Earworms & Friends Top 10 Albums of 2023: Part 1 🎸🎵

Four Music Maniac Substack Writers Gather to Share Their Year's Favorite Records

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Dec 06, 2023

is a place where I try to find the intersection where a nagging song bit (lyric or musical motif) and the personal story that said song bit unearths meet and share a cheese sandwich.

I don’t normally review albums here or delve deep into a band’s complex history. There are a ton of fantastic writers (especially here on Substack) who handle that sort of thing with grace and aplomb.

That said, I do like to play favorites. And every year, when the month of December arrives, my attention turns solely and obsessively to the songs and albums released during the prior 11 1/2 months. Tunes that reached me in the feels and never let go.

I’ve got musical OCD; all year long, I keep detailed playlists of albums and tunes to help me separate the wheat from the chaff. When it comes time (mid-November, usually) to narrow it all down, I have a solid starting position.

These 10 records (10-6 below, 5-1 arriving next week) bloomed in my body feelings of joy, bliss, rage, sadness, contemplation, understanding, curiosity, hope, despair, and all the other emotions. I’m pretty sure there’s a few more.

Up until now, my end-of-year songs and album rankings had always felt like a solitary endeavor. Sure, I’d share my favorites with my friends and blog readers, but that elusive feeling of community was seriously lacking.

So when

Sam Colt

, who writes the fantastic newsletter

This Is a Newsletter!

asked me and

Kevin Alexander

if we wanted to combine forces and collaborate on a top 10 albums post, the giddy little-boy part of me jumped up and down and said, Yes!

But three middle-aged dudes spouting about hipster ukelele and flute trios from Brooklyn seemed far too narrow and limiting. (Sam, I’m pretty sure you are the youngster here, but I’ll lump you in as a middle-ager.)

We all immediately thought to invite Jami Smith, who writes the brilliant Substack,

Songs That Saved Your Life

, to join in the fun.

Note: if you don’t subscribe to
Songs That Saved Your Life
or
This Is a Newsletter!
or Kevin Alexander’s musical extravaganza of a newsletter,
On Repeat by Kevin Alexander
, get ready to have your socks blown off. Even if you are wearing shoes.

What makes this quartet of music lovers special is a shared appreciation for all music. Music from every corner of the globe (the globe has corners, right?), from veterans to newbies, from legends of the past to legends of the future.

At my age, I tend to gravitate to what sounds familiar. Nostalgia is a powerful force, and it certainly played a role in a few of my picks. But I also appreciate innovation and experimentation; when I hear something that sounds like nothing I’ve heard before, all my hair follicles tingle, and I make sure to note the new artist who awoke something in this cranky dude who just wants his granola and blueberries and to be left alone to surf the web in his sweats and ragged Meat Puppets t-shirt.

No Meat Puppets on these lists (their last album was in 2019), but plenty of tasty tunes for vegetarians and carnivores alike! Enjoy!

Part 2 of our 10 best albums of 2023 collaboration will go live on Wednesday, December 13.

#10

The Go! Team - Get Up Sequences Pt. 2 (Jami)

Winter is in full effect, and the gloomy skies and short days might send you spiraling into the depths of seasonal blues. If you need a break from the emo vibes of the winter solstice, look no further than the blindingly technicolored beats of the Go! Team to wake your paled senses. Get Up Sequences Pt. 2 is the band’s seventh studio album and arguably the best work they’ve produced since their 2004 debut, Thunder, Lightning, Strike. The vibrant and chaotic multicultural beats are a shot in the arm that might need to be taken in small doses if too much sunshine funk feels difficult to acclimate to while slogging through an ice storm.

Yves Tumor - Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume (Sam)

Yves is a bewildering artist with disparate influences, and they take this eclectic approach to music with Praise a Lord…, which ranges from post-punk and alternative dance to a light touch of heavy metal. Every track on here is somehow both precise and incomprehensible. The lyrical themes meld romance, reflection, queerness, desire, and performance, which create these grounding and brutal love songs within these insanely catchy melodies and flurries of synth-pop and industrial noise. Within a tight 12-song tracklist, Praise a Lord is both challenging and infectious, a boundary-defying experience that left me dazzled.

Durand Jones - Wait Till I Get Over (Steve)

I was aware of Durand Jones from his other band, Durand Jones and the Indications, but I had no idea he had released his debut solo album until it was chosen for an album of the month discussion group I am part of. I liked The Indications’ music okay but found it overly retro and lacking in originality and emotionally rich lyrical content. Wait Till I Get Over, while certainly owing a lot to the Stax/Motown sound of the early ‘70s and Stevie Wonder in particular, is a much more personal collection of songs focusing on Durand’s hometown of Hillaryville, Louisiana, his relationship with his grandma, the role of the church, and trying to find his place in it all as a gay black man in a very religious family living in the south.

Drop Nineteens-Hard Light (Kevin)

In the early 90s, a band came out of nowhere, cut a classic record, and disappeared almost as fast. They spend the next 30 years as a sort of mass-produced secret before the frontman wonders aloud (Okay, on Instagram) what they’d sound like today. The band gets back together and reunites with fantastic results. With this release, the band has dispensed with any artistic or industry constraints they likely felt all those years ago while maintaining fidelity to the sound that made them great.

In my recent review of the record, I noted that Hard Light smooths the edges of earlier records like Delaware. There’s a nostalgia—and patience— here that obviously wasn’t possible 30(ish) years ago. The Drop Nineteens of today are more comfortable taking some sonic risks and pushing in new directions while still staying true to their original sound.

So what’s the answer? They sound as good as ever.

#9

Chemical Brothers- For That Beautiful Feeling (Jami)

Thank God the Chemical Brothers are still around to make beautiful, pulsating beats for us in these dark times. If you’re already a fan, this album is everything you already love about the Chemical Brothers ten albums into their career. The standout track is their collaboration with Beck on “Skipping Like a Stone,” although I personally also love “No Reason” because it takes you right back to the house clubs in the late ‘90s. Manchester can do no wrong and the Chemical Brothers are a perfect example of Mad City’s finest.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse (Sam)

When Gizzy puts out an end-times thrash metal concept album, it’s going to be a banger—and this delivers a massive and thrilling listen. Between this and Infest the Rats Nest, it is fair to say that King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is one of the best metal bands out there despite being interlopers of the genre. “Flamethrower” shifting from a desert-metal jam to a trippy psybient jam is one of the most delightfully unexpected moments in anything I've ever heard. Even if KGLW was just pumping out average albums, it's crazy that they can keep up decent quality over 20+ projects in the last decade. But more often than not, they give us very good to great material, which is absolutely awe-inspiring and mind-blowing.

Quantic - Dancing While Falling (Steve)

More often than not, I turn to Quantic (U.K.-born, New York-based musical polymath Will Holland) as a major source for my dance party mixes, or simply for when I’m in the mood to get my groove on in the living room. Quantic is a musical chameleon; his previous dozen albums masterfully incorporate such globe-hopping genres as jazz, funk, cumbia, bossa nova, salsa, afrobeat, reggae, and EDM. Dancing While Falling is unabashedly retro, blending elements of 70’s soul and disco, techno, and gospel – featuring luscious vocals from featured singers Andreya Triana, Rationale, and Connie Constance.

Red Pants- Not Quite There Yet (Kevin)

Red Pants is the Madison, WI-based duo of Jason Lambeth and Elsa Nekola. Not Quite There Yet follows last year’s ‘When We Were Dancing’ LP and ‘Gentle Centuries ‘ EP. Even as recording for those wrapped, the pair kept writing songs for what would eventually become this record.

Part of the band’s appeal is their layered, dense sound. It’s one that’s full of textures and sounds that reveal more of themselves with each listen. Lambeth is an accomplished artist; the sound reflects the collages and other art he creates daily.

Similarly, Nekola is a talented author, and her steady rhythm keeps everything moving along the way it should.Think early Sonic Youth, early Yo La Tengo, and anytime Galaxie 500. There are plenty of early 90’s influences, but the sound is very much 2023, with everything economical and in just the right amounts.

#8

Gorillaz - Cracker Island (Jami)

Cracker Island is nowhere near the best Gorillaz album in its 8 disc catalog, but even a modest effort by the band is enough to place them on a Best of 2023 list. It’s difficult to swing and miss with an elite guest lineup that includes Stevie Nicks, Thundercat, Beck, Bad Bunny, Tame Impala, and Bootie Brown from the Pharcyde. Albarn’s duet with Stevie Nicks, “Oil” is a highlight simply for getting Nicks to sing lines like “interlocking cluster bombs like bass and drums” over an actual drum and bass beat. It’s a strange recipe you didn’t know you needed.

Mitski - The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We (Sam)

I’ve never loved a Mitski LP front-to-back, but I’m a sucker for sad-girl indie bops with a tasteful touch of country. The Land is Hospitable and So Are We, at the very least, is Mitski’s most consistent offering yet. Much of the songs have bare-bones arrangements, but the album becomes increasingly intense as it progresses, and this batch of tunes are some of the most surreal and existential I’ve heard from Mitski. There are plenty of straightforward love songs on here, but the lyrics are darkly funny. Mitski drops heartbreaking aphorisms and meditations on self-witnessing. The whole listen takes you through a constant battle of peace and dread without settling in any one place.

No Name - Sundial (Steve)

I like my hip-hop funky, sonically adventurous (ideally with live instruments), with discernible, bitingly (thought) provoking lyrics that tackle the issues of the day. Noname has been meeting and exceeding these requirements since her debut mix tape, Telefone, in 2018 and continuing on her follow-up, Room 25. Her 3^rd release, Sundial, is even more assured, playful, and brutally honest. Some of the tunes have a slam poetry vibe, especially album highlight “potentially the interlude.” But my favorite would have to be the funky bass and drum-heavy track “namesake.” Her song titles may be lowercase, but the rhythms and flow inside them are all-caps.

Seablite- Lemon Lights (Kevin)

Lemon Lights is the Bay Area band’s sophomore release. If you like Lush, this is for you, and I say that as high praise. It’s easy for bands mining this particular vein to get bogged down in fuzz or trip over the line between dream pop and saccharine, but that never happens here- the tracks are bright and poppy. They bring enough heat to melt the amps on a couple of tracks (‘Blink Each Day’), but by and large, this is a pop record, and a great one at that. (Bandcamp link)

#7

Iggy Pop - Every Loser (Jami)

There’s an ongoing joke that ex-junkie legends Iggy Pop and Keith Richards might outlive the world’s end. Your grandkids’ grandkids are going to be buying their new releases in 2223. At 76 years old, Iggy Pop’s Every Loser proves that punk’s eternal wild child is still very much alive and well in 2023. With guest players like Guns N Roses’ Duff McKagan, Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard, Jane’s Addiction Dave Navarro and Eric Avery, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith, and the late Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters, the album is as raucous and phallic as anything he’s ever done with the Stooges. A particularly kick-ass standout is “Neo Punk” which serves as a reminder to posers of the world that the Lizard King can still hack it (with a little help from drummer Travis Barker) as a hardcore punk rocker. This dude might live forever.

Wilco - Cousin (Sam)

Since Sky Blue Sky, I had accepted that Wilco had settled gracefully into breezy dad rock, consistently delivering albums that were enjoyable enough to toss a few songs on some playlists but nothing that drew me back for consistent listens. But Cruel Country and now Cousin have been great returns to form, with the 2023 release being a modern refresh of their distinctive experimental alt-country sound. This is Wilco’s most complex and evocative album in years, peering out at a country infected with hypocrisy and moral rot, shifting between despairing and hopeful. It’s deeply layered but subtle, and it all melds together to create an album that’s avant-garde and accessible. While each track is drenched in a melancholic hue, it is still infectious because it is delivered with dancing guitar strings and Jeff Tweedy’s sinfully sweet vocals. “Infinite Suprise,” “Levee,” and “Sunlight Ends” have been stuck in my head all year.

Bully - Lucky For You (Steve)

Some albums hit you immediately and stop you in your tracks. A few will retain their sonic power with repeated listens, but most will start to lose their magic.

Then there are albums you don’t connect with at first, for reasons vague and unclear (maybe you ate too much cheese, maybe you’re just in one of those moods, maybe the album requires attention you are unable to provide). After giving the record more quality time, though, the songs reveal their colors, their layers, and their depths. Bully’s 2023 album, Lucky For You, was that sort of grower record for me. It rocks hard, it’s lyrical smarts are relatable even to dudes almost twice her age, and the melodies hits that sonic sweet spot of sounding familiar yet brand new, even after 100 listens.

Khruangbin & Men I Trust- Live at RBC Echo Beach (Kevin)

Texas trio + Canadian trio = beautiful live record. I wasn’t going to include a live record on this list, but the sound/mix is too well done to ignore. I first heard this record playing overhead while in the basement of my favorite record store. The guy next to me and I stopped what we were doing and looked up– as if the low ceilings would tell us who it was. It didn't, but the employee going through a pile of recent arrivals did. I went back to what I was doing. The other guy went upstairs and bought the last copy. (Bandcamp link)

#6

Lana Del Rey - Did You Know There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (Jami)

Lana Del Rey has been contemplating death for 8 albums, and now at age 37, Our Lady of the Most Sorrow draws us into the most personal and unguarded depths of her psyche. And it’s beautiful there. Del Rey’s genius has always been her ability to weave heartbreaking lyrics into upbeat pop like Morrissey for Millenials, and her 9th album might be her most triumphant. The stories are told through mosaic memories of her family, her loves lost, and the newfound sense of hope she feels as a maturing artist. She’s still the wounded woman we’ve come to love, but now the haunted corners of her mind have slivers of light peeking in.

Geese - In 3D Country (Sam)

This album is fucking bonkers. It’s a cynical take on Americana, taking hand-me-down sounds and twisting them into some oddball directions until this album becomes an ever-shifting seismic and outrageous jam. Geese ventures into cosmic country, electro-funk, and apocalyptic boogaloo with reckless abandon. 3D Country is theatrical, vicious, heartfelt, and daring all at once, a miraculous assemblage of far-ranging genres. There's never a dull moment.

Youth Lagoon - Heaven is a Junkyard (Steve)

An unabashed vulnerability permeates every song on the latest LP from Youth Lagoon (Trevor Powers). Powers’ high-pitched, crackly, child-like vocals imbue these off-kilter chamber-pop pieces with a tender beauty. I get hints of Daniel Johnston, touches of early Bright Eyes, bits of Sufjan Stevens — yet Heaven is a Junkyard is most of all its own sonic creation. Each time I listen to the album, I’m left on the verge of tears; the intimacy of Powers’ music and Rodaidh McDonald’s (Gil Scott Heron, the xx) evocative production sucks me in, enveloping me in its cocoon of sound.

The Treasures Of Mexico- Burn The Jets (Kevin)

Can you judge a record by the cover? In this case, yes. Burn the Jets’ cover art is awash in pastels and kaleidoscopes. The sound is similar — a little bit Laurel Canyon and Britpop. Listening to songs like “Days With a Y In,’ you'd be excused for thinking you were listening to a Teenage Fanclub record circa 1991.

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