They should put a warning on the cover: No Hooks. You won’t come away humming anything from Billy Woods’ collaboration with LA producer Kenny Segal, but images do linger. Scenes of Woods skipping soundcheck to find a moment of calm in a park before storming the stage armed only with a laptop, trading vegetables with a neighbor for fresh bread, feeling alienated while the sounds of a Playboi Carti afterparty reverberate through the walls of his room. Woods’ frankly astounding wordplay paints these tableaus with deadpan poetry that rewards careful study. Once you hear it, it’s hard to ignore.

 

 

 

If there’s one thing Mark J Lenderman can do well it’s reinterpretation. Pair the silky smooth sound of pedal steel with the swell of shoegaze distortion. Take a Bob Dylan lyric and wring all the wisdom out until all that’s left is cold, plain reality. And, in what is undoubtedly the lyric of the year, recast a beloved animated film character as a dangerous, thrill-seeking drunk. While he distracts you with his bracingly fresh fusion of Southern and garage rock like keys jingling in your face, he slips the knife in with a line that’s got its own universe wrapped around it: “I wouldn’t be in the seminary if I could be with you.” Playful, tuneful, and sensitive in equal measure, the singer-songwriter’s first release for Anti- is a balm for rockists and signals the coming of an exciting new voice.

 

 

A light summer rain fell.

 

 

Was content to put last year’s Reset up on the shelf with the rest of 2022’s best releases until that rascally Adrian Sherwood got his hands on these tracks and lovingly remixed them in tasteful dub fashion.

 

 

The Sco’ish three-piece dinnae disappoint with they new release. Makes ye want to kick yer boots off, jump in the loch, and yell “FREEDOM!”

 

 

 

“Just stop scaring the hoes, Harry,” reads a note on the shared Google sheet for this article, written anonymously by another member of staff. That would be so funny if it weren’t a fundamental misrepresentation of the roles here. I am the hoes, and I am scared. 

 

 

Save me, Dua Lipa. Dua Lipa, save me. 

 

 

 

 

I love this joke, but it’s extra funny this year because Daft Punk released an a 10th anniversary edition version of Random Access Memories back in May. Hot take but I always thought this album wasn’t very good and pretty easily Daft Punk’s worst effort. 

 

 

Honest and energetic! So good.

 

A bop!

 

 

Breakout band of the year. The North Carolina upstarts follow in the Neil Young footsteps with grunge-infused americana indie. These are songs of American hopelessness – divorce, addiction, jail – all told through the nonjudgmental but equally disheartened vocals of Karly Hartzman. The band strays into country and grunge at points, and adds in dashes of humor to keep things from getting too despondent. The lyrics are riddled with fascinating characters – real or not – who embody the listlessness of a rotting American Dream. No one is dying, but no one is really living either. Add some expectedly excellent guitar from MJ Lenderman, and brilliant music all around, and you’ve got a well-rounded, instant classic collection of tragicomedy indie tunes.

 

The Ghanian-Australian artist Genesis Owusu dropped an incredible album this year, STRUGGLER, a paradoxical concept album about finding joy and unity in a post-apocalyptic world. It fits well with his fluid genre mixings, though the first track is a total electronic paranoia party. The lyrics follow an existential cockroach trying to escape the wrath of a demanding god, and yet the music could not be more fun – it’s rabid and funky electronic ripped straight from a dancefloor. This gleeful paradox follows the whole album, with foreboding and violent lyrics, and absurdly catchy music. This song couldn’t be more energetic and funky, perfect for a good cry-dance.

 

 

 

Connections, from Akron, OH, stan Guided By Voices so hard that they mention GBV twice in their bio. There are similarities with GBV and Tone Soul Evolution-era Apples in Stereo with their economical garage rock tunes, such as on “Steppin’ Out” and “California Raisin,” but Connections are so much more than that. It’s the lateral lead guitar lines for me — which you can hear in the choruses of “You’re In Space” and “Slow Ride;” or the restless intro of “Lorraine,” which send the already brilliant songs right over the edge.

 

The itinerant post-punk band Sweeping Promises formed at a private university in Arkansas and have since been on the move. Sweeping Promises have bounced to Massachusetts, then Texas, and now they’re in *checks notes* Kansas. Similarly, the lead single “Eraser” travels unsentimentally, progressing viciously with hooks around every corner, taking the listener on a wild ride.

 

 

 

Freestyle, an especially regional R&B/hip-hop offshoot that never escaped the 80’s seems an odd jumping off point for one of the most forward-thinking releases of 2023, and yet here we are. Nourished By Time draws a lot of pathos out of a few chintzily retro synths and those steady swinging drum machines, but there’s something undeniably contemporaneous about the diaristic misgivings and misdeeds they display throughout Erotic Probiotic 2. Sugar daddies, crises of faith, the never ending deluge of capitalistic greed, these stones and more are upturned when you pay close attention to the words while shaking your ass. The slow heat death of society never sounded so fun.

 

New York indie pop pranksters Water From Your Eyes do a lot of things well, and you can now add nu-metal to that ever growing list. Their late entry remix package Crushed By Everyone (as opposed to the LP Everyone’s Crushed) was already a well earned victory lap, but flipping “Barley”, a standout nervy, chicken scratch-y post-punk workout into nasty industrial sludge? That was a stroke of genius. Molasses thick where things were once so very light and airy, covering yourself in the vein of a different act entirely is the kind of hot shit stunt only a group of this caliber could pull off convincingly.

 

 

 

 

The three song release New Heart Designs constitutes one of the most unpredictable mashups of the year – hard-core juggernauts Turnstile teamed up with soft instrumental gurus BADBADNOTGOOD to re-release three of their own songs off of 2021’s Glow On. “Mystery” is reimagined without drums and the addition of a shimmering flute and keyboard. “Alien Love Call” thrives in this new soundscape, becoming essentially an extremely smooth R&B song. With the background vocals and extremely in-the-pocket rhythm section, the song is a stoned-out masterpiece. “Underwater Boi” experiences the most dramatic renovation, becoming an upbeat and funky track. Turnstile’s songs are known to be hard and fast, but this re-release strips the songs down to their essentials, and shows how beautifully impressive the songwriting, and the voice of lead singer Brendan Yates, actually is.

 

Atlanta-based band Lunar Vacation has found success with their dreamy, harmony-soaked indie-rock sound – amassing over 500K monthly listeners on spotify. They’ve been steady at it since 2017, and are on the way to becoming somewhat of a fixture in the young, ever-growing indie scene. The band blessed fans with only one original single in 2023 – “Only You.” The February release is characterized by its catchy melody propelled by the harmonies that make the band’s tracks so sweet. With its steady rhythm section, unpredictable breakdowns, and psychedelic burn-out at the end, the track is evident of their diverse musical capability. I find it to be their best piece of songwriting and musicianship yet.

 

 

It is almost always painful for me when a legacy act releases a new album – just hang up the jersey and let the old hits play. However, The Rolling Stones, in their nearly fifty years together, kinda killed it with Hackney Diamonds. As a young Stones fan myself, I found the most successful track, “Angry,” to sound like it could be from the seventies or eighties. It grooves, and Mick Jagger actually sounds pretty great on vocals. It was a pleasant surprise, sounding like these oldheads still got it.

 

 

Kelly Clarkson is back with her latest album, chemistry. Kelly’s Kellyoke has been enjoyable as well, but it doesn’t beat her hard-hitting original lyrics and melodies. “me” is the song that sold me on the sound of the new album with the addition of the gospel choir and Kelly’s choice of instrumentation. chemistry takes us through Kelly’s POV of her relationship and has more of a reflective touch to it. As a Kelly fan, this is one of her best albums.

 

 

As a Swiftie, I was waiting for the 1989 TV vault songs and they did not disappoint. “Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version) has lyrics that are memorable, including “I think about jumping off of very tall somethings” and “Let’s fast forward to 300 takeout coffees later.” It doesn’t spare any of her exes’ feelings and calls them out, but in a catchy and pop way. The viral TikTok dance added to it being in my brain on repeat.

 

 

 

Caroline Polachek follows up 2019’s Pang with a banger of an album, Desire, I Want to Turn Into You. The first track, “Welcome to My Island,” is produced by Polachek along with Daniel Nigro (Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan’s most-trusted collaborator), hyper pop king A.G. Cook, and producer extraordinaire Jim-E Stack and jumpstarts the vibe right off the back with its pulsing beat, explosive chorus, and evocative lyricism about being trapped in your own head and her father’s passing from COVID-19 in 2020. It’s a song filled with sadness that you can dance to, quite possibly my favorite genre. Polachek’s songwriting is lauded for its visceral descriptors, and her voice is unlike any popstar of today. She’s like human autotune, and I’m happy to say that the same stands for her live performances. The closing track, “Billions” is her most avant garde and adventurous to date. It clocks in at nearly 5:00 long and features a full children’s choir. Polachek is ever-evolving, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

 

 

Olivia Rodrigo burst on the scene with her confessional ballad “driver’s license” in early 2021 and quickly became one of the biggest popstars known for her clever and confessional lyricism. Much of her sophomore effort GUTS follows the same suit, and my favorite track of the year is “bad idea right?,” the second single from the album. Sonically, it checks off all of my boxes with its nod to ‘90s post-grunge rock acts like That Dog or Elastica. Lyrically, we follow a young woman scorned who knows that guy is oh-so-bad for her, but she misses his companionship. She’s lying to her friends and sometimes herself on whether she wants to see him again. It’s relatable and simple, but with a bridge filled with blah blah blahs, it’s bound to be stuck in your head long enough to decide NO you don’t want to answer your ex’s call or text right now.

 

 

 

MJ Lenderman’s recorded tracks are amazing on their own, but there’s something simply wonderful about hearing live recorded versions of them. “Rudolph” and “Knockin’” were two incredible singles Lenderman dropped this year, and the live version of “Rudolph” blows the recorded version out of the water with its jammed out ending. There was so much good music released in the latter half of 2023, but I kept returning to this live album instead.