As I mentioned in my intro blurb for my songs of the year list, my listening habits weren’t exactly expansive this year. I tended to lean on a lot of the same albums and genres throughout the past 12 months, which means there’s a good chance that I left your favorite album, or the most “important” album of the year, or some other album you think should have been on this list, off of it. So consider this more of a snapshot in time of my own taste than an attempt to define the canon – these are the records that meant a lot to me in 2023, and hopefully you’ll find a record that meant, or will come to mean, a lot to you in here as well. 

Or maybe you’ll find it in this list of honorable mentions, which includes: 

After the Magic – Parannoul

Cartwheel – Hotline TNT

Cousin – Wilco

Crispy Crunchy Nothing – PACKS

Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling – Slaughter Beach, Dog

Desire Pathway – Screaming Females

Destiny – DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ

Girl in the Half Pearl – Liv.e

GUTS – Olivia Rodirgo

GIZMO – Tanukichan

Haunted Mountain – Buck Meek

I Killed Your Dog – L’Rain

i’ve seen a way – Mandy, Indiana

Life Under the Gun – Militarie Gun

Maps – billy woods and Kenny Segal

Mind Palace Music – @

New York City – The Men

OTHERBODY – Dazy

Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) – Yves Tumor

Red Moon in Venus – Kali Uchis

Post-American – MSPAINT

Pure Music – Strange Ranger

Super Snõõper – Snõõper

Tracy Denim – bar italia

the whaler – Home Is Where

We Buy Diabetic Test Strips – Armand Hammer

Western Cum – Cory Hanson

Still haven’t found the record you’re looking for? Well, maybe you will in the actual list below:

15. 10,000 gecs – 100 gecs

There’s a universe in which 100 gecs follow up their 2019 debut 1000 gecs with another glitchy, Reddit-y album that would make what once sounded like the band of the future sound hopelessly stuck in its own past. Instead, they reached into the past of other bands on 10,000 gecs, mining every regrettable KROQ trend from the late 90s – be it post-grunge, nu metal, or even third wave ska – to create an album that’s so dumb it’s brilliant. Whereas 1000 gecs sometimes sounded like a very long shitpost, 10,000 gecs feels more like a well-studied collage of trash culture in the vein of early Beck, full of over-the-top aggression (“Billy Knows Jamie”) and adolescent scrawls (“Frog on the Floor,” “Doritos & Fritos”). Its schizophrenic structure and sequencing are the perfect reflection of how we consume culture now – not in a straight line, but as smashed together stones in one giant electronic mosaic.

Recommended Tracks: “Hollywood Baby,” “Billy Knows Jamie,” “The Most Wanted Person in the United States”

14. Lucky for You – Bully 

When Bully first burst onto the scene in 2013 with their eponymous EP, their grunge influenced sound represented a crucial new vein of indie rock distinct from the garage rock and post-punk bands who were beginning to recede in influence and the quite singer-songwriter projects whose wave was just beginning to crest. But as indie rock became dominated by 90s babies aping 90s rock towards the end of the 2010s and began to put a more modern spin on Bully’s somewhat rudimentary sound, the Nashville band began to feel a little redundant. All of this makes Lucky for You feel like something of a comeback, and one made possible by Alicia Bognanno (now the only official member of Bully) embracing pop hooks without sacrificing any of the project’s punch. In fact, this might be Bully’s punchiest record to date, featuring production that allows Bognanno’s voice and guitar to stand distinct from each other, one melodic but raspy, the other consistently crunchy. This is uncomplicated, catchy rock music about grief, rage, and love – the kind of album that would produce multiple radio hits in a more enlightened age. 

Recommended Tracks: “All I Do,” “Days Move Slow,” “How Will I Know”

13. Dead Meat – The Tubs 

The UK has exported lots of angry post-punk over the past five years or so – but what about those of us who are just as likely to cry in the pub as start a fight in one? Enter The Tubs, guitarist/vocalist Owen “O” Williams’ follow up to the now defunct Joanna Gruesome, who pay homage to the jangle pop greats on their melodic, pessimistic debut Dead Meat. Anyone sick of the growl of The Idles or the deadpan free association of Dry Cleaning will find solace in Williams’ lilting vocals and Johnny Marr-indebted strumming, at least until you get to the lyrics about mental illness and shattered relationships. Williams’ treatment of those subjects is delightfully old fashioned, and free of the overwrought metaphors and self-help rhetoric that populate so much modern music. Instead, his ex-lovers are swindlers, and he’s a wretch doomed to crawl back to them – that is, unless he destroys himself first. To paraphrase my mother, leave it to the British to make going to Hell sound so lovely. 

Recommended Tracks: “Illusion pt. II,” “Sniveller,” “Wretched Lie”  

12. In the Store – The Lost Days

If In the Store sounds like something two friends would record late at night after a few bottles of wine, that’s because that’s exactly how The Lost Days – a duo composed of Bay Area songwriters Tony Molina and Sarah Rose Janko – started out. Combining the jangle of The Byrds, the lo-fi aesthetic of Guide by Voices, and Molina’s already well-documented knack for brevity, In the Store is a simultaneously pleasant and melancholy record, one full of beautifully rendered songs of regret. At only 13 minutes long, it’s easy to wish for more – but Molina and Janko’s ability to stuff so much melody into such a small package is a huge part of their appeal, and the key ingredient that makes their music that much more intimate and heartfelt.

Recommended Tracks: “Gonna Have to Tell You,” “For Today,” “Another Day,” “In the Store”

11. Girl with Fish – feeble little horse

I like shoegaze, but one thing that’s always kept me from loving it is how distant it can feel – the vocals tend to be wispy and lower in the mix, while the sheer amount of gear required to create its trademark guitar sound makes it difficult to imagine a group of kids replicating “Only Shallow” or “When the Sun Hits” in a basement somewhere. On Girl with Fish, Pittsburgh’s feeble little horse look to smash these genre limitations, creating the scrappiest, scraggliest version of shoegaze I’ve ever heard and elevating it with Lydia Slocum’s wry, flirtatious vocals. The album is dynamic, too, trading off acoustic verses with distorted choruses and mixing in quirky keyboard squiggles that give the album a warped, analog feel, a distinct musical palette that makes the teasing “Freak” and wistful “Heavy Water” feel right at home on the same record.

Recommended Tracks: “Freak,” “Tin Man,” “Steamroller,” “Pocket”