Songs That Saved Your Life & Friends Top 10 Albums of 2023: Part 2

Four Music Writers Share Their Favorites

Welcome to Songs That Saved Your Life - a weekly newsletter on rock n roll history written from a queer lens. You can access our full archives here.

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The gang is back with Part 2 of the Songs That Saved Your Life & Friends Top 10 Albums of 2023. This post covers our picks from #5 through to the coveted top spot (there’ll be some surprises and maybe a little controversy.) If you missed Part 1, you can check it out here!

Allow me to re-introduce my co-conspirators. I highly encourage you to check out their work.

• Kevin Alexander - Author of On Repeat. The goal of Kevin’s Substack is to “make music personal-and personable-again.” I’m sure his huge circulation of subscribers would agree that Kevin is like that friend who used to gift you killer mix tapes that you’d try and pass off as your own when you needed to impress a girl.

• Sam Colt- Author of This Is A Newsletter! Sam’s publication offers incisive commentary on all of life’s existential conundrums. Topics include “There Is No Objective News Because There Is No Objective Truth” and “The Nihilist's Way to Carving Pumpkins.” It’s a riotous read.

• Steve Goldberg- Author of Earworms and Songloops. Steve’s newsletter is a hilarious mix of relatable personal essays coupled with the songs that get stuck in all of our heads. Be warned, you WILL get a song stuck in your head after reading (but it’ll be a damn good song.)
  
  It was such an honor to collaborate with these talented writers and I do hope you’ll subscribe to their work. As you’ll see, each of them have great taste in music.

And now, on to the music.

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#5

Jami: Anohni - My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross

Anohni returns after a 13-year hiatus to mourn, and I can’t get 30 seconds into track one of this album without bawling so I guess we’re in this together. With each song, her burden - or rather - our collective burden - is that we’re all plodding through life amongst the devastation of global warming, the unfulfilled promises of civil rights, and of course, the death of Lou Reed. “It Must Change,” which is track one, takes aim at the capitalist destruction of the environment. “Sliver of Ice '' pays tribute to Lou Reed and a story told from his deathbed about enjoying life’s simple pleasures like the feeling of melting ice dissolving on your tongue. The last track, “You Be Free,” is an acknowledgment of the tireless sacrifices of our ancestors. Just as Anohni crossed over the backs of trans activists like Marsha P. Johnson (whose portrait is featured on the album’s cover), she hopes to be a bridge for others. “Oh, you be free. You be free for me.”

Kevin: The Chemical Brothers- For That Beautiful Feeling

Hearing those big beats kick off 1995’s Exit Planet Dust, who’d have thought the Chemical Brothers would still be going strong? Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons know a thing or two about putting together a record rather than piling a bunch of singles together and calling it good. Each track here could work as a single, but together, they are a beautiful, complete work. 

Sam: Caroline Polacheck- Desire, I Want to Turn Into You

I can't be the only one craving a classic Imogen Heap record, but Caroline is the only one making it. Modern pop has no business sounding this good, especially in this current sea of vomit. Desire… is loaded with intoxicating euphoria, with balmy trip-hop grooves, sky-blue synths, finger-snap beats, electric bass riffs, and angelic harmonies all swooping through your ears. Caroline’s voice glides like butter. This album references a ’90s and early-2000s aesthetic while creating its own unique and evocative vibe that transcends pop music’s own limits. There’s a fine line between earnest romanticism and artful irony, and this collection of songs takes a panoramic embrace of a contradictory and chaotic world.

Steve: Corey Hanson - Western Cum

Western Cum sits in that sweet spot where alt-rock, classic rock, and Americana meet and make sweet love. Now I get what the album title means! Corey Hanson (Wand, Ty Segall) cruises down familiar sonic alleyways, then peels out and runs over the flower garden in your front yard. Take one part of The Band, a cup of Neil Young, and add a dash of Dinosaur Jr. and you get an idea of Corey Hanson’s sound. Album highlight, “Driving Through Heaven,” perfectly encapsulates this melange of tasty ingredients. However, I’m choosing the gorgeous “Twins” to share.

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#4

Jami: Durand Jones - Wait Till I Get Over

I’m a sucker for any contemporary artist that fully appreciates the shoulders they stand on. If it ain’t broke, just add a little gas and go. This is why I love the retro soul sounds of artists like Anderson .Paak or Durand Jones & The Indications. They add just enough “new” to introduce younger audiences to something their grandparents have known all along - that soul music is timeless. For his solo album, Durand Jones trades the danceable grooves he produced with The Indications for a more introspective and spiritual homage to his Southern roots. Wait Till I Get Over tackles Jones’ personal struggles with religion and also represents the first time he’s spoken about his queerness. In “That Feeling” he reveals the beauty but also the shame he felt as a closeted young gay man. “Someday We’ll All Be Free” is a gut-wrenching protest of police violence and eulogy of innocent Black lives lost like Sandra Bland, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tamir Rice. Wait Till I Get Over stands on the shoulders of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and solidifies Jones as a prolific spokesman for this generation.

Kevin: Jason Isbell-Weathervanes

What I wrote initially: The weight of expectations can be tricky. Between his time in Drive-By Truckers (and everything after), the recent documentary “Running With Our Eyes Closed,” and an on-point Twitter game, Jason Isbell has become the go-to pick for legions of cargo shorts wearing 35-55-year-old dudes.

But Isbell is a hell of a songwriter and makes light work of it, filling his records with stories about people who drink tall boys for an audience that drinks radlers.

Mostly, one gets the sense that Isbell just wanted to write a great song or two while avoiding the pitfalls that come with those high expectations. And while listening, it’s hard not to sense some relief on his part. The tracks have the observational feel of a diorama, where we look at snapshots of people just trying to make it through their complex, turbulent lives. It’s a world populated with reprobates, friends we’ve lost along the way, and ones not too far behind them—a universe of misfits and the everyman.

Weathervanes is a record where the space between “this will sound great in the backyard” and “I’m emotionally wrung out” is tiny. But Isbell and the 400 Unit do well to thread that needle.

Sam: Billy Woods & Kenny Segal - Maps

Maps is probably Billy Woods’s most accessible and lighthearted project, with each song’s run-time at about two minutes, almost serving as vignettes that emphasize a sense of place. Regardless, these tracks are packed with detail and visceral strokes that create vivid narratives. "A single death is a tragedy but eggs make omelettes" is such a dope line. Also, the Danny Brown feature is fucking nutty. Kenny Segal’s production is subdued, which allows for Billy’s lyrics to shine, but the beats still hold their own, with twinkling pianos, softly chiming guitars, flute samples, and jazzy sax lines. The way the guitars melt together to create the psychedelic sound of “Soft Landing” is so fire. There are zero misses on here. Billy Woods should be in the all-time greatest MCs conversation. He’s consistent, has been at it for 20 years straight, is incredibly talented, and has a very recognizable style.

Steve: The Arcs- Electrophonic Chronic

Since arriving back in January, The Arcs' sophomore album, Electrophonic Chronic, has been on regular repeat. I don’t know how Spotify didn’t have this in my top 10 most-played albums. Probably because it’s all rigged. Recorded seven years ago and then shelved in 2018 after multi-instrumentalist Richard Swift’s passing. Band leader (and Black Key) Dan Auerbach and producer Leon Michels took the tapes from those early sessions and mixed and rearranged the songs. The album’s 12 tracks feel cohesive, the sound of a band in full command of their funky, soul-drenched, psychedelic power. Auerbach’s vocals (and the harmonies by the rest of the band) are a highlight here. Electrophonic Chronic is the perfect send-off to Swift. If this was the last we get from The Arcs, it’s as good a swan song as there is.

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#3

Jami: Khruangbin & Men I Trust - Live at RBC Echo Beach

Psychedelic breakbeat is a musical genre I just made up right now so that I can properly pin a label on the unpinnable Khruangbin. And even this isn’t enough to describe the Thai, Texan, surf rock, funk band. The trio is known for taking ethereal sounds and making them funky as hell. Their 2023 live collaboration with dream pop band Men I Trust is a match made in gossamer Heaven. My advice is to pop a gummy, crank this album, and let your mind wander off into space. You’ll thank me when you get back.

Kevin: Sweeping Promises- Good Living Is Coming For You

What I wrote initially: Depending on how you look at it, Good Living Is Coming For You sounds like the sort of slogan you’d see on Soviet agitprop posters or hear Peggy Olson come up with in a strategy session for Tupperware. Both are true. 

After spending time in Boston and Austin, Lira Mondal & Caufield Schnug landed in Lawrence Kansas, and hit their stride. The result is beautiful chaos– what Romeo Void might’ve sounded if they’d indulged their post-punk impulses. I had a chance to interview the duo earlier this year, and during our chat, frontwoman Lira Mondal described their sound as “Voracious, wild-eyed, grabbing-with-both-hands YOLO energy.” I described the record as “an album sure to be on many best-of lists come December.” Turns out both of those are true as well.

Bottom Line: Someone described this band as “The B-52s if they never saw the Sun.” I’m not sure I can say it any better than that.

Sam: Sufjan Stevens - Javelin

Javelin is distinct from Sufjan Steven’s catalog but just as affecting, fusing sonics throughout his career. This is one of his most gorgeous albums, and it gives Carrie & Lowell a run for its money. No one yearns quite like Sufjan. Twenty years into his music career, he is still adept at conveying opaque intimacy and heartbreak, as well as expressions of spiritual and romantic devotion over some slightly electronic folk music. The songwriting feels more raw and direct than ever, raising the endless questions that seek meaning in one another, and rejoicing in the euphoria of those occasional moments of finding it. The “I don’t wanna fight at all / I will always love you” line in “Shit Talk” with the backing vocals and final crescendo into the wall of sound is one of the most powerful and beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard in my life. The fourth "Hold me closely, hold me tight" is so heart-wrenching and beautiful, it gives me chills and I compulsively rewind it every time I hear it. The baroque recorders enchant on “My Red Little Fox.” The context of the album is devastating, but Sufjan channels his grief into absolute beauty, while still retaining the element of sadness.

Steve: The Clockworks - Exit Strategy

Timing isn’t everything when it comes to making a best-of list, but if you release your album in mid-late November or early December, you can expect to be excluded from year-end accolades.

That’s my concern for The Clockworks' debut album, Exit Strategy. Throughout a good part of 2022 and into early 2023, I‘d played the Clockworks’ singles religiously. Now they’ve put out a full-length and although half the songs are comprised of previous singles, producer Bernard Butler had the band re-record the five tracks, giving the album a more unified sound.

The urgency and passion in their angular post-punk sound are equally matched by unflinching, imagistic lyrics. Exit Strategy centers around a protagonist who moves from Galway to London in search of meaning, certain that what he seeks will be found by changing his surroundings and acting like someone he’s not. The album is designed specifically for vinyl: side A represents Galway, and Side B, London.

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#2

Jami: Janelle Monáe - Age of Pleasure

If you aren’t familiar with Janelle Monáe’s music yet, good GOD what are you doing with your time?! A stylistic descendent and student of the funky side of Prince, Monáe is the modern-day, non-binary version for this generation. She collaborated with His Royal Badness on 2013’s Electric Lady and 2018’s Dirty Computer. By the time you get to this year’s release, Age of Pleasure, Monáe no longer needs the hand-holding from royalty because she’s earned her own crown. And her latest single, “Float” is the album’s crown jewel. 

I know we’re focused on 2023 here, but I need to give an honorable mention to the 2018 sapphic ode to everyone’s favorite lady part, “Pynk.” The music video just might make your day.

Kevin: Yo La Tengo- This Stupid World

In my review, I noted that There are two sides to Yo La Tengo. Both are very good sides. The first is quiet, contemplative Yo La Tengo. That’s the one we’ve seen the most of in recent years. Sometimes haunting and/or listless, other times endearing.

The second is rocking Yo la Tengo. Sometimes, it’s vaguely menacing, as with tracks like ‘Shaker.’ The sound is locomotive. Either way, they’re giving us straight rippers with Kaplan barely in control, playing like one of those inflatable wavy guys you see at low-rent used car lots.

Instead of a specific direction on This Stupid World, they just chose ‘em all

This is one of those bands that always sound like themselves, no matter what boundary they’re pushing or which norm they’re winging out a third-story window.

Yo La Tengo has never been a band that fits nicely in a box, and 2023’s no time to start. They’ve gone from critics darling to your favorite band’s favorite band to indie rock elder statesmen.

And all of that from a band that feels more like neighbors you’d ask to watch your house while on vacation.

With seventeen records and a bunch of EPs and singles, this would’ve been a fine capstone to a storied discography. Instead, it feels like a band hitting its stride with the best yet to come. 

It’s always a YLT record, ya know?

Sam: Danny Brown & JPEGMAFIA - Scaring the Hoes

Scaring the Hoes is defiantly anti-pop, but unexpectedly catchy, confounding, and captivating. This listen is a nerve-jangling experience that is crowded and ridiculous, but Peggy and Danny Brown have a madcap chemistry that overdelivers time and time again. JPEGMAFIA's production is so satisfyingly unhinged—every instrumental is hard and distorted and speaker-knocking—and Danny Brown shines because he has the wit, tone, and energetic flow to rap on anything and make it sound good. “Can’t fuck with y’all, y’all let Jack Harlow sell y’all chicken” is such a simple but very deep line. That beat switch on “Kingdom Hearts Key” is unbelievably sick. Peggy is a damn wizard with these samples, especially in the title track, which lifts from Dirty Beaches “Untitled” Take Away Show—the clapping, the sax, the “WORK THAT SHIT.” This was easily my album of the year until October when…

Steve: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse

The most prolific band in rock history slowed things down in 2023, releasing only two albums. The first, PetroDragonic Apocalypse, was their second foray into speed metal. The first, Infest the Rat’s Nest (2019), was a brilliant, bludgeoning sonic battering. This time, despite the album’s underlying themes of environmental collapse, the vibe is a little more classic head-banging metal. The riffs are killer, but the superhuman, syncopated drumming by Michael “Cavs” Cavanagh is what’s made PetroDragonic my go-to soundtrack when riding my spin bike. It’s an album that inspires buckets of sweat.

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#1

Jami: Prince - Diamonds & Pearls Reissue

I fully realize the controversy I’m creating by placing a reissue of a 1991 album at the number 1 spot on my 2023 list, but this deluxe edition includes FORTY SEVEN unreleased tracks (yes, some of them are different versions of the same song) in addition to the original album, which produced two top 5 singles. Name another artist in the history of music that has that kind of output 7 years after their death. While not every unreleased track is a winner, there’s still joy in wallowing in what’s left of Prince’s genius (like this live version of “Nothing Compares 2 U” which was written by Prince and given to Sinead O’Connor.)  Even his throwaways are better than most people’s hits. If the lost Beatles track, “Now and Then” makes it onto a Best of 2023 list, then so does Prince…and I’ll die on this hill.

Kevin: The New Pornographers- Continue As Guest

Few bands can say they’ve reached the twin peaks of extensive discography and fevered fan base the way The New Pornographers have.

This combination becomes fertilizer for lively- and often extremely pedantic- discussions about a favorite record, era, lineup, etc. Everyone has their opinions, and for my money, everyone is right! But I’ll say this: Continue As Guest is arguably one of the best records yet from a band known for consistently putting out solid work.

The New Pornographers excel at composing complex sounds and words without making you overthink. For listeners used to anthemic and outsized hooks, Continue As Guest will take a listen or two before it clicks. But the band will win you over, as they invariably do.

I often find myself writing, “Just go buy this record” as a placeholder until I can better articulate my thoughts. Sometimes, I wish I could leave it at that. This is one of those cases.

Getting a group as talented as this all moving in the right direction rarely happens, but Continue As Guest is evidence that the exception proves the rule.

Sam: Sampha - Lahai

See, boss, if Sampha’s albums turn out this good after five years, it’s fine if I take three months to send my projects to client. I listened to this on a walk by Toronto’s lakeshore during a sunset, and it healed my soul. Sampha has proven himself to be a generational talent with a singular artistic vision and a magical voice. Lahai is a rich emotional work that is so sonically satisfying, and its remarkable second half pulls together the record as an expressionist painting of life’s cyclical nature. It is jittery with anxiety and indecision, but poised and luscious. The persuasive positivity throughout is carried by a contained cacophony of euphoric synths, melodic guitars, swelling violins, and skittering percussion. The album has a dueling force of themes: freedom, time, memory, grief, Afrofuturism, and magical realism. This is a stunning experience, and across 14 tracks, Lahai is as intimate as it is imaginative. This project is an allegory for Sampha’s journey of self-discovery, of the initial constraints society may foist upon us, and how the tireless efforts to buck these expectations and conventions may attract criticism and engender self-doubt, but it will ultimately lead to belonging, inner peace, and mutual understanding.

Steve:  Lonnie Holley- Oh Me Oh My

Michael Mueller’s review on Bandcamp describes the album perfectly:

“Holley wrings pure emotion out of his voice, sounding like an impassioned fusion of Solomon Burke and Levon Helm, baring his soul and his brutal story for all to see.”

To hear and feel as well as see, I would add.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard an album quite like Oh Me Oh My before. It incorporates elements of spoken word, funk, experimental sound collage, jazz, folk, and so much more. 

The expertly incorporated guest collaborators (Michael Stipe, Moor Mother, Bon Iver, Sharon Van Etten, to name a few) add layers to the heartbreaking, unflinching, inspirational power of each of Oh Me Oh My’s 11 transforming and transfixing songs. It was a no-brainer for me that this was the best album of 2023.

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Jami’s Honorable Mentions:

boygenius - The Record - Don’t get me wrong, this is a gorgeous album that’ll end up on a LOT of “Best of” lists. I just found myself listening to it less often than the ones who made my list of favorites from the year. I have a lot of nostalgia picks because I’m a nostalgic Gen X’er.

 Danger Mouse & Jemini the Gifted One - Born Again - This choice is also technically cheating because it was made in 2004 but we’ve had to wait until this year for its release. It doesn’t have the same fireball chemistry as 2003’s Ghetto Pop Life but it’s nice to hear from this duo again after all of these years. 

Nas - Magic 2 & 3 - Two albums in the same year but that’s no surprise coming from Nas, who is a genius at creating multi-album themes. 

Bombay Bicycle Club - My Big Day - This might be the band’s most adventurous album. It goes beyond just indie pop and incorporates some new sounds thanks to collaborations with Chaka Khan and Damon Albarn. It’s a super fun listen!

Dolly Parton - Rockstar -  Is it the best album of 2023? Absolutely not. Is it even close? Still no. Is Dolly Parton an American treasure and we should support literally anything she does while she’s still on this planet? Big yes.

Check out my co-conspirator’s posts to see their Honorable Mentions for 2023. We hope you enjoyed our top picks of 2023! What were your favorites? Leave us a comment and let us know.