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Top 50 Albums of 2023

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Top 50 Albums of 2023

We’re back for the list of 2023! Even more discoveries came from good old radio this year (my staple choices The Current, KEXP, and 6 Music.)

On the streamers Apple Music got way better at the personalised and ‘more artists like’ thing, just as Spotify got dramatically worse (playing the same songs over and over.)

Narrowing these albums down was harder than ever with some perennial faves having to miss out. And you’ll just have to trust me that the expanded list would show my listening is more diverse 😉


1 Lucia & The Best Boys - Burning Castles

I first saw this Scottish band when they were known as just Lucia, playing a set at Latitude which was memorable as an introduction to their music and because it had Danny Boyle and a film crew wandering around the audience filming Himesh Patel for a scene in the abysmal Yesterday movie. (The scene didn’t make the final cut so I missed out on my cinema debut.)

By the time of this album their music has evolved to a more goth- poppy version of the indie rock I first heard those years ago

Chock full of catchy melodies, none more so than the title track, and with more of these earworms than any other this is my album of the year 🏆


2 Blondshell - Blondshell

It’s been given the ‘expanded deluxe’ treatment during the year with some excellent extra tracks but the original 9 track album is the business. Outstanding debut.


3 Nabihah Iqbal - DREAMER

A perfect title


4 Bleach Lab - Lost In A Rush Of Emptiness

A lush sound, moody with Disintegration era Cure guitar tones, and all the songs blend together gorgeously. Along with She’s In Parties (who supported them on tour) Bleach Lab are best of new British dreampop


5 Squirrel Flower - Tomorrow’s Fire

4th album from Ella O’Connor Williams and by some distance her best, undoubtedly due to my predilection for her electric guitar work over folky acoustic songs


6 Emily Breeze - Rapture

Her best album. I read a  festival bio blurb that compared her with Baxter Dury, Nick Cave, and Pulp and it’s spot on.


7 Black Honey - A Fistful of Peaches

Album 3, the bangers continue, and I’m loving them more than ever


8 boygenius - the record

The side project that became a fully fledged album and tour. Three great individual artists and one magnificent band. Not Strong Enough was my fave song of the year..


9 Coach Party - KILLJOY

Kudos for not lifting tracks from their excellent EPs in 2022 for this banging LP proper in 2023. Wonderfully noisy. 10 songs. 28 minutes. Yes!


10 Samia - Honey

Outstanding  follow up to 2020’s The Baby


11 Art School Girlfriend  - Soft Landing

The cloudy artwork fits the electronica. Floaty.


12 Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy

Can’t adequately describe this band’s noise. Wikipedia lists their genres as Lo-fi, indie, should, alternative hip-hop, indietronica, art pop, avant-pop, and noise pop. It’s a good attempt but doesn’t do justice to this record or their live performances


13 Sophie Ellis-Bextor - HANA

The last decade of Sophie’s songwriting collaboration with Ed Harcourt reached a new high with HANA


14 Dream Wife - Social Lubrication

Much like Black Honey, Dream Wife continue the quality on album #3. Chock full of hooks and energetic indie rock


15 Black Belt Eagle Scout - The Land, The Water, The Sky

What a sound when the guitars kick in throughout this record


16 Slowdive - everything is alive

In 2017 I said I couldn’t quite believe they came back. I still can’t. I love how they’re rightly revered by new bands and still at the top of their craft. Forever the ultimate shoegazers.


17 Jenn Champion - The Last Night of Sadness

One of the most affecting records of the year. Some heavy lyrics here as exemplified by the beautiful song Jessica.


18 Olivia Rodrigo - GUTS

It’s in all the 2023 lists so it has to be in this one


19 Margo Price - Strays, Strays II

My list has to contain Americana and Country and Margo Price nailed it in 2023. Two albums for the price of one. II is the strongest overall but the first LP contains the excellent Been To The Mountain and the Sharon van Etten track, so probably a tie to be fair.


20 Daughter - Stereo Mind Game

Back after a few years and once again an album that gets better on repeat listens. Love them


21 Mandy, Indiana - I’ve Seen a Way

Weird but cool noises from Manchester with vocals from Paris


22 Hannah Georgas - I’d Be Lying If I Said I Didn’t Care

Beautiful self-produced songs from Canada


23 Bully - Lucky for You

That US indie rock sound I love! The Soccer Mommy track is a proper banger.


24 Noname - Sundial

Eclectic rap on album 3


25 Glǔme - Main Character

Synth pop and more.


26-30

Baxter Dury - I Thought I Was Better Than You

Sofia Kourtesis - Madres

Ratboys - The Window

Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want to Turn Into You

Storm Franklin - Loneliness In The Modern World


31-40

Allie Crow Buckley - Utopian Fantasy

Taleen Kali - Flower of Life

Lana Del Rey - Did You Know There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd

Wednesday - Rat Saw God

Låpsley - Cautionary Tales of Youth

Drop Nineteens - Hard Light

Miya Folick - ROACH

Claud - Supermodels

Tiny Deaths - Spirit Of The Staircase

Miss Grit - Follow the Cyborg


41-50

Holly Humberstone - Paint My Bedroom Black

Soda Blonde - Dream Big

Palehound - Eye on the Bat

Georgia - Euphoric

Maisie Peters - The Good Witch

Guvna B - The Village Is On Fire

Amber Arcades - Barefoot on Diamond Road

Janelle Monáe - The Age of Pleasure

Kate Davis - Fish Bowl

Jessie Ware - That! Feels Good!

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Top 50 Albums of 2017

Lists! They're back.

Marvel at my narrow taste in music with my top 50 albums of 2017. In reverse order of course:

50 Angel Olsen - Phases
49 Lydia Ainsworth - Darling of the Afterglow
48 Jane Weaver - Modern Kosmology
47 Torres - Three Futures
46 Jay-Z - 4:44
45 The Charlatans - Different Days
44 Little Dragon - Season High
43 Widowspeak - Expect the Best
42 Diet Cig - Swear I’m Good At This
41 Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.
40 Menace Beach - Lemon Memory
39 Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott - Crooked Calypso
38 Tired Lion - Dumb Days
37 Denai Moore - We Used To Bloom
36 The Hayman Kupa Band - The Hayman Kupa Band
35 Gary Numan - Savage (Songs from a Broken World)
34 Stormzy - Gang Signs & Prayer
33 Lana Del Rey - Lust for Life
32 Bully - Losing
31 The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Echo Of Pleasure
30 Juanita Stein - America
29 This Is The Kit - Moonshine Freeze
28 Public Service Broadcasting - Every Valley
27 Aimee Mann - Mental Illness
26 J Hus - Common Sense
25 Pale Honey - Devotion
24 Sarah Slean - Metaphysics
23 Halsey - hopeless fountain kingdom
22 Miley Cyrus - Younger Now
21 Blondie - Pollinator

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20 Kesha - Rainbow

Given the horrific background, what a comeback song Praying was.


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19 Kalela - Take Me Apart

Taking R&B in an electronic direction will never be wrong. A stunning debut.


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18 Waxahatchee - Out in the Storm

Consistent songwriting here. 10 songs at just over 30 minutes. Like all albums should be.


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17 The Blue Aeroplanes - Welcome, Stranger!

I wrote a review of this back in January for the final edition of Norwegian e-zine Luna Kafé:

...an album full of big noise, big guitars and a new set of songs that are perfect for Wojtek, the band’s legendary dancer, to excel at. 10 songs that will reward multiple listens with magnificent lyrics, outstanding production and musicianship.

A career highlight, Welcome, Stranger! is easily the most enjoyable Blue Aeroplanes record for over 20 years.


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16 Ride - Weather Diaries

Lovely to have them back.


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15 Stars - There Is No Love In Fluorescent Light

Saturdays are lonely
And Sundays you're alone
Still checking for the signal
For the bars on the phone, phone, phone

You can travel for a thousand miles
You can spend a thousand nights alone
You can lose your way so easily and never ever make it home

so come out with me tonight
out with me tonight
no-one falls in love under fluorescent light


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14 Sylvan Esso - What Now

It's taken me a while to get into Sylvan Esso, but this is the one that's drawn me in. Loved their live set at Latitude this year.


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13 Charlotte Gainsbourg - Rest

Her best album yet, by far. Luscious.

I'll forgive her for making Deadly Valentine twice as long as it needs to be. When you hit a sound like this, you've got to milk it I guess.


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12 Wolf Alice - Visions of a Life

In the hands of many other bands, such a wide range of different styles would make for a bit of a mess of an album. Wolf Alice are no ordinary band though. They shine with everything they take on here - from punk to dreampop, taking in some shoegaze (!) too.


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11 Nadine Shah - Holiday Destination

Political yet uplifiting, Nadine Shah restores humanity to the dehumanised.


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10 Marika Hackman - I’m Not Your Man

Moving away from the stripped back folk sound of the her earlier work, this is an album I've been returning to a lot.


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9 Daughter - Music from Before the Storm

A score from a game, mostly instrumentals, with no physical release and little or no publicity might not count officially as Daughter’s 3rd studio album but it should do.

It’s an atmospheric soundtrack based around a 16-year old character in a game - and is a work of beauty.


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8 The Big Moon - Love in the 4th Dimension

Joyful indie guitar pop, reminiscent of Sleeper era Britpop. Marvellous.

Also, this is sort of their second entry in this list - they feature as the band on Marika Hackman’s album.


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7 Japandroids - Near To The Wild Heart of Life

8 tracks. 8 anthemic bangers.

I love the noise these two generate. So exciting live.


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6 MUNA - About U

“I Know A Place” is the standout track. One of many that speak of overcoming pain and fear set to the most joyful of melodies. Defiant and hopeful.

Given added poignance after Manchester and California, this song - oh god this song. Music is everything.

After the album’s release this year, it’s become even more of an LGBTQ anthem, now with added lyrics:

Even if our skin or our gods look different
I believe all human life is significant
I throw my arms open wide in resistance
He’s not my leader even if he’s my president

Watch Katie Gavin sing these extra lines, starting 3:50 in here. It gets to me every time.

There are songs of relationship trauma and other personal pain - yet when they're all delivered through big pop escapism and empowerment, there's such joy to it.

I love this.


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5 Kelly Lee Owens - Kelly Lee Owens

Electronic and dreamy, this is the album that has grown on me most this year. Given another month or two I wonder if I'd have placed this even higher up.


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4 Juliana Hatfield - Pussycat

My favourite musician of all time™ released a remarkable album in 2017.

In April I wrote a track-by-track review describing "Pussycat" as "the most exciting music Juliana has made since 2008's exceptional How To Walk Away" and "her most political since 2005's Made In China".

An outlet for anger unambigously "inspired" by the US Presidential election of 2016, and touching on all related issues of male privilege and abuse of power, the themes would become ever more relevant towards the end of the year as a soundtrack to the #metoo stories of mysogyny, assault, and harassment.


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3 Slowdive - Slowdive

The shoegazer's shoegazers back even better than before. I still can't believe they reformed.


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2 Lorde - Melodrama

Inevitably, all the (brilliant) songs on Melodrama are overshadowed by Green Light. 10 months on, whenever I play this track I still have an urge to play it again immediately.

Oh yeah, Juliana Hatfield loves it too. She wrote a whole article about Green Light for Talkhouse:

I always want music to be a tangible thing that I can wrap my actual arms around (I have hugged my boom box before), but it isn’t. I want what I can’t have. I want to sink my teeth into the sound of that rich, strong, honest voice. I want to drink and drink and gulp it down; that is the magic of a well-built and -performed and -recorded pop song. You get filled up, and sometimes you overflow with cleansing tears and cathartic shouting-along — if only temporarily — until the song is over, and then you play it again. It’s like a drug or a sugar rush. “Green Light” is ear candy.

By some distance my favourite song of the year.


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1 Phoebe Bridgers - Stranger in The Alps

'Smoke Signals' and 'Motion Sickness' draw you in to this album from the start.

These opening two songs highlight the compelling storytelling and beautiful songwriting that continues throughout this record. Then it hits you. Track 3. 'Funeral'

The most perfectly sequenced track on an exceptional album. No other moment in 2017 hit me quite like the first time I heard it.

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