Best of Month; the Top 10 Albums of 2023
2023 has come to a close and it was a lot to unpack. After relocating last year I had to figure out what to do next, admittedly a scarier process than moving itself. I’ve settled in now, changes have gone on, there were a lot of hard times and a lot of great memories made throughout the year. You may have noticed, if you’re a long-time reader, I was far less open about my own personal life in my reviews. If you’re new and this is your first year here, then hey you never knew this part of the blog. In these blurbs there are personal anecdotes, but they are far less revealing. Regardless, thank you for even clicking here.
This year for my own writing was possibly the best yet. I reviewed more albums in one year than ever before and worked with ten artists to promote their stuff before the release date. If all the stars align there’s one more thing coming out this year. I hope you had a great year yourself, are having a relaxing holiday season and enjoy this recap of albums. Please support all ten of these artists, they deserve the attention and were a huge part of our year.
Starting from Reddit? Start here!
#10 SCARING THE HOES by JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown released via AWAL
It’s hard to talk about album of the year without talking about this project as it seems like it was everywhere from the moment it was announced. Danny Brown and JPEGMAFIA feel like an internet sensation all their own respectively so when you put them together it makes sense it would be a huge deal. To be honest, I sort of passively listened to this album for a while, even after reviewing it. I didn’t know why it was good per say I just knew it was. Before I allowed myself to put it here I listened to every note, every bar. I even had the lyrics open for two listens to make sure I got it all right. What I learned is these two are blunt but they also aren’t always perfect people and reflect on such, with intent to improve or otherwise. They also love hip hop and are fed up with how it's treated by white listeners and even its own culture and fandom. They got in a house together, made something worth listening to which they found cathartic. The most I can ask anyone in any scene to do.
Something my partner recently talked about is this idea where fear holds you back and the best way to go about shedding it is to move against it. I’m taking this lesson to heart going into the new year. Not just with reviewing rap albums, not even just with writing about music, though it is on the list. We, AsterTracks I mean, tried to cover more hip hop this year. I didn’t review a ton of rap, but it was represented where other years it just showed up on the year end list and not throughout the year. I personally find it challenging but I tried, I swung for the fences and hopefully it’ll find its way to more posts in 2024.
Our review of SCARING THE HOES
#9 Re: This is Why by Paramore (& friends) released via Atlantic
Anytime Paramore releases a record I always expect it to hit me hard but in the case of This is Why what hit me is it didn’t. Paramore was my most listened to artist on streaming this year, they put out what is documented to be my favorite album ever. Something about the original This is Why felt off to me. I hear a band still great but didn’t have in them enough coherent, straight thoughts to put a full length together. I mean, look, I’m all about writing what you know but the heartbreaking concepts on After Laughter and then Williams’ two solo projects makes it hard for me to believe the follow-up to those projects is she’s just such a procrastinator. The point is; I wasn’t feeling it. When I saw the list of collaborations on the new version though? I knew things were about to turn around.
My partner, her partner and I listened to this for the first time on the road, over the highway where you can see Portland all lit up at night and it felt totally brand new. The Linda Lindas brought out parts of “The News” I didn’t know were missing. Wet Leg took “C’est comme ca” and made it their song in a way only a post-punk band could. My partner and I both gasped at the fake out ending to Zane Lowe’s version of “Running Out of Time.” This was an experience for both of us, much more exciting than when we tried to listen to the original and talked about how disappointing it was.
Where I was hesitant to get my feelings out about the original project, on the remade version I was eager. Every single track gave me so much to think about musically, made me want to know more about the artist attached and forced me to re-contextualize every song I was sort of lukewarm on originally. Not only apart though, but this is also so much more than a mixtape. Every bit of this record was created to be enhanced when played together.
It always feels weird to me, spotlighting bands with millions of fans on major labels. Especially when there are bands on the DIY level doing everything I love about this record.
Bands like…
#8 It Wasn’t Supposed to be Like This by pulses. released independently via Oh Word?
If you have your figure on the pulse of any DIY scene you should be talking about this Virginia quartet. pulses. have it all, good personality, strong community and a flavorful palette of influences. Influences they are completely transparent about, both in their inspiration playlists and their diverse range of sound within their own discography. Every song on It Wasn’t Supposed to be Like This is its own separate body of work while also being indicative of a band who has spent the past few years evolving to a far better place than anyone could have imagined. With every record pulses. get better and better and this is their best yet.
As I said above, they’re so much more than a good band. Even being aware of pulses. I feel a part of something bigger. This band really grew in the pandemic, so you get the DIY feel online. You know the other fans, you know who each member is, not just a singer or songwriter. Even better, everything I said in the previous write up is pushed to eleven here. pulses. is always spotlighting new bands and artists they discover online and playing shows with. They are just as much invested in being fans of this space as they are being an essential part of it. There’s always something going on in the scene and they’re one of the strongest ways to get to it.
This is not the same band who was here when I started doing this, it’s an even better one.
Our review of It Wasn’t Supposed to be Like This
#7 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs released via Dog Show & Atlantic
No matter what you think of them 100 gecs are an incredible band. This year they released a record which makes this undeniable fact. 10,000 is more than just some hyperpop songs skating by other genres for a second, it’s a multi-genre mix with a lot to say. Songs ranging from nu metal, ska, hyperpop, as well as an almost Chuck E. Cheese type beat make this an exciting listen each and every time. I know for this artist there’s always some push back. I even feel a bit weird having more than one major label record in my top ten, but I think to not talk about this album in relation to this year would be completely disingenuous.
To me, as a queer kid terrified to show herself in a misogynistic metal scene back home, it’s huge to see weird, queer art in the forefront of the culture right now. Everyone was talking about this band at some point during the year. People online, they were all over the review sites, I even heard some weirdo republicans hear them and enjoy a song or two. Bet it felt great when they realized it was a trans woman up front. As a trans woman Laura gives me someone to be proud of. I remember one afternoon driving with my household to Portland, hearing the riff to “Hollywood Baby” and being so excited about the band being on active radio. When I was growing up we had Laura Jane Grace or no one. If I had heard about 100 gecs as a sixteen-year-old? If they had gone on the same trajectory? Maybe I wouldn’t have taken until twenty-six to start transitioning.
Hey, still here? I hope you’re reading these and not just skipping to whoever appealed to you in a headline or a tag. We’re almost halfway there and now it’s time to get sad.
#6 love you forever by VERITE released via Venice Music
This one truly feels like a recording of a dream, both in its production and subject matter. On her third full-length the Brooklyn artist uses eerie, way past heartbroken piano, supporting sad but detached vocal melodies. Using all of this she tells us a story about “loving someone so much you kill them and drag their body into a lake.” The thing is this descriptor is exactly what the record sounds like. The detached emotion she conveys sort of sums up everything in these sonics and narrative. The album opens with “are we done yet,” a track encapsulating being in a relationship where there is absolutely no joy left and maybe there never was. The final full song, “by now,” explains to the person you shared those memories with they had to know it was almost over. All of this though, never takes away from the enjoyment of the experience. This record isn’t drenched in hopeless sadness, these songs work because she doesn’t care anymore.
This is the one record this year on this list we didn’t review beforehand. If you kept up last year you know I escaped an abuser in 2022, in 2023 I learned what comes after. You don’t just up and leave someone so rooted in the way you operate; they stay with you day after day until you work them out of your system. When they’re gone you develop their habits, if you find people you care about before purging those habits it could be destructive. The truth is those habits were baked into me heavily before I left home. Before they could leave me, I nearly destroyed a lot of what made me now feel joy. When I recognized this, it was nearly too late and for about half a year I felt like I had fallen from Eden. I had become the very detached, uncaring girl this record portrays. I had a lot of work to do to shed all of the darkness from me.
To do so, I went back to the place it started.
#5 Why Would I Watch by Hot Mulligan released via Wax Bodega
Why Would I Watch was the only record we gave a ten out of ten in our short stint ranking reviews. Even without the numbers in front of me I still stand by a perfect score. You’ll be fine was a great look into familial trauma turned into poppy midwestern emo and this record takes all those feelings and elevates them to their next level. A song like “It’s a Family Movie, She Hates Her Dad” sells the anxiety of simply being home as a pop punk rager. “No Shoes in the Coffee Shop” captures out-of-body sadness before the lyrics even hit you. “Shhhh! Golf is On” also touches on the anxiety of simply living in the same world as the parent at the route of your own dysfunction. Every single song here is a hit. Hot Mulligan also embraces nostalgia without ever giving it control here. The album is laced with samples of their first ever time in the studio but offers their most progressive, most effective songs in the catalog.
I went back home this year, saw my parents and other relatives and revisited some of my favorite places. During this trip I also spent four days on the road with my group of pre-transition friends. We listened to a lot of emo on this trip, when I left most of those boys didn’t even know a band like Hot Mulligan existed. It imprinted new memories onto these songs and the old ones and reminded me of the point of the spirit of the genre in the first place. Life is always going to be some degree of hard, your parents are always going to hurt you in some way. (If you’re queer, this probably doesn’t apply to everyone.) The point of the journey is to find people who will suffer through it with you. I changed genders, isolated, then moved across the country and when I came back for a week none of my friends even gave it a second thought. They cared about listening to music and playing card games with me. If this isn’t the point of emo being sad songs with fun sonics I have no idea what is.
Our review of Why Would I Watch
#4 FAYE DOUBT by Trust Fund Ozu released independently
In the first week of last year Faye Fadem dropped Tribute Summon, a quick, fun, punchy record which also made our year end list. Before the year clocked out the first single to the follow-up was already online. “J.K. Rowling Apology Track” was a sequel to a song on Tribute Summon and in a real way was a sign of everything else to come on Faye Doubt. This record is nearly twice as long and twice as ambitious, Faye has become a much better songwriter in just a year’s time. The production is bigger, the risks are bolder and the subjects are even more encapsulating and personal than ever before.
For the entire first quarter of the record Faye panics over existing while trans in a way which feels like it belongs to her. Recounting difficult nights in her own life, difficult people she’s known and the stress which comes with seeing her own deadname even when it's by her own design. From there is the aforementioned lead single where Faye responds to some media backlash she received for daring to tackle the bigotry of a children’s book author and her cult-like following by doubling down and insisting even being in the news won’t scare her away from actually doing it. Finally the record takes a hard left turn in “Baseball Boy” where she sings about her own partner and how alive he makes her feel. It all comes to a close in a cover of the classic Boa track “Duvet,” a track I truly need you to hear to believe how good it actually is.
All of this mixed with less production in her voice, more excitable beats and just a grander honesty make this Faye’s greatest showing yet. I also want to offer my congratulations to Faye as after having this record removed from streaming this year she has managed to get it back up, parted ways with the label she originally worked with and successfully raised enough money on her Kickstarter to release it independently.
#3 you will watch me die by exciting!!excellent!! released via Lonely Ghost
You will watch me die is a truly unique record by a truly unique project, not just in terms of this list but in the sphere of DIY in general. Sure, plenty of artists mix electronics with whatever genre they see fit but none manage to be so authentic to both at any given time. Jasmine sells her brand and she sells it well, all of these songs are emo and they’re chiptune. Even when they’re instrumental they manage to give off the intended emotion needed to lead an emo track while sounding like a pause or level up screen in an old GameBoy game you sort of remember. I think, to me, what kept me coming back was simply the hybrid songwriting ability.
I also have to say again how proud I am to have this be a band in my own local scene. I had a lot of transportation issues in the past year. I finally got a car in the last quarter but even then I had a lot of new things to account for which I didn’t even have to think about in my time here prior. In 2024 I plan to make up for lost time and plan on watching Jasmine’s show announcements carefully.
These final two are sort of tied. I agonized over which of these to make album of the year. I think, just like last year, I consider both of these the top for different reasons, but I chose this way to present them.
Our review of you will watch me die
#2 Pop Goblin by Sara Henya released independently
There is truly no artist like Sara Henya. Her debut record showcases her singing whimsical lyrics straight out of a storybook with pop thought processes all over her gentle, image-invoking harp playing. This album paints a picture of a faraway place, so beautiful and magical and has so much to offer you if only you can maintain your sense of self on your journey through it. It isn’t all mystic landscapes and mythical creatures, however. Sara also sings of the joys of a labor of love and the inner peace of solitude at sea. In just over a half an hour Pop Goblin checks off so many sonic and emotional boxes it's hard to believe it's all contained here.
I started this blog to find new music. I've talked about this before. Writing these posts makes me stay on top of my own discovery process and if I didn’t this year I highly doubt I would have thought to find this. Thus bringing me to my second point; why I care to keep doing it. If you took the time to put together music, record it and send it out into the world you have a drive I cannot ignore and you deserve to have your art in people’s purview. Sara Henya puts a lot of love and care into making videos and putting a whole record out but her audience is a pretty small one. As it stands right now Sara has just over one thousand YouTube subs and under thirty monthly listeners. If you’re reading this right now, if you enjoyed anything you’ve read by me go check out any of the art she put out this year. Artists like her are why I still do this, I care about her music getting attention more than my writing about it.
She also, no matter where I post about her, always reads everything I put out when I mention her. Sometimes I don’t even know how she finds it but she does. Sara, this record is incredible, I hope you keep working at your craft and I hope this isn’t the last we hear from you.
And now, the 2023 AsterTracks album of the year is~
#1 somebody in hell loves you by Sydney Sprague released via Rude
In 2021 we started our Best of Month tradition and on the list, I left maybe i will see you at the end of the world just one spot under the top ten. We’ve never even reviewed the debut, but it left a huge impact on me. It isn’t often I leave an album in my rotation for a year, two, but I did. When I was coming out to my mom as trans it was my soundtrack. It felt like if I could understand this feeling, the “end of the world,” it would all make sense. Eventually it did. The earth was still below my feet and time went on.
This isn’t about some moment two years ago, however.
If you’ve read the review, you know I didn’t think, at the time, this album was as good as the first. In the months since I’ve realized something; what I’ve always thought makes art worthwhile is whether or not it makes you feel. Someone puts in the work to create, pour their heart, soul, blood, sweat, tears, maybe just one moment into creating something. Something most of us chew up and spit out a day or two later, maybe right after we put it down. Who am I to say “hey, this piece of work isn’t as good as the last time you did this?”
Later in the year I saw Sydney live, met her briefly, and felt sparked alive by her spirit on stage. She told stories and gave context for the meanings of the songs and explained essentially all these lyrics were written before end of the world. So I think what I was sensing in my review is these words aren’t as lived because they truthfully are not. Even still, she was able to take all of these and put it over something completely different than the first time around. To make a record sound as musically fresh as the current year off of songs from before your debut isn’t something to take lightly.
Truthfully, I do think this is incredible. It’s a true singer-songwriter record, made up of stories, snapshots from years of a life lived by someone I know only through their words. These songs remind me of my friends, my partner, the family I keep a wall up from. They remind me of times I’ve cried, times I wanted to bang my head against the wall, challenges I’ve faced in the past couple of years. They also give me confirmation someone out there has felt maybe a fraction of the way I feel at my worst, and they wrote songs about it, maybe they got something out of it, maybe it was like a joke, but still. I then listen to those songs in my car, in my room, in a Red Robin where I sit alone taking my review notes and then finally sing along to attending a show downtown.
So, this left a huge impression, not in a better or worse way. In a way it could have at this moment in time.
Our review of somebody in hell loves you
For the albums which didn’t quite make it and their reviews this year;
11. ULTRA PARADISE by Angel Electronics released independently
12. Through the Blue by Fox Teeth released via Refresh
13. Retrovision by Honey Revenge released via Thriller
14. So Much (for) Stardust by Fall Out Boy released via Fueled by Ramen
15. VOLUME 1 by Craig Owens released via Velocity
16. But Here We Are… by Foo Fighters released via Roswell
17. GODMODE by In This Moment released via BMG
18. Gusher by Just Friends released via Pure Noise
19. the record by boygenius released via Interscope
20. Slouch by Kicksie released via Counter Intuitive
21. Let Her Burn by Rebecca Black released independently
22. latewaves’ self-titled record released via Open Your Ears
23. The Future is Great! By HANBIE. Released via Sony
24. Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love? by Kara Jackson released
via September
25. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY by Waterparks released via Fueled by RamenBest of Month 2023
Comments
Post a Comment