The Top Albums of 2023
The year 2023 was, most of all, the year I prepared to become a parent and then became a parent to a sweet and curious little person named Lucy Jo. It was a year of sudden transition; deep exhaustion; even deeper joy; and, eventually, a year of embracing the gift of routine.
According to the extensive lists I keep year-round on my phone, I have listened to 225 albums that were released in 2023*, which is about 14% fewer than last year. Sounds about right: Fourteen percent of a year is about seven weeks, and it took me about seven weeks after Lucy was born to feel rested enough to venture back into unknown music territory. (During my initial 4 a.m. shifts of bottle-feeding newborn Lucy, I often returned to a lot of old favorites like Sigur Rós, Joanna Newsom, and Tracy Chapman.)
*To work around the music industry’s rhythm of list-making, I’ve begun to include December album releases in the following year’s list, so for what it’s worth, “2023” here technically means December 1, 2022 through November 30, 2023.
The 74 albums listed below are not all of the albums that I enjoyed from this year, but these are the ones that stuck with me or felt like they defined my year on some level.
Like last year, I’ve organized the list into sections represented by circles of friendship ranging from closest friends and family to close acquaintances. (And as I said last year: “I really do think of albums as friends! And furthermore, I think it’s charming, and I’ll never stop!”)
As always, my hope is that you’ll find one or twenty-two new albums to love in this list, and to that end I’ve provided one sample song per album — it might be my favorite, or it might just be a track that I think represents the overall sound of the album.
Enjoy(!), and remember: if you like the music, consider supporting these artists on Bandcamp or by purchasing concert tickets or merch. I’ve linked the album on Bandcamp whenever possible.
Closest Friends and Family, or “Nobody Gets Me; You Do,” or #1–3
Mitski — The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We (Support on Bandcamp)
SZA — SOS
Sufjan Stevens — Javelin (Support on Bandcamp)
Best Friends, or “I’ll Feed It Every Day,” or #4–10
Jamila Woods — Water Made Us (Support on Bandcamp)
Black Belt Eagle Scout — The Land, the Water, the Sky (Support on Bandcamp)
Wednesday — Rat Saw God (Support on Bandcamp)
Sigur Rós — Átta (Support on Bandcamp)
The National — First Two Pages of Frankenstein (Support on Bandcamp)
Vagabon — Sorry I Haven’t Called (Support on Bandcamp)
Little Simz — No Thank You
Good Friends, or “It’s All Honey,” #11–18
Samia — Honey (Support on Bandcamp)
Yaeji — With a Hammer (Support on Bandcamp)
Amaarae — Fountain Baby (Support on Bandcamp)
The Hold Steady — The Price of Progress (Support on Bandcamp)
Ratboys — The Window (Support on Bandcamp)
ANOHNI — My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross (Support on Bandcamp)
Helena Deland — Goodnight Summerland (Support on Bandcamp)
Squirrel Flower — Tomorrow’s Fire (Support on Bandcamp)
Friends, or “Let Them Run On My Cheeks, ah, One More Time,” or #19–32
Open Mike Eagle — Another Triumph of Ghetto Engineering (Support on Bandcamp)
Noname — Sundial
Romy — Mid Air (Support on Bandcamp)
Caroline Polachek — Desire, I Want to Turn Into You (Support on Bandcamp)
Westerman — An Inbuilt Fault (Support on Bandcamp)
James Blake — Playing Robots into Heaven
Earl Sweatshirt + The Alchemist — Voir Dire (Support on Bandcamp)
Kelela — Raven (Support on Bandcamp)
Christine and the Queens — Paranoïa, Angels, True Love (Support on Bandcamp)
Pearla — Oh Glistening Onion, the Nighttime Is Coming (Support on Bandcamp)
Navy Blue — Ways of Knowing
Sampha — Lahai (Support on Bandcamp)
Boygenius — The Record (Support on Bandcamp)
BigXthaPlug — AMAR
Close Acquaintances and People I Enjoy Seeing at Parties Sometimes, or “She Shake It Like Jelly,” #33–74
Feeble Little Horse — Girl with Fish (Support on Bandcamp)
Janelle Monáe — The Age of Pleasure
Joey Purp — Heavy Heart Vol. 1
Carly Rae Jepsen — The Loveliest Time
Wiki & Tony Seltzer — 14K Figaro (Support on Bandcamp)
Blonde Redhead — Sit Down for Dinner (Support on Bandcamp)
Burna Boy — I Told Them… (Support on Bandcamp)
Tennis — Pollen
Mick Jenkins — The Patience
Bully — Lucky for You (Support on Bandcamp)
Slowdive — Everything Is Alive (Support on Bandcamp)
Youth Lagoon — Heaven Is a Junkyard (Support on Bandcamp)
Tei Shi — Bad Premonition (Support on Bandcamp)
Tinashe — BB/ANG3L (Support on Bandcamp)
Indigo De Souza — All of This Will End (Support on Bandcamp)
Miya Folick — Roach (Support on Bandcamp)
Speedy Ortiz — Rabbit Rabbit (Support on Bandcamp)
Waldemar — Ruthless (Support on Bandcamp)
Troye Sivan — Something to Give Each Other (Support on Bandcamp)
Ian Sweet — Sucker (Support on Bandcamp)
Jessie Ware — That! Feels Good! (Support on Bandcamp)
Avalon Emerson — & The Charm (Support on Bandcamp)
Hannah Diamond — Perfect Picture (Support on Bandcamp)
Ice Spice — Like..? (Deluxe)
Local Natives — Time Will Wait for No One (Support on Bandcamp)
Palehound — Eye on the Bat (Support on Bandcamp)
Kevin Morby — More Photographs (a Continuum) (Support on Bandcamp)
Toro y Moi — Sandhills (Support on Bandcamp)
Kurt Vile — Back to Moon Beach
Ameer Vann & Merlyn Wood — Slime in the Ice Machine
Andy Shauf — Norm (Support on Bandcamp)
Cherry Glazerr — I Don’t Want You Anymore (Support on Bandcamp)
Arlo Parks — My Soft Machine (Support on Bandcamp)
Aesop Rock — Integrated Tech Solutions (Support on Bandcamp)
Fenne Lily — Big Picture (Support on Bandcamp)
Claud — Supermodels (Support on Bandcamp)
Wye Oak — Every Day Like the Last (Support on Bandcamp)
Becca Mancari — Left Hand (Support on Bandcamp)
The Mountain Goats — Jenny from Thebes (Support on Bandcamp)
Killer Mike — Michael (Support on Bandcamp)
Wiki, MIKE, and the Alchemist — Faith Is a Rock
Doja Cat — Scarlet (Support on Bandcamp)
