The Super Official This Is A Newsletter! & Friends Top 10 Records of 2023: Part 2
We're discussing our 5-1 along with honorable mentions.
NME just released their best albums of 2023 and boygenuis snagged their top spot. While the album was good, they have to be paying or something for all these accolades. Sometimes I wonder if these lists are less “albums of the year” and more “what a year this album had.” The safe and somewhat generic picks that populate the top albums lists of legacy media have cemented my resolve to collaborate with some of Substack’s finest music writers to create a sprawling and eclectic amalgamation of our favorite albums.
This esteemed group includes
of , of , and of . Last week released our 10-6 picks, and now we are thrilled to unveil our 5-1. But first, here are our honorable mentions that deserve recognition in an absolutely stacked year of music.Jami’s Honorable Mentions
boygenius - The Record
Danger Mouse & Jemini the Gifted One - Born Again
Nas - Magic 2 & 3
Bombay Bicycle Club - My Big Day
Dolly Parton - Rockstar
Kevin’s Honorable Mentions
Tanukichan - Gizmo
Ratboys - The Window
Bully - Lucky For You
Blues Lawyer- All In Good Time
En Attendant Ana - Principia
Overmono - Good Lies
Current Affairs - Off The Tongue
Local Drags - Mess of Everything
Die Spitz -Teeth
Justin Nuñez - Música del Corazón
Kerala Dust - Violet Drive
Steve’s Honorable Mentions
The Go! Team - Get Up Sequences Pt. 2
Voice of Bacerot - RETAS
Haken - Fauna
Paramore - Re: This is Why
Sparklehorse - Bird Machine
Bombay Bicycle Club - My Big Day
Maria BC - Spike Field
Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit - Weathervanes
Sam’s Honorable Mentions
Yo La Tengo - This Stupid World
ANOHI & The Johnsons - My Back was a Bridge for You to Cross
André 3000 - New Blue Sun
Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter - SAVED!
Lankum - False Lankum
Julie Byrne - The Greater Wings
Pale Jay - Bewilderment
Wednesday - Rat Saw God
Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist - Voir Dire
Queens of the Stone Age - In Times New Roman…
Now, on to the bangers…
#5
Jami: ANOHI & The Johnsons - My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross
ANOHI returns after a 13-year hiatus to mourn and I can’t get 30 seconds into track one of this album without bawling so I guess we’re in this together. With each song, her burden - or rather - our collective burden - is that we’re all plodding through life amongst the devastation of global warming, the unfulfilled promises of civil rights, and of course, the death of Lou Reed. “It Must Change,” which is track one, takes aim at the capitalist destruction of the environment. “Sliver of Ice '' pays tribute to Lou Reed and a story told from his deathbed about enjoying life’s simple pleasures like the feeling of melting ice dissolving on your tongue. The last track “You Be Free” is an acknowledgment of the tireless sacrifices of our ancestors. Just as Anohni crossed over the backs of trans activists like Marsha P. Johnson (whose portrait is featured on the album’s cover,) she hopes to be a bridge for others. “Oh, you be free. You be free for me.”
Kevin: Chemical Brothers - For That Beautiful Feeling
Hearing those big beats kick off 1995’s Exit Planet Dust, who’d have thought the Chemical Brothers would still be going strong? Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons know a thing or two about putting together a record rather than piling a bunch of singles together and calling it good. Each track here could work as a single, but together, they are a beautiful, complete work.
Steve: Cory Hanson - Western Cum
Western Cum sits in that sweet spot where alt-rock, classic rock, and Americana meet and make sweet love. Now I get what the album title means! Corey Hanson (Wand, Ty Segall) cruises down familiar sonic alleyways, then peels out and runs over the flower garden in your front yard. Take one part of The Band, a cup of Neil Young, and add a dash of Dinosaur Jr. and you get an idea of Corey Hanson’s sound. Album highlight, “Driving Through Heaven,” perfectly encapsulates this melange of tasty ingredients.
Sam: Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want to Turn Into You
I can't be the only one craving a classic Imogen Heap record, but Caroline is the only one making it. Modern pop has no business sounding this good, especially in this current sea of vomit. Desire… is loaded with intoxicating euphoria, with balmy trip-hop grooves, sky-blue synths, finger-snap beats, electric bass riffs, and angelic harmonies all swooping through your ears. Caroline’s voice glides like butter. This album references a ’90s and early-2000s aesthetic while creating its own unique and evocative vibe that transcends pop music’s own limits. There’s a fine line between earnest romanticism and artful irony, and this collection of songs takes a panoramic embrace of a contradictory and chaotic world.
Highlights: Welcome to My Island, Pretty In Possible, Sunset, I Believe, Fly to You, Blood and Butter, Butterfly Net, Billions
#4
Jami: Durand Jones - Wait Till I Get Over
I’m a sucker for any contemporary artist that fully appreciates the shoulders they stand on. If it ain’t broke, just add a little gas and go. This is why I love the retro soul sounds of artists like Anderson .Paak or Durand Jones & The Indications. They add just enough “new” to introduce younger audiences to something their grandparents have known all along - that soul music is timeless. For his solo album, Durand Jones trades the danceable grooves he produced with The Indications for a more introspective and spiritual homage to his Southern roots. Wait Till I Get Over tackles Jones’ personal struggles with religion and also represents the first time he’s spoken about his queerness. In “That Feeling” he reveals the beauty but also the shame he felt as a closeted young gay man. “Someday We’ll All Be Free,” is a gut-wrenching protest of police violence and eulogy of innocent Black lives lost like Sandra Bland, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tamir Rice. Wait Till I Get Over stands on the shoulders of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and solidifies Jones as a prolific spokesman for this generation.
Kevin: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit -Weathervanes
What I wrote initially: The weight of expectations can be tricky. Between his time in Drive-By Truckers (and everything after), the recent documentary “Running With Our Eyes Closed,” and an on-point Twitter game, Jason Isbell has become the go-to pick for legions of cargo shorts wearing 35-55-year-old dudes.
But Isbell is a hell of a songwriter and makes light work of it, filling his records with stories about people who drink tall boys for an audience that drinks radlers.
Mostly, one gets the sense that Isbell just wanted to write a great song or two while avoiding the pitfalls that come with those high expectations. And while listening, it’s hard not to sense some relief on his part. The tracks have the observational feel of a diorama, where we look at snapshots of people just trying to make it through their complex, turbulent lives. It’s a world populated with reprobates, friends we’ve lost along the way, and ones not too far behind them—a universe of misfits and the everyman.
Weathervanes is a record where the space between “this will sound great in the backyard” and “I’m emotionally wrung out” is tiny. But Isbell and the 400 Unit do well to thread that needle.
Steve: The Arcs - Electrophonic Chronic
Since arriving back in January, The Arcs' sophomore album, Electrophonic Chronic, has been on regular repeat. I don’t know how Spotify didn’t have this in my top 10 most-played albums. Probably because it’s all rigged. Recorded seven years ago and then shelved in 2018 after multi-instrumentalist Richard Swift’s passing. Band leader (and Black Key) Dan Auerbach and producer Leon Michels took the tapes from those early sessions and mixed and rearranged the songs. The album’s 12 tracks feel cohesive, the sound of a band in full command of their funky, soul-drenched, psychedelic power. Auerbach’s vocals (and the harmonies by the rest of the band) are a highlight here. Electrophonic Chronic is the perfect send-off to Swift. If this was the last we get from The Arcs, it’s as good a swan song as there is.
Sam: billy woods & Kenny Segal - Maps
Maps is probably Billy Woods’s most accessible and lighthearted project, with each song’s run-time at about two minutes, almost serving as vignettes that emphasize a sense of place. Regardless, these tracks are packed with detail and visceral strokes that create vivid narratives. “A single death is a tragedy but eggs make omelettes” is such a dope line. Also, the Danny Brown feature is fucking nutty. Kenny Segal’s production is subdued, which allows for Billy’s lyrics to shine, but the beats still hold their own, with twinkling pianos, softly chiming guitars, flute samples, and jazzy sax lines. The way the guitars melt together to create the psychedelic sound of “Soft Landing” is so fire. There are zero misses on here. Billy Woods should be in the all-time greatest MCs conversation. He’s consistent, has been at it for 20 years straight, is incredibly talented, and has a very recognizable style.
Highlights: Kenwood Speakers, Soft Landing, Soundcheck, Blue Smoke, Bad Dreams are Only Dreams, Babylon By Bus, Year Zero, Hangman, Baby Steps, FaceTime, Houdini, Walking Around, NYC Tapwater, As the Crow Flies
#3
Jami: Khruangbin & Men I Trust - Live at RBC Echo Beach
Psychedelic breakbeat is a musical genre I just made up right now so that I can properly pin a label on the unpinnable Khruangbin. And even this isn’t enough to describe the Thai, Texan, surf rock, funk band. The trio is known for taking ethereal sounds and making them funky as hell. Their 2023 live collaboration with dream pop band Men I Trust is a match made in gossamer Heaven. My advice is to pop a gummy, crank this album, and let your mind wander off into space. You’ll thank me when you get back.
Kevin: Sweeping Promises - Good Living Is Coming For You
Depending on how you look at it, Good Living Is Coming For You sounds like the sort of slogan you’d see on Soviet agitprop posters or hear Peggy Olson come up with in a strategy session for Tupperware. Both are true.
After spending time in Boston and Austin, Lira Mondal & Caufield Schnug landed in Lawrence Kansas, and hit their stride. The result is beautiful chaos– what Romeo Void might’ve sounded if they’d indulged their post-punk impulses.
Bottom Line: Someone described this band as “The B-52s if they never saw the Sun.” I’m not sure I can say it any better than that.
Steve: The Clockworks - Exit Strategy
Timing isn’t everything when it comes to making a best-of list, but if you release your album in mid-late November or early December, you can expect to be excluded from year-end accolades.
That’s my concern for The Clockworks' debut album, Exit Strategy. Throughout a good part of 2022 and into early 2023, I‘d played the Clockworks’ singles religiously. Now they’ve put out a full-length and although half the songs are comprised of previous singles, producer Bernard Butler had the band re-record the five tracks, giving the album a more unified sound.
The urgency and passion in their angular post-punk sound are equally matched by unflinching, imagistic lyrics. Exit Strategy centers around a protagonist who moves from Galway to London in search of meaning, certain that what he seeks will be found by changing his surroundings and acting like someone he’s not. The album is designed specifically for vinyl: side A represents Galway, and Side B, London.
Sam: Sufjan Stevens - Javelin
Javelin is distinct from Sufjan Steven’s catalog but just as affecting, fusing sonics throughout his career. This is one of his most gorgeous albums, and it gives Carrie & Lowell a run for its money. No one yearns quite like Sufjan. Twenty years into his music career, and he is still adept at conveying opaque intimacy and heartbreak, as well as expressions of spiritual and romantic devotion over some slightly electronic folk music. The songwriting feels more raw and direct than ever, raising the endless questions that seek meaning in one another, and rejoicing in the euphoria of those occasional moments of finding it. The “I don’t wanna fight at all / I will always love you” line in “Shit Talk” with the backing vocals and final crescendo into the wall of sound is one of the most powerful and beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard in my life. The fourth “Hold me closely, hold me tight” is so heart-wrenching and chilling, and I compulsively rewind it every time I hear it. The baroque recorders enchant on “My Red Little Fox.” The context of the album is devastating, but Sufjan channels his grief into absolute beauty, while still retaining the element of sadness.
Highlights: Goodbye Evergreen, A Running Start, Will Anybody Ever Love Me, Everything that Rises, My Red Little Fox, So You Are Tired, Javelin, Shit Talk, There’s a World
#2
Jami: Janelle Monáe - Age of Pleasure
If you aren’t familiar with Janelle Monáe’s music yet, good GOD what are you doing with your time?! A stylistic descendent and student of the funky side of Prince, Monáe is the modern-day, non-binary version for this generation. She collaborated with His Royal Badness on 2013’s Electric Lady and 2018’s Dirty Computer. By the time you get to this year’s release, Age of Pleasure, Monáe no longer needs the hand-holding from royalty because she’s earned her own crown. And her latest single, “Float” is the album’s crown jewel.
Kevin: Yo La Tengo- This Stupid World
There are two sides to Yo La Tengo. Both are very good sides. The first is quiet, contemplative Yo La Tengo. That’s the one we’ve seen the most of in recent years. Sometimes haunting and/or listless, other times endearing.
The second is rocking Yo la Tengo. Sometimes, it’s vaguely menacing, as with tracks like ‘Shaker.’ The sound is locomotive. Either way, they’re giving us straight rippers with Kaplan barely in control, playing like one of those inflatable wavy guys you see at low-rent used car lots.
Instead of a specific direction on This Stupid World, they just chose ‘em all
This is one of those bands that always sound like themselves, no matter what boundary they’re pushing or which norm they’re winging out a third-story window.
It’s always a YLT record, ya know?
Steve: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse
The most prolific band in rock history slowed things down in 2023, releasing only two albums. The first, PetroDragonic Apocalypse, was their second foray into speed metal. The first, Infest the Rat’s Nest (2019), was a brilliant, bludgeoning sonic battering. This time, despite the album’s underlying themes of environmental collapse, the vibe is a little more classic head-banging metal. The riffs are killer, but the superhuman, syncopated drumming by Michael “Cavs” Cavanagh is what’s made PetroDragonic my go-to soundtrack when riding my spin bike. It’s an album that inspires buckets of sweat.
Sam: Danny Brown & JPEGMAFIA - SCARING THE HOES
Scaring the Hoes is defiantly anti-pop, but unexpectedly catchy, confounding, and captivating. This listen is a nerve-jangling experience that is crowded and ridiculous, but Peggy and Danny Brown have a madcap chemistry that overdelivers time and time again. JPEGMAFIA’s production is so satisfyingly unhinged—every instrumental is hard and distorted and speaker-knocking—and Danny Brown shines because he has the wit, tone, and energetic flow to rap on anything and make it sound good. “Can’t fuck with y’all, y’all let Jack Harlow sell y’all chicken” is such a simple but very deep line. That beat switch on “Kingdom Hearts Key” is unbelievably sick. Peggy is a damn wizard with these samples, especially in the title track, which lifts from Dirty Beaches “Untitled” Take Away Show—the clapping, the sax, the “WORK THAT SHIT.” This was easily my album of the year until October when…
Highlights: Steppa Pig, Scaring the Hoes, Garbage Pail Kids, Fentanyl Tester, Burfict!, Shut Yo Bitch As Up / Muddy Waters, Kingdom Hearts Key, God Loves You, Jack Harlow Combo Meal, Heaven on Earth, Where Ya Get Ya Coke From?
#1
Jami: Prince - Diamonds & Pearls (Super Deluxe Edition)
I fully realize the controversy I’m creating by placing a reissue of a 1991 album at the number 1 spot on my 2023 list but this deluxe edition includes FORTY SEVEN unreleased tracks (yes, some of them are different versions of the same song) in addition to the original album, which produced two top 5 singles. Name another artist in the history of music that has that kind of output 7 years after their death? While not every unreleased track is a winner, there’s still joy in wallowing in what’s left of Prince’s genius (like this live version of “Nothing Compares 2 U” which was written by Prince and given to Sinead O’Connor.) Even his throwaways are better than most people’s hits. If the lost Beatles track, “Now and Then” makes it onto a Best of 2023 list, then so does Prince… and I’ll die on this hill.
Kevin: New Pornographers- Continue As Guest
I often find myself writing, “Just go buy this record” as a placeholder until I can better articulate my thoughts. Sometimes, I wish I could just leave it at that. This is one of those cases. Getting a group as talented as this all moving in the right direction rarely happens, but Continue As Guest is evidence that the exception proves the rule.
Steve: Lonnie Holley - Oh Me Oh My
Michael Mueller’s review on Bandcamp describes the album perfectly: “Holley wrings pure emotion out of his voice, sounding like an impassioned fusion of Solomon Burke and Levon Helm, baring his soul and his brutal story for all to see.”
To hear and feel as well as see, I would add.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard an album quite like Oh Me Oh My before. It incorporates elements of spoken word, funk, experimental sound collage, jazz, folk, and so much more.
The expertly incorporated guest collaborators (Michael Stipe, Moor Mother, Bon Iver, Sharon Van Etten, to name a few) add layers to the heartbreaking, unflinching, inspirational power of each of Oh Me Oh My’s 11 transforming and transfixing songs. It was a no-brainer for me that this was the best album of 2023.
Sam: Sampha: Lahai
See, boss, if Sampha’s albums turn out this good after five years, it’s fine if I take three months to send my projects to client. I listened to this on a walk by Toronto’s lakeshore during a sunset, and it healed my soul. Sampha has proven himself to be a generational talent with a singular artistic vision and a magical voice. Lahai is a rich emotional work that is so sonically satisfying, and its remarkable second half pulls together the record as an expressionist painting of life’s cyclical nature. It is jittery with anxiety and indecision, but poised and luscious. The persuasive positivity throughout is carried by a contained cacophony of euphoric synths, melodic guitars, swelling violins, and skittering percussion. The album has a dueling force of themes: freedom, time, memory, grief, Afrofuturism, and magical realism. This is a stunning experience, and across 14 tracks, Lahai is as intimate as it is imaginative. This project is an allegory for Sampha’s journey of self-discovery, of the initial constraints society may foist upon us, and how the tireless efforts to buck these expectations and conventions may attract criticism and engender self-doubt, but it will ultimately lead to belonging, inner peace, and mutual understanding.
Highlights: Stereo Colour Cloud, Spirit 2.0, Dancing Circles, Suspended, Jonathan L. Seagull, Inclination Compass, Only, Can’t Go Back, Evidence
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