My Favorite Albums of 2023 Even Though It's Already 2024
I'm usually a pretty punctual person, leaning toward being early. Movies, dinner reservations, court summons, you name it. So there I was minding my own business, putting the finishing touches on my 'Favorite Albums of 2023' list at the beginning of December like an insufferable early bird such as myself does.
Then the morning of December 7, HEALTH dropped one of the heaviest, most insane albums of the year and completely blew up my shit. Also, I'm stupid and forgot that what I thought was one of my favorite albums of 2022 actually came out in 2023 and needed to be stuffed in somewhere too.
LESSON: We're all going to have to do a little better, ok?
So that's why now, a whole week into this new year, you can have my list of favorite albums of 2023. By this point I should be safe.
(These are all in alphabetical order so not to create any controversy amongst our 2 readers)
100 gecs - 10,000 gecs
The first 2-3 times I listened to this album, I was convinced that it wasn't for me. Don't get me wrong, I am very much a 'lowest common denominator' type of guy when it comes to most things. Junk food and fart jokes are fine by me. But this type of insane 'hyper-pop' with exaggerated vocals and lyrics spit at you so fast that it's almost like they're daring you to be able to decipher a single thing. Isn't this just more of what we got on their debut?
I'm on listen 50-60 now and I still think it's not for me. It sounds like the generation I'm suddenly too old to understand personified. So why can't I stop listening to it?
Bethany Cosentino - Natural Disaster
I'm a long-time Best Coast fan. And a long-time Butch Walker fan. And here we have Bethany Cosentino, half of the aforementioned Best Coast, releasing her debut album produced by Butch Walker. An album could not be more up my alley if it knew my home address.
Trading in Best Coast's lyrics about getting high and surfing set to sunny, LA production for a Nashville-based take on weightier topics like depression and lack of motivation, this dip into Americana is a 10/10 progression of Cosentino's sound. Here's to hoping for a tour in 2024.
Blondshell - Blondshell
Are you a fan of grunge? Wish someone would take the core of that sound but make it sound...y'know, good? Look, as a child of the 90's, I will always revere the grunge albums that defined the genre. But would it have killed any of those bands (no pun intended, Nirvana) to have mixed an album properly? Blondshell does that in spades, and instead of singing about heroin, she sings about actual relatable topics (sorry junkies).
Bully - Lucky You
Kinda like the Pixies, but clearer and poppier. Some of 2023' best alt-rock is a throwback to the 'here are my problems but they're the same as yours so let's scream through them together' style of the past. One of the catchier punches in the face you'll get this year.
HEALTH - Rat Wars
There it is. The album that threw everything into chaos. My question to HEALTH, as close as we're going to get to a Nine Inch Nails stand-in for the foreseeable future, is that if you have what is so obviously a smash of an album on your hands...why release it in December? Don't you know how inconvenient that is to me specifically?
Luckily, the album is absolutely perfect for the industrial metalhead in your heart. Crunching guitars and sounds that seem to have been produced in a steel mill combine with Jake Duzsik's almost whispered vocals to create one of the most unique sounds out there in any year.
Jeff Rosenstock - HELLMODE
With the intensity and aggression of his performances, HELLMODE might be the perfect title of a Jeff Rosenstock album. And this one is chock full of everything that made you love the rest of his music. It's gonna be loud. It's gonna be direct. And it's gonna have you wanting to run through drywall at the chance to scream the choruses along with 4,000 other people.
Joey Valence & Brae - PUNK TACTICS
I was lucky enough to catch Joey Valence and Brae at Riot Fest 2022. I took this picture of a crowd surfer. Check out the sign someone is holding up right below his outstretched arm:
"YOU FILL MY BEASTIE BOYS HOLE" is something that might seem creepy out of context, but it's perfect when referring to Joey Valence & Brae. I'll say what we're all thinking: they sound very similar to Beastie Boys. But that's meant as the best possible compliment because the Beastie Boys are fantastic. But while we won't be getting any new music from them again, that's where JV&B can soften some of that blow.
Olivia Rodrigo - GUTS
I'd say something about how she totally missed out on putting a piece of the Aggro Crag on the album cover, but that would just be another reminder of my advanced age as the Venn diagram of 'people who remember 90's Nickelodeon' and 'Olivia Rodrigo fans' probably doesn't have much more than a sliver of overlap.
Too bad, because this is another album I expected to give one obligatory listen to and then be done with. After all, the trials and tribulations of navigating fame, love, and the media from someone half my age doesn't seem like something I could connect to. But man, are these songs catchy. Her problems may not be the ones I'm facing in my everyday life (shocking, I know), I could listen to her sing about them all day if they're all as catchy as this album ended up being.
Origami Angel - The Brightest Days
One of my favorite things in music is when the first track on an album gives you a perfect idea of what you're in for, and Origami Angel have done that on their fourth full-length album. Somehow both bright and sunny AND heavy as hell simultaneously, this might be some of the most fun you have listening to an album all year.
Paramore - This Is Why
Not at all what we expected and impossible to picture any differently now that we have it, you don't need me to tell you about this album. Either you've heard it by now or you haven't. I doubt many people will be seeing this specific article this far after the release of their album and massive tour and say "You know what, I should give this record a spin!"
Queens of the Stone Age - In Times New Roman
Same as above. If you're a QOTSA fan, this is 10 songs of uncut Josh Homme and Co doing the exact same high-level stoner rock that they've been doing for decades. If you're not a QOTSA fan, you should go to the store. Buy a mirror. Doesn't have to be a big mirror. Whatever fits comfortably in your car while you run whatever other errands you have. Once you get home, bring that mirror into the room where you do your best contemplation, set it up, and take a good long look into it. A good long look. Re-evaluate some things.
Sevendust - Truth Killer
Before you make any "SEVENDUST?? WHAT IS THIS THE BEST OF 2003??" jokes, think about how awesome you have to be as a band to still be putting out good music DECADES into your career, when most of your contemporaries have crashed out and haven't been heard from in forever. I saw Sevendust open up for Metallica in January of 2001 and to be listening to them 22 years later putting out some of the best music of their career? Highly impressive.
Teenage Wrist - Still Love
Loud. Heavy. Fuzz. Noise. Overpowering. LOUD.
Thank you for attending my TED Talk.
The Beaches - Blame My Ex
It's been a while since we had a great breakup post-mortem album, and The Beaches have absolutely delivered with their album Blame My Ex. Not hesitating to name names right off the bat, lead track 'Blame Brett' documents the effect that singer/bassist Jordan Miller's breakup with Glorious Sons singer Brett Emmons has had on her future dates. What follows over the next 9 songs is a journey into modern post-breakup life. Getting back in the dating pool? Drinking in the shower? Casual hookups? Nothing is off limits on this album that has made heartbreak sound kind of awesome.
The Front Bottoms - You Are Who You Hang Out With
Heartfelt, aggressive, ping-ponging between softer acoustic moments and pop-punk catchiness (often on the same track!), You Are Who You Hang Out With is a fantastic Front Bottoms album and just a fantastic album period.
The Menzingers - Some of It Was True
Can every single song on an album be an arena-sized anthem? We now know that the answer is 'yes'. Holy cow, is this album big. And awesome. Big and awesome.
White Reaper - Asking for a Ride
I listed these albums by alphabetical order because they're like children to me - I love them all equally.
Having said that, this is by far my favorite child, the one that will grow up to make enough money to ensure I get to live out the end of my days in a nice nursing home.
Last year when reviewing their stop at the Metro in Chicago, I described White Reaper's sound on Asking for a Ride as "like Cheap Trick went on a road trip and picked up a trunkload of KISS guitar riffs along the way" and I stand by that statement. Proving they can go heavy and then heavier, this album continues the trend of every White Reaper album being better than the one before it. This is the kind of album that makes me bummed that we won't get another new album and tour for at least a couple years. "This album turned me selfish" is a pretty good quote for a billboard, right?