Top Ten Albums of the Year 2023

Somehow it’s already been a year and we’re back at the Top Ten Albums of the Year (2023 edition – you can read 2022 and 2021 by clicking the years). This past year has been interesting because I’ve also been doing a sort of mini-spotlight on music every month with the “What I’m Listening To” series of posts (that you can browse by clicking those very words) as well as doing posts on a few artists and albums by themselves.

So, given that, you would think there would be even more stuff listed here this year. And yet there are less runners-up than previously. Why is that? Well, honestly, it’s because of two reasons. Reason one is I listened to a bunch of stuff I’d heard before this year, falling down the well-loved rabbit holes of Heart, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Herbie Hancock specifically  and that just reduced the amount of music I bought. Reason two will be explained at the end of this post. Muahaha, or something.

Before we go any further though, let’s run down the basic rules, as we do every year:

• I don’t stream music. Nothing against people who do, mind you. I just like to buy my music, a mix of mp3s and CDs.
• I get albums and tend to think of music in terms of albums not singles more often than not. Which is why I am not doing the Top Ten Songs.
• This is my Top Ten Albums That I Personally Purchased (or got as gifts) This Calendar Year (From time of the last list so end of Nov to end of Nov). I had to work out what best meant in that context. For these purposes it meant things I reached for more often than anything else.
• Not all the music is from this year, it is just stuff I first heard this year.

This list will be in no special order, so read nothing into that, there is no best of the best past this collective lump.

And now let’s jump into the list!

Sungazer  – Perihelion (Bandcamp)
Adam Neely and Shawn Crowder’s experimental electro-jazz band is just such a strong example of what can be done with music if you stop thinking in terms of small boxes and genres to put yourself in. Perihelion is such a freeing album, really getting to the core of what makes for great jazz, and great electronica, while still remaining both and neither at the same time.

Vulfpeck  – Schvitz (Bandcamp)
Schvitz came out in December of last year, not long after I posted the previous Top Ten and it wasn’t long before I knew it would end up here on this year’s. Vulfpeck are one of the best modern funk bands around, so much so I wrote a whole deep dive post about them here. Schivtz itself, is, holistically, probably my favorite release of theirs yet. Playful and catchy, while still being soulful and ruled by funk. It’s a truly wonderful album and I haven’t stopped listening to it since the day it dropped.

Phoebe Katis – It’s Ok To Cry (Artist Site | Bandcamp)
Katis’ raw lyrics match perfectly with her voice and instrumentation, giving you easy and memorable songs that you just find yourself wanting to listen to over, and over. I first discovered her as the vocalist for a few Cory Wong songs, but hunting down her solo work has been a quiet revelation.

Nao Yoshioka – The Light (Artist Site | Bandcamp)
Nao Yoshioka is one of the strongest modern soul singers around, and still getting discovered somehow. She has the sense of place, in a song, where her voice lands each note and change as if it were born there. Covering old standards or forging her own new path, this is just the sort of music you want to soothe and transport you.

Mary Spender – Super. Sexy. Heartbreak. (Artist Site | Bandcamp)
Having been a fan of Spender’s for a while, when this album came out I was still shocked by it, in the best of ways. So shocked I actually stopped and wrote an entire review of it. I think it is the only full length album review I’ve written in years, which tells you everything. You should just go read that for more on this triumph of an album. So go here and do that.

Cory Wong – The Lucky One (Artist Site | Bandcamp)
I’ve been a gigantic fan of Cory Wong. Big enough I actually wrote an entire Digging Deeper just about him earlier this year. You can read that here. This release of his is special because it is his first studio album, not recorded live, in a while. And he uses it to great advantage, working with a bunch of people he doesn’t tour with and stretching himself to deliver something that is both classic Wong as well as feeling bright and new, as he stretches himself as a songwriter and player.

The Kills – God Games (Artist Site | Bandcamp)
I love The Kills and their messy, stripped down, noir feeling, music. They don’t release new stuff often but when they do it is worth it, big time. This new album is no exception to that rule. The Kills have a sense of slickness, sunglasses in the dark, ripped denim and leather, that is timeless and smooth and comes across in their music. They are, as it were, an entire vibe.

Discoholic – Discoholics Anonymous (Bandcamp)
I mean with a name like Discoholic I bet you know what they play…and you’d be right. But they have such fun with the music, and just come back with great, modern, disco that is self-aware and fun. It helps that the beats are an A+, too, of course.

Theo Katzman – Be The Wheel (Artist Site | Bandcamp)
Katzman has been many different people, depending on album. For the first time he is himself here, and the album just shines for it. There’s a sense of Paul Simon here, Billy Joel, McCartney, all without being them or trying to be them, so much as possessing that same sensibility and spirit as their work.  It’s comfortable in its own shoes, and just wants to sit around with you, and have a good time. One could also argue, and it’s a post I still need to refine and publish next year, that he is one of the great songwriters of our time.

Jim Infantino – Utopia Revisited (Artist Site | Bandcamp)
I’ve long been a fan of Infantino’s band Jim’s Big Ego, but this is the first solo thing of his I’ve heard and to add to that it is electronica, and inspired by his time in Iceland. A stunning work, that feels totally new to the planet, but has the spark of all of Infantino’s work.

And then there are the runners-up. Any of them could have been in the above list, but I make myself stop that list at ten. Here they are, in no particular order:

Vincenzo Saliva – They Speak Italian (Bandcamp)
Not only is this a fantastic synthwave album but the title (and track names) are hysterical. The conceit is that there is a zombie outbreak due to Italians not having carbs. The album is instrumental so the conceit doesn’t really matter except it is too damn funny to ignore and elevates everything just another notch.

boygenius – the record (Bandcamp)
boygenius (comprised of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus) is a Voltron of a group, bringing what makes each artist great together and weaving their skills together in a wholly additive and never subtractive way. This first full album is astounding and echoes in your head for long after you hear it.

Theo Katzman – Modern Johnny Sings Songs in the Age of Live (Artist Site | Bandcamp)
This marks the first time someone shows up twice in one of these posts. A lot of the artist’s I list have more than one release I discover in a year but I limit myself to just one, making the hard choices. With this, I couldn’t. Not only was the studio album of Modern Johnny Sings Songs in the Age of Vibe one of my favorite releases when I discovered it, this live recording is stunning. Perfectly recorded, the band goes hard, breathing new exciting life into already fantastic songs.

So there you go. Well except…I promised you I’d give you the second reason the runners-up list is shorter than normal. Besides just listening to a ton of not-new-to-me stuff I also found an artist and fell hard for their stuff. At first I thought, well, they’d be here, of course, but I couldn’t pin down an album. All of their music was new to me and I listened to all of it a freakish amount.

Instead of deciding I realized I could do something different. Something new. It’s the first ever Artist of the Year post! Oh yes.