My Top 25 Albums of 2023

 A cool year for creativity

[posted to IG from January 25, 2023, to January 31, 2023]

Took me a bit but I’ve finally finalized my top albums of 2023, and I am very excited to share them. I don’t think 2023 measured up to the past two years, but I discovered a ton of dope new artists, was surprised by a couple old favorites, and got some great projects from current favorites as well. As always, a reminder that unlike film theory, which I’ve been studying for 15 years, I don’t know shit about music theory, and these selections are largely emotion-based - though I do listen to enough music every year (we’re talking hundreds upon hundreds of albums) to know what’s unique, which is always a driving factor. You don’t have to know theory to recognize creativity.

25. Kari Faux - REAL B*TCHES DON’T DIE

I’m not the biggest fan of southern hip hop, but I really dug Kari Faux’s southern pop rap bops on this album. The type of funky, chilled out sounds you’d expect to hear as the smells of backwoods and barbecue waft through the air on a hazy summer day, sweat trickling down your back, but oh so cool.

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​24. Holly Humberstone - Paint My Bedroom Black

Earnest songs about love, loneliness, crushes, breakups and rekindled romances fill this debut from UK pop artist Holly Humberstone. Holly’s self-assured commercial songwriting, lovely vocals, earworm melodies, and medley of instrumentals make her a rising star worth keeping an ear or two on. Shoutout @morgan_barthen for the rec.

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23. Ratboys - The Window

It’s just a really enjoyable indie rock album. If that’s your thing, give it a try. Not much else to say.

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22. RXKNephew & Harry Fraud - LIFE AFTER NEPH

Hip hop’s new crown prince of absurdism, RXKNephew, is one of the leaders of the genre’s recent crop of absolutely bizarre left-field trap artists with a new style of rapping that’s often more like a list of completely insane one-liners set to music than actual rapping. He’s one of the few rappers who is always guaranteed to make me laugh, but LIFE AFTER NEPH isn’t all nonsensical braggadocio and out-of-pocket jokes, as Neph doesn’t shy away from getting personal either. Set to eclectic production from Harry Fraud, one of the most respected beat-makers of the blog-rap era, LIFE AFTER NEPH has an unexpected substance to it and should be sought out by anyone looking to explore the margins of the new hip hop zeitgeist.

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​21. Danny Brown - Quaranta

Arguably hip hop’s most self-destructive conscious rapper, Quaranta sees Danny Brown much more stripped back - the somber reflections of a 40-year-old who used to be the life of the drug-fueled party and fucked himself up doing it. An escape from a nightmarish childhood that became another trap. The maelstrom of chaotic artistry that turned the genre on its head in the 2010s has largely dissipated, but a seemingly more mature (and still satisfyingly creative) Danny has emerged from the rubble, now using music as more of a controlled outlet than a survival mechanism until the next fix hits - a promising new path for one of the genre’s most revered artists of the past 10-15 years.

​20. Godcaster - Godcaster

​Godcaster’s self-titled album is an experiment in dread. The jagged guitars and surreal apocalyptic poetry create a fitting atmosphere for tracks about killing gods and fallen angels and destroying the sun: inevitably leading to cataclysm and hell on Earth. This disorienting yet mesmerizing experimental art punk album leaves me unnerved in ways that feel metaphysical - the same type of profound unease I get when listening to the 60s electronic duo Silver Apples or late 70s post-punk groups - and I mean that as the highest praise.

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​19. JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown - SCARING THE HOES

​Though much more aggressively experimental, JPEGMAFIA has largely taken over the role that Danny Brown held in the early-mid 2010s as hip hop’s lead purveyor of outlandish beats and comedically inflammatory bars - recruiting much of Danny’s same fanbase in the process - which is why it was such an unexpected treat to see the two team up for a chaos-drenched collab album in 2023. The songs are as ludicrous, pulpy, and confrontational as the exploitation films the cover art draws its inspiration from (it’s not without the gritty, hard-edged social commentary of those films either). Even though I think Peggy runs away with the show on SCARING THE HOES, it’s a privilege to hear two of contemporary hip hop’s most creative minds linking up for a project that’s thoroughly on brand for the both of them. In hindsight, it felt inevitable.

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​18. Kesha - Gag Order

Gag Order is a transformation of sorts: this is not the Kesha we once knew, and she bares it all on this deeply vulnerable and moving pop album that’s as accessible as it is artistically minded. Left traumatized by the industry and suffering no shortage of cruelties for her music or party-girl persona when she became one of the biggest pop stars in the world in the late 2000s, Gag Order details Kesha’s journey recovering from past wounds and regrets, and the loss that often comes with growth. Her expressive vocal performances are powerful enough to give me chills, her talents for crafting catchy melodies remain strong as ever, and she may have released the best love song of 2023 with “All I Need Is You.” On Gag Order, Kesha sounds exhausted but healing - an album that’s heartbreaking but beautifully hopeful. A soundtrack for the steadily growing glow from within that chases away the darkness and makes one say, “I think I’m going to be okay.”

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17. ICECOLDBISHOP - GENERATIONAL CURSE

This is hands down my favorite hip hop debut since slowthai’s Nothing Great About Britain in 2019. L.A. rapper ICECOLDBISHOP’s debut, GENERATIONAL CURSE, is an animated and darkly detailed telling of retaliation killings and wars of retribution, at times directly comparing Black on Black violence to controlled genocide - impoverished young men unknowingly manipulated into doing a racist government’s dirty work for them and unable to escape the cycle, the trauma, the depression, the pain that’s numbed with drugs, flowing into a whole other cycle like an infinity loop. The Kendrick style biting accusations are inevitable with how similar some of ICECOLDBISHOP’s vocal inflections and voices sound to GKMC-era K.Dot, but Bishop’s abilities are inarguable and the album stands on its own. The rhymes, the flows, the wordplay, the storytelling, the themes and commentary, the performances, and the versatility speak to an immensely purposeful and self-assured artist who is really fucking good at what he does and damn well knows it. If you want to hear an impactful hip hop project with many of the wildest, most dynamic vocal performances of the year from a young dude with head-turning talent, GENERATIONAL CURSE is a must-listen.

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​16. Sunrot - The Unfailing Rope

It’s probably weird to compare this punishing sludge metal album to Kesha’s Gag Order, but both express life-affirming ideas of finding the light in the darkness and the resiliency to push through monstrous hardships. Even the dimmest spark can engender a reason to continue, and on Sunrot’s The Unfailing Rope, that spark is found in the affirmative compassion of “The One You Feed, Pt. 2” as lead singer Lex Nihilum shrieks “Now you can heal / Trust me, it's safe / Even if you feel there is no hope / Just keep holding on.” Sunrot also wrap the album up with an audio recording of famed writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin urging people to let love into their hearts lest they become the very same monsters that they fear. The album is brutal, existential, atmospheric, and profoundly moving if you’re able to weather its chugging onslaught of abrasive, droning guitars, screamed vocals, and often horrifying lyrics. My sonic intensity doesn’t usually go too far past sludgy noise rock or some light blackgaze, but I found The Unfailing Rope to be one of the most complete, well-rounded, and artistically satisfying records of 2023.

​15. Julie Byrne - The Greater Wings

​Listening to Julie Byrne is like tasting heaven without the condition of death. Her voice is a caliber of beautiful that exists on its own on cosmic plane, so beautiful that it’s almost painful, as if it wasn’t intended for human ears to hear it - but paired with warm, soul-soothing chamber folk instrumentals, The Greater Wings mostly feels like renewal, and I always come out the either side more at peace than when I entered. Byrne’s poetic songwriting aptly matches the ethereal atmosphere as well, telling stories not through narratives, but emotions and fleeting memories, taking on the nature of a wispy dreamscape where fragmented visions are felt rather than understood. Her melodies and lyrics often remind me of Nick Drake, and though I think The Greater Wings suffers from some inconsistencies, when at its best it exists at that level of S-tier singer-songwriter artistry.

​14. Hot Mulligan - Why Would I Watch

​Of all the albums I have outside of the top 10, Hot Mulligan’s Why Would I Watch probably has the highest likelihood for me to still be listening to regularly a year from now. If I did a redux in the future, this record might even be near the top 5 because I’m a huge slut for this type of blend of high-energy pop punk and introspective Midwest emo (e.g. see past favorites like Origami Angel’s GAMI GANG which was #5 in 2021 and Pool Kids’s self-titled album which topped my 2022 list). But as it stands, everything ahead of Hot Mulligan on this list impressed me a bit more, even if this album’s exhilarating riffs, shouted vocals, dynamic melodicism, and brutally honest songwriting about mental health, the death of unburdened youthful optimism, and the angst of adulthood where reality occasionally feels too intense to bear speak to my very soul.

13. Armand Hammer - We Buy Diabetic Test Strips

​The avant-rap duo of Elucid and billy woods (all lowercase when you spell the man’s name #IYKYK) are now a decade into their collaborative projects. After all that time together it makes sense that they might want to push themselves in new directions, but by god did they put the pedal to the metal with the experimentation on this one. We Buy Diabetic Test Strips is 53 minutes of the duo’s grittily poetic spoken-word style rapping over some of the most insane hip hop production of the year - a year that included the JPEGMAFIA-Danny Brown team up, no less (though less surprising with the knowledge that Peggy leant his cutting-edge production chops to WBDTS). This project has some of the most jaw-dropping beat switches I’ve heard outside of J Dilla or Madlib records, and the track “Trauma Mic” is so nightmarishly grimy it probably has Death Grips taking notes. We Buy Diabetic Test Strips is whirlwind of vivid imagery, dense moods, and meticulous sonic textures, and it’s undoubtedly the most radical hip hop album of 2023.

12. Anna B Savage - inFLUX

​Anna B Savage is another one of the handful of extremely talented singer-songwriters I had the pleasure of discovering this year. Her lyrics find that perfect bridge between playful and personal that hit all the right notes for me and she displays an enticing variety of production choices across inFLUX. The most impressive aspect of her artistry, however, is the way she uses her dynamic voice. Anna delivers song after song of commandingly intricate vocal performances that leave no detail of the emotions behind her often heart-wrenching lyrics to the imagination. This woman paints murals with her voice so evocative that the words are nearly obsolete. The words aren’t obsolete though because they’re so good. Everything is so good. This album is good as hell.

11. Indigo De Souza - All of This Will End

I’m always surprised that Indigo De Souza doesn’t have a bigger following because she seems like the next indie phenom to me. I wouldn’t quite put her at the Phoebe Bridgers level because as I’ve stated in the past, I think Phoebe might be the greatest songwriter to come about in the 21st century so far, but the potential and versatile skill set are definitely there for Indigo to achieve similar success. Showing off a nice range of influences, All of This Will End surges with catchy hooks, painfully introspective yet relatable lyrics, boppy indie rock instrumentals, and more than enough artistic choices to separate itself from the pack. It’s such an irresistible combination of unique and familiar that it’s a challenge for me to imagine De Souza’s career not taking off in the near future.

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​​10. Prewn - Through the Window

​Through the Window heralds the arrival of a singular artist who doesn’t as much project her psyche outwards as drag the listener stunned and disoriented into the folds of her troubled mindscape. Her music is hard to pin down genre-wise, somewhere in the realm of art folk with plenty of experimentation and the occasional angular electric guitar work of post-punk, but the moods are thick, expressionistic, and eviscerating. Sometimes her vocals are howling, sometimes she sounds so fragile that she might crack at a moment’s notice, pulling herself and the listener into spiraling oblivion as she recounts near-death experiences and battles with debilitating mental illness - sinking so deep she was institutionalized. Backed by evocative production that sounds like it’s coming from a cabin trapped in the shadow realm, Prewn’s surreal and hauntingly ominous artistry will wriggle its way under your skin like grave worms and linger there, daring you to forget.

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​9. Model/Actriz - Dogsbody

​Love. Blood. Sex. Violence. Dogsbody is the remarkable debut album from the four-piece band Model/Actriz that blends noisy post-punk with thumping industrial beats so rhythmic they make you want to dance to lead singer/lyricist Cole Haden’s disturbing horror poetry. The vocal performances are so darkly theatrical that they border on camp - the phantom of the grindhouse - and with plenty of overt homoerotic lyrics, Haden reminds me of Mike Hadreas of Perfume Genius fame, if Mike had grown up hanging out at biker bars and goth raves. Though in this club, every darkened corner only reveals parasitic lust and pulsing viscera. Dogsbody is far and away my favorite punk album of the year, and the fact that it brings in two of my other favorite things - horror and grimy electronics - only makes it even better.

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8. Tim Hecker - No Highs

​I had to stop giving this album deep listens because the last time I did I ended up pacing around my kitchen for an hour stress-eating a box of Cheez-its. I consume a lot of cynical and nihilistic art, but I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced anything quite as hopeless as Tim Hecker’s No Highs. It will drain the life out of you. It is nothing but pain, shame, and annihilating despair, where the only direction is down and the bottom never stop falling out. It’s a plummet through a dark pit that becomes an endless abyss that becomes an utter void. It’s a reflection of a world turned upside down, where reality has shattered but everyone is too blind or too much of a coward to open their eyes and see it. There is no sun, no future free of torment or suffering or the decimation of the ego. Those aren’t warning bells in the distance, they’re the horns of the apocalypse. The end isn’t near: it’s here. There’s so much hurt in Tim Hecker’s ambient soundscapes on No Highs that it’s genuinely painful to listen to, but it’s not without beauty either, and I think expressing any type of emotion this openly can be quite profound. There’s a type of transcendence in facing your inner demons that fearlessly. Hecker said he made this album as a response to the corporatization of ambient music that sucks the soul from the art, and I think his response is intensely powerful - because it damn near sucked the soul from me.

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​7. billy woods & Kenny Segal - Maps

​billy woods is my idol. IDK, this is the fourth appearance he’s had on my top 25 lists in the past two years and his third placement in the top 10. I don’t know what else there is to say about him other than how deep of an impact he’s had on me as a writer since I discovered him. This is my hip hop album of the year and I think when all is said and done, he has a fair chance at surpassing Kendrick and MF DOOM as my favorite hip hop artist of all time.

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6. Blondshell - [self-titled]

Another day, another debut. Blondshell’s self-titled album is the third of four debut records in my top 10 and further proof of how many talented artists are crawling out the damn woodwork, which makes me feel much better about how underwhelmed I’ve been by recent releases from past favorites. Her LP premiere is a snappy, perfectly curated barrage of unbelievably addictive indie rock bangers with hooks so clean they’ll scatter your teeth across the floor. Her songwriting is witty, confessional, and unafraid, and she uses the album to open up about her self-destructive habits and penchant for unrepentantly falling in love with assholes. This album will make you laugh just as often as it touches your heart, and I think Blondshell has immense commercial potential as a musician because the sentiment that I always come away with most of all after listening to this album is just how endearing and likable she seems. It also doesn’t hurt that she has exceptional melodic intuition.

5. yeule - softscars

You know I love me some candy-coated electro pop and yeule’s softscars is the genre’s best offering of the year for me. The Singaporean artist kicks the record off with a thrashing rock track before conjuring a tide of glitchy electronic dreamscapes throughout the rest of the project. It sounds like a recipe for a blissful cotton candy cloud, but underneath the sugary production lies yeule’s poetically unsettling lyrics where - similar to Model/Actriz - love is always intertwined with violence, decay, and bodily sacrifice. yeule positions themself as a sort of lovesick AI android permanently relegated to the sidelines for their differences and obsessed with flesh and fluids and all things carnal - the lyrics often veering into the realm of body horror all while the production sounds like the soundtrack to a sunshine frolic through a field of daisies or a chill poolside hangout. It’s a deeply emotive album where the artificial and the natural become as inseparable as the play between light and darkness: a symbiosis, one inside of the other inside of the other inside of the other in an endless interchange. A future where both must exist for the other to survive.

4. Slow Pulp - Yard

The beautiful melancholy of Slow Pulp’s Yard just gets me. The Midwest quartet sprinkle a variety of influences into their intimate and introspective indie music, including fuzzy shoegaze, loose and breezy 90’s alt-rock, and some alt-country twang. What pulled me in most though is the album’s penultimate track “Broadview.” On the track, frontwoman Emily Massey sweetly, sadly, earnestly sings “Am I wrong? / Or is it okay to stay inside / And out of love? / Tell me I’m wrong / I’m just gonna give it a try / And know that it’s enough.” It’s an identical sentiment that I had been feeling at the start of 2023 after somewhat giving up on relationships due to years and years and years of absolutely failing to find a spark with anyone. I had largely stopped putting in effort, accepting the idea that I might just be one of those people who never finds anyone, but I decided I was tired of being passive and figured there’s no harm in trying, even if it winds up fizzling out. Not too long after that resolve I met the girl who would become my person during an Airbnb trip with friends. We were talking in the kitchen the second day after breakfast, and I didn’t just feel a spark with her during that conversation, it felt like my entire body was positively vibrating (granted, part of that might have been from the edible I took). I was going to ask for her number but she left before I woke up the last day, so as soon as I got home from the trip I found her on IG and sent her a message pretending that I had forgotten the name of a band she was telling me about. We made playlists for each other, started talking all day every day, and after a week of talking to her I deleted all the dating apps from my phone because I said “There is no one else. This girl is it.” We wouldn’t actually end up together for another 7-8 months due to crossed wires, but once we were it felt like it couldn’t have been any other way, our story couldn’t have been written any differently. With all of the anomalies, bizarre coincidences, and freak chances that started happening between us, it felt like the universe had brought us together for a reason (and still does).

I remember listening to this album a few days after the first weekend we spent together and telling her about it because I thought she might be into it, and after looking up the group she noticed that they were from the same city that she lives in. Another weird coincidence. Another sign. I don’t usually do anecdotes for these, but I think it plays into the narrative of why this album is so special to me other than the music. Because even when you feel like giving up, sometimes you just have to be patient, give it a try, and know that’s it’s enough.

3. Home Is Where - The Whaler

I had been counting this as Home Is Where’s debut because it’s the only project that shows up under Albums for them on Apple Music, but I guess they consider their 18-minute project from 2021, I Became Birds, to be their debut LP, so I guess Blondshell was my favorite debut and this is just a phenomenal follow-up from a recently established band. The Whaler is a bleak but deeply artful concept album from Florida-based band Home Is Where that incorporates emo, hardcore punk, and a bit of post-rock into their inspired sound. I could go on myself but I’m a bit tired of writing so I’ll just directly quote what the artist themselves said about the album: “The Whaler was built around the idea of simultaneously being bored and afraid […] Without getting too deep into the weeds, the album as a whole tells the story of the whole world being stuck in a time loop on 9/11/2001, and like with tape loops, the more it plays out, the more it degrades. People grow older and things change, but the collapse of the World Trade Center happens every morning. […] It has happened so often now that the loop is almost completely disintegrated, things are falling apart, and whales are offering themselves to harpoons that the narrator didn’t even know they were holding. The end of the world isn’t some grand event, it’s just another day.” It’s damn close to being a masterpiece, you should listen to it.

2. Nicole Dollanganger - Married in Mount Airy

Nicole Dollanganger’s ghostly folk music is one of the most compelling spins I’ve heard on the timeworn genre and a dark and haunting masterclass in atmosphere. Dollanganger’s ethereal vocals and celestial production sound birthed from the faded photographs of a small town woman, her self-destructive man, and their spiraling relationship, as full of love as it is hate. Listening to Married in Mount Airy feels like coming across a midnight spirit made of moonlight, mournfully singing tragic tales of a buried past from a moss-carpeted clearing, aglow, splashed in silver motes, deep in the woods, luring you ever-closer with its otherwordly siren's call, where by the time the dawn breaks you're left with nothing but a gossamer memory and a head full of lingering songs. A sad, forgotten life. A tall tale that no one will believe. A dope-ass album.

1. underscores - Wallsocket

Even after listening to underscore’s Wallsocket repeatedly, it still catches me off guard with all of its sonic twists and turns - the musicianship is unreal, and what’s even more unreal is that the musician behind the moniker, April Grey, is only 23 years old. The young artist hops between genres with the ease of Jobu Tupaki jumping between universes, and Wallsocket is stunningly cohesive for the absurd amount of creative ideas exploding from every nook and cranny, where no idea goes undeveloped, each reaching supernova impact. And while it does bounce around from genre to genre like a musical frog, Wallsocket mostly aligns with electro pop, which only makes the writing that much more impressive. The world of electronic music typically finds itself associated with blanket relatability so people don’t have to think too deep when they’re dancing and singing along to it, but Wallsocket is jammed full of fascinating stories and characters. It’s an electronic concept album with depth, crafted to perfection, bleeding with authenticity. It has an endearing amount of heart and it’s catchy as hell. It is playful, high-energy, eclectic, and features some of the best progressions of the decade. And I think it goes to show how inspired the internet generations can be. Despite all of its pitfalls, it can expose young artists to so many uncommon concepts, especially trans artists like April Grey who were likely forced to find their safe spaces online where they’re completely plugged into the cultural zeitgeist and a cosmos of unconventional influences that all champion thinking different. Regardless of genre, nearly all of the most game-changing music I’ve heard in the past few years has come from trans, non-binary, or otherwise queer artists (e.g., underscores, yeule, Special Interest, Jane Remover, 100 gecs, Ada Rook, and Backxwash just to name a few [and not to mention the late great SOPHIE who really kicked some doors down in terms of exposure]).

​I genuinely think LGBTQ+ artists are the foreseeable future of any and all new waves or revolutions in music or other forms of art (trans filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun directed the indefinable and extremely online We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, a movie I still think about regularly), not only because these are the unheard stories and perspectives that need to be heard, but because these stories and experiences engender unique ways of looking at the world and expressing oneself that we haven’t seen or heard before. With new narratives comes new forms comes new ideas in an endlessly fertile cycle. And that’s cool as hell.

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​TL;DR: listen to this album and yell “TRANS RIGHTS!” very loudly and protect trans folk when dumb mothefuckers try and take their rights away.