Repost: My 12 favorite albums of 2023
Just a little repost here. Wrote this piece last year on my Pump Up the Volume blog I did for school with my homies Calvin and JP. As I prepare to get my lists going for this crazy year of music, enjoy a blast from the past with my favorite albums from last year!
2023 was a pretty tremendous year for music. A lot of my favorite artists came through with great albums and a lot of artists I've never really checked out before dropped albums I couldn't ignore. I thought it'd be fun as the year comes to an end to compile a list of all my favorite albums and talk about what I love about each of them. So here goes nothing!
#12: Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist: Voir Dire
You can't go wrong with Earl and The Alchemist. This album has been long anticipated, they've teased it for years. I'm not sure if this is the same album that they claimed was hiding somewhere on YouTube or if this is a different collection of songs, but it's a pretty awesome batch of songs regardless. I think this album would've got a lot more attention if they put more care into the release, which they totally fumbled in my opinion (initially releasing it exclusively on Gala Music with a collection of NFT's...). That being said, I'm really happy the album made its way to streaming services. The two artists complement each other tremendously, and I would argue this album has some of my favorite Alchemist beats to date. Really wonderful listen.
#11: Blur: The Ballad of Darren
This album was definitely a grower for me. It's a bit of a left turn for Blur and I was kind of expecting a return to form album. In retrospect, I'm kind of happy they weren't trying to make the kind of music they were when they were young and in their prime. On The Ballad of Darren, the band exchanges their youthful upbeat pop sensibilities for a more exquisative and nuanced sound. Some of the most detailed instrumentation on a Blur album to date. While I do still think the album could use some more energy at times, I think this album continues the trend Blur has always set of having each album stands on their own within their catalog. It feels like a new chapter for a band that has rarely ever done the same thing twice, so all in all I'm pretty damn happy with it.
#10: Parannoul: After the Magic
I had never heard Parannoul until this year. It really feels like music that was designed for me a bit. It has infectious indie-pop sensibilities, explosive rock passages, and everything is fully soaked in an overblown and distorted psychedelic production style. It's kind of a hard album to categorize. The easiest term to use for it would be shoegaze, but it is far from a typical shoegaze record. The album art's intensely bright and sharp qualities are the perfect representation of this record's sound. Some songs don't shine as much as others in my opinion, but it's still a really fun and unique listen from top to bottom. Definitely check this album out if you haven't yet.
#9: Caroline Polachek: Desire, I Want to Turn Into You
This is an album I hadn't really checked out until pretty recently. I'm surprised it flew under my radar for so long. It seems to be one of the most popular albums of the year so far, and I can definitely see why. This thing is ambitious as hell. Experimental, eclectic, infectious, adventerous, stylish, and incredibly polished. This album is a spectacle of sound that celebrates pop music in a grand fashion. I can't believe I've never heard of her before because she already sounds like an art-pop titan. I definitely think the top and bottom of the album hit harder than some of the songs in the middle of the tracklist, but the highs on this album are so monstorous that it makes up for any lulls this album might have. What a great album this is.
#8: The Chemical Brothers: For That Beautiful Feeling
I love this damn thing. The name of this album is pretty much the best description for this album. This thing is just a collection of euphoric dance music that I could listen to on repeat for days and days. It definitely feels kind of different from what I know of the Chemical Brothers. I think it feels a little more simple, straight-forward, and upbeat than some of their other well-known abums. Whether that's what you're looking for or not, I really do feel like this album is hard not to enjoy. It's just got great energy and could make anyone want to dance. This year I have been on a bit of an electronic expedition, trying to educate myself in electronic music since most of my backrgound is in rock and alternative music. This album was a wonderful discovery in my expedition and as of now is my favorite Chemical Brothers album.
#7: Sufjan Stevens: Javelin
Man. Ah man. This thing man. This is thing is a beast. This is definitelty the saddest album of the year. For those that don't know, this record is about the death of Stevens' partner and what sounds like a turbulent period between them that proceeded it. Needless to say, this thing is heavy as fuck. But in addition to incredibly somber moments, there are also really uplifting and celebratory moments on this thing, as the front of the record serves as a retrospective look at their blossoming relationship. Javelin is an incredibly cinematic and eclectic record that kind of mixes Stevens' experimental instrumentation with his tender songwriting in a way that hasn't really been done before to this extent. The result is Stevens playing to all his strengths and creating an album that is really one of the best of his careers. It's a bummer that a lot of his best music comes out of periods of grief. I don't want Sufjan to hurt, but I'm also eternally grateful for this record.
#6: Liturgy: 93696
Liturgy is certainly one of the most important metal bands of the last ten years. There aren't many new practitioners of the genre that have done much to push it forward in my opinion. Thank the Earth for Liturgy. They are constantly pushing the envelope, and 93696 is this biggest statement yet. This album is explosive and elegant. The songs often pass the 15 minute mark and still feel captivating the entire time. They build and expand on their sound with some really cool clean sung vocals on Haelegen II and with even more orchestral elements than ever before. Their mixture of black metal, classical music, and glitchy electronic production is so uniquely their own and this album finds Liturgy at a more cohesive center point of all these genres better than ever before. Its a long album at 82 minutes, but I promise it's certainly worth the time you put in.
#5: Lana Del Rey: Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd
Man I really have never been a fan of Lana Del Rey, I mean like not at all. I never saw the appeal of her music. I'm sure I had my reasons, and I don't have any doubts of my past judgements. But goddamn. This thing is emaculate. Lana's voice sounds absolutely astounding on this record, and the musical style on this thing is so incredible. Lana's retrospective insights to her life, career, sexuality, and fame over these songs that sound like they came out of the 60's shows her fully in her element and at her boldest. Well, I guess I can't say boldEST because I haven't listened to any other full albums. But it's far more intricate and detailed than any of her songs that I have heard before. If her older work is anything like this album then I've made a terrible mistake writing her off for so many years. This album absolutely blew me away.
#4: Danny Brown: Quaranta
CHECK. Danny's back. But also kind of unrecognizable. This album has been highly anticipated, Danny even saying that it has been finished for like a year, being shelved by his label. It finally dropped a few weeks ago, and it was so damn worth the wait. This album sees Danny rapping in his lower register more than ever before, something I've wanted him to do more of for years. With this lower register rapping comes different lyrical content, a lot of his most personal lyrics to date. He raps about gentrification, missing the love of his life that left him, the effects that fame and drug use had on his personal life, and much more. Danny, who went through rehab earlier this year, sounds more mature than ever before, and we love that for Danny. And I commend him for making something so vulnerable.
#3: Lil Yachty: Let's Start Here
First things first, if I were making a list of the best artists of 2023, Yachty would be #1. Nobody had a better year than Yachty. He went from being something of a meatless rapper that was starting to fall into the oblivion that is the oversaturated modern rap landscape into becoming one of the most beloved oddballs in rap. While all the rap singles he's released this year reflect this pretty well, this album shows a side of Yachty that can hardly be described as odd, but rather magnificent. This indie-psych rock album marks one of the coolest and most successful left turn albums in history. Enlisting the likes of Alex G, Mac Demarco, and Ben Goldwasser of MGMT, Yachty demonstrates he is not interesting in simply cashing in on a trending genre but excelling in it and truly becoming a figure in indie culture. His voice is rich with passion even through the autotune, and his vocal style fits the music perfectly. It makes me wonder where he's been all this time. If you're reading this Yachty, keep it up. We love you.
#2: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard: PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: an Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation AND The Silver Cord (Extended Version)
Okay okay I know they're two albums. Frankly the idea to cram them into one ranking came to me solely to make room for other albums. But honestly, I feel like they deserve to sit with each other here. The context of the releases along with the correlations between the songs on each album are both major factors that make me love these albums so much. One is a bodacious exercise in progressive death metal and the other is a complete assimilation into the world of progressive-house and techno music. Released within 6 months of each other. Come on. Both of these albums fully commit to the genres they seek out and are prove once again that King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard can do literally anything. They even manage to connect each of the extended mixes from songs on The Silver Cord to corresponding songs on PetroDragonic Apocalypse, further making both albums feel like one major cohesive experience. These releases kind of remind me of 2019 when they dropped Fishing for Fishies and Infest the Rats' Nest. The stark contrast between the two albums and the surprising quality made them two of my favorite albums that year, and I can certainly say the same is true for their two albums from this year as well.
Honorable Mentions:
André 3000: New Blue Sun
Aphex Twin: Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / In a Room7 F760
Armand Hammer: We Buy Diabetic Test Strips
Billy Woods and Kenny Segal: Maps
††† (Crosses): Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete
Dethklok: Dethalbum IV
Mitski: The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We
Travis Scott: Utopia
Yves Tumor: Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)
#1: JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown: Scaring the Hoes, Vol. 1
This was an easy #1 album of the year. Like such an easy decision. How often does a collaboration like this happen??? With two of the biggest heavyweights in experimental hip-hop, you would maybe think it's too good to be true. Or maybe your expectations would be so high that it could never live up to the hype you created for it in your head. Welp, sorry to disappoint, because this album is actually unreal. The production is so much fun (even if it's a little messy at times) and both rappers are firing on all cylinders. This thing is relentless. This along with Quaranta makes a pretty heavy argument for Danny Brown as Artist of the Year (I'd still go Yachty though). It's great, cuz if you weren't into the calmer introspective stuff on that album, you can always go to this one where he is manic as ever. This album stands alone within both rappers' catalogs. It's among Brown's most experimental albums and among JPEGMAFIA's least experimental in my opinion. With production that feels a little less crazy and more in the realm of traditional hip-hop (by JPEG standards, meaning it's still weird as hell), the album makes you wanna bounce and rage and break stuff. JPEG and Danny's rapping styles complement each other so well, their verses effortlessly mesh and give the songs so much life. I don't know what else to say. This album is incredible and we are all so lucky that it exists.
