Favorite Albums of 2023, Cont’d…
35. Rhiannon Giddens, You’re The One
A folksinger with a classically trained voice, Rhiannon Giddens tends to unite a diverse range of standards of varying vintage and musical heritage. Her first album of entirely original songs — mostly concerned with either love, or social justice — sounds somehow just as timeless and as broad in its scope. Highlights: “You Louisiana Man,” “You’re the One,” “Yet to Be”
36. WITCH, Zango
Progenitors of Zambia’s psychedelic scene in the 1970s, WITCH (We Intend To Cause Havoc) return with their first album in 40-ish years, and a multi-lingual mixture of rock, funk and soul that holds true to their Zamrock legacy but embraces modern elements of Zambian music and sounds fresh and alive. Highlights: “Waitle,” “Avalanche of Love,” “Stop The Rot”
37. Skating Polly, Chaos County Line
Indie rock with facile guitar work and engrossing lyrics made by a pair of step-sisters from Oklahoma — their brother drums, too — Skating Polly’s 18-song epic is versatile enough to justify its 67-minute runtime and full enough of memorable melodies hold your attention all the way through. Highlights: “Send A Priest,” “Booster Seat,” “Someone Like A Friend”
38. Buddy and Julie Miller, In The Throes
Their second full album together after a long hiatus, the Tennesee-dwelling roots music power couple share a hopeful collection of songs, largely written by Julie, on which the uncanny combination of their voices sounds as dynamic as ever and the songs ring with thoughtful compassion. Highlights: “You’re My Thrill,” “Niccolo,” “I Love You”
39. Guided By Voices, La La Land
It’s tempting to take a band for granted when they’ve made almost 40 albums, but the Dayton lo-fi indie rock vets have some serious momentum going, with the sophisticated melodies and prog-forward trajectory of their last few records. La La Land is another engaging and expansive step up. Highlights: “Instinct Dwelling,” “Slowly on the Wheel,” “Cousin Jackie”
40. The National, Laugh Track
A surprise release just 4 months after their last, The National’s latest offers rougher sonics and livelier energy than its predecessor. A restless passion in this music that make this “companion” album a new beast entirely, though the production similarly centers Matt Berninger’s stately, poignant lyrics. Highlights: “Weird Goodbyes,” “Smoke Detector,” “Alphabet City”
41. Noname, Sundial
Still ethereal and imbued with her usual cosmic jazz sensibilities, the Chicago rapper’s third album feels more direct, more grounded, and more explicit in its leftism as well. A lyrical approach which blends the confessional, the observational, and the political, works like a charm. Highlights: “Hold Me Down,” “Namesake,” “Gospel?”
42. Béla Fleck, As We Speak
Banjo, cello, tabla, upright bass and the Indian bansuri flute are a match made in Heaven, as the banjo master and his quartet mash up bluegrass, classical music, jazz, traditional Indian music and more on this exquisite double album. Highlights: “Beast in the Garden,” “Tradewinds Bengali,” “Owl’s Misfortune”
43. Janelle Monáe, The Age of Pleasure
Taking several steps away from her sci-fi neo-soul roots in the direction of mainstream hip hop — sonically and lyrically — doesn’t stifle Janelle Monae’s musical prowess. Her fourth album is a manifesto of celebratory hedonism and sex-positivity, and makes good on her promise as a protégé of Prince. Highlights: “Know Better,” “Phenomenal,” “The Rush”
44. Neil Gaiman and FourPlay String Quartet, Signs of Life
The well-loved British author’s debut music album — as a spoken word performer and occasional songwriter — arrives in collaboration with an Australian indie string quartet. Gaiman’s preoccupation with the nature of storytelling, his penchant to looking at life’s underbelly, and his sense of humor, are all on display here, and the strings are in step with him all the way. Highlights: “Signs of Life,” “The Wreckers,” “Song of the Song”
45. CMAT, Crazymad, For Me
A dramatically improved 2nd album from an Irish artist who’s learned she’s funnier when she lets her humor simmer in the sauce of her songcraft, rather than lead with it. That lesson pays off hugely on a sharp-witted album with an endearing confessional streak and first-rate pop hooks. Highlights: “California,” “Whatever’s Inconvenient,” “Where Are Your Kids Tonight?”
46. Algiers, Shook
The Atlanta band’s highly collaborative, proudly political 4th album continues with a characteristically frenetic mixture of Gospel, post-punk, rap and more but this time these elements repeat with a consistency and a pace that makes the whole thing more cohesive. Some of these songs are pure fire: “Irreversible Damage,” “Bite Back,” “I Can’t Stand It!”
47. Teenage Fanclub, Nothing Lasts Forever
The Scotish power pop giants focus on simple songcraft and charming harmonies on a resplendent 12th album. As one who prefers the ever-maturing songwriting and increased cohesion between the band’s individual voices — over their early work’s reverb-y indie guitars — it’s a big win. Highlights: “Foreign Land,” “Tired of Being Alone,” “Self-Sedation”
48. The Cat Empire, Where The Angels Fall
One of my all-time most-loved bands soldiers on after replacing most of its veteran members, including my favorite. The result is not as transcendent, but still a lot of fun. The band coalesces around a more straightforward sound I’m tempted to call “party jazz,” though there’s more depth than that implies, and ultimately the band’s sound is unique and unclassifiable. Highlights: “Thunder Rumbles,” “Oh Mercy,” “Coming Back Again”
49. Lil Yachty, Let’s Start Here.
While fundamentally a hip hop record, the Atlanta rapper’s 5th features almost no rap, immersing itself instead in a landscape of psychedelic rock/soul/funk. Let’s Start Here arrived in January, serendipitously singaling a year of interesting cross-polination between hip hop and indie rock. Highlights: “Drive Me Crazy!,” “Reach The Sunshine.,” “Pretty”
50. Lori McKenna, 1988
Clear-eyed, motherly wisdom imparted through deceptively simple tunes. This Boston-based mom of five made a name for herself writing hits for country singers, but her appeal cuts through genre lines and her 12th album is full of emotionally affecting songs. Highlights: “Happy Children,” “Wonder Drug,” “The Tunnel”
51. Bonnie Prince Billy, Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You
Increasingly self-assured in the perspective he’s developed over time, Will Oldham brings us a very personal, powerful, mostly warm and yet sometimes chilling folk album. A musically austere affair compared with much of his indie rock, it’s Oldham’s vocal and lyrical gravitas that capture the ear. Highlights: “Queens of Sorrow,” “Like It or Not,” “Behold! Be Held!”
52. Marina Herlop, Nekkuja
Deliciously peculiar art pop blessed with an ethereal avant-folk aesthetic, this Barcelona-based artist welds chaos and whimsy into an otherworldly but infectious third album sung primarily in her native Catalan, with bursts of south Indian konnakol syllabic vocal percussion, and her own made-up language. Highlights: “La Alhambra,” “Reina Mora,” “Cosset”
53. André 3000, New Blue Sun
I’m sure you’ve already heard about the surprising return of the Outkast emcee 17 years later, but “flute instrumentals” doesn’t really cover it. This is an album of ambient jazz compositions with a diverse array of instrumentation. As a side bonus, it’s powerful enough that it is somehow freaking out religious conservatives too! Highlights: Tracks 3, 6, and 1.
54. Peter Gabriel, i/o
As emotionally resonant as any of his 80s/90s work, the artist’s first album in 20 years sounds pretty much exactly what a Peter Gabriel album should sound like without seeming like a retread. It’s worldwide in scope, and full of vocal conviction and instantly classic synth lines, with gravitas for days. Highlights: “Road to Joy,” “i/o,” “Four Kinds of Horses”
55. 100 gecs, 10,000 gecs
Frenetic hyperpop with enough pitch-shifting and glitchiness to ward off snobs and the over-30s, the duo’s second album will reward listeners keen enough to see through its flashiness to an inventive pastiche of sonic sorcery. As the chaotic genre-splicing continues, ska-punk is an unlikely key player on this one. Highlights: “Frog On The Floor,” “mememe,” “Dumbest Girl Alive”
56. Buck Meek, Haunted Mountain
Having launched a solo career just before becoming a founding member of one of his generation’s best bands, the Texan-bred Big Thief guitarist now lets the influence of his band into his solo work. Still country-tinged, this rockier, plugged-in indie folk nicely balances and centers his sweet, whimsical approach. Highlights: “Undae Dunes,” “Haunted Mountain,” “The Secret Side of You”
57. Chouk Bwa & the Ångströmers, Somanti
Building the bridge between ceremonial vodou music and EDM you didn’t know you needed, Haitian bandleader Chouk Bwa and Belgian electronica producers The Ångströmers’ second collaboration is both more vital and even more enjoyable than the first. Highlights: “Sala,” “Somanti,” “Viyaya Keke”
58. Jamila Woods, Water Made Us
The Chicago neo-soul singer’s third LP is an album’s worth of ruminations on love and partnership and what it takes to make it work. As cohesive and intentional an exploration as her previous works, it’s the depth and nuance of Woods’s inquiry that keep this from being just another R&B album about romantic love. Highlights: “Tiny Garden,” “Practice,” “Send A Dove”
59. Beirut, Hadsel
Sweet and soothing sonically even when it’s moody and mournful, Zach Condon and crew’s latest envelops in its songs in a lush, warm blanket of sound. Lifted gracefully by charming horns, synths, pipes and strings, it delights in the hallmarks of Beirut’s signature sound and it’s a beautiful return to form. Highlights: “Stokmarknes,” “January 18th,” “Hadsel”
60. Kara Jackson, Why Does The Earth Give Us People To Love?
A celebrated poet making her debut album as a singer/songwriter, the former U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate’s lyrics are as rich as you’d hope. Folk music with cleanly delivered, unembellished vocals, the album’s simple production underscores the clarity of Jackson’s voice as both singer and poet. Highlights: “Lily,” “Dickhead Blues,” “Therapy”
61. Joanna Sternberg, I’ve Got Me
With simply arranged folk songs about love and losing oneself in it, NYC-based singer/songwriter Joanna Sternberg chronicles their pursuit of romantic union through all the pitfalls of that journey, while insisting on self-acceptance and genuine love even in their most desperate moments. Highlights: “I’ve Got Me,” “People Are Toys To You,” “Mountains High”
62. The National, First Two Pages of Frankenstein
Rejecting catharsis, The National are as cozy as ever with melancholy and heartache, inviting it stuff to stick around long enough to impart its lessons. Their 9th album offers a gentler tugging at the heart than usual, which does not so much console as show us where we need consoling.Highlights: “Eucalyptus,” “This Isn’t Helping,” “Send For Me”
63. Squid, O Monolith
Delving further into sonically elaborate, textured art rock, the Brighton-based band sidelines much of the frenetic, punk-ish intensity of their debut. It’s steadier and more methodical, but odd times singnatures and occasional wigouts still display their oddball badge proudly. Highlights: “Swing (In A Dream),” “Undergrowth,” “If You Had Seen The Bull’s Swimming Attempts You Would Have Stayed Away”
64. Jeff Rosenstock, Hellmode
With his punk ethic and uncompromising spirit fully intact, the prolific DiY songster offers up his most textured, cleanest album yet and it hits right in the heart, full of passion and yet with a newfound sense of optimism. This seems to the the album where his sensibilities line up the most with mine; amps me up and makes me happy too. Highlights: “Will U Still U,” “Doubt,” “Healmode”
65. Grouplove, I Want It All Right Now
Anthemic, bright, guitar-and-keyboard driven indie rock is this Atlanta band’s strong suit, and the new album has this in spades. Frontcouple Christian Zucconi and Hannah Hooper (the band’s married dual lead vocalists) are gonna do the best to brighten your day, and it’s hard to get too cynical about it. Highlights: “Malachi,” “Tryin’,” “Cream”
66. Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee, Los Angeles
One of the great producers of the modern era teams up with the original drummers of the Cure and the Banshees, respectfully, for a surprising collaboration which straddles post-punk and electronica and enlists the help of numerous guests for a meaty album about life in LA. Highlights: “Los Angeles,” “Uh Oh,” “Bodies”
67. Gord Downie & Bob Rock, Lustre Parfait
Recorded long before his cancer diagnosis, the Tragically Hip frontman’s 3rd posthumous album finds his innately off-kilter, understated work all dressed up by producer Bob Rock (who has produced Metallica and Mötley Crüe); it actually works, and of course Downie’s lyrics are as profound as ever. Highlights: “The Raven and the Red-Tailed Hawk,” “The Moment Is A Wild Place,” “In The Field”
Continue to #68 through 100 of my Favorite Alniums of 2023, and the master list…
(Still plenty of great stuff to go — this year was utterly packed!!)
…Or, check out my Highlights of 2023 playlist!