The 2023 End of Year music lists thread

i didn't realize A&W was so beloved

you can get veggie burgers there, which is helpful

Revolver - 30 Best Albums of 2023
https://www.revolvermag.com/music/30-best-albums-2023

including albums by Baroness, Blackbraid, Queens of the Stone Age.

a rather disappointing list overall.

Allmusic Year in Review
Top 100 Albums of 2023
https://www.allmusic.com/year-in-review

has started first up its:

100 Highlighted 2023 Albums unranked in A-Z order

I did ramble on about it quite a lot a month ago to crickets

I’m crickets

Consequence 50 Best Albums of 2023
https://consequence.net/2023/12/consequence-50-best-albums-of-2023-list/6/

a different number 1 at Consequence

01. Yves Tumor — Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume

this yves tumor album was a step down, imo

first part of Bandcamp's Best Albums of 2023

bandcamp Best Albums of 2023 A-E
https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-of-2023/the-best-albums-of-2023-a-e

https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/best-songs-2023

25. Cole Pulice: “If I Don’t See You in the Future, I’ll See You in the Pasture”
For the uninitiated, it may seem like Cole Pulice is simply leaning their forearm on all the white keys of an organ before wailing on a saxophone across this very long song. But what you are actually hearing is all saxophone, including its sound being manipulated through signal processing live in the studio by the Oakland-based electro-acoustic composer’s feet. The auditory illusion fits the mood of the piece: liminal, transitory, extremely trippy. Pulice saves the best for the end, when they repeat a squiggly little pitch-bendy riff over and over: As the production is stripped away, they intimately struggle with their altissimo register, like they’re trying to crawl back into the last 22 minutes of a dream slipping away from memory. –Jeremy D. Larson

I used to babysit this kid. Good for them!

a list from the UK music website, The Line of Best Fit

The Line of Best Fit - Albums of the Year
https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/articles/2023-best-albums-ranked

AOTY Summary - The Line of Best Fit - Albums of the Year
https://www.albumoftheyear.org/list/2131-the-line-of-best-fits-best-albums-of-the-year-2023/

Number 1 Kara Jackson - Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?

Good number 1

Bristol's Crack Magazine presents their albums of the year

essential reading, plenty of interesting leftfield choices on this list to explore further.

Crack Magazine - The Top 50 Albums of the Year

https://crackmagazine.net/article/list-article/best-albums-2023/

number 1 from imago approved:

Jim Legxacy
Homeless N**** Pop Music
(!)

shocked (in a good way) to see vayda up there. fun list, probably my favorite so far

Oh! that Crack list has a lot of albums I loved that I haven’t seen in any other list yet. Yeah probably my fave so far.

Do they also do a songs list? Interested on seeing what they rank there too.

crickets, and fgti saying he was a really diamond bloke and then not listening to the album ;)

Bandcamp list usually has some good stuff on it...

Crack did a top 25 tracks list last year. So we just have to wait.

now that's a worthy #1, plenty of other stuff that looks interesting on that list too

Oh yeah! Looking at Crack’s top tracks for previous years and they have made some great choices in the past. Don’t remember paying attention before but I guess I love Crack.

paste singles: https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/best-songs/100-best-songs-of-2023

pretty high placement for jim legxcy on this one too, which surprised me

Crack list is great. Great to see John Twells and Chal Ravens contributing, they were both mainstays at Fact magazine back when it was worth reading

Cabbages (best hip hop albums)

https://www.cabbageshiphop.com/best-hip-hop-rap-albums-2023/

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Monday, December 4, 2023 10:37 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

cool list but they are griselda pilled sickos, by far conway and westside gunn's worst albums ever place high, and i like estee nack but it wasn't that exceptional. lots of cool stuff though and some i haven't heard of.

Weird to see “Daddy” as the consensus track pick for Nourished by Time. Happy to see them represented at all and I like that one, but it didn’t seem to me like the particular highlight (the fields, rain water promise or soap party are superior imho)

Paste EPs of the year also has some good choices

https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/best-eps/30-best-eps-of-2023

cabbages usually highlights the most boring rap in the game today, but he did include the h31r album which is so so good

when it's too boring for me you got problems pal

i did like h31r a lot

there's a better al divino album (with raheim supreme) that i love which didn't make the list

i found the griseldaxfr reddit this year and honestly it ruined the whole thing for me, a more demented group of weirdos you'll never meet. obsessing about real hip hop then someone says "oh i didn't know cee lo green rapped" and obsessing about $500 t-shirt drops then complaining when the t-shirt stars falling apart right away

One album I'm not seeing on ANY list so far is Hit Parade. Not surprised, but it did land some really positive reviews. Wonder if it will make Pitchfork's list.

oh ha - it made the first one posted here, MOJO, but I can't seem to find it even honorably mentioned on https://www.albumoftheyear.org/list/summary/2023/ so that might be the only one?

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/05/1211225533/best-albums-2023

npr list is unranked this year (boo!)

Sort of unranked. The crowns to the left that they gave to some albums is sort of a guide on their actual top 20.

https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/best-albums-2023/

oh of course sza is the consensus pick given she wasn't quite eligible last year

they're way overrating that yeule album though, 10000 gecs too.

I thought this was a solid year for music, but I'd rank any of my top 3 albums of 2022 (Dragon, Motomami, SOS) ahead of any album I heard in 2023.

Here’s Stereogum

https://www.stereogum.com/2243925/best-albums-2023/lists/year-in-review/2023-in-review/

hey there's a Tubs appearance!

nice to see the Ratboy love too

Even the Wire’s list was pretty boring this year. For what I’ve seen described multiple places as a great year for music there really wasn’t much of interest for me.

Crack list is great. Great to see John Twells and Chal Ravens contributing, they were both mainstays at Fact magazine back when it was worth reading

― blazin' squab (NickB), Monday, December 4, 2023 3:59 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Chal has a new podcast btw: https://notagspodcast.substack.com/

it feels like there is more consensus than usual, and that i disagree more than usual about which albums deserve to be consensus favorites.

https://www.albumoftheyear.org/list/summary/2023/

looking at the top 20 in aggregate and maybe 3-4 would be among my 50 favorites of the year? and one of them came out in 2022

the editor of The Wire magazine, Derek Walmsley has recently announced his departure. Does anyone know who the new editor is?

the editor of The Wire magazine, Derek Walmsley has recently announced his departure. Does anyone know who the new editor is?

No one's been hired yet as far as I know.

I submitted an all-metal ballot to The Wire's critics' poll, so none of my choices made the top 50. But all Wire readers (and everyone, really) should check out Spirit Adrift's Ghost at the Gallows and GridLink's Coronet Jupiter, at least, because they're amazing records.

I was actually kinda surprised that the Hawkwind Space Ritual 50th anniversary box set didn't place on The Wire's reissues chart (that was my #1 pick).

So in the end Pitchfork did hop off the “hit parade” train lol

Time Out tracks list probably my least favorite so far, they did pick my favorite Newjeans song off that ep.

https://www.timeout.com/music/the-23-best-songs-of-2023

Any list with “I’m just Ken” feels like shitposting to me.

Kinda funny that Sufjan is #1 on the aggregate list, but with zero first places in polls

And I guess Lankum is out of the top 10 despite 3 first places

i-d magazine is now owned by supermodel Karlie Kloss after Vice media bankruptcy.

i-d magazine 100 best songs of 2023
https://i-d.vice.com/en/article/k7zkjv/the-100-best-songs-of-2023

Number 1
caroline polachek - i believe

xp, Sufjan has 2x as many top 10 rankings though

I'm not questioning the math. It's just interesting that you could have the album of the year without topping any polls.

Seems emblematic of 2023 in a way

Any list with “I’m just Ken” feels like shitposting to me.

And then there's this...

1. ‘Now and Then’ – The Beatles
The best new song of the year is by a peppy beat combo named the Beatles. Despite their silly, punny name, the band – on the strength of this cut – has real potential. What initially sounds like a maudlin plodder soon reveals itself to be a song with flashes of true ingenuity. You’ll find yourself returning to its beguiling charms again and again, thanks to the lead singer’s (one ‘John Lennon’) deceptively clever melody. Does it sound like it’s been arranged and performed by a computer? A bit. But the sound of humanity, an enduring, psycho-spiritual fraternity, calling out from beyond the AI algo-void is perhaps what makes it so affecting. Now can we have a version without the cloying string section?

Wire’s #1 left me absolutely baffled. Only explanation I can think of is that it’s the Keke Rosberg of this year’s albums.