2023 was the year of so many musical highlights and albums were no different. A lot of artists emerged or re-emerged and discovered newer, more exciting forms to challenge themselves with and, by extension, us the listener. Here are my picks:
21. Noname SUNDIAL:
a call to a casual renaissance of revolution-driven storytelling on hip-hop albums, sonic upheavals that use the comeback narrative for momentum. Noname comes for the Black intellect of rap that has been swagger-jacked by professional opportunists. She attempts to reclaim its glory without lamenting its pending erasure too much. The biographical slurs with the collective memory until you hear nuances of the subdued romantic lead in Gwendolyn Brooks' poetic novel Maud Martha as explicitly as the no-frills militancy of Fannie Lou Hamer or Fred Hampton. And you detect something new: dejection cut with optimistic futurism, and the reclaiming of right to error and retreat by a woman onto whom so many project selfish expectations. (NPR)
22. Yves Tumor PRAISE A LORD…:
Yves Tumor has evolved from experimental sound collagist to glam-rock star, but even as they have become more “hook-focused,” as the artist told Courteny Love, the sensual, elusive, and divine qualities of their music remain at its core, interacting in rich and captivating ways. Praise a Lord is not a drastic shift from 2020’s gloriously theatrical Heaven to a Tortured Mind, but it carries its creator’s boundless vision with the same urgency. Tumor is a master of tension and release, and on Praise a Lord, they linger in the space between the two in a way that feels physical more than just explorative. The album doesn’t ache for any sort of godly destination, but it is transfixed by the potential for transformation, proving they’ll harness all the beauty and horror necessary to breathe life into each striking form. (OUR CULTURE MAG)
23. Ryan Beatty CALICO:
Ryan still finds the magic in his lyrics (“It’s brave to be nothing to no one at all,” he sings on ‘Ribbons’), relying more heavily on the undeniable quality of his voice. The beauty of love in all its facets is laid bare across a series of more mellow tracks, often torn across the duality of affection. “Love will always last, love will always hold me down / What is it all about?” he sings on standout ‘Bruises Off The Peach’. At its core, ‘Calico’ continues to search for the answer for those left to find their own path through love. (DIY)
24. Bobbing YEAR OF THE NEWT:
while waiting for new music from Lemon Demon, listen to this math pop treat!
25. Knower KNOWER:
Louis Cole and Genevieve Artadi’s surges are warped and disoriented; they don’t just supply different styles amid backbones of synthesised jazz and synthesised funk (a heck of a hybrid), but wobble, pulsate and stimulate whilst doing so. If you feel yourself slipping or succumbing to gloom or boredom, Knower will entertain with cerebralism. Humour is a mammoth factor, or at least the ability to be either outspoken or foul-mouthed. Provocation finds a tidy home in synth punk, as Artadi sings “hit record, shut the fuck, we’re filling voids in shape of us” on The Abyss, a screaming single that operates on quick-footed tempo before proving both dexterity and vastness with a slender-fingered jazz keyboard solo, like the kind of thing Domi and JD Beck would perform. Provocation finds an even tidier home on true standout I’m the President, which already sweats amid a thumping, elephant-shaped synth brass funk rhythm, arriving in style following the luxurious string quartet of the opening title track, pretty much spat at as Artadi sings “Mount Rushymore has some tits”. (PEANUT BUTTER POPE)
26. Corinne Bailey Rae BLACK RAINBOWS:
the softer turns on Black Rainbows feel nearest to Rae’s earlier material, but those, too, subvert expectations. She purrs about the perils of beauty standards on “He Will Follow You With His Eyes” before she drops the dreamy façade and celebrates her Black skin, her favorite lipstick, and her kinky hair over an electronic morass. Later, Rae splits the difference between Eartha Kitt and Kate Bush in the smoky closing track “Before the Throne of the Invisible God,” with chimes ringing among soft woodwind curlicues. The stunning “Peach Velvet Sky,” meanwhile, is a sparkling and bittersweet ballad inspired by Harriet Jacobs, author of the 1861 book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. The song is Rae’s imagining of Jacobs hiding in an attic near the plantation from which she’d escaped, where she could watch her still-enslaved children in secret from a hole in the wall of her hiding place. In parallel with the themes of deliverance that Rae presents throughout the album, “Peach Velvet Sky” honors a life spent working toward freedom around challenges that never seem to sleep. In moments like these, Black Rainbows feels like far more than the result of a pivotal museum trip or old teenage dreams revisited. It sounds like a departure, but it feels like a renaissance. (PITCHFORK)
27. Victoria Monet JAGUAR II:
Victoria’s genius grasp of interludes helps keep things cohesive on Jaguar II. Although there’s just one interlude here, “Smoke (Reprise),” in a way, it’s the most important song on the album. Produced by D’Mile — who helmed the majority of the album — the reprise smoothens the sonic transition between the lush gospel-tinged R&B of “Smoke” and the summery nu-reggae of “Party Girls,” and later the thumping house of “Alright.” "Party Girls,” a somewhat unlikely collaboration with Buju Banton, finds Victoria dipping a toe into West Indian rhythms and joining forces with a musical giant of the generation preceding her. The song doesn’t really pick up until the staccato hook, and that momentum carries it through Buju’s energetic verse. “Party Girls” never achieves the seamless fusion of reggae and pop&b that it’s searching for — mostly because Victoria’s energy is still a bit too languid for all the verve Buju is bringing on his side — but it’s still a solid expansion of her sound that fits within the seductive late-night haze of Jaguar II. From there, the slinky KAYTRANADA-produced “Alright" — which features the much-discussed “He gave me some dick in bed / Now, he think his dick is embedded” and finishes with a literal jaguar growl — transports Victoria from a sweaty dancehall to an equally arousing nightclub. (ON THE BULLETIN)
28. Paramore THIS IS WHY:
it is an overall cohesive and grand statement of an album which opens with familiar sounds, and explores jutting, pointed off-shoots, before crescendoing with “Thick Skull”’ cataclysmic pop, all the while holding a relative level of self-involvement and privilege. The duality of an outward voyeurism of the world's strife (watching war-torn countries online and donating) while romanticizing inward battles is the general blueprint of This Is Why. It pertains to the inner turmoil that 21st-century living brings, without admonishment, and with full hands-in-the-air fun, whilst finding the whole thing a bit irksome. Acknowledging her pettiness multiple times throughout, Williams is also on top form with a dagger-sharp lyricism that often paints a picture worth a thousand-and-one words (“It’s like a horror film / I’m both the killer / and the final girl”). (THE LINE OF BEST FIT)
29. Jim Legxacy HOMELESS N**** POP MUSIC:
Most of homeless nigga pop music’s early singles leaned aggressively on a formula that paired guitar licks and recognizable samples, so it’s a relief to hear Legxacy pull other tricks (both old and new) out of his bag. Several songs shift on a dime, revealing darker cores underneath their sparkling shells. Early highlight “block hug” begins with a meditation on heartbreak and Black masculinity (“She told me hood niggas don’t cry/So when she broke my heart, I had the straight face”), which morphs into a moody drill beat that Legxacy proceeds to rip through like he’s Central Cee. The title track sheds the singing and guitars entirely, trading them for pointed storytelling over a smooth chunk of soul. He’s not the first rapper to sound as comfortable crooning as he does doling out bars, but there’s an urgency and freshness to his approach that gives it a golden shine. (PITCHFORK)
30. Nakhane BASTARD JARGON:
Bastard Jargon is an obvious change of pace. “Almost every song on it has some kind of wink towards sex,” Nakhane has said of the project, which finds itself occupied with the sweaty, libidinal pulse of disco. To achieve this, they turn to producer Nile Rogers, whose stylish bass riffs and funk informed approach are present across the album. This presence is most valuable when Rogers mingles with Nakhane’s arthouse approach, but less so when he takes the lead. His bass licks on Do You Well add the right amount of retro to support the idea, but on the 80’s R&B swing of The Conjecture it sounds too dated and insipid next to Nakhane’s otherworldly voice. Of course for Nakhane, it’s never as simple as sex and Studio 54. “It’s not necessarily a seductive, come to me, bedroom eyes kind of sex – it’s much more inquisitive, psychological sex.” So while Bastard Jargon does shift Nakhane toward debauchery, it does so from an objective, or rather cognitive, distance. The title, for instance, comes from Nakhane’s days as a literature scholar at Wits University. (PLAYY)
