gun – Militaire Gun
- RIYL… taco bell commercials apparently (but seriously this album straight rips all the way through and “Do It Faster” has been on repeat well before it started soundtracking people shoving crunchy tacos in their mouths)
The Twits and Tracey Denim – bar italia
- A Brief Thought: One of the most exciting bands I stumbled into this year, and they gratefully released two fantastic albums in one year for me to obsess over.
- RIYL… all out thrashing frenzy that’s only disrupted by a perfect Descendents cover
- A Brief Thought: Listen, this doesn’t fit under heavy shit at all. But I make the rules here and there’s some WEIGHT to the chords on this record so fuck it, it’s heavy and it’s great.
Folksy Shit
Goodnight Summerland – Helena Deland
- A Brief Thought: This could have easily been in the top ten. “Spring Bug” has been one of my favorite songs of the year, and the rest of the tracks are much more understated and introspective but no less emotionally stirring.
Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love? – Kara Jackson
- RIYL… heartbreakingly honest, earnest songwriting
Zach Bryan – Zach Bryan
- RIYL… getting your mugshot taken on the way to sellout stadiums
The Greater Wings – Julie Byrne
- RIYL… floating on a breeze on a cool fall day
love is a dying – Bailey Miller
- RIYL… songs with immersive atmospheres
The Land Is Hospitable And So Are We – Mitski
- A Brief Thought: You might think this belongs under indie shit right below, and it probably does, but these are some of Mitski’s most intimate songs since TikTok discovered “Nobody” and I’m glad she’s decided to keep making music.
Indie Shit
- A Brief Thought: Easily my most re-played album of the year (aside from my many repeats of Blonde…). Nick writes song that cut right to the heart, and the songs on Health are some of the best in a catalog in I love dearly.
- RIYL… listening to the band next door just absolute nailing their newest song
- RIYL… getting high and watching the neighbors from the roof
- RIYL… imagining what Moby Dick would be like if it were written by Jeff Mangum
- RIYL… humming while in deep reflection
- RIYL… arguing with Steve Albini on Twitter which is the only entity I’ll ever deadname
The Land, The Water, The Sky – Black Belt Eagle Scout
- RIYL… riffs as powerful as the lyrics they’re backing
Try Not to Laugh – Graham Hunt
- A Brief Thought: I have only had a week with this joint, but these songs hit you right in the damn gut, and I am gonna be spinning this one for awhile. Love it when a 2023 fav spills into 2024.
Groovy / Dancy Shit
That Feels Good! – Jessie Ware
- RIYL… pure unadulterated pleasure, disco
- RIYL… your RnB with a healthy dose of mystique
- RIYL… songs that manage to be both club bangers and bedroom thinkers
- RIYL… synthlines that take you to space and vocals that make you clutch your heart
A New Reality Mind – Madeline Kennedy
- RIYL… songs that deliver on the premise to expand your mind
Through and Through – Baby Rose
- A Brief Thought: This album snuck up on me. Rose’s melodies kept creeping back into my thoughts and before I knew it I was listening to the whole dang thang over again.
- RIYL… dancing while you dismantle oppressive systems
Classical Shit
Rough Magic – Roomful of Teeth
- A Brief Thought: I am a geek for anything Caroline Shaw composes, and her suite here based on The Tempest is just wonderful. The closing suite composed by Peter S. Shin is also dense and gorgeous and full of several striking moments.
- A Brief Thought: Just watch this video of Pratt and A Far Cry playing the opening tune, “Rounds” by Jessie Montgomery, and if that doesn’t feel you with awe then your spirit is dead.
Other Shit
- RIYL… wandering through the south with nothing but a guitar and some change
- RIYL… operatic tunes that drop out for a rap feature
- RIYL… staring into an empty field and imagining the best and worst of what you’ve done with your life
Did you know there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd – Lana Del Rey
- RIYL… Look, you know if you like Lana Del Rey by now.
Sean Enfield 
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